The Ice House (1978)

It is 25 December 1978, and time for a final Ghost Story for Christmas.

Paul (John Stride) has recently separated from his wife, and has booked himself into an isolated health spa to relax and recuperate. After he witnesses a strange phenomenon of staff feeling ice-cold to the touch - staff who mysteriously vanish shortly afterwards - Paul begins to suspect something is amiss about the vine-covered ice house deep in the spa's grounds, and the brother and sister (Geoffrey Burridge and Elizabeth Romilly) that manage the estate.

By 1978 director Lawrence Gordon Clark had left the BBC to work freelance for commercial rival ITV instead. In his place, Derek Lister directed this eighth and final short film under the Ghost Story for Christmas banner. With a script by John Bowen, who previously adapted "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" for the series, and a modern-day setting, "The Ice House" is easily the strangest and most oddly stylised film of the six I have seen. That said, while it is definitely unusual, it is sadly not particularly good either.

Stigma (1977)

It is 29 December 1977, and time for another Ghost Story for Christmas.

A family has recently moved into a rural cottage by a large stone circle, and to accommodate a new lawn one of the giant stones is to be moved. When a work crew attempt to shift it, the stone appears to have an effect on the mother (Kate Binchy). She begins to find blood soaking through her clothes, yet she cannot find from where on her body she is bleeding.

The biggest problem with Stigma, front and centre, is that it is not a ghost story. While it is clearly a horror film, the nature of that horror is rather vague and muddled. It is also the first film in the series to be produced from an original script - by Clive Exton - and the first to be set in the present day. As a result of all of these differences Stigma feels like it has been made for the wrong show. Scheduling issues within the BBC also delayed its original broadcast to after Christmas altogether.

The Signalman (1976)

It is 22 December 1976, and time for another Ghost Story for Christmas.

A railway signalman (Denholm Elliot) is haunted by a ghostly spectre that appears to foreshadow calamity. Over two nights he tells a curious gentleman (Bernard Lloyd) his supernatural tale.

For his sixth annual Christmas ghost film, Lawrence Gordon Clark abandoned the short stories of M.R. James in favour of Charles Dickens. Dickens has written the original story in 1866 following his near-fatal experience in a train crash a year earlier. The change in source material gives The Signalman a very different feel to the earlier films. M.R. James presented horror stories that were quite malevolent and fantastical, whereas here the supernatural elements are ghostly and unsettling but ultimately attempting to achieve some good. This feels like the cosiest and most reassuring of the four Christmas films I have seen thus far, which may go some way to explaining why it is probably the most widely acclaimed film of the set. This feels like a very safe, comfortable BBC short feature.

The Ash Tree (1975)

It is 23 December 1975, and time for another annual episode of A Ghost Story for Christmas.

Sir Richard Fell (Edward Petherbridge) inherits the country seat of Castringham, and intends to settle there with his new wife Augusta (Lalla Ward). The house is cursed, however, and the longer Sir Richard stays there the more consumed he becomes with visions of his ancestor Matthew Fell who condemned a woman to death for witchcraft.

Another M.R. James short story gets a Christmas-time short feature, courtesy of director Lawrence Gordon Clark. The film is based on a script by playwright and screenwriter David Rudkin, whose other film and television works include Fahrenheit 451, Artemis 81 and Penda's Fen. While it boasts some nice horror imagery, and a particularly unexpected climax, it is the weakest of the three Ghost Story films I have seen to date.

The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974)

It is 23 December 1974, and time for another Ghost Story for Christmas.

The Reverend Justin Somerton (Michael Bryant) is a medieval scholar investigating the apparent hidden treasure of the Abbot Thomas - a priest in the Middle Ages accused of demon worship.While aided by his young protege Lord Peter Dattering (Paul Lavers), Somerton's research appears to awaken unearthly and unwelcome powers from beneath the church.

I recently mentioned in a review of The Stone Tape just how impressive and underrated an actor Michael Bryant appears to be. Here he is again, delivering a sterling lead performance in this excellent short horror feature. At 37 minutes in length, it does not have much time to tell its story, and so it boldly dives in without an unnecessary moment in it. The short feature is a near-impossible length of movie to sell commercially, and so it's commendable that the BBC dedicated so much time in the 1970s to such productions.

Lost Hearts (1973)

It is 25 December 1973, and time to watch Lost Hearts.

In the early 19th century, orphaned boy Stephen (Simon Gipps-Kent) is sent to the manor house of his eccentric old cousin Dr Abney (Joseph O'Connor). While exploring the grounds he thinks he can see two other children - a girl and a boy - but soon comes to discover that they are ghosts with a horrific secret to share.

The BBC sometimes has a weird attitude to Christmas. Their long-running soap opera EastEnders is a case in point: Christmas is most often a time for terrible calamity and character deaths. Then there was the time the BBC took the opportunity to broadcast the last-ever episode of Blake's 7 during Christmas week, or their choice to schedule Nigel Kneale's TV play The Stone Tape on Christmas Day. One of the more noted examples of the BBC eschewing warm festive fare for something weirdly dark and horrific is its series of ghost stories, broadcast late on Christmas night and based predominantly on the short stories of M.R. James.