User Reviews

Kit Harrington looks aged beyond the years of an Oxford medical student. He looked more like a tenured professor. And the Brian Jonesy-looking chap who plays Bellingham is too smarmy, slimy and unlikable in a not-good way to make for a relatable or detestable villain. Whoever cast him should be drummed out of entertainment. I did like Styles - but I wasn't entirely sure of his purpose or position at the university.

And that is part of the main issue of this retelling: there is very little development along the lines of characterization. Things just seem stock and perfunctory. We are never really clued into Bellingham Jones's motivations because none of his interpersonal relationships with any other characters is explored. People are just there, saying things and bumping into each other to serve a linear narrative.

Costuming is good. Back in the days of all-male educational institutions requiring refined attire.

I also wasn't impressed with the new "twist" of an ending. It didn't make any sense. Months later he readily acquires a backup mummy that just so happens to have "Lot no. 250"? I call no way.

Rather as one had feared, this adaptation suffered from the necessity of compressing an excellent but FORTY-PAGE short story into half-an-hour's airtime. This was a pity, as the depiction of the mummy itself as a shadowy (indeed barely-seen) object of deadly menace was realised very well. Credit to actor James Swanton for his convincing portrayal.

Had the events of Lot No. 249 (set in the fictitious Old College at the University of Oxford in the May of 1884) been allowed to slowly but surely unfold as they do in the original short story, a much more satisfactory result might have been achieved. As it was, the excision of characters such as Jephro Hastie (Abercrombie Smith's old schoolfriend), Harrington of King's College (William Monkhouse Lee's colleague) and, most egregiously, Dr. Plumptre Peterson (quite unnecessarily transformed into a young Sherlock Holmes) detracted significantly from the production. These excisions, plus the omission of such elements of the plot as Edward Bellingham's engagement to Lee's sister, the real cause of Bellingham's grudge against Long Norton and Smith's erroneous inference after hearing Bellingham apparently talking to himself, all contributed to a disappointing (if not entirely unexpected) outcome.

Half-an-hour is simply not long enough to do justice to this story and its development of the three principal characters and especially of the way in which the stolid, rational and unimaginative Abercrombie Smith, during that fateful month, gradually becomes aware of the terrible secret that Bellingham, through his obsessive research into Egyptology, has succeeded in uncovering. An acceptably-brief narrative voiceover, at the beginning and end of the production, could have introduced the setting and main characters and, more importantly, concluded the tale as Doyle wrote it. (After being forced by Smith to destroy the mummy, Bellingham immediately leaves the college and is last heard of in the Sudan, while Smith and Lee , who incidentally is NOT of mixed-race, remain unharmed). Such an ending, of course, would not have made as good television as Bellingham revealing both a second mummy and second roll of papyrus to enable him to wreak vengeance on his two foes. Mark Gatiss has again, as in his adaptation of 'The Mezzotint' two years ago, changed a story's ending in order that a protagonist or, in this case, TWO protagonists, come to a sticky end.

In conclusion, I appeal to the BBC to allow sufficient airtime for a dramatist more faithfully to adapt such a fine tale of the supernatural. I would also recommend reading the original story (first published in 1892 and regarded as the prototype 'mummy revenge' tale). I first read it at the age of fourteen and it remains one of the 'top ten' - or certainly 'top twenty'! - stories of the supernatural I have ever come across. Among other qualities, Doyle's tale paints a superbly-idyllic background picture of late nineteenth-century undergraduate life at Oxford in the springtime and this, contrasted with the slowly- unfolding horror and then terror occasioned by the animation and actions of Lot No. 249, only adds to the story's overall effect.

First thing I've seen Kit Harrington in since Game of Thrones, I'd forgotten what a fantastic actor he is.

Unfortunately the story breaks the most basic rule of horror by showing us the monster right from the start, taking away all mystique. I was also befuddled by what the hysteric laughter at the end meant, but I guess they left that up to us for interpretation.

No idea what Bellingham's motivations were for bringing the mummies to life - knowledge? What knowledge exactly. Power? What power exactly. Had he been bringing 250 to life all this time as a backup mummy? Were the mummies friends? Who knows

Also at the beginning, we're very pointedly shown Bellingham with the opioid substance on his hand, and he then goes to pointedly shake KH's character by the hand. I thought he was tricking him by transferring the opioid over, but nope. Didn't come up again.

Enjoyed the Sherlock interlude, without the name being dropped explicitly. Overall a bit of a let down, but very much carried by the lead performance. Will still look forward to next years, it's become a fun tradition.

He we go again!!! Why do we need to see everything! What made the original Christmas stories so creepy was the unknown!! "The not knowing"... That's what makes your blood go cold.. Yes the monster was ok!! Until it started to hobble down the road!! I expected Micheal Jackson to start dancing!! .. The story was ok, but the execution was mediocre and rushed!!! I'll live in hope for next year!! Come on Mark, you know what it takes...The last good attempt at updating this very popular series was "Whistle and I'll come to you" starring John Hurt. At least they had the atmosphere nailed. The vagueness of M R James's dark spectre's leave a large part to the readers imagination. It's good for the budget and the watchers. It just needs a Director with the right skills.

I love the MR James stories-my favourite is the Stalls of Barchester.

They are all creepily written-and effectively scary

Spoilers"------

The story here felt threadbare. Rich posh-boy buys a mummy and a scroll to resurrect it. We don't see or hear incantations- we only know the mummy is reanimated."

The short running time didn't help-leaving too little time for friendships/relationships to develop.

It basically felt like-"I'm setting my mummy on you. Bang- you're dead" Given more time I'm sure he could have done more with it.

I gave it 5 stars because I love that Mark Gattis is keeping the Christmas ghost story tradition alive.

(And probably because his other work is so good).

To celebrate the New Year, I started planning for what my first viewing of the year would be. Spending part of 2023 writing my first short story in tribute to the old BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas, I felt it would be fitting, to open the year, by opening lot 249.

View on the film:

Surprisingly making The Mummy fully visible for large passages of the short film and featuring a welcomed cameo from Horror cinema expert Jonathan Rigby, writer/director Mark Gatiss reunion with cinematographer Kieran McGuigan peels open a chilly Gothic Horror atmosphere, drenched in shadows that shatter when a grisly looking mummified hand breaks through.

Threading Smith (played with a tightly coiled string of terror by Kit Harington, reuniting with Gatiss after Game of Thrones) being unable to free himself from an increasing sinking fear, Gatiss & McGuigan push Smith further into the darkest corner of the room with extreme close-ups heightening the claustrophobia.

Although the first in his Ghost Story for Christmas run to not be an M. R. James adaptation, Mark Gatiss is unable to shake off his grating habit, of believing that he is cleverer then Arthur Conan Doyle's original writing, most prominently visible in a painfully forced link to Sherlock Holmes. Moving all the pieces of the tale around in order to nod towards his own work on Holmes, Gatiss undermines the seeping dread, over the Mummy possibly coming to life, when Smith decides to study lot 249.

Another Christmas, another episode of A Ghost Story for Christmas on the BBC. For 2023, writer and director Mark Gatiss breaks with tradition and eschews the work of M. R. James, instead adapting Arthur Conan Doyle's short story 'Lot No. 249'. The end result is rather satisfying, albeit not terribly scary.

'Lot No. 249' stars Kit Harington as Abercrombie Smith, an Oxford student who recounts to his friend the tale of his neighbour Edward Bellingham (Freddie Fox) using an Egyptian mummy to murder anybody who crosses him on campus. The plot is largely true to Conan Doyle's original, with Smith uncovering Bellingham's activities, having a narrow escape from the Mummy, and confronting Bellingham at gunpoint and forcing him to destroy the creature. Gatiss however adds a modern slant - Bellingham is implied to be gay, to Smith's seeming disgust - and also changes the ending to provide a dark twist in the tale, as it turns out that Bellingham also has a Lot. 250, and - more in keeping with James' work - he protagonist of the story meets a terrible fate at the end.

Gatiss' track record with A Ghost Story for Christmas is highly variable, but 'Lot No. 249' is one of his stronger efforts. Despite tweaking the story, he stays true to the spirit of Conan Doyle's version, with Smith the embodiment of the Victorian ideal of manliness, an athletic medical student who combines a keen intellect and good looks. Or "just the sort of man to keep the flags of empire flying", as Bellingham puts it. Smith triumphs in the original story, and one wonders whether Gatiss' new ending is intended purely to provide the traditional grisly ending one excepts from A Ghost Story for Christmas, or in fact to acknowledge contemporary views that Victorian morality, including Smith's condemnation of Bellingham's "perversions" and championing of English law over Egyptian superstition and barbarism, has long since had its day.

As a director, Gatiss is even more variable than he is as a writer; his lesser episodes of A Ghost Story for Christmas have suffered simply from not being especially scary. That is equally true here, but proves to be less of an issue when adapting Conan Doyle than adapting M. R. James, for whom chills were a must. Nevertheless, the scene of the snarling Mummy chasing Smith to his friend's house is quite tense, and the creature looks great. The cast is excellent to, with Harrington perfectly cat as the square jawed epitome of Victorian masculinity, contrasted with Colin Ryan's submissive and terrified Monkhouse Lee (implied to be Bellingham's lover) and Fox's foppish, smarmy, slightly camp Bellingham. John Heffernan is also very good as "the Friend", who in a nod to both Conan Doyle's most famous works of fiction and Gatiss' own career with the BBC is strongly implied to be Sherlock Holmes.

Unsurprisingly, the period setting is well realised, with great sets and costumes, and if 'Lot No. 249' isn't the scariest instalment of A Ghost Story for Christmas, it is nevertheless a solid episode and a ripping yarn. Gatiss has cast doubt over the future of the program, due to the increasing difficulty of raising the budget to make these festive offerings. Hopefully, that is a problem that he will continue to overcome.

Clever, and a Christmas ghost story in the Victorian tradition, this is a fun addition to the decades-old and newly-revived A Ghost Story for Christmas anthology. Screenwriter and series producer Mark Gatiss couldn't resist writing the story's voice of reason "The Friend," as a young, pre-Baker Street Holmes, even putting a quote from Conan Doyle's Homes in the script. Solid cast, good production values and a suitably dreadful and gruesome conclusion, this is a ghost story worthy of the English tradition of telling ghost stories around the Christmas fire. The new season's episodes are all good fun.

First I will say how great it was seeing Kit Harington in something other than GOT. Yes he had a short scene in "Externals" but his performance here is world away from anything I've seen him in prior. Which is not much (oh yes, he was also in "Pompeii"). Honestly if it were not for the IMDB credits, I would not have known it was him!

No doubt in my mind as to who his characters friend was, it was clearly Sherlock Holmes prior to the Baker Street days. No name was given but it was not necessary.

The very end had a nice nod to the 1932 Boris Karloff film "The Mummy". If you have seen it, when the mummy comes to life a young archeological student begins laughing. Slowly at first, but then increasingly mad. Harrington's character does the same when faced with the living mummy!