User Reviews

Four short horror stories set in Victorian times. Stars Ray Winstone.

The tales are short and creepy. Terrible reviews but I enjoyed the first 2 episodes. The second 2 are weak. Probably watch the first and then leave it there.

The negative reviews here are spot on. This is a disappointing and pointless series. Consisting of four episodes, not a single one can be lauded as creative or ingenious. The story lines are trite, seemingly written by middle school students rather than a master of literature. No, this is unfair; many middle school students could do far better.

Potential viewers would better spend their time on better fare. Which in this case means pick a random film and watch it; it is surely to be better than this unimpressive presentation.

Well, what a waste of time this turned out to be. THE NIGHTMARE WORLDS OF H. G. WELLS is a four-part TV miniseries that adapts four of the author's short stories into mini-movies. The series also features Ray Winstone as the titular author in perhaps the worst case of miscasting since Denise Richards played a nuclear scientist in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH.

The reason behind this show's existence seems to be the success of PENNY DREADFUL, at which point the Sky producers went back and mined some other classic literature for inspiration. They've even cast Harry Treadaway's lookalike brother, Luke, in the first episode. The problem is that these productions are so low budget that they look like amateur films; there are no real sets here, just black backgrounds, and I've seen more convincing stuff on Youtube.

The first story is THE LATE MR ELVESHAM, a predictable body swap effort with an equally predictable conclusion. It's a waste of time and features Michael Gambon at his worst. The second story, THE DEVOTEE OF ART, is about a painting that comes to life and is even worse; I don't know why they bothered trying to do effects on this kind of budget. THE MOTH is the third tale and is the most potentially terrifying, but the poor FX, gross out scenes and some dodgy zooming camera-work ruin it.

The last story, THE PURPLE PILEUS, is about magic mushrooms and features black actor Shaun Parkes in the lead role, playing a character who is described in the story as a man with a 'pale face'. This episode manages to go outside of the set for a brief scene in a forest, but the staging continues to be ludicrous. This series is, as a whole, unwatchable and seems to have been made on a budget equal to the price of a pint of milk at my local shop.

As a Wells fan, I found the series entertaining and true to the authors sensibilities. A good choice of actors that I've come to enjoy viewing. It is not on the par of today's horror genre. Very story and character driven. If you appreciate the works of H.G.Wells give it a view. I wasn't disappointed and have watched it twice.

Ray Winstone as H.G. Wells as narrator ruined it for me. Not only does he not embody Wells in any believable way but his presence is so distracting that it destroys any sense of narrative flow or drama. Too bad.