In the history of Ghost Stories for Christmas – at least of the most familiar, British and televised variety – M R James is the author who has tended to be most strongly represented. Which is fine, and fitting; Jamesian horror, with its subtleties and horrors intruding onto the ordered lives of (almost invariably) British gentlemen, has a timeless charm. However, when it comes to the storytelling genre, there are many other authors of a similar vintage who offered their own, innovative takes on similar situations, one of whom is Algernon Blackwood. His take on the ‘stranger in a strange land’ motif in his 1909 short story The Occupant of the Room forms the basis for a new ghost story adaptation, here from author and director Kier-La Janisse. The result is a respectful homage to the ghostly TV and cinema of its Seventies heyday, but it’s not just an homage at all; it actually feels like it bridges the gap between vintage and modern, with its own, innovative features and inclusions.
The screenplay itself is reasonably simple, and like the original story, rather sparse: a gentleman (Don McKellar) arrives at a remote inn in the Alps, believing that he has a booking. It’s cold; it’s nowhere near anywhere; the inn really is his only hope. However, the strangely recalcitrant staff inform him that the inn is full; he has no booking after all. They don’t suggest he might like to hunker down for the night, either, but instead tell him to try his chances elsewhere.
After some fluster and delay, and given his understandable reluctance to wander out into the precipitous dark, the hotel’s manager tells him that he can, if he wishes, take one of their rooms after all – but it is in the strangely liminal state of being occupied – sort of. It was originally taken by a visiting Englishwoman, an ‘experienced mountaineer’ who nonetheless set out two days previously and has not yet returned. The staff are as upset by this as they are about the gentleman’s lack of booking – not particularly, it appears – but, for an increased fee, he can take the room after all, on the proviso that the unhappy woman may, possibly, return. In his desperation and exhaustion, he agrees, but his time in the room not quite his own becomes an insular and profoundly dreadful experience.
That’s the setup, and it’s a recognisable setup for the inevitable series of disconcerting events, but the trick is in how this is expressed on screen. The story itself is rather minimal – that’s part of its appeal – but Janisse is able to add additional layers of dread whilst remaining largely faithful to the story, and thankfully, without padding out the story itself to feature-length (which wouldn’t work well), sticking to around the thirty-minute mark. She turns the story’s elements into a peculiarly introspective nightmare, paying due diligence to Blackwood’s quaint, nightmarish style, but also making it into something which, in just thirty minutes, carries a great deal of emotional weight as a piece of at-times experimental film. There are footsteps, noises, strange dreams, sure – but refracted through a framing device, whereby both broad vistas of the surrounding countryside and close focus on its details conspire to create an odd, heavy feeling (exacerbated by the film’s use of black and white) and a world in which people and their motivations are dwarfed by the blind, pitiless indifference of something profound, waiting out there. The use of paintings and photography which are not present in the original story makes for an ominous addition.
Making it all the more weighty perhaps, the people who form the heart of this story – one present, one present-absent – seem to be punished in the story for wilful decisions and behaviours. It’s a cautionary tale, particularly for one written in a brand-new century, another ‘who is this who is coming’ from another author preoccupied on some level with the dismal horrors to follow, horrors which spill out of the film and lend awful weight to the story’s own conclusions.
There’s a twist in this tale too, but its sudden reveal towards the close of the film only feels like the last shock in a sequence of bleak existential messages. Whilst sadly some of the dialogue is lost towards the end of the film in its crescendo of ominous strings, the film’s trippy, inventive climax is more than able to land. This both shows its awareness of its source material and also shows it striking out in some respects on its own. In some respects it feels similar to 2023’s To Fire You Come at Last – Janisse was executive producer on this project – another economical, respectful tribute to period horrors of the past which also feels bang up to date, with the same kind of layering of nostalgia and something more modern, brooding and knowing.
The Occupant of the Room featured at Celluloid Screams 2025.