Casting the Runes

There are few television ghost stories that manage to maintain the creeping dread and psychological intensity of their literary origins while simultaneously reimagining them for a contemporary audience. Casting the Runes (1979), a brooding and intelligent adaptation of M.R. James’ classic tale, achieves this rare balance with chilling efficiency.

The film begins with a nightmarish sequence that sets the tone: John Harrington runs blindly through open fields, consumed by a terror that is never fully seen but palpably felt. His dog, left behind and whimpering, senses what his master cannot escape. As Harrington stumbles and falls, the screen fades to the aftermath—his body broken, shattered in ways too unnatural for an accident. The horror is never explicit, yet deeply unsettling, echoing James' original technique of suggestion over spectacle.

Reimagined for a 1970s British television audience, this version is a masterful modernization of the story, adapted by the BAFTA-nominated Clive Exton and directed with eerie restraint by Lawrence Gordon Clark, a name already synonymous with quality M.R. James adaptations. Where the original tale featured dusty academics and Edwardian anxieties, this version plants its roots firmly in a modern world of media scepticism and public scrutiny.

The story centres on Prudence Dunning (Jan Francis), a sharp and sceptical producer of an investigative TV programme. When her show ridicules the teachings of the occultist Julian Karswell - a chillingly composed Iain Cuthbertson, she unwittingly becomes the focus of his malice. Karswell, author of the darkly titled A History of Witchcraft, is no mere crank. His philosophy glorifies vice and evil as the truest forms of virtue, and he possesses the supernatural power to exact revenge on those who challenge him.

In a deceptively mundane encounter at a library, Karswell slips a runic curse into Dunning’s possession. The scene is subtle, even banal; books knocked over, a page slipped back into the pile - but the consequences are far from ordinary. Soon after, Dunning is attacked in her bed by a demonic spider, echoing the old-world fears that James's stories thrive on but here rendered with a sinister, almost surreal touch.

Edward Petherbridge plays Henry Harrington, whose brother John's mysterious death haunts the narrative like a shadow. Petherbridge brings an air of educated desperation to the role, embodying a man racing against time and superstition. As the supernatural forces escalate, Dunning and her colleagues at the studio, including Derek Gayton, who helps uncover the truth, must grapple with the reality that mockery has consequences, and that ancient evils can survive in even the most rational of times.

The strength of this adaptation lies in its commitment to mood and tension. Clark’s direction favours suggestion over spectacle, and Exton’s script walks the fine line between cynicism and belief without resorting to melodrama. The use of music, originally intended as a case study for ITV Schools on how sound enhances emotional storytelling, becomes a powerful tool in immersing the viewer in an atmosphere of creeping dread.

Casting the Runes was released commercially in 2007 as part of a rare DVD set by Network, bundled with Mr. Humphreys and His Inheritance, a near-forgotten James adaptation made for educational purposes, and A Pleasant Terror: The Life and Ghosts of M.R. James, a documentary featuring contributions from Christopher Lee, Ruth Rendell, and others. These extras provide essential context and elevate the release into a valuable archive of British ghost story traditions.

While ITV’s earlier 1960s adaptations of James’s stories are tragically lost, this 1979 version survives as both an excellent adaptation and a cultural relic. As part of the ITV Playhouse series, it stands as a reminder of an era when horror on television was literate, intelligent, and terrifying not through gore, but through the power of suggestion and atmosphere.

If you're a fan of A Ghost Story for Christmas or classic literary horror brought vividly to life, Casting the Runes is essential viewing…haunting in every sense of the word.