6.6 /10 1 Votes
Episode no. Season 2
Episode 2 Original air date 22 December 2006 Director Pier Wilkie | 6.5/10 Letterboxd Directed by Pier Wilkie Screenplay M. R. James | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Written by M. R. James (story)
Justin Hopper (adaptation) Similar The Stalls of Barchester, Stigma, Whistle and I'll Come to, Schalcken the Painter, Night of the Demon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Number 13 is the second of four recent adaptations of ghost stories by M.R. James broadcast by the BBC in a loose revival of the A Ghost Story for Christmas tradition of the 1970s. Following A View from a Hill the previous year and preceding Whistle and I'll Come to You in 2010, the forty-minute film was first screened in December 2006 on BBC Four. The film was adapted by Justin Hopper from the short story, first published in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary in 1904.
The film stars Greg Wise as an academic lodging in room 12 of a drafty hotel in a small English cathedral town whilst assigned to authenticate papers which appear to date back to the Reformation. Having previously noticed that the hotel rooms jump from 12 to 14, after being awoken one night he is shocked to find the door to room number 13 has mysteriously appeared. He decides to investigate, with fearful consequences.