This is a BBC made for TV mini series. It is a heart felt ghost story. Cam (Elliot Kerley) and his mom Eve (Suranne Jones) have a special relationship in that they share dreams and sometimes thoughts. Eleven months after Cam goes missing the family goes on a retreat to remote Crickley Hall, an old large home that was used as an orphanage for London orphans during WWII.The house if filled with the ghosts of children and the graveyard shows us many died in 1943. The film smartly moves between a plot and subplot that takes place in 1943. It is a slow burner, but keeps you engaged. It is not a scary ghost story. No real horror

I have not read the book, but did see in reviews that the little daughter is named Callie. The family name is Caleigh. Is there a reason for that repeated name?I liked the series, but I also thought it was a bit improbable--maybe that's what the genre calls for. I did appreciate that the parents were supportive of each other after losing a child. Also, why did they show the little boy being carried off and, at the conclusion, learn that he drowned. There was no real resolution that he was abducted and who did this. While I am complaining, the rescue scene with the father running all over the place did create tension, but it was quite over the top, I thought.

This is an appalling BBC mini-series, commissioned by the usual oafs and morons there who are overpaid and 'outtacontrol'. The series concerns the savage physical abuse of children by sadists. Really, is there no limit to the perversities shown on the BBC these days? This series should absolutely not have been made. It is offensive and revolting. I will however compliment the performance of the young actress Olivia Cooke, who plays the character Nancy, and hope that she never has to appear in anything as terrible as this series ever again. Some of the casting is however so uninspired that some of the bad talent to be seen in this series was appropriately dumped into this rubbish bin.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday MorningGabe (Tom Ellis) and Eve Caleigh (Suranne Jones) re-locate to the West Country from London a year after the disappearance of their son. They set up home in Crickley Hall, an old residence that used to be a boarding house for evacuees during the war. But it is this fact that holds the secret behind some ghostly hauntings, and a terrifying truth behind what now possesses them.It seems that in the case of a fairly lengthy novel, the format best favoured in many cases for adaptation is to turn it in to a serial drama rather than go all out and just make a feature length adaptation, which may test the viewer's endurance. But Joe Ahearne's approach, with his adaptation of James Herbert's The Secret of Crickley Hall, somehow manages to do this anyway, over the course of three episodes shown over three weeks.There's no doubt the first part opens well, establishing an effective atmosphere and air of suspense, which even someone who's already read the novel and pretty much knows what is going to happen can see. But somehow, even by the second episode that AOS doesn't feel as strong. Spacing each episode out over the course of a week probably doesn't help, dragging it out too long and doing the opposite of keeping you in suspense. Aside from this, certain segments inevitably get lost in translation going from novel to film, and the constraints of being a TV film inevitably creep through. I said 'inevitably' twice in that sentence, and that's sadly what an adaptation of a novel is always going to be: an inevitability. Something that is doomed not to be as good as it's source material from the start, even if it has a bigger budget and goes to theatres, where I think this may have worked better.The performances are probably the best thing in it. Jones shows promise she may be more than another ex Corrie actress, avoiding a future in panto or cheap reality shows, showing an emotional intensity and depth as a mother wrapped up in guilt for the loss of her boy. Ellis isn't bad, but somehow isn't quite as good, except in certain scenes where his character really gets dealt a heavy blow. Douglas Henshall has an undeniable presence as the villain, but his accent is so thick it's sometimes really hard to understand what he's saying. He's at his most unnerving in quieter, more subtle moments, like when he's holding the little boy over the well or is nearly caught whacking him with a cane in his private room.It's all too well made and sincere to even verge in to Sunday Night territory, and even Herbert himself said he thought it was pretty good. If only the whole thing had stuck together more solidly, and not come off so naff compared to the book. ***