PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Off and on, popular horror media has been preoccupied with various tech booms. Techno-horror has been the subject of some of horror’s most popular works. The Ring and Sinister in particular have captured popular imagination for their intersection of recording mediums and the supernatural.
Before them, however, in the UK, there was The Stone Tape. Written by Nigel Kneale (The Quatermass Experiment 1953), and directed by Peter Sasdy (Hands of the Ripper 1971), The Stone Tape aired on the BBC on December 25th, 1972. A curious Christmas treat indeed, as the film serves up some of the most unsettling paranormal British horror ever put to television until 1992’s Ghostwatch.
The Stone Tape follows two characters, Peter Brock (Michael Bryant: Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly 1970), the greedy team lead on a tech research team striving to beat out the Japanese competition on creating a new recording medium, and Jill Greeley (Jane Asher: The Masque of the Red Death 1964), a computer programmer who seems to be particularly spiritually sensitive. The team takes up residence in a requisitioned British estate known as Taskerlands that is revealed to lie on a foundation far older than anyone on the team believed, and before long, their attention is drawn to one particular room of the estate. A room in which the wailing, disembodied cries of a ghostly woman can be heard, and although this strange development excites Peter, Jill is apprehensive, and seems to catch on that there is something far more sinister, ancient, and devilish going on within the foundation of Taskerlands.
There is a striking applicability to the narrative as it pertains to the tech industry, and the role of women within said industry, as Jill Greely, the only female member of the team, is patronized constantly by Peter, and his researchers throughout the working period, and her pleas to acknowledge the true supernatural threat of Taskerlands go ignored. On top of this, Jill’s empath nature ensures that she is the most vulnerable victim of the emotional trauma inflicted by the supernatural presence.
Opposite her is Peter Brock, the head of the research team who behaves dismissively towards the supernatural phenomena until it appears that it may be of benefit to him and his project at Taskerlands. Peter’s actions are a departure from the outright sinister nature of corporate superiors, and instead represent a greedy folly, as he dabbles in matters he is unaware of, and that hold greater cosmic significance than he can imagine.
The Stone Tape’s greatest accomplishment, however, is the utter atmosphere of dread it creates through location. Horsley Towers in Surrey serves as the exterior, and in tandem with the grimy, moldy interiors, the location evokes a palpable folk horror aesthetic that clearly rejects the efforts of its tech research team to bring these new gadgets and twentieth-century sensibilities onto its grounds. It demonstrates the ultimate thesis of the film, in that there are some mysteries that will never be understood, or properly recorded on a fancy new recording medium. The thirst for building bigger and better tech will never answer every question, or satiate all desire for further knowledge and understanding. Sometimes, all we’re left with is a loud, lonely wailing cry in a dark, cold dungeon.
You can rent or own The Stone Tape now on Amazon Prime Video.
