I’ve had a bit of an M.R. James week. I started by watching Night of the Demon, the 1958 classic directed by Jacques Torneur and immortalized in the song “Science Fiction Double Feature” on the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack (you know the one - “Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes and passing them took lots of skill”. All very droll.) then tonight I watched the 1978 Yorkshire TV production of Casting the Runes which is the same story that Night of the Demon is based on. It’s only 50 minutes or so and extremely dated but despite a slightly weak ending, it’s still quite creepy.

Since then I’ve managed to download the first two M.R. James collections from Project Gutenburg which is all perfectly kosher as they are now out of copyright in the US and, I believe, in the UK as well. Shall I say that again? They’re out of copyright. Which means they can be adapted without having to pay anything.

Which is nice.

(This post was brought to you be the need to write a post without the desire or impetus to actually say anything useful and by the numbers 23 and 12.)