I only gave this two stars for the way that Emma Jones spent the entire movie staring into space. But seriously how did they get her to play the role?? Did she get extra direction on staring? But I get sidetracked. No, I never read the original novel or saw the 1968 movie. So my review is only about this movie right here. John Hurt puts his wife into a home when he obviously doesn't want to. Then he goes on a trip he doesn't want to take. He says he's going to several places but only actually goes to one and doesn't say anything else about going to another destination. So without any backstory I am completely derailed. Why did he put her in a home? Was someone pressuring him to do that? When you have no idea why someone is doing something it's hard when things start to get weird for them to feel sorry or pity - if anything you want to shout "Now you know how I feel watching this movie!" Then for no apparent reason he begins to be haunted by invisible rats. This is soon followed by a woman on the beach wrapped in sheets who he is terrorized by for no reason. She sometimes walks toward him and sometimes just appears right behind him. Nice jump scare but no reason!! He's running about have a grabber for no reason. Lastly, he is terrorized by someone knocking on his door. I don't know about everyone else but if someone was banging on my hotel door I'd get up and see who it was and what was going on. Maybe the hotel was on fire?? And then he dies of fright. After claiming there are no ghosts. After wanting so badly to be with his wife again (and then she's there and he dies)- the ghost appears as his angry wife crawling over to him. Why? I thought they were in love for 50 years? If they set it up that he was abusive then OK! But he doted on her. He loved her. Why wasn't he happy to see her?? And she killed him?? She was furious for no reason. I know the husbands out there will nod their heads but no.. no. Not in literature. You can't make a loving relationship into something horrible and lethal without explanation. So there you have it. If you think you want to watch this because you have 50 minutes to kill.. don't. Just sit there listening to your heart beat and know you spent the last 50 minutes better off than watching this movie.

I recently saw both versions of "Whistle and I'll come to you" for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed both but was somewhat surprised to come on here and see all the negative reviews for the remake. So this may help to redress the balance a little. Certainly, I am no fan of remakes. The vast majority are utterly pointless vanity projects and crucially, their major flaw is that they extract and dilute content, often removing a central motif, character or complexity found within the original work. Some of these criticisms have been levelled at the remake of "Whistle", however I feel this is unfair. I am no expert on MR James and I appreciate this prevents me from having a full picture of why people value this story so much. It seems that the themes of the original 1968 TV production are best summed up by muldwych in another review posted on IMDb: 1. "The heart of the story is the folly of arrogant presumption, that there will always be realms of understanding beyond mortal man, and to believe you can quantify existence is to invite downfall". 2. "The rapid destruction of Parkins's self-assured, almost autistic world is almost as disconcerting as the unknown forces he has unleashed". This take on the 1968 version is fascinating and there is no doubt that this is the central theme of the piece. However, with the wonderful Michael Hordern playing the role, I just don't get the sense of his world crumbling in this way. He seems intrigued by these "unknown forces" but never particularly troubled by them (with the exception of the last 30 seconds). In a scene five minutes before the end, he is still fussing about not liking tomatoes and generally bumbling around in his own world. The events hardly seem to depict the dismantling and discrediting of an intellectual mindset as other reviews have described.So what is it about the John Hurt version that irritates fans of the original adaptation? Well, it is indeed a very different character with different circumstances. Hurt has just taken his incapacitated wife, suffering from dementia, into a care home and then gone on a therapeutic holiday alone to revisit places where they spent time together. While this twist raises the ire of many fans of the original tale, for me on first viewing without any background knowledge, it was utterly compelling and sublime. There is a palpable sense of loss, loneliness and bereavement running throughout, as Hurt appears to be pushing himself into this new life of solitude, forcing himself to function and revisit the past, a place that is both comforting and gut wrenchingly bittersweet. The film just seems to throb and reverberate with a glow of sadness and a kind of bleak fortitude.And this is perhaps where the two adaptations link together. Both men have been cut loose from their moorings and their belief systems, and the way they understand and relate to the world around them is being called into question. Michael Hordern's version of the character is not put into this situation until he blows into the whistle. John Hurt is already adrift when he arrives at the hotel and the supernatural events send him further into this spiral. But they are both lost souls in different ways and for this reason, they are both equally valid as a lead character.The two versions are exquisitely filmed and both are utterly beautiful. I did find more tension in the 2010 remake, I have to say, and I found myself nervously scouring the edges and background of each frame for any ghostly figures or disturbing detail. So for this reason, maybe the John Hurt version just edges it for me. Admittedly though, perhaps the title of the remake should've been changed, as it is a little clumsy considering the plot changes involved.

This is a modern version of the classic MR James ghost story 'Whistle and I'll Come To You'. To his credit Neil Cross has tried to find a modern way into the story and has turned it into a tale about a man whose wife is lost to Alzheimer's. Unfortunately what emerges has little resonance (the Alzheimer's stuff is patently phony--sorry Neil all sufferers from the illness do not act like corpses)and also zero connection to the original. All that survives is a lonely hotel by the seaside, a lonely man and...well not much else. Not even the whistle remains. The writer might just as well have stopped trading on the classic name and author and done an original story . Except of course if he had it would never have been made. Nobody is saying we need a slavish copy. Jonathan Miller's earlier classic version was recognisably the same story but it was still changed to brilliant effect. Cross just grafts a mediocre ending on and leaves it at that. The result is quite atmospherically directed but all else goes for nothing. What exactly was the point?

'Whistle And I'll Come To You'; except that there's no whistle. When a drama is so constructed as to render its own title obsolete, questions should have been asked somewhere...This spooky short story was brought to the screen many years ago, starring excellent Michael Hordern (here we have John Hurt). I remember seeing it and finding it quite a little chiller. Basically; an academic taking a late-season holiday by the sea, discovers an ancient wind-instrument washed out of the cliffs. He blows a few notes and sure enough; something comes. The DVD is available at Amazon, but the price is a discouraging £50+ ; so I was looking forward to its update, especially as some of the more recent techniques in special-effects might be employed - dare I suggest a little CGI?Yes, well; of course, I can suggest it. What I got was the most dismal, unimaginative and boring piece of drama I can recollect ever seeing. Instead he finds a finger-ring amongst the dunes and takes it back to his guesthouse room. It contains a Latin inscription which translates roughly into 'who is this that is coming'. To which the reply is: 'The bloke with John Hurt's easiest paycheque'.He begins to see a white-clad figure on the beach and runs away. Why? It's about as scary as a seagull. He hears a scratching sound at night and complains to the staff that the place has rats. Though he has absolutely no proof. Apart from being slanderous it's surely the quickest and most certain way of getting you meals served with an extra garnish. Then his bedside light doesn't work properly and he moans about that as well. He should try his luck at Fawlty Towers. Finally someone starts banging on his door. So perishin' what?The drama is packed-out to bursting with all of those time-worn and trite little 'incidental' takes: Dipping his chip in the ketchup; the maid changing the sheets; momentary close-ups of incidental objects as if they have some significance, when they haven't. And all the time Hurt just stares about with an expression of blank and uncomprehending senility. In an attempt to create 'atmosphere' the whole indoor production is shot in such unremitting gloom that there were times when I couldn't actually discern what was going on. That wasn't scary; it was irritating.I had to force myself to see this twaddle through. After having re-watched the stupendous 'Indian Hill Railway' series, I am left with a conclusion that the BBC have completely lost the plot as regards popular drama, though they continue to excel at documentaries.The makers of this had obviously not read the original James story, and had assumed is was like Tolkien's 'Lord Of The Rings', with a bit of the recently re-published 'Hark The Herald' by Magnus Mills. I do not give one star very often, but have no hesitation here.PS: if you want to see a door being banged-on by a phantom, watch the in-every-way-superior 'Haunting' from 1963. Now THAT is phantom door-banging!