A Caution For The Wise

A clergyman raises alarm in his new parish when, in contravention of local superstition, he crosses and then sets out to defile the 'Devil's Mound' thinking it no more than an ancient burial site where he can satisfy his antiquarian urges.This 2023 short, written, directed, edited and co-produced by Gaius Brown and adapted from a chapter in the novel Skendleby by Nick Brown, has the welcome feel of an M.R. James adaptation to it and owes a large tip of the hat to the master's 'A Warning to the Curious'. Made on an obviously tighter than tight budget it's understandably a little rough around the edges but there's a great central performance from Patrick O'Donnell as 'Reverend Heatly Smythe' and it maintains a palpable moody atmosphere throughout thanks to DP Joseph Mcdonald. If I'm being hugely picky , I'd have loved it to have ended a minute earlier but this is a fantastic little homage to the golden ages of both spooky stories and spooky…