Children of the Stones [TV] (1977)
Directed by Peter Graham Scott

Film Review

If there ever were to be to a poll amongst those of school age in the mid-1970s as to which television programme scared them most there's a good chance that HTV's seven-part children's drama serial Children of the Stones would come top, and by some margin.  The title sequence alone is enough to send any well-adjusted eight to fourteen year-old behind the living room sofa, and it probably had a similar effect on their parents, assuming they were brave enough to watch it.  Plotwise, it is one of the most dense and complex dramas ever made for children, and with liberal references to supernovae, black holes, atomic clocks, ley lines, magnetic forces and psychic phenomena, it certainly wasn't lacking in educational content.  With lines such as "It's a special case of a Hilbert transform", the one thing you certainly cannot accuse the show's writers of doing is patronising their audience..  We even learn that the old Gaelic word for bear is mathúin, leading to a tenuous but freaky connection between maths, the name of the main child protagonist and the constellation of Ursa Major.  Today's school kids don't know what they're missing.

It's interesting that, when the serial was released on DVD in 2011, it was given a 12 certificate, which presumably means that it could not be broadcast today in the UK in its original children's television slot (4.45-5.15pm on a weekday).  Children of the Stones isn't only an unusually sophisticated piece of children's drama (even adults will struggle to make sense of its more erudite concepts, such as the ideas of parallel time streams and time endlessly circling) it is also incredibly frightening in parts.  What makes the series so disturbing is its juxtaposition of everyday normality (the scenes in the school room and Matt's home) with the totally weird phenomena taking place within the stone circle, many of which are left unexplained but seem strangely plausible.  Gareth Thomas (soon to find lasting fame as the lead in the BBC's flagship sci-fi series Blake's 7) anchors the drama in a cosy familiarity which is brilliantly undercut by the frightening excursions into nightmarish unreality and the sinister presence of the villain of the piece, a Druidic high priest-cum-monomaniac Fascist played with magisterial aplomb by Iain Cuthbertson.

Much of the serial's unique atmosphere is down to Sidney Sager's avant-garde music, principally its discordant chorus denoting a Pagan ritual.  The events we seen on screen are given a terrifying extra dimension when the ecstatic wails of a demonic choir begin smacking into our sensory apparatus.  It's like a cross between The Exorcist and The Wicker Man, with elements of The Village of the Damned and Invasion of the Body Snatchers thrown in for good measure - only a damn sight more unnerving. It is easy to see why Avebury, the location in Wiltshire where the exterior scenes were shot, has become a Mecca for anyone who saw the series when it was first shown in January-February 1977 and repeated in 1978.  Almost every shot of the hauntingly tranquil village has an unmistakable eeriness about it, and the ancient stones take on a life of their own as the camera tracks around them, as if under the influence of some powerful force.  Children of the Stones showcases children's television of the 1970s at its most original and grown-up, and whilst it may have been made for children it is just as compelling, and just as creepily unnerving, for adults.  Happy day...

Film Synopsis

Adam Brake, an astrophysicist whose wife has recently died, arrives in the small English village of Milbury with his teenage son Matthew.  Here they intend to carry out a detailed survey of the magnetic properties of the megalithic stone circle that surrounds the village.  To find out more about the history of the 4000 year-old circle Adam enlists the help of Margaret, the curator of the local museum.  Meanwhile, Matthew is befriended by the latter's daughter, Sandra, who points out the differences between normal teenagers like them and others who are in a state of docile contentment and show a precocious aptitude for higher mathematics.  Immediately before coming to Milbury, Matthew came across an old painting depicting a pagan ritual in what seems to be an identical village.  Hendrick, the imposing lord of the manor, shows an interest in the painting.  Adam soon realises that Hendrick is an eminent member of his own profession, celebrated for his discovery of a black hole formed from a supernova in Neolithic times.  Unbeknown to the newcomers, Hendrick has found a way of harnessing the power of the ancient stones to transmit negative energy directly into the black hole, thereby converting every villager in turn into one of his so-called 'happy ones', people who can no longer think for themselves and are incapable of leaving the village.  Having 'processed' Margaret and Sandra, Hendrick needs only two more subjects to complete the circle, Adam and Matthew...