This Devil’s Advocate explores the cinematic wonders of Brian Desmond Hurst’s much loved 1951 adaptation of A Christmas Carol , Scrooge , through the prism of horror cinema, arguing that the film has less in common with cosy festive tradition than it does with terror cinema like James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein , Robert Weine’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , and F.W. Murnau’s Faust . Beginning with Charles Dickens himself, a prolific writer of ghost stories, with A Christmas Carol being but one of many, Colin Fleming then considers earlier cinematic adaptations including 1935’s folk-horror-like Scrooge , before offering a full account of the Hurst/Sim version, stressing what must always be kept at the forefront of our minds: this is a ghost story .