And Then There Were None (2016)

From its first golden images of drowning to the drawing-room showdowns on a dark and stormy night, And Then There Were None is a triumph of atmosphere and an adaptation bold enough to make you uncomfortable to the very last.

A bracingly nasty blast, even doubling-down on the gloom and doom in intriguing ways.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this stylish, wonderfully atmospheric British production is how fresh it seems. It's not as if this is a tale rarely told.

[And Then There Were None] is enormous fun: a lush, lurid, gothic fantasy of a murder mystery. It also has little in common with its source material.

Most of the fun (if it can be called that) of And Then There Were None comes, of course, from trying to work out who the killer is, and how the “game” works (as each member of the household if picked off, a small statuette on the dining table disappears). But the incredible acting talent also makes each guest so unique that seeing them interact (or just wander the house alone--don’t go into that dark corridor!) becomes another kind of pleasure, and also part of the puzzle.

None overdoes the self-conscious creepiness at first. The close-ups of slabs of meat being hacked apart for dinner and a few forced performances from otherwise reliable actors (especially Anna Maxwell Martin as the servant Ethel Rogers) smack of concept getting in the way of common sense.... Once the gathering of the victims has been completed, however, and the murderer goes to work, the series settles into a satisfyingly eerie groove.

And Then There Were None is commendably put-together--and its cast gamely embodies the opposing personalities of the source material--but along the way its seriousness becomes a handicap, its blunt storytelling a crutch. It, unlike Christie’s fiendish little book, forgets to just have fun.