Warning: Sherlock Holmes: Hound of the Baskervilles potential spoilers, for the book, the Hallmark film adaptation, and the BBC Sherlock episode. I did my best to edit out my spoilers, but still, you have been warned.
Perhaps you are one of those people who doesn’t like it when books are adapted into movies. As a general rule, I don’t mind the movie, I just don’t necessarily like it as an adaptation of the book. Watching two adaptations of the same book is even harder, because then you naturally try to compare them. Especially interesting for both films were how they portrayed the setting, Watson and Holmes and – arguably most importantly – how they handled the changes in the plot.
First off, a large factor in how a movie plays out is the setting. When I read the books, I imagined Baskerville Hall as a dark, gloomy place, which it was in the Hallmark film, but only indoors. Outdoors, it was sunny and clear. The BBC version had a slightly creepier feel, with the light blurring across the screen with every transition, accompanied by a soaring sound effect. Baskerville itself looked not nearly as I imagined it, but that’s because they modernized it.
Neither of them captured my expectation of the moor. Rock piles here and there in no way equate to the perpetual gloom and bogs that I had pictured. For the Hallmark, the only satisfactorily creepy shots of the moor were at two different death scenes. For BBC, Dewer’s Hollow was the only place that hit my imagination, with the eerie fog and dark, gloomy trees. That is, in fact, very similar to how I imagined the surroundings for the original Baskerville Hall.
The hounds themselves are another important part of the setting. One reason I found the Hallmark less frightening is that we saw the hound a lot. That hound itself wasn’t particularly frightening, and I felt more sorry for the creature than afraid of it. With BBC, not only was it not revealed until the end, making that much more terrifying, but the hound itself looked freakier. Either way, neither hound was a huge, glowing hell-hound, which disappointed my imagination, but notably relieved my conscience.
One of my favorite things to compare is the characters themselves. With Hallmark, Sherlock was a very exaggerated speaker, more so for the beginning than the end. This made him harder to understand when he spoke, and I was very disappointed with how little we could see of his thought process. In BBC, Sherlock was again exaggerated, not in his words but in his character. There was much more drama with Sherlock’s general personality, and I appreciated watching him think. It made some of the deductions easier to follow.
Watson was also very different in each film. The Hallmark Watson was older and quieter, whereas the BBC Watson was younger and very vocal. He wasn’t leading the investigation, but I feel that, – noting Sherlock’s presence at the scene – he tried to be as useful as possible. Both Watsons were willing to argue with Holmes, but I found the BBC Watson much more interestingly done. (This may just be because I like Martin Freeman as an actor, though.)
The Sir Henrys were also very different. In the Hallmark, I was very impressed. When I read the book, I kept forgetting that he lived in North America, but the movie showed his slow transition to a British life in a way that worked well for me. I wasn’t particularly impressed with BBC Henry, though. They portrayed him as an Englishman with psychological issues, as opposed to an heir who was brand new to the area. That said, BBC did stick with the death of a relative as (at least part of) the reason for the case.
In all probability most interesting is how the interpretations dealt with changes of plot. Hallmark didn’t have many. They changed the town of Coombe Tracey to Grimpen, the ending was slightly altered.
The BBC film was more “inspired by” than an “interpretation of” the book. They played on the names, changed the genders of many of the characters and changed the villain of the story. The crime was centered around a completely different basis, as we find out, and the whole reason Sherlock took the case comes down to wordplay and a glow-in-the-dark rabbit. This isn’t to say that the BBC Sherlock is bad, it’s just very different.
Overall, the two plots were both the same and very different. They had different portrayals of the settings, the characters and the overall plot, and yet you can tell that they are both based off of the same tale. What would be interesting is if Sir. Arthur Doyle was alive today, so that we could show him both adaptations and get his opinions. Personally, I liked both in different ways. I generally don’t like jump-scares, so the BBC film was a little concerning, but because of how early Hallmark revealed the hound, it didn’t have the thrill of the BBC. If you are watching for faithfulness, watch Hallmark, but if you are watching for relatability, watch the BBC version.
