Inside No. 9

Inside No. 9 review

It remains unpredictable and surprising throughout, delivering delicious little twists on standard formulas and narratives without settling into any sort of format.

Inside No. 9 was never less than entertaining and frequently inspired, but the series of self-contained creepy comedy dramas saved the best for last.

Guignol doesn't come much grander than The Harrowing, an everyday story of a teenage girl hired to babysit a man possessed by the devil. "He who walks backwards!" explains the girl's employer. "Michael Jackson?" exclaims our heroine's ostensibly dim best mate, supposedly along for the ride but harbouring a hidden agenda all of her own.

Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's Inside No. 9 (BBC Two) has been a deliciously twisted treat, each tale balancing neatly on a tightrope so you were never quite sure if we were about to make the leap into comedy or tragedy. But the final numerically themed short story was unashamedly macabre.

True, the odd defiantly bad joke ('Do you know Poe?' 'From the Teletubbies?') pierced the darkness as babysitter Katy turned up for work at a house which made the Addams Family homestead look light and airy. Yet this was a briefing for a descent into hell from which there could be no escape.

The twist being - in a series which has specialised in ingenious surprises - that there was no twist. You could call that daring but it actually felt like a bit of a cop-out, as though the dark-hearted Shearsmith and Pemberton were laughing at us: 'Ha! So you thought we'd left you off the hook.' I didn't quite buy the macabre self-indulgence. But the Devil's closing howl of 'mischief!' did give me the willies deep into the night. In that respect, job done.

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Review: Inside No. 9, 1.6 - 'The Harrowing'

The Harrowing was a splendid half-hour of creepiness and rich atmosphere, punctured by occasional jokes and silly lines.

How Inside No. 9 was talked about on Twitter

With the final episode of the series being aired last night, Inside No. 9 has created an entirely new genre of it's own with four of the six episodes producing near identical tweet patterns.

After a never less than captivating series that has added a comic sheen to Tales Of The Unexpected, this harrowing series finale has more than a hint of Hammer House Of Horror about it. Siblings Hector and Tabitha reside in a gothic mansion where the temperature is religiously maintained just below freezing point. Precisely the kind of location that would make the prospect of minding Hector and Tabitha's bedridden brother Andras a chilling task on several spinewringingly unsettling levels, as babysitter Katy soon discovers.

Helen McCrory and Reece Shearsmith star as Tabitha and Hector, sibling proprietors of the final episode in this blackly comic series. We're in a gothic mansion with a sinister secret at the top and schoolgirl Katy (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) may have bitten off more than she can chew when she agrees to housesit. It's a trip flickering with demonic humour but by the time we reach the closing scene we've gone over to the dark side completely. Sleep well.

Radio Times review

The last and nastiest visit to the ninth house on the left, which this episode is a looming, draughty pile out of place on a suburban street. Aimeé-Ffion Edwards, as excellent here as she was in Skin and Walking and Talking, is a schoolgirl babysitter who's been promised a bumper payday but immediately finds that the job, set by icy householder Helen McCrory, is too creepy to be worth the cash.

To say more would spoil, but as the creaking terror takes hold you'll marvel at how Steve Pemberton (absent) and Reece Shearsmith (in full Hammer horror mode) can pepper the elegant script with gags without breaking the spell.

Preview: Inside No 9 - The Harrowing, BBC Two

Draw the curtains, turn off the light. It's the last Inside No. 9, sob, and it's a genuine fright fest.