Based on 'The Highwaymen' by Lord Dunsany, 'The Pledge' is the story of an agreement by the three compatriots of a hanged highwayman to ensure him a place in heaven by burying him in consecrated ground.Made in 1981 by director Digby Russell who had and would adapt a number of tales from the classic era of supernatural fiction, two others by Dunsany along with stories by Ernest Bramah and Robert Louis Stevenson. It's a tiny little tale with little substance to it but it's beautifully made with echoes of the 'Witchfinder General' in it's setting and in it's focus on superstition and inhumanity over the supernatural. Russell is obviously very proud of his corpse and gibbet and shows it repeately usually to the sounds of Michael Nyman's occasionally melodramatic score but his setting, his cast and his willingness to play with the narrative at the beginning make for an interesting macabre curio.
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