David Pirie
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David Pirie (born December 16, 1953 in Liverpool, England) is a screenwriter, film producer, film critic, and novelist.
As a screenwriter, Pirie has written numerous mysteries and horror-themed works, mostly for television. He was nominated for a BAFTA for his adaptation of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White (1997). He scripted two Sherlock Holmes TV-movies for BBC2, Murder Rooms (2000) and Murder Rooms: The Patient's Eyes (2001), and was credited as associate producer for both titles. He provided the script for the horror film, Element of Doubt (1996), and worked (uncredited) on the screenplay for Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves (1996).
Pirie has written numerous film reviews for such publications as Time Out, Sight and Sound and the Monthly Film Bulletin. His book, A Heritage of Horror: The English Gothic Cinema 1946 - 1972 (1973), was the first book-length survey of the British horror film, and is still considered the definitive study of that particular period. In it he analyzes the films of Hammer and Amicus, as well as other British horror phenomena such as what he dubbed Anglo-Amalgamated's "Sadean Trilogy", beginning with Horrors of the Black Museum in 1959. Other film related works include The Vampire Cinema (1975) and Anatomy of the Movies (1981, as editor).
He has written several novels, including Mystery Story (1980), The Night Calls (2003), and The Dark Water: The Strange Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes (2006).
