'Peaky Blinders' creator debuts dark and frightening 'A Christmas Carol' trailer

We've never seen A Christmas Carol like this one.

Steven Knight, the creator of Peaky Blinders, has helmed the BBC's new take on Charles Dickens' cautionary ghost story, and it's dark, gritty and pretty terrifying, by the looks of it.

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Produced by Tom Hardy and Ridley Scott, the first trailer has now landed, with Guy Pearce as the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge.

As the tale goes, he's lead through his past, present and future by three spirits, in the hope that he will change his ways or face damnation.

Andy Serkis plays the sinister Ghost of Christmas Past, seen here wild of hair and beard, with the BBC describing the reimagining of the tale as a 'haunting, hallucinatory, spine-tingling immersion into Scrooge’s dark night of the soul'.

We also get a glimpse of Lock, Stock star Jason Flemyng as the fearsome Ghost of Christmas Future. The late Rutger Hauer was originally cast in the role, which filmed in May this year, but became too ill to complete his scenes.

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Elsewhere, Stephen Graham plays Scrooge's former business partner Jacob Marley, Charlotte Riley plays Lottie, Joe Alwyn is Bob Cratchit, and Kayvan Novak is Ali Baba.

Among the locations for the series were Rainham Hall in the east London and Lord Leycester Hospital in Warwick.

The series will air over three one hour episodes, with a transmission date yet to be confirmed.

Steven Knight said: “This production of A Christmas Carol will respectfully present what we believe to be a timely interpretation of a timeless story.”