What was the point of the horse carriage chase scene?

I guess you're right about the squeaky part, but the horses were pushing their faces out of their dark shadows, their red eyes with malice in them, the Future Ghost sending them after him, then eventually driving the carriage and reaching for him...that seemed pretty dark to me.

Yes, I have read Dicken's classic, countless times. And I agree with you that he was supposed to sincerely change as a person. But I'm also saying that fear has to be a factor. In the book (as well as the movies), he was completely terrified when he saw his name on that grave, and did cause him to totally change. Yes, there were other moments that led up to him making that change, but that moment was the moment that truly set that in stone.

Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol as a very dark story. I think this movie did a very good job of making this clear. That carriage scene though, took it too far as it made the story darker and as a whole did not serve the story. We live in a time period where most movie directors focus too much on special effects and not enough on story. IMO, however, that scene was the only flaw for this movie.