Ghostwatch

Halloween 1992: the BBC broadcast a real documentary in which a team of celebrity presenters go to "Britain's most haunted house" to check out if any ghosts can be found. Via link-up, Michael Parkinson commentates on the events from the studio. It all looks like it is going to be a big bore, until weird little things start to happen. Slowly but surely it begins to become clear that the BBC are going to unearth the biggest ghost story of all-time.

Amazingly, this TV movie from 1992 had an entire nation believing that it was all for real. Not since Orson Welles terrified America with his rendition of War of the Worlds (convincing half the country that they were being invaded by Martians) has there been anything like this. I remember seeing this as an impressionable teenager and it kept me awake for almost two weeks afterwards. So convincing was it that the BBC have vowed never to screen it again in the wake of complaints of children having nightmares and one (unconfirmed) suggestion that a kid committed suicide because the show scared him so deeply. This makes the top 5 horror films of all-time, even though it is technically not even a film at all. Ghostwatch is a legendary show and anyone who saw it "live" will talk about it, somewhat nervously, to their dying day!

Considering some of the myths and stories that have been generated by the legendary Halloween 1992 showing of Ghostwatch some disappointment may be felt when actually viewing it long after it was to have its greatest impact. However that is not to detract from what is an original and innovative drama, and one that has retained its ability to scare.

A BBC team are invited to Britain's most haunted house to investigate a malevolent presence terrorising the family that live there, in particular the eldest near-pubescent daughter. As events unfold live from the house an initially sceptical Michael Parkinson and an ever increasingly concerned parapsychologist begin to realise that the BBC is about to score a scoop far greater, and more dangerous, than they had bargained for.

I recall seeing Ghostwatch on its first and only transmission. I had missed the opening Screen One card and titles so what I sat down to I initially believed to be a real investigation into a haunted house. The first university research footage of a poltergeist attack on the two girls made my blood run cold. I remember phoning a friend to see if he was watching. I was shaken. Then I started to realise certain things. The mother and eldest daughter were not convincing. The parapsychologist was clearly an actress. The slightly improvisational interaction between the presenters was clearly a scripted attempt at improvisation. I was disappointed, indeed sufficiently so to change the channel and only occasionally dip back into the programme. I remember the press reports over the following days. I couldn't believe they were referring to the programme I had glimpsed. Then Ghostwatch was buried and forgotten.

Then it came back, released on dvd by the BFI. People started to write about it again, reporting that it still had the power to chill. I had to see it again. I watched it twice this week. The strange thing I realised was that despite the poor acting and the occasionally clichéd script, those people who said it retained its power to scare were absolutely right.

Ghostwatch won't make you jump. It won't turn your stomach and it won't make you scream. Ghostwatch will simply unnerve you. It will make you check things that you see from the corner of your eye again. It will make you wonder what that shape in the corner of your room really is, as you struggle to sleep after viewing the show. It will make you ask whether that really is the sound of the central heating pipes expanding, or contracting, or is it something else.

It's true enough that some of the acting is poor, undermining the verisilimitude of the film. One wishes that the script allowed for more spontaneity from the cast. As it is the actors are quite obviously adhering to a script and their attempts at looking genuinely astonished, scared, unnerved by the events are frequently wooden. Probably the most convincing member of the cast is Craig Charles. His performance is light and therefore he appears the most natural. Sarah Greene does very well for the most part, although once strange events begin to occur it is clear that she is acting scared rather than actually being scared. Michael Parkinson is poor, but his part doesn't help. One simply can't believe that an institution such as he could be so openly cold and dismissive to the plight of the family, as he frequently is (he is particularly unsympathetic at the moment the older girl is found covered in scratches).

So what does work? The staggered revelations about the house and family's history are intriguing and eerie, as is the idea that the accumulation of evil over time in the house and the area has led to a manifestation of hateful malevolence. Sound and video effects are put to excellent use. The occupants of the house are subjected to sudden bumps, crashes and, as more secrets of the house are revealed, the awful wailing of cats. The ghostly voices are creepy in the extreme, particularly the inhuman voice played back on the studio tape recorder. What you hear can be far scarier than what you see and the makers of Ghostwatch play on this with great skill.

The link between house and studio begins to deteriorate late in the show. Picture and sound slow down. The link is lost and regained. The sense that something evil has penetrated the broadcast equipment and begun to transmit itself to homes across the UK is brilliantly done. In the studio more and more callers report strange events at their own homes, events that mirror what is happening in the house. Glass breaks, clocks stop, and dogs start barking at the screen. The parapsychologist realises that the BBC transmission has effectively provided the environment for a national séance. Every home tuned into the programme is now primed for supernatural attack. It's a wonderfully apocalyptic idea and one can imagine how disturbing this must have been for those original viewers who bought the idea that the show was live. As it stood the programme was blamed for several women going into premature labour, for 2 boys requiring treatment for post-traumatic stress, and for the tragic suicide of one young man. One can now understand why the BBC blocked the writer's attempts to have a high-frequency noise, calculated to upset viewers' pets, played on the soundtrack during the show's climax. It could have been the first television show in British history to create civic disorder.

I can't recall the last time a British television programme made such a bold attempt to scare. It's surprising considering the wealth of ghost lore we have to draw on in this country (the UK reportedly has more ghosts per square mile than any other place on earth). It's a testament to Ghostwatch that it has since become a fondly regarded piece of that tradition.

It was the day after Halloween, I was ten years old. I arrived back from my Nana's with my mother - my father and sister had indeed watched something very disturbing that night. Well, maybe not my dad, naïve and sceptical of all things unseen. The item that was the buzz of the media for the next few days was a show which was presented as true, which was in fact a staged drama of a paranormal investigation into the self-proclaimed `Most haunted house in Britain'. Even better, since bed-time was 9pm in those early days - it was on tape, for my enjoyment!

The documentary started and progressed much-like Children In Need, oozing of Crimewatch-esque scenes - subtle, crowds gathering outside the spectacle, minor celebrity Craig Charles (now of Robot Wars fame) chatting to the neighbourhood in the dead of the night. And, in the studio, Michael Parkinson radiates professionalism, giving the show an undeniable sense of seriousness. In the BBC, Parkinson and Sarah Green had never acted a staged drama before.

A young-looking Craig Charles used humour and traditional `Halloween's just a bit of fun' tactics to lighten the atmosphere early on, which sucked the youthful audience in until they wouldn't ever want to escape. Then, at the point of no turning back, a masterstroke in film was pulled off and the audience was taken in by a whirlwind of strange activity which cut the proverbial throat of all fun and games and drove the drama into new heights of dread and evil.

As Parkinson fails to digest any of the happenings and focusses on his presentation from the studio, Sarah Green, presenting from the house, with family of the victims of a ghost they named `Mr Pipes', are locked in an atmosphere you could cut with a knife. Here, the film programs your mind to become paranoid – creating a scene which will weld you to the screen, eyes fixated. The film uses all the tricks of a real documentary to create a familiar tone, the phone-ins, promotion of books, viewers actually phoning up - combined with the presence of the paranormal, it is a lethal concoction.

Very early into the film we see supposedly supernatural footage on tape, of a bedside lamp exploding. A curtain reveals a vague outline of what the children and the mother believe to be the offender, `Mr Pipes'. The overall conclusion is that this is just a trick of the light. Into the `live' filming, we are teased with dimly lit areas and lighting which could suggest Pipes is present on screen at all times, unknown to Green and to the audience. Scenes in contrast from the loud social of the street to the silent, dimly-lit homeliness of the house work perfectly, the feeling of dread and of a presence, and an evil one of that, are never absent throughout the last thirty minutes.

After being shocked to our skins with suggestive occurrences, and – god forbid – the force actually concealed within the confines of the screen, in

darkness and in light, the show reaches a climax and all hell breaks loose. Total darkness engulfs the house like a black mist with the motivation of juggernauts, Green trying to find a solution, Charles with a noticeable absence, joking attitude dead and buried, as Parkinson can only look on from the comfort of the studio. The final scene comes, is over-the-top, but would at least wake the audience up from their sleep that this was not a real BBC investigation. As silly as it was, there could be no alternate ending for a sixty minute TV documentary which was paced with perfect accuracy. Parkinson breaking a sweat, the evils of this world embrace the studio and nowhere is safe. The credits roll as you wake up from a horrible nightmare.

Without a doubt, this was a masterpiece of film. The next day EVERYONE was talking about it. It was a cult hit within a matter of days, and beyond, people were traumatised. The media linked this to the suicide of a man - I was not surprised, Ghost Watch gave me nightmares for months afterwards. The curtains in my room became a homage for all kinds of faces, outlines, and mysteries which I could not comprehend. The film an inspiration, I vowed for the days where I could watch movies like Poltergeist and Amityville. Neither of those sequence of movies, or any other, for that matter – cast a shadow on what was televised at half nine on BBC1. Sadly deleted and banned from screening ever again, the tape that Ghostwatch graced was accidentally wiped by my father, and has not been seen since 1993. At the time of youth, I didn't accept the work as fiction, until my Aunty tried to get hold of a copy of the book seen in the film. The book shop had been swamped with requests, familiarity overcame her face, the solemn answer was; `It was staged, the book doesn't exist'.

Hopefully I will get my hands on a copy of Ghost Watch again to watch after almost a decade. Today, Tony Parkinson still hosts his late-night interviewing show, Sarah Green is an old face in the crowd, Mike Smith is still around, and Craig Charles is the main face of Robot Wars, bereft of credibility after his media speculation.

Quite simply, the most frightening television programme ever broadcast, 'Ghost Watch' pushed the edges of 'acceptability' so far that we'll probably never get the chance to see it again.

The one and only time this has been shown, anywhere in the world, I believe, was on Halloween 1992. The UK listings magazine 'Radio Times' printed it's cast, crew and writer- yet it was promoted as a 'documentary'. And the British public, suitably suckered, fell for the joke in their millions.

In much the same way that Orson Welles' 'War of the Worlds' and latterly 'The Blair Witch Project' caused audiences to question their sense of reality, so 'Ghost Watch', for one wonderful October night, made screaming believers of us all. The conceit is simple- TV heavyweight Michael Parkinson hosts an evening of programmes purporting to investigate the supernatural. There are mediums in the studio, debate, and most importantly, a 'live' investigation into one of Britain's "most haunted" houses.

The casting is intelligent and spot-on; Parkinson adds gravitas, and the 'light-entertainment' faces of Sarah Greene, Craig Charles and Mike Smith just-about convince you that whatever happens, it's going to be treated in a nice, family-orientated, jokey manner. Just what you'd expect from Auntie Beeb.

And then it begins.

Writer Stephen Volk uses every gruelling modern horror cliche in the book- possessions, telekenesis, speaking-in-tongues, self-flagellation, child-abuse, things *almost* seen, satanic animals, suicide, - but, robbed of their comfortable 'Poltergeist'/'Amityville Horror' contexts, and placed into what was until a few minutes ago an edgy, but amusing 'documentary', they take on whole new levels of terror. And 'Ghost Watch' is very, very scary.

I really don't want to ruin this for anyone who hasn't seen it- but suffice to say Expect The Unexpected. Moments of extreme horror are slipped in, almost subliminally, and the cumulative effect is of a long, terrifying journey to a place you really don't want to go.

Of course the ending is silly- it has to be, to relieve the tension, and allow viewers to relax. It was, after all, a drama, a play, a "hoax" if you like. A horror film. And the best one of the 'nineties, if I were forced to make my choice.

Due to the sheer number of complaints, and the suicide of a viewer, the BBC effectively banned it from further screenings, and refused to release it on video. Further, as far as I know, they have not offered it for sale abroad.

The only way any of us are going to see it's like again, is to rely on those who recorded it at the time of broadcast, seven years ago- or hope that some enterprising foreign station buys the rights, and remakes it.

It's a terrible, terrible shame that something as powerful and clever as this should go unseen.

Steev

I was 12 when Ghostwatch was shown on Holloween on BBC1! I remember sitting on the sofa with my Brother and Mam, my Dad went out before the show had began. We were pulled into the story and got scared to death by Pipes and the story of the Early family, this was years before Most Haunted hit the screens! You could spot Pipes, you could hear the stories and watch as the team falls apart! I totally believed Sarah Greene was taken by Pipes and that Parky was taken over by Pipes too, GREAT TV! Little did we know that it was due to be banned and never shown again, until the ban ran out and it was released on DVD/Video, which I had for Xmas 3 years ago! Even now I cant watch it alone or with the lights off.....the power of being 12 back then and Pipes coming to get me still shakes me up! For me Ghostwatch is pure great British TV! Sure it might be dated and some people might call it boring...but to this 26 years old...sleepiness nights happen after I watch this show 14 years later!