Ghostwatch
Ghostwatch is a British reality–horror/pseudo-documentary television film, first broadcast on BBC1 on Halloween night, 1992. Written by Stephen Volk, and directed by Lesley Manning, the drama was produced for the BBC anthology series Screen One by Richard Broke, Ruth Baumgarten and Derek Nelson.
Despite having been recorded weeks in advance, the narrative was presented as live television. During and following its first and only UK television broadcast, the show attracted a considerable furor, resulting in an estimated 30,000 calls to the BBC switchboard in a single hour.
Ghostwatch has never been repeated on UK television. It has been repeated internationally, on stations such as the Canadian digital channel Scream for Halloween 2004, and the Belgian channel Canvas in 2008. From 2017 to 2019, Ghostwatch was available on the American streaming video service Shudder, and was made available on the Internet Archive in 2017.
There have been two UK home video releases. In 2002, the British Film Institute released a 10th Anniversary edition on VHS and DVD, and in 2011, 101 Films issued a DVD release. In 2016, BBC Store made the film available as part of the Frightmares collection, marking Halloween.
A retrospective documentary, , based on the film's lasting impact, was released on DVD in 2013, featuring interviews with many of the original cast and crew. It too was made available as part of the BBC Store Frightmares collection, and shortly after release, the BFI Mediatheque.
Overview
Plot summary
The 90-minute film was a horror story shot in a documentary style and appeared as part of BBC Drama's Screen One series. It involved BBC reporters performing a live, on-air investigation of a house in Northolt, Greater London, at which poltergeist activity was believed to be taking place. The reporters do not appear to be taking the story seriously, and play Halloween pranks on each other at the start of the program. Viewers are asked to call in with their own ghost stories, which becomes an important plot point. Parkinson is joined in studio by Dr. Lin Pascoe, a paranormal expert who attempts to explain the events in the house.Through revealing footage and interviews with neighbours and the family living there, they discover the existence of a malevolent ghost nicknamed Pipes. Several viewers call in with their own experiences, which become more violent, dangerous, and seem to be related to the show itself. Later, viewers learn that Pipes is the spirit of a psychologically disturbed man called Raymond Tunstall, who previously lived in the house with his aunt and uncle and believed himself to have been troubled by the spirit of Mother Seddons – a "baby farmer" turned child killer from the 19th century. Eventually, one of the children starts making banging noises on the pipe to get people watching to believe her family's story.
Parkinson is quick to dismiss the entire thing as a hoax, but Dr. Pascoe is not so sure. The calls continue to the studio, where viewers say they've seen Pipes and their descriptions match the ones the children gave to Dr. Pascoe months earlier. Further calls reveal that poltergeist activity is now occurring in other people's homes and one of the crew is injured after a mirror falls on him. Pipes continues to make various manifestations which become more bold and terrifying, until, at the end, Dr. Pascoe realises that the programme itself has been acting as a sort of "national séance" through which Pipes is gaining horrific power. Footage shows the police arriving at Foxhill Drive, and a panicked Charles moving Pam and Kim away from the house.
Finally, the spirit unleashes its power to the fullest extent, dragging host Sarah Greene out of sight behind a door and then escaping to express poltergeist activity throughout the country. He takes control of the BBC studios and transmitter network, using the Ghostwatch studio as a focal point. Everyone runs out of the studio as the lights explode, leaving Parkinson alone. He stumbles around the now-darkened studio, still carrying on hosting duties and wondering if any of the cameras are working. After finding the teleprompter is still active, Parkinson reads a nonsensical nursery rhyme and begins speaking in Pipes' voice, asking viewers if they really believed the story about Mother Seddons. As Parkinson/Pipes calls out "Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum," the film ends.
Behind the scenes
The story, based on the tale of the Enfield Poltergeist, was put into production months before and was complete fiction. The presentation contained realistic elements which suggested to a casual viewer that it was an actual documentary. The studio scenes were recorded in Studio D, BBC Elstree Studios, Clarendon Road. The scenes at the house and the street were all shot on location around 5–6 weeks before the recording of the studio scenes. The recorded scenes in the house and street were then played into the studio, where Michael Parkinson, Mike Smith, and "Doctor Pascoe" had to interact with them.A phone number was shown on the screen so that viewers could "call in" and discuss ghostly phenomena. The number was the standard BBC call-in number at the time, 081 811 8181, and callers who got through were connected first to a message telling them that the show was fictional, before being given the chance to share their own ghost stories. However, the phone number was besieged by callers during the showing and many people who telephoned simply got an engaged tone. This commonly happened when phoning BBC "call in" shows and inadvertently added to the realism instead of reassuring viewers that it was fiction.
The set and filming methods, including shaky hand-held video cameras, lent a documentary feel. Most convincing of all was the use of actual BBC personalities playing themselves. Sarah Greene and Craig Charles were the reporters on the scene at the house, while Mike Smith and Michael Parkinson linked from the studio.
Ghostwatch was originally conceived by writer Stephen Volk as a six-part drama in which a fictional paranormal investigator and a TV reporter investigate poltergeist activity at a North London housing estate, gradually discovering more elements of the mystery each week. This would have culminated in the final episode in a live TV broadcast from the property, in the vein of Nigel Kneale's The Quatermass Experiment and Quatermass and the Pit, in both of which "all hell breaks loose". However, when producer Ruth Baumgarten doubted the viability of an entire mini-series and recommended instead a 90-minute TV special, Volk suggested that they "do the whole thing like Episode Six", portraying it as an actual "live" broadcast fronted by well-known TV personalities.
The BBC, however, became concerned about the effect the broadcast would have on the public and very nearly pulled the show shortly before broadcast. Ultimately they insisted on adding opening credits including the writer's name, in addition to a Screen One title sequence.
Supernatural depictions
The ghost
The film's fictional, villainous spectre, referred to by the children as "Pipes" and credited simply as "Ghost", is depicted as a merging of negative, spiritual energies, which parapsychologist Dr. Pascoe theorises have been accumulating for years, possibly back to prehistory. Its physical appearance mostly resembles that of deceased child molester Raymond Tunstall, a fictional character who, it is revealed by a phone-in caller, committed suicide at the haunted property some time in the 1960s after himself being possessed by the entity. His eyes are missing and his face is badly mauled, owing to Tunstall locking himself up with his multiple pet cats prior to his suicide; the cats having "gotten hungry" in the week prior to the discovery of Tunstall's body. The entity also wears a black woman's dress, likely that of "baby farmer" and child killer Mother Seddons.It is suggested that the character of Suzanne Early may become the next "layer" in the ghost's spiritual make-up, and in the final moments of the film the entity possesses television host Michael Parkinson.
In May 2010, at a public screening of the film at The Invisible Dot in Camden, director Lesley Manning revealed that she provided the voice of Pipes the ghost after the professional voice artist hired for the production could not accurately replicate the style of voice she had intended.
Technology
Many methods familiar to modern ghost-hunting shows such as Most Haunted are demonstrated in the show, some of which were either genuine state-of-the-art technology at the time or simulated to give the idea they were real. The house was allegedly equipped with motion detectors, temperature sensors, and covert cameras. The temperature sensors were referred to as being able to check for dramatic changes in temperature that ghost hunters link to real-life ghost sightings. One major feature of the show was a genuine thermographic camera, which, although it did not pick up any ghosts, came in very handy when all the lights failed at the end of the show.Ghostly depictions
The programme makers used many examples of allegedly paranormal phenomena. During the course of the programme there are many references to characters being allegedly possessed by a ghost who, whilst doing so, maniacally recites nursery rhymes. This happens in a tape recording of the eldest daughter Suzanne, later in a 'live' section to the same character and eventually Michael Parkinson himself is seen to be possessed. The show references temperature changes being linked to ghosts and claims to be monitoring the temperature in each room of the house to check for this. Mutilated household objects are shown which were purportedly analysed by the Army and found to have been subjected to rapid temperature change. In both alleged recordings and live segments of the show we see objects moving of their own accordwhich, it is claimed, is a result of poltergeist activityalso, a perfectly round patch of water appears on the living room carpet, and animal scratch marks appear on Suzanne's face. Banging noises are intermittently heard during the climax of the show. At one point the producers play on this by exposing Suzanne as the one causing the banging noises, creating a hoax within a hoax. However, this later occurs when both girls are accounted for. Near the end of the programme, when a wind whips through the studio, the cups and plates brought in by Dr Pascoe as evidence of the poltergeist activity in the house begin to move on their own, and one cup falls onto the studio floor and smashes into pieces. Although the ghost of the story is only heard to speak through the voices of others we hear the disembodied sounds of cats whenever phenomena are taking place.Controversy
Although Ghostwatch was aired under the Screen One drama banner, its documentary style led many viewers to believe the events were real, causing much controversy after the show's airing. The BBC was besieged with 30,000 phone calls from irate and frightened viewers, and British tabloids and other newspapers criticised the BBC the next day for the disturbing nature of some scenes, such as Greene's final scene where she is locked in an under-stairs cupboard with the howling ghost, and Parkinson's eerie possession scene.A false rumour persisted that Sarah Greene had advertised the programme on her Saturday morning children's show Going Live, including a visit to the location of the "haunting," and gave the impression that she was taking part in a "reality show." This rumour was debunked via the Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtain blog. After acquiring the three most likely episodes of Going Live the blog's editors found no reference to the show. Greene did however appear on the following Monday's Children's BBC strand to reassure younger viewers the show was not real.
The reaction to the programme led the BBC to place a decade-long ban on the programme being repeated after its initial broadcast. The British Film Institute released it on VHS and Region 2 DVD in November 2002.
Psychological effects
A number of psychological effects were reported in Ghostwatchs wake:Eighteen-year-old factory worker Martin Denham, who suffered from learning difficulties and had a mental age of 13, died by suicide five days after the programme aired. The family home had suffered with a faulty central heating system which had caused the pipes to knock; Denham linked this to the activity in the show causing great worry. He left a suicide note reading "if there are ghosts I will be... with you always as a ghost". His mother and stepfather, April and Percy Denham, blamed the BBC. They claimed that Martin was "hypnotised and obsessed" by the programme. The Broadcasting Standards Commission refused their complaint, along with 34 others, as being outside their remit, but the High Court granted the Denhams permission for a judicial review requiring the BSC to hear their complaint.
In its ruling, the BSC stated that "The BBC had a duty to do more than simply hint at the deception it was practising on the audience. In Ghostwatch there was a deliberate attempt to cultivate a sense of menace." They ruled that the programme was excessively distressing and graphicreferring to the scratches on the children and the reference to mutilated animalsand that it had aired too soon after the 9pm watershed. They further stated that "the presence in the programme of presenters familiar from children's programmes... took some parents off-guard in deciding whether their children could continue to view."
The film's producers argued that Ghostwatch had aired during a drama slot, that it was recognisable as fiction to a vast majority, and that running disclaimers or other announcements during the programme would have ruined its effectiveness. They also stated that, had they anticipated the audience reaction, they would have made its fictional nature clearer. However, after the BSC ruling they issued an apology.
Simons and Silveira published a report in the British Medical Journal in February 1994, describing two cases of Ghostwatch-induced post-traumatic stress disorder in children, both ten-year-old boys. They stated that these were the first reported cases of PTSD caused by a television programme. Responses to the article described a further four cases in children aged between 11 and 14, as well as one case in an 8-year-old that stemmed from watching the pre-watershed hospital soap Casualty. The respondents also noted the potential for similar reactions in elderly people. However, the conclusion of the article states "The rapid resolution of the children's symptoms suggests that the children suffered a brief anxiety reaction to the television programme; although they may have exhibited some of the features of post-traumatic stress disorder, this diagnosis in their cases is inappropriate."
Legacy
Inspirations
Ghostwatch has also been credited for being amongst the direct inspirations for several other successful, contemporary works.A comment left by writer Stephen Volk on the official Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains homepage claims that British illusionist Derren Brown once told him that the film had at least partially inspired his similarly controversial "TV hoax" Séance. This was later confirmed by Brown himself whilst being interviewed for the BBC Four documentary Ghosts in the Machine.
The makers of The Blair Witch Project were reported to have seen the film before going on to make their own movie, however, when asked about this on the podcast, Diminishing Returns, the film's director, Eduardo Sanchez, stated that they were not made aware of the film until after The Blair Witch Project had been released.
Sequel ('31/10')
As featured in his collection Dark Corners, screenwriter Stephen Volk wrote a short story entitled 31/10, which is effectively a sequel to Ghostwatch. The piece was later selected for "The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2007: Twentieth Annual Collection", and nominated for the Horror Writers' Association Bram Stoker Award, and British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story 2006.The story itself centres on Volk taking part in a fictitious, 10th anniversary edition of Ghostwatch in 2002. Venturing into the previously sealed-off BBC studio space where the original show took place, he is accompanied by a small team of individuals whose lives were somehow affected by the broadcast, ten years previously.
A free PDF file of '31/10' can be found on writer Stephen Volk's official website.
''Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains''
Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains is a retrospective documentary, completed in 2012 and released on DVD in 2013, chronicling the making of and reaction to Ghostwatch.The
Developments
On 21 February 2008, the GhostwatchBtC channel was launched on YouTube. All that was initially revealed regarding the project was a notice asking fans of the original film to contribute any Ghostwatch-related stories or recollections via the comments boxes provided.On 31 October 2008, a production blog was launched.
The first article to be published was written by the documentary's creator, Rich Lawden, in which he revealed the idea to make a retrospective first originated at a Cineformation screening held at the Watershed in Bristol.
Subsequent articles have included a special Hallowe'en message from Stephen Volk, and a link to a new Ghostwatch article written by lead actor, Sir Michael Parkinson. Between December 2008 and February 2009, a web forum, and Twitter, MySpace and Facebook pages were also added.
On 31 October 2011, the first official production still was uploaded to mark both Hallowe'en Night and the conclusion of National Séance 2011. The image features cast members, Sarah Greene and Mike Smith sitting with an interviewer, and two additional crew members, in an aircraft hangar. A quote beneath the picture reads, "Stay tuned for 2012, Ghostwatchers".
On 24 October 2012, one week before the show's 20th Anniversary, a teaser trailer for the project was announced on SFX.co.uk. A DVD of the completed film was released by the producers on eBay in March 2013, and within hours, had to be re-listed directly on the Lawman Productions website after quickly selling out. In October 2013, a companion book, written by Lawden, was released on Lulu containing a Foreword by writer Stephen Volk, the sequel story 31/10, new interviews, and an extensive production diary for the documentary itself.
In October 2016, it was announced that online platform, BBC Store was to offer both Ghostwatch and the retrospective Behind the Curtains documentary as part of the new Frightmares collection, in time for Halloween. Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that the documentary had ranked among the best performing titles in the collection, also making the top ten best sellers for the first two weeks, after launch.
''National Séance''
To mark the show's 18th anniversary, a "live" event took place in lieu of a full repeat screening on British television. Dubbed National Séance, fans were asked to simultaneously play their personal recordings of the show at precisely 9.25pm and tweet about the screening as it happened on the social networking site Twitter. The event has subsequently become a yearly tradition. The event is known for celebrating the original Drama by the unveiling of special artwork, or occasionally unseen or unheard material relating to its production, and often directly contributes to the hashtag #ghostwatch trending on the national leader-boards.Critical reception
The film was met with a positive response from both fans and critics alike. Notably, leading film and TV magazines SFX and Starburst awarded 4/5 and 8/10 ratings respectively.The film was subsequently selected for inclusion in the BFI Mediatheque, for the upcoming Haunted collection, from December 2013-onwards.