Purportedly the most controversial telefilm ever broadcast by the BBC, a mock documentary about ghosts that aired on Halloween night, 1992. It’s said to have traumatized thousands of viewers who believed what they were seeing was real and inspired the suicide of 19-year-old boy; the ensuing controversy was so intense the BBC held off releasing the program on home video for over a decade and has never re-aired it.
GHOSTWATCH has antecedents in Orson Welles’ 1938 WAR OF THE WORLDS radio broadcast, which caused a (supposed) mass panic, and also SPECIAL BULLETIN, a 1983 NBC telefilm related in the form of a newscast about the detonation of nuclear bomb in Charleston, SC that likewise resulted in a furor. GHOSTWATCH, scripted by Stephen Volk (GOTHIC) and directed by longtime BBC ace Lesley Manning, went farther than either of those programs, having been broadcast live and directly involved the public.
The action takes place in a monitor-laden TV studio where BBC interviewer extraordinaire Michael Parkinson (playing himself) and Dr. Lin Pascoe (Gillian Bevan), a leggy paranormal researcher, host the premiere of a program entitled GHOSTWATCH. The Parkinson-Pascoe interactions are intercut with on-the-scene footage headlined by Craig Charles (playing himself), a reporter, and Sarah Greene (playing herself), a ghost watcher, in an alleged haunted house inhabited by an apparently normal British family.
The weirdness began, the family claims, in 1991, when a loud banging noise was heard, and a mysterious figure glimpsed by the children. One of those children, the teenaged Suzanne (Michelle Wesson), exhibits slash marks on her face, caused, she claims, by ghosts. Included are dissenting voices, such as that of a smarmy American scientist, interviewed via a remote feed, who smugly dismisses all claims of the supernatural.
…traumatized thousands of viewers who believed what they were seeing was real and inspired the suicide of 19-year-old boy…
Eventually the program grows very BLAIR WITCH-like as the inhabitants of the house become increasingly frenzied and the camerawork follows suit. Furniture rattles, screaming cats are heard, children speak in demonic voices and the paranormal phenomena stretches beyond the confines of the house.
The core narrative is periodically broken up by viewers calling in to the program (including a prank call, prompting Parkinson to issue a “serious calls only!” admonishment). Most if not all the calls were real, the result of a phone number (081-811-8181) periodically flashed onscreen for viewers to call and discuss their own experiences with the supernatural; several did just that, and their voices were included in the program. We also get audio of Pascoe interviewing a ghost and interviews with people gathered outside the haunted house who discuss their paranormal experiences, including a man with a pixilated face (because he doesn’t want his identity known) who talks of having ghost feces smeared around his residence.
The documentary ruse is well carried off, complete with on-the-site technical clumsiness (such as wobbly camerawork and boom mics seen descending into the top of the frame) and glitches, as when a taped interview with a woman suddenly grinds to a halt (which, Parkinson jokes, must be due to poltergeist activity). As THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT would demonstrate seven years later, such things can work wonders in stoking viewer tension. Here, though, the effect is further heightened by the addition of a newsroom setting in which the actuality of what we’re shown is constantly questioned, with Parkinson making no secret of the fact that he believes it’s all a massive hoax—until “reality” overwhelms him.
The documentary ruse is well carried off, complete with on-the-site technical clumsiness…
It seems difficult to believe so many viewers fell for this program’s ruse, as, the uneven performances aside (some of the performers were experienced actors but quite a few weren’t, and it shows), there exist many telltale indicators that the material was staged (such as the multiple camera set-ups in the haunted house). GHOSTWATCH probably seemed quite innovative in 1992, but now, in the wake of BLAIR WITCH and its many imitators, it’s a bit stodgy, of primary interest as a cultural artifact rather than a proper scare fest.
Vital Statistics
GHOSTWATCH
BBC
Director: Lesley Manning
Producer: Ruth Baumgarten
Screenplay: Stephen Volk
Cinematography: Clive Thomas
Editing: Chris Swanton
Cast: Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Mike Smith, Craig Charles, Gillian Bevan, Brid Brennan, Michelle Wesson, Cheris Wesson, Chris Miller, Mike Aiton, Mark Lewis, Linda Broughton, Katherine Stark, Derek Smee, Roger Tebb, Colin Stinton, Keith Ferrari, Ruth Sheen, Diana Blackburn, Brendan O’Hea, Mark Drewry