Ghostwatch: The Power of the Slow Burn and what modern horror could learn from a 27 year old BBC mockumentary.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR GHOSTWATCH FOLLOW, IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT I URGE YOU TO DO SO BEFORE READING THIS ARTICLE.
Back in 1992 no one had heard of the found footage genre of horror, the Blair Witch Project was seven years away, Paranormal Activity hadn’t yet codified the genre and Cloverfield wasn’t yet ready to showcase monstrous destruction from ground level.
On Saturday 31st October 1992, Michael Parkinson drew viewers into a world of supernatural scares that left the nation paralysed with fear.
Ghostwatch began life as the final part of writer Stephen Volk’s planned six part supernatural drama series that would have examined the haunting of a council estate building to the ‘live’ investigation of a property subjugated by a poltergeist. BBC Drama and producer of Ghostwatch Ruth Baumgarten asked Volk to pair down the idea to a 90 minute episode and so Volk and the rest of the team decided to ‘Do the entire thing like episode 6’.
The story itself is based upon the case of the Enfield Haunting and sees a single mother and her two girls tormented by a vengeful spirit the family has dubbed Pipes because of its habit of knocking on the central heating pipes to announce its presence.
Over time it’s discovered that Pipes is actually the spirit of child molester Raymond Tunstall, who himself was taken over by the spirit of a 19th century baby killer known as Mother Seddons. Tunstall hung himself in the cupboard under the stairs of the family home when he could not cope with Mother Seddons tormenting him, leaving both himself and his 12 cats trapped in the cupboard until police found the body which the cats had begun to feed on to stave off starvation.
What gave Ghostwatch its biggest air of authenticity and what drew Britain in so deeply were the performances by noted BBC TV personalities including Sarah Greene, Craig Charles and Michael Parkinson all playing themselves in the pseudo documentary as well as real live BBC camera and sound operators. The entire things plays out like the Crimewatch programs of the time ( it even uses the same call in number).
Good old Parky lends the program a sense of well-needed gravitas and dignity that helps to carry it from one creepy moment to the next and through to the devastating climax. He was a national treasure at this point, known for his no nonsense, easy going chat shows and its easy to see why people who had tuned in halfway through the broadcast were so taken in by it. What I love about this is the peerless world building Volk invokes. First, you care about the family and despite Parkinson and the rest of his compatriots viewing the entire thing with a huge scoop of scepticism (at least at the start), they show the family enormous compassion and treat them with dignity. The interviews with residents, the phone calls into the studio and Dr Pascoe’s notes and knowledge about Fox Hill Drive expose the viewer to something altogether more sinister than just a mere poltergeist.
Director Lesie Manning infuses the show with a creeping dread that follows the viewer throughout the program, Pipes’ influence is felt from minute one but Manning uses video tricks and expert camera movement to really make the viewer question, did I see that? Is the ghost there or not? For some great examples of this pay close attention to Craig Charles as he interviews Arthur Lacey (look behind the woman with the blue coat) and Dr Pascoe as she plays the recording of her first encounter with the spirit. None of the characters ever acknowledge the ghost directly but the audience knows something is wrong even subconsciously so when things finally reach the crescendo at the end the audience is on the edge of their seat. There are only two jump scares in the entire thing, one of those is a prank Charles plays on Greene as she and the girls are bobbing for apples with the other is nothing more than a startled cat but is there something in the reflection of the patio door?
Ghostwatch is something truly special and while it is most definitely a product of its time and it can be obvious that some of the actors are reciting from the script, if you let it suck you in you’ll be gripped from beginning to end and you’ll see just what a pioneering piece of television this was.
