101 Films: Ghostwatch (1992) - Reviewed

Images Courtesy of 101 Films

In 1938 for a special Halloween episode of the radio series the Mercury Theater, eventual actor-director Orson Welles performed an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1898 science-fiction horror classic The War of the Worlds.  Presented as reality over the radio broadcast, it incited a nationwide panic among listeners who thought news of a real Martian alien invasion was taking place, prompting a public apology from Welles who remarked he did not intent to cause such a stir among the American people.  Over half a century later in the United Kingdom circa 1992, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) pulled off the same feat with their televised mockumentary video broadcast Ghostwatch, a film that somehow caused an even greater and more dangerous furor than anything Welles and crew concocted in 1938. 

 
Aired once as part of a (you guessed it) Halloween special, the TV special created by Stephen Volk and directed by Lesley Manning presented real news anchors including Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, husband Mike Smith and comedian Craig Charles investigating the English home of a mother and two daughters who claim their house is haunted.  The program lasting just over an hour initially is a sobering takedown of ghost hunting shows before turning into an effects heavy horror bonanza so terrifying it engendered some 1,000,000 phone calls of freaked out viewers.  One eighteen-year-old teen even took his life after the film played on television and the BBC briefly filed it away, meanwhile two cases of PTSD among 10-year-old child viewers were reported.  The program was never shown on British television again.
 
Now decades later, the BBC and boutique label 101 Films have rereleased this television special as one of the forefathers next to Cannibal Holocaust and predating such fare as The Blair Witch Project as one of the consummate faux documentary found footage epics.  Predating such fare as Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County which was shown on UPN and also prompted its own measure of controversy among viewership who thought it was authentic, Ghostwatch unlike some of the other programs that have come and gone had the backup and canonization of the British Broadcasting Coproration, giving it an added layer of plausibility.  Having real TV personalities onscreen with a very real official call-line taking in calls from “real-time viewers” also furthers the notion we’re watching a news broadcast rather than a preplanned hoax.

 
Alongside Michael Parkinson giving a distinguished and composed performance as an unassuming news caster unaware of the encroaching danger is fictional Dr. Lin Pascoe (Gillian Bevan) who is writing a book on the Early family consisting of mother Pamela (Brid Brennan) and her two daughters Kim (Cherise Wesson) and Suzanne (Michelle Wesson), the focus of the Ghostwatch program.  During it, we learn of some sort of malevolent entity simply known as “Pipes” who bangs on walls, throws furniture about and leaves cuts and scratches on Suzanne’s face.  Later still, Suzanne’s voice inexplicably deepens as monstruous demonic voices come out of her mouth.  Though the host Michael Parkinson and many others have their doubts, over time more and more strange activity starts to manifest and soon all Hell breaks loose extending far beyond the confines of the haunted house and back into the television studio itself.
 
Post-broadcast, the real terror began when the BBC began fielding over 30,000 phone calls from enraged parents claiming it kept their kids up all night while others claimed the film unleashed real demonic entities into the world.  The worst example of all being the aforementioned suicide of an 18 year old who left a suicide note blaming Ghostwatch for confirming the existence of ghosts in our universe.  After prompting lawsuits and general public furor and dismay that more wasn’t done to differentiate it from nonfiction works, the BBC more or less buried the program and for awhile there pretended it never existed.  In the years since however, it invariably garnered a cult following because, really, how could it not? 
 
Despite not being recast on British television anytime soon, in 2002 the British Film Institute released the film on VHS and DVD and around 2011 101 Films released it on DVD, not long before the BBC itself finally came back around on the film in 2016 when they made it available as part of their Frightmares collection.  With the new 2023 re-release on the film on 101 Films blu-ray as well as making it over to digital streaming platforms, modern moviegoers accustomed to the overabundance of the found footage aesthetic will be enamored and delighted by this still-ahead-of-its-time televised gem and its sense of vastness. 

 
Sometime in 2013, Richard Lawden directed a retrospective documentary film Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains which reunited many of the key players originally involved, further cementing the status of Ghostwatch as one of the quintessential mockumentary horror shows of the 1990s.  While in the years since such companies as Blumhouse or Shudder or series like the V/H/S films have continued to flood the horror marketplace, Ghostwatch harkens back to a time when unsuspecting audiences had no idea what they were getting themselves into.  Ultimately, proof positive that despite the furor following the broadcast, the BBC unleashed something truly special that tested our own relationship with and further expanded the possibilities of the television screen.

--Andrew Kotwicki