By Guest Contributor Claire Waddingham
About three weeks ago, in that dreary post Christmas period, I found a copy of Ghostwatch in one of the local charity shops. It was only a quid, and as it was Sunday, and I wanted a bit of nostalgia, I decided to fork out to watch it. I figured that the last time I saw it, I was 15 and was absolutely terrified by it. Now I’m 38, and reckoned that watching it on a semi-sunny afternoon, with my phone to tweet from and a cup of tea, I couldn’t possibly be scared by it. Could I?
Wrong. I’d forgotten how frightening this particular BBC classic is – and also, how scared I’d been by it as a teen. If you’re sitting there laughing, well, that’s your problem. I grew up with parents who had strict rules about what was and was not suitable for kids to watch, they respected the ratings system, and I am very glad they did. So, unlike a lot of writers here, I hadn’t seen films like Hellraiser at this point. Ghostwatch was my first truly, properly shocking horror experience…and it was on THE BBC!
If you’ve never seen Ghostwatch, here’s a brief synopsis. It’s a faux-documentary, originally broadcast on Halloween 1992, starring Michael Parkinson and Sarah Greene as TV presenters, conducting a ‘live broadcast’ of a properly haunted house. Except the house isn’t a Gothic mansion. Its a bog-standard 1930s Council semi, in a dreary street in a dreary suburban corner of London. Anyone could live there. You could. And the victims of this haunting aren’t a crabby old couple. They are a single mum, and her two teenage daughters. In retrospect, this was quite groundbreaking – single mums were the hate figures of the Conservative government of the day – the idea that single mums could be harassed, careworn, and trying to do the best for their children in difficult circumstances was a view the media preferred to ignore, and this particular single mum was at the end of her tether with her hideous haunted house. Jokes about the awful early 90s decorating soon dropped away as the real plot began to bite.
The hauntings themselves were unveiled as the 90 minute programme wore on. Greene was in the house as a live reporter, whilst Parkinson was in the studio with an expert parapsychologist. Back in the house, some very weird, and frankly, horrible things unfolded. Banging, thumping noises. Strange wails. An eerie presence. Scratches on the body of one of the children. And a child speaking in a voice that was not her own. Even at 38, knowing full well it was a scripted drama that had been framed to look like a live broadcast, it’s still pretty horrific. Or maybe I’m a big wuss…
I can honestly say I did not want to go to sleep that night. Maybe I do have an over active imagination, but the ending was especially terrifying – although my dear father did lighten the mood by shouting “Thank God! No more Going Live!” (which Greene presented at the time!) but the things that happened – they scared me. Mainly because they indicated to my teenage self that there was something on the other side, but also that delivered effectively, supernatural horror can be very frightening indeed.
Being a historian, I did some research. I found out that the shocks in Ghostwatch were based upon the infamous Enfield poltergeist hauntings of the late 1970s, which to this day still divide and baffle researchers and those with an interest in the paranormal. I confess that I do like the type of ghost hunting programmes filmed as ‘real’, although the Americans leave us in the dust for scares. And, crucially, Ghostwatch turned me onto horror films – Candyman and Hellraiser are two supernatural shockers that I absolutely love, and I came to them in the aftermath of a BBC drama. Oh, and don’t forget the original Poltergeist – a real horror classic that despite its rubbish sequels and dreaded Hollywood remake is still terrifying, 35 years on.
So, I can honestly say that shocking as it was to me as a teenager – and only having watched it once again 23 years later – Ghostwatch helped spur me onto some absolute gems of horror. Its legacy has stayed with me and helped to mould my tastes in horror cinema. In my book forget flesh eating torture porn gonzos – the elegant chills of the supernatural get me every time.