Bonehead-XL Imagine in the early nineties, long before reality television was established as a format, ABC took cameras inside of a real haunted house. Imagine established television personalities like Diane Sawyer, Alex Trebeck, and Tim Allen were involved in the problem. What if seemingly genuine ghostly activity was caught on camera? What if things went terribly wrong? And what if it was all presented as 100% true? "Ghostwatch" did something much like that, involving recognizable BBC personalities in a convincing recreation of a haunting. It wasn't real, of course. Any one who noticed the opening and ending credits probably could have realized that. But tell that to the frightened, fooled television audience. People called in amass, complaining. Most tragically, an autistic child, taken in by the program, killed himself from the trauma. "Ghostwatch" was never aired again.The effectiveness of a program like "Ghostwatch" is dependent totally on how believable it is. Getting the most trusted newscaster in the world to go along with the prank wouldn't matter if the whole could be laughed off as a gag. Luckily, "Ghostwatch" is committed totally to verisimilitude. The structure of the film is calculated to appear as realistic as possible. The rhythm of any live television documentary is matched perfectly. The live feed of the family inside the house is cut back and forth with banal interviews with experts or previously recorded ghost stories. The mindless chit-chat between the hosts match the tone. This sets up the precedence of reality.The freakiness of the unspooling events slowly escalates. "Ghostwatch" is, if nothing else, an exercise in deliberate pacing. The film drawls from witnessed poltergeist phenomena. The opening features children awoken in their bed by banging on the walls. We see the pictures of the oldest sister covered with cuts. A mysterious wet spot appears on the carpet, perfectly circular. Photographs fly off the wall. The girls are consistently more worried. The temperature in their bedroom drops while their skin remains warm. The banging in the walls becomes more frequent. Video becomes distorted and slowed down. A stuffed bunny is found floating, eyeless, in the sink. The sound of cats crying and scratching overwhelms the dialogue. This all leads up to the film's most frightening moment. The boards on the crawlspace door are pulled off. The door slowly opens on its own accord. The audience catches a brief glimpse of Pipes before the camera cuts away. "Ghostwatch" isn't over after that, about ten minutes left to go, but the film obviously peaks in that moment.Have I mentioned Pipes? The central villain of "Ghostwatch" is a ghostly apparition of a balding man in a gray dress, his eyes and face scratched out. The ghost is never seen clearly, only in shadows or brief flashes. Some of these are very quick. The camera pans around the room, the spirit standing next to the girl's window. Panning back quickly, he's gone. Others are completely subliminal. He is briefly glimpsed in reflections or the background. "Ghostwatch" manages to build up an impressive mythology behind its villain over a series of three phone calls. A supposedly live caller rings in, discussing the haunted history of the area. We learn a baby farmer drowned infants in that house. Later on, in a sobering monologue, a different caller relates the history of the home's previous tenant. Normally, I'd be against a character just talking about the story's background. However, like Robert Shaw in "Jaws," sometimes the camera just needs to stop and listen.Being presented as true, the increasingly concerned callers were presumed to be real people as well. Viewers from all over the country report strange poltergeist activity. Without spoiling too much, the program suggests that, after Pipes and his nasty supernatural cronies are done ruining the Early's lives, they're coming for you. A lot of fiction attempts to yank the carpet out from under the viewer. Most come of as horribly hokey. "Ghostwatch" is presented so realistically, its program so convincingly spooky, you buy. I'll probably leave the hallway lights on tonight… It does take a patient viewer to enjoy "Ghostwatch." When Michael Parkinson and Dr. Lin Pascoe are looking at warped spoons, you'll be forgiven if your attention wanders. Similarly, a subplot involving a skeptical scientist in New York doesn't pay off much. The acting from Brid Brennan, as the oldest Early daughter, is a bit ropey at times. However, it's very easy to see why this program freaked people out. Still obscure in the States, "Ghostwatch" definitely deserves to be more widely seen. It's a shame "reality" TV ghost hunting shows, found footage films, and YouTube video hoaxes have made a similar experiment impossible. No one would buy "Ghostwatch" at face value today. Watching it on Halloween night, during the witching hour no less, I found myself believing. Just for a minute anyway.

Bezenby Just watched this again for the first time on DVD (It's available on Virgin On Demand) with my wife, who missed it first time around. Granted, when you know (now) that it was all a fake, then some of the power of the film is diminished, but it still managed to creep me out quite a bit.The first time I watched it I was fifteen and had missed the initial credits, and was well suckered in. Not quite daft enough to believe it was real, but there was still a pure sense of dread as cheesy TV presenters like Mike Smith and Sarah Greene seemingly got involved in a live Halloween broadcast that got out of hand. I did sit there thinking 'is this real or not?' - can't imagine what I would have though had I been younger, though. Tons of subtleties abound, as the tension builds and things move from the cheery British documentary to full-blown paranormal chaos. I won't go into the details here because it's worth watching fresh. My wife didn't think it was that scary (although she enjoyed it) but she said that was down to knowing it was a hoax. Still a classic though. A definite must-watch for any horror fan.

Shawn Watson Having seen two different ghosts on separate occasions in my life, then my answer is, most definitely, yes. And no, I wasn't dreaming. I wasn't allowed to see this show back when it originally aired back in 1992, my mother and aunt were busy keeping the living room for their own drunken yacking. But I did sneak in a couple of times and saw a couple of definitive bits such as the ghost of Pipes appearing behind the curtains. I never knew it was a sham at the time but was intrigued nonetheless. Afterwards, BBC 2 screened Halloween 2 and I was more freaked out by that. But then came Sunday and the whole of Britain was buzzing about it.That particular Saturday night was probably the most iconic Halloween in a long time. The BBC even kept the show hidden away for many years afterwards because of all the controversy it stirred up. So anyone who has memories of being scared back then have not been able to see the show up until recently since the British Film Institute released a DVD. Fifteen years on, in the middle of a reality TV craze and with inattentive audiences, Ghostwatch would certainly not work in 2007. People now are just too cynical and no one really watches TV on a Saturday night now. There are many other distractions. It was the fact that so many people at Halloween parties, kids and adults alike, were fooled by this that made it so notorious. And there was hardly any advertising for Ghostwatch either and the only way people would know what was on is by checking the TV guides. Now we have the internet and almost every element of a production is scrutinized before anyone sees it.You could say that it was part of Ghostwatch's power that despite hardly any advertising and being bookended with 'this is not real' that was taken so seriously. But that would an absurd statement. It's a pretty 50/50 affair. The acting and direction is often stale and clumsy but the subliminal shots of Pipes going unnoticed by the crew make it so brilliant to watch.Set up like a Crimewatch show we have Parkinson in the studio with a Parapsychologist discussing the Pipes phenomena and other ghost stories while Sarah Greene and Craig 'No Talent Whatsoever' Charles are on location in a council estate where Pipes the ghost is making life a misery for the Early family. As you can imagine, there's a lot of hand-held camera action and quick glimpses of the ghost. I've spotted about seven but there may be more.It's rather dated and badly acted but it's still got enough in it to be interesting in these cynical times. Just try to blank out Craig Charles, why he was chosen to be in this I'll never know. I just wish that the BBC went further and push Ghostwatch to the max instead of mainly just playing it safe.

Simon I was 16 years old (maybe i should have lied about my age when it was on) and in hospital when i watched this. Yes i thought it was real. Yes i was rummaging for change for the hospital payphone to ring in. and yes i felt a pratt when it wasn't real - i blame the anasetic and medication i was on.Whoever thought this programme up, did a fantastic job. Its a one off, never can be repeated as it would be recognised instantly as a hoax. The whole story and play along is and was so convincing, the acting from even the children was brilliant and well done as it was believable im sure it had a lot of people fooled. Also, another of these couldn't be made as the supernatural TV world is flooded with the likes of Most Haunted (not knocking it, love M.H) so it couldn't be carried off as well as this was back in 92