Find a copy of "Ghostwatch" on DVD
Click here to watch the whole of Ghostwatch courtesy of YouTube
In this notorious "live" coverage, the most up-to-date television technology seeks to show proof of the supernatural in the first transmission from an alleged haunted house on Halloween night, 1992.
Ghosts no longer inhabit stately homes or rattle chains. They live in ordinary council houses like that of Mrs Pamela Early and her two children. For months the family has suffered strange noises, awful smells and bent cutlery, but is hers really the most haunted house in Britain as the tabloids claim?
For the first time, BBC TV turns its cameras on the subject of the paranormal, and sends its intrepid reporters to investigate ghoulies, ghosties and things that go bump in the night...
Are they real, or just make-believe?
Watch a clip from "Ghostwatch" on YouTube
"Extraordinary... a thrilling ghost story MR James would be proud of" SFX
"A work as ingenious as it is notorious" The Zone
"For sheer fright levels this has to be the one" Simon Clark
"The only truly hair-raising piece of television this decade" - David Protheroe (Chapter Arts Centre)
"A legend in the history of spooky television" Cornerhouse, Manchester
"One of the scariest TV shows I've seen" Hunter Peters, Suite 101
"One of the most complained-about BBC programmes ever" Joe McNally, Fortean Times
"One of the great 'Do you remember' moments of British television" Creature Corner
"They should all get a BAFTA for it" Letter to Radio Times (21-27 Nov 1992)
"The BBC's legendary Halloween special" - BFI
"A hugely prescient and perceptive moment in television history" - David Sutton, Fortean Times
"This BBC drama is legendary, and rightly so... years ahead of its time" Ian Berriman (DVD review, SFX magazine)
"…about as subversive as TV can get" Jerry Glover in Headpress 22
"A brilliant and complex bit of television and outstanding work of horror. It used all the devices of television to frighten, and frighten to make a point. And that point is as relevant, perhaps even more so today as it was in 1992" Samhain magazine
"A rare instance of inspired, creative and challenging TV production... I'll never forget Ghostwatch" ShortList.com
"It's not a huge stretch to say we are living in a post-Ghostwatch world, where the blurring of the lines between fact and fiction has accelerated. Only (...) now the people putting on the frighteners are our political lords and masters, who use scare tactics to justify corrupt wars and (...) curtailment of civil liberties..." Peter Tennant's blog, Black Static online
"Ghostwatch, in its own little way, was as much of an epochal TV event as the Kennedy Assassination" thecustardtv.com
"Genius" Mark Gattiss
"Superb" Scott Mathewson, The Stage
Directed by Lesley Manning
Producer: Ruth Baumgarten
Executive Producer: Richard Broke
(1992, BBC1 Screen One Special, TX: October 31, 1992)
Michael Parkinson...................Himself
Sarah Greene........................Herself
Mike Smith............................Himself
Craig Charles........................Himself
Dr Lin Pascoe........................Gillian Bevan
Mrs Pamela Early....................Brid Brennan
Suzanne Early.......................Michelle Wesson
Kim Early..............................Cherise Wesson
Cameraman..........................Chris Miller
Sound Recordist....................Mike Aiton
Alan Demescu.......................Mark Lewis
Dr Emilio Sylvestri.................Colin Stinton
Arthur Lacey.........................Derek Smee
As yet, Ghostwatch has only ever been repeated on television outside of the UK, on stations such as Canadian digital channel SCREAM (for Halloween 2004) and the Belgian channel Canvas in 2008. In 2002, the British Film Insitute released a "10th Anniversary" edition on VHS and DVD.
Read the Wikipedia entry on "Ghostwatch" here
An extensive, authoritative article on "Ghostwatch" by Stephen Volk exclusive to Fortean Times
Watch the original viewers' responses on the BBC "Points of View" programme with Anne Robinson
Extract of Stephen Volk on "100 Greatest Scary Moments" ("Ghostwatch")
"Ghostwatch" entry on Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film and Television website
Join the fan site: "Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains" YouTube channel (includes "Biteback" extract, clips, and many viewer comments
Become a Follower of "Ghostwatch: BtC" at the GW BtC Blogspot
Go to the "Ghostwatch" entry on the BBC Cult website
Read Michael Parkinson's personal blog entry on "Ghostwatch"
In the 31 Jan-6 Feb 2004 edition of Radio Times, "Ghostwatch" made an appearance as 3rd most spooky TV show ever, beaten only by "The X-Files"
and "Stephen King's It"
Ghostwatch was also cited by the BMJ as being the first television programme to be responsible for post-traumatic stress disorder in children (4 Feb 1994).
There is a section devoted to Ghostwatch in the book "Panic Attacks: Media Manipulation and Mass Delusion" by Robert E Batholomew & Hilary Evans (Sutton Publishing). The programme features in the chapter "Media-Made Monsters: Four Tall Tales and Why People Believed Them".
Ghostwatch also features as a case study in the book "Media Studies: Texts, Production & Context" by Dr Paul Long and Tim Wall (Longman, 2009) in the chapter "Media Texts and Meaning" (p120-121): "Case Study: Snuff Movies and the Boundaries of the Real".
On 29 October 2009 Ghostwatch featured on "Reece Shearsmith's Haunted House" on BBC Radio 4. Mark Gattiss said Ghostwatch was "genius", while Vic Reeves had never heard of it (though he said he had heard of Michael Parkinson!). Hear the clip via YouTube
To read about Halloween and Ghostwatch on www.britishfilms.com, click here
To read Peter Tennant's blog on Halloween and Ghostwatch, click here
What to watch this Halloween... "my favourite - possibly of all time - Ghostwatch"
Halloween Video Vault: Ghostwatch
Interesting new blog on web site MSSV; The Reality Artificers. Subtitled: "How the BBC (i.e. Ghostwatch), Orson Welles, ancient Egyptian scribes and alternate reality game designers all follow the same 3900 year old tradition."
Also, nice to spot on "The Gralien Report" web site essay competition winner Scott Lyall, an independent investigator from the UK, writing "For my money the best film to deal with a Fortean topic was the BBC's Ghostwatch..."