Ghostwatch

I still haven’t seen many of the found footage/mocumentary movies other than  The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, but I’ve almost actively avoided the Paranormal Activity series, for… who knows why. I think perhaps the hype scared me away.

(Scared me.  Heh.)

So I decided to go back to one of the best examples of the genre, Ghostwatch, from the BBC in 1992.

A single mother and her two daughters are being bothered by a ghost in their suburban London house.  A paranormal researcher has joined with the BBC, broadcasting from the studio while a team of reporters is on the scene on Halloween night.

It’s amazingly effective.  It’s slow and quiet, aside from the shreiking of two little girls, until the end as things accelerate til things go very, very wrong.

Apparently the effect Ghostwatch had on the viewers was quite unsettling, including, tragically, a suicide. It reminded me of 1983's Special Bulletin, about an atomic bomb threat in Charleston, and 1938's The War of the Worlds., except there are time gaps in those pieces while Ghostwatch takes place in real time.

I have to say it’s one of the creepiest pieces I’ve seen, at one in the morning, chilling, raising goosebumps.

Normally, I wouldn't link to youtube for something like this, but it's just too good not to share.