Creeptober Day 31: Ghostwatch (1992)

Creeptober has finally reached the end. We are on day thirty-one of our Halloween horror movie marathon, and for the final spot we’ve chosen a movie that combines spookiness, realism, and nostalgia. This is Ghostwatch, and it is an insidiously creepy movie that is best watched at home, late at night, while you remember (or imagine) a time when you could flip on your TV to a random channel and discover something amazing that you would never forget.

Read on for our thoughts on Ghostwatch (1992) as well as a recap of the movie, and join the conversation on our Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram!

Reacting to Ghostwatch

This was my first time seeing Ghostwatch. I’d heard good things about it, but it’s just one of those movies I never got around to. So I wanted it in our Creeptober marathon partly as an excuse to finally watch it, but also because I enjoy the idea of it. Airing a fake TV show about a paranormal investigation gone wrong, on Halloween night, with real, recognizable hosts playing themselves always sounded brilliant. Plus, the early-1990s television aesthetic is very nostalgic for me. Now, after having seen it for the first time, I can see why it’s still talked about more than thirty years later. It’s great!

Supposedly, Ghostwatch stirred up controversy when it originally aired due to some viewers thinking it was real. How widespread the “panic” was, I don’t know. It could be a situation like the infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938 which scared a few people who thought it was genuine, but how many people it actually spooked was dramatically overblown in the media and in the urban-legend-like status it developed over time. A documentary titled Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains was released about a decade ago which I’m sure answers my questions about the backlash the show received (I’ll probably watch it tonight if I can find it). But regardless, I think any movie that stirs up controversy like this is interesting.

Also, I could totally see how someone would think Ghostwatch is real, at least for a little while, if they missed the brief opening credits. That’s a testament to how authentic the production looks and feels for most of its run time. That authenticity starts with using actual TV hosts as the stars. For people who know Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, and the rest, tuning in to Ghostwatch on Halloween night in 1992 must have felt totally normal. Even for someone like me who doesn’t know most of the hosts, they all appear genuine because they are genuine. Plus, the production never really strays from something you might have seen on television at the time. It’s all very smartly done.

I don’t usually like pitting movies against each other, but I’m going to use a modern movie as a reference for why I think this movie is so effective. In many ways, the basic idea of Ghostwatch is similar to Late Night with the Devil (2023). I think Late Night with the Devil is great, but I prefer the way Ghostwatch handles the format. It doesn’t do anything too fantastical, which makes it so much more believable. I’m also not forced to wonder where certain cameras are coming from, because it all makes immediate sense. For my tastes in found footage and pseudo-documentaries, Ghostwatch allows me to stay immersed in the story more, which makes its impact vastly greater.

While watching, I was struck by the photo Dr. Lin Pascoe shares of a pillow being thrown in the girls’ bedroom. It looked familiar to me, and sure enough, I’d seen something similar before. It turns out that the haunting in Ghostwatch was reportedly inspired by the Enfield poltergeist, which was a case of an alleged haunting in England that received press coverage in the late 1970s. The “real” photo I was thinking of is actually of a girl in the Enfield case who is in mid-flight (supposedly thrown) between two beds, but the similarity is definitely there. And if you look up some of the specifics of the Enfield poltergeist, you can see many parallels with the phenomena portrayed in Ghostwatch. The similarities add yet another layer of authenticity for someone who is into true hauntings and ghost investigations.

The one thing that has plagued this genre of ghost investigations, both fictional and genuine, is unfortunately also present in Ghostwatch. It’s the stereotypes of the snooty skeptic coming into conflict with a defensive believer. In this movie, it’s when Dr. Pascoe is confronted by Dr. Sylvestri via video feed. I understand that it adds a bit of conflict into the story which is needed for drama, but in this movie, and in many other movies and shows, it feels like conflict just for the sake of conflict. It often seems like the writers feel the need to explicitly illustrate some sort of divide between believers and non-believers, but both sides come across as extreme and silly. A healthy dose of skepticism is necessary to find the truth, just as an open mind is needed for any kind of discovery.

Other than the two short scenes with the skeptic, I have nothing even remotely bad to say about Ghostwatch. The pacing might lose some viewers, but I like it. I like a slow build, especially when it comes to found footage and pseudo-documentaries. It makes it feel more real, and that’s why Ghostwatch is so good. I know it’s not real, but, like the words one of my fictional heroes lives by, I want to believe.

Ghostwatch – A Recap

Ghostwatch is a pseudo-documentary presented as a live television broadcast airing on Halloween night, 1992. The Ghostwatch program is hosted in-studio by Michael Parkinson. In the studio with Michael is paranormal expert Dr. Lin Pascoe, and Mike Smith who is in charge of a team taking phone calls from viewers. The goal of Ghostwatch is to investigate a supposedly haunted house in London, and that investigation is performed by a three-person team inside the house led by TV presenter Sarah Greene. Also joining Sarah in the field is comedian Craig Charles who performs interviews.

At the house, Sarah speaks with the family who lives there: Pamela and her daughters Suzanne and Kim. They say that the haunting began the previous year with banging sounds and the feeling of a presence. Pamela initially explained away the sounds as pipes rattling, so as the sounds continued, they just started calling the entity “Pipes.” The youngest daughter, Kim, drew a picture of Pipes and says she saw it in the room under the stairs. Back in the studio, Michael and Lin examine footage from the house that viewers said shows a dark figure, but they explain it away as shadows.

At the house, Pamela shares a story about being stuck inside the room under the stairs and feeling the presence of a man next to her. In the studio, Lin shares an audio tape of Suzanne apparently possessed. She also shows photos of scratches all over Suzanne’s face and neck. Lin says that Suzanne fits the profile for someone at the focus of poltergeist activity, but Pamela disagrees that Suzanne is in any way the cause of the phenomena they’re experiencing.

The house is quiet, so Craig does some interviews with neighbors. He hears a story about a dead black dog found torn apart in a nearby park. He also hears about neighbors helping Pamela and her family when their experiences became overwhelming. At the house, Sarah finds a circular wet spot in the carpet that she can’t explain. She then hears scratching that seems to move around in a room upstairs, and downstairs there is banging. For a brief moment, a strange figure can be seen in the reflection of a glass door, but nobody on the crew notices.

Banging can then be heard upstairs, but one of the cameras spots Suzanne making the noise by hitting a wall. In the studio, Michael assumes everything is a hoax, but Lin searches for reasons to explain Suzanne’s behavior while insisting that the haunting is real. Suzanne admits to performing at least some of the mysterious phenomena herself, but Pamela says her family is telling the truth about the haunting.

As the show takes a break from the house, Michael and Lin take phone calls in the studio (as they’ve done throughout the evening). The calls have turned more serious. A woman calls saying that the clocks in her house have stopped, just like the clocks and watches inside the West London house stop. Also, the caller’s coffee table exploded, and she can’t drag her kids away from the TV as they watch Ghostwatch.

At the house, Suzanne has developed scratches on her face, and she has a fever. A phone call comes in saying that a child-killer used to live in the area of the house a long time ago. Back at the house, Suzanne shows signs of possession, electric equipment starts failing, and Kim says Pipes is talking to her. The sound of cats screeching can be heard coming from the room beneath the stairs. When the crew opens the door, someone can be seen inside the room a split-second before one of the crew is knocked out by a falling picture frame. The video feed from inside the house fails.

The feed comes back, and even though the studio can’t be heard by the people inside the house, everything appears to be fine. Michael and Lin speak to a caller who tells a story about a man who used to rent the house. The man, Raymond Tunstall, was psychologically disturbed, and he killed himself inside the room beneath the stairs. The story includes other gruesome details that support what has been seen and heard inside the house. Lin realizes that the current feed coming from the house is actually a recording from earlier.

Lin comes to the conclusion that the Ghostwatch TV program has essentially been a massive seance. A massive wind starts blowing through the studio, and lights explode. The feed to the house resumes, and everyone except Suzanne, Sarah, and the cameraman have fled. Sarah hears Suzanne in the room beneath the stairs. Sarah opens the door, goes inside, and the door slams shut behind her. The feed goes dark. Back in the studio, people scatter and the lights go out. A dim light comes back on, and Michael, the host, begins speaking like Pipes as cats begin screeching.

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