As Halloween approaches and our minds turn to things creepy and ghoulish I am reminded of the first-ever broadcast to capture, on live television, a true case of demonic haunting and possession. BBC’s Ghostwatch, based ever so loosely on the successful Crimewatch format, installed the lovely Sarah Greene and irascible Craig Charles (Red Dwarf) and a BBC film crew in the, allegedly, poltergeist-plagued home of Pam Early and her two daughters Suzanne and Kim. Over the course of the program events, a series of eerie and unsettling events took place culminating in an attack on Sarah Greene by the suddenly embodied spirit of "Pipes," the family’s sinister and dangerous visitor from beyond the grave. And then there was the altogether more terrifying prospect that the live broadcast had acted as a psychic amplifier to create a huge nationwide seance, unleashing the restless forces of the dark beyond upon Britain. The final seconds of airtime showed the impossible truth - the studio had been taken over and legendary presenter Michael Parkinson himself had been possessed by the malevolent spirit of "Pipes."
Or did you miss this newsflash - and it was news though obviously not news of the "Great Britain overrun by ghouls" variety for the show was a dramatization, after all, with such an implausible and sensationalistic outcome, who could possibly have thought it to be genuine? Who indeed.
It was shortly after the Halloween of ’92 that I first heard of Ghostwatch on the Network news here in the States. It was reported that some viewers were so deeply disturbed by what they took to be a bona fide live telecast that they resorted to drastic measures when confronted by this invasion from beyond the grave. I quickly got in touch with some of my mates in the UK and they told me that rumors were rife that people had committed suicide in response to the show and that the controversy was all they were talking about down the pub.
Naturally I had to see this but after taking such a public relations beating it was clear the BBC weren’t going to be releasing it to video any time soon. Luckily one of my friends was going out the night it aired and had recorded it. Unfortunately he didn’t get around to sending it to me for a couple of years but when he did I couldn’t wait to see what all the fuss had been about. As I prepared to watch Ghostwatch I tried to put myself in the position of someone who knew nothing of the history of the program and while pretending you don’t know what’s going to
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