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GHOSTWATCH (BFI, 1992) Director: Lesley Manning. Hacktors: Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Mike Smith, Craig Charles. Rating: Cutting Remarks: Looking back, it's incredible that it was allowed to happen at all. Yet, on the night of Halloween 1992, a straight-faced BBC1 broadcast a spoof live TV show investigating ghostly phenomena around the country. Most of the focus was on one household which was supposedly being haunted by an entity called Mr Pipes. An audience of around 11 million watched as Sarah Greene (at that point a big-name TV presenter along with husband Mike Smith) entered the house with a camera crew, hoping to catch something spooky. Meanwhile, Michael Parkinson acted as studio anchorman, observing the proceedings with a wry cynicism.       At the end of the programme, it all seems to go horribly wrong, with Greene coming to an unseen, supernatural fate and Parkinson's studio descending into near darkness. Then thousands of viewers complained. The show was blamed in the media for the subsequent suicide of one viewer and the BBC promptly washed their hands of the whole thing. Only after the millennium was Ghostwatch allowed out on DVD.       Watching it now, two things are apparent. Firstly, this was surely an influence on 1999's The Blair Witch Project - the frantic camera work towards the end and the footage playing tricks with your mind strongly recall that fright classic. Rumours have suggested that the Blair Witch crew admitted some influence from Ghostwatch, but these have apparently yet to be substantiated. Unfortunately, the second observation is that it's not nearly as convincing as it could have been. Scriptwriter Stephen Volk has since claimed that it was never his intention to fool the audience, but this sounds like back-pedalling, given the lengths he went to make everything from speech to scene switches feel authentic. The main problem is the acting: some of the thespians here can handle the demands of naturalistic performance and some can't. Sadly, the plot largely revolves around two young girls in the Pipes house, who are predictably less than convincing.       Having said that, Ghostwatch remains a joy to watch. It is quite brilliant in many ways. Towards the end, the more suggestible audience members must have been scared witless as it really does become quite disturbing. Beyond its influence on Blair Witch or Chris Morris' wonderful Brass Eye, the true test of Ghostwatch's mettle must be whether it stands up as drama: and it does. It's great fun, and it's tragic to think that the BBC - or anybody else in this country - would never dare do anything so adventurous again. DVD Extras: Shooting Reality is a look at the shooting script with commentary from Lesley Manning. There's also an audio commentary from Manning, Volk and producer Ruth Baumgarten. And DVD-ROM content including various stages of the script. What was really needed here, however, was a documentary about the programme's genesis and effect on the nation. Maybe the BBC was less than keen... Release Date: Was released in the UK on November 25, 2002. [Check it out at Amazon UK] [Reviews Menu] [Home] © Copyright Slasherama 2002-present