g j
I guess you had to be there. This was just boring and silly when taken out of the context as a 1992 live BBC broadcast. The acting is pretty cringe too.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
05/02/24
Full Review
Mike P
This movie's reputation proceeds it...And it's MOSTLY deserving..
Creepy found footage type mockumentary; reminds me of things like Amityville Horror; Blair Witch Project, also Poltergeist,
Paranormal Activity and even Late Night With the Devil...which has a BBC Anchorwoman accepting a dare to stay overnite in a haunted house in Old London with her film crew...with unexpected results. Some chilling scenes...
Overall: Thumbs up
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
04/09/24
Full Review
Jonathan G
Ghostwatch is as inventive as it is stunning and unnerving, which is quite a lot. A very believable mockumentary, this actually managed to scare me? God it's great. I love it. When we use the term "experiencing cinema", this is what we're talking about. Absolutely great and terrifying stuff. Horror gold.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
03/25/24
Full Review
Kay C
The found footage flick I hold all others in the same genre to. Hard to top.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/19/24
Full Review
stephen w
See scares me today since it was on tv
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
12/15/23
Full Review
Theron R
I've always been an absolute sucker for horror films that use the found footage and live broadcast concept. In a genre that constantly asks us to suspend our disbelief in worlds of vampires, zombies, masked killers, & more, found footage/live broadcast films seek to get under our skin by framing what we're seeing as the actual truth. More often than not, these stories are not presented "live", meaning that typically we're given some sort of explanation at the beginning or at the end stating that this footage was found but not the filmmakers, and in some instances it can be disconnecting from the presentation of the film. 1992's Ghostwatch presents the events of the film "live" and in "real time" giving it a sense of credibility that was hard to come by at that time.
Ghostwatch is presented as a live broadcast hosted by Anchor & Journalist Michael Parkinson, where he and his co-hosts along with various guests seek to show concrete evidence of paranormal phenonema. Pamela Early (Hope Street, Peaky Blinders) and her daughters Suzanne (Michelle Wesson) and Kim (Cherise Wesson) are being tormented by an apparent ghost in their Foxhill Drive London home, and have reached out to local media outlets for any help they can get with the problem. The Ghostwatch crew come and set up, not expecting to find much in the way of evidence but will instead find out that their investigation will only make things much much worse.
I typically don't have many issues watching older horror films, especially those from the 90s, but it's a different story with this kind of movie. In today's world, photo and video recording has evolved so much that it can seem out of place when we're not getting things like Drones, 360 cameras, ring cameras, and the such, so even with all the praise Ghostwatch had been getting, I was hesitant because I couldn't shake the question of "How good is this actually going to look?". Well apparently pretty damn good, because Ghostwatch is without a doubt one of the best horror films I've seen recently and very well may now be my favorite found footage/live broadcast horror film.
One of the biggest things that sets Ghostwatch apart is that in a lot of these films, the filmmaker is immersed in what's happening. They're in the house, or the abandoned mental institution, or haunted amusement park, they're right there where the action is happening and that makes them susceptible to the danger at hand. While Ghostwatch does have host Sarah Green and her camera crew at the Early's Foxhill home, we constantly go back into the studio with main host Michael who offers his own commentary on the events throughout the film. This not only helped to continue the immersion of reality that was set up, but when the movie really started getting scary (and it does) the consistent cutting back to the studio offered a much needed reprieve from the haunting taking place. Not only that but Parkinson consistently taking opportunities to call out a lot of what we're seeing and hearing as special effects and fake was incredibly effective, in other films, we absolutely know that that person will regret their words (as they're usually right in the thick of things), here we have zero reason to expect that anyone beyond who's at the Early's home could be in danger, and we soon learn that's not the case. Ghostwatch hammers this home by having the studio run a hotline during the night's events taking phone calls from callers who have experienced supernatural phenomena of their own. Because the movie continually has you wondering whether or not the events transpiring are real, that ends up working it's way into the phone calls as well, and as these calls eventually become part exposition, it's one of the creepier standouts of the film.
From the opening alone though some of you will likely start feeling a sense of familiarity with the Early's story, and there's a good reason for that as Stephen Volk who wrote the film based the Early's haunting on the Enfield Poltergeist, and if you're not familiar with that off the top of your head then maybe you're more familiar with The Conjuring 2? Now while The Conjuring 2 looked to tell the "true" story of Peggy Hodgson and her children's haunting, the film obviously (along with the rest of that franchise) is not presented as a true story. The Conjuring 2 is a fantastic film, so when I say that Ghostwatch presents this story much better, that should tell you something. It's also very clear just how much Ghostwatch has influenced quite a number of similar films in the decades since, The Blair Witch Project, Séance, Host, and while some filmmakers like Jed Shephard (Host) have admitted how much the film has shaped certain work of theirs, even if others haven't stated it, it's abundantly clear.
Ghostwatch undoubtedly offers a lot in the way of scares, between Michael, Sarah, and the Earlys, because we as the audience are given multiple perspectives to look at the events through, it makes it a much more accessible film so that everyone can find a way to enjoy it.
It should be pointed out as well that Ghostwatch IS a TV movie, so when it was initially presented even though the opening credits clearly point out there are writers and the film was aired under the Screen One Drama banner, it caused a bit of a panic for the BBC as it's presentation understandably made a lot of people believe they were watching a 100% true breaking news broadcast. The fact that so many of the cast were playing barely fictionalized versions of themselves added to this, there was a real panic to the point where the BBC fielded as many as 30,000 calls from viewers who were frightened over the possibly real events!
Ghostwatch will find a way to get under your skin, and for good reason, it's a perfect pairing with your other favorite found footage films and you can rent it right now thru your favorite streaming platforms
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
09/29/23
Full Review
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