Found Footage February Day 14 Ghostwatch

Day 14

Ghostwatch

I’ve heard of this film over the years but never saw it.  Sort of the same as the McPherson Tape, but I recently finally saw that one.

And it was hysterical. I mean it was pretty okay, kinda funny. But the ending just…oof.

There was some regret there, But I could still see how people could’ve been into it back in the day. Ghostwatch however I just never seemed to catch, until now.

So how can I turn down the chance to watch a found footage that aired on tv and presented itself as an actual British news special about an actual haunting, that scared people enough they not only believed it, but got mad as hell when they discovered it was fake.

There aren’t many moments like this and I enjoy when they do happen. Even though in other instances its resulted in people being fired. It’s still fun when someone takes a unique approach to something like this. So we can hope it holds up and I look forward to seeing what it has to offer us. After yesterdays movie I’m riding on a high that I’m hoping no film will crush at least for another day or so.

SO

With that said?

Let’s fucking goooooooooooo!

The film

Oh man this is fun. Like right off the bat this is just looking like modern day Ghost Hunters tv show, just done as a news report and I love it.

We start off by our host Michael Parkinson informing us that tonight we are going to be watching a possible haunting live on television. Not from a spooky castle but a regular home. They begin by showing us a small clip recorded from within the house, giving us an idea what we can expect. The clip opens with two girls being recorded in their room as they ready for bed, The little sister gets up at nearly 4am to use the bathroom. Only for the big sister to be stirred out of her sleep by loud banging noises, her little sister enters the room and they scream its happening again, the older sister pleads for whatever ‘it’ is, not to touch her. We see bits of blanket and clothing tossed around and at one point a lamp bulb suddenly burns out and tips over.

It's cheesy as hell, and fun. The camera moves so quickly during this that you have to ask yourselves, was someone standing there like a creeper recording the girls sleeping, was it left on a tripod and the camera operated rushed in once they heard the girls crying out for their mom? Who knows?!

But the fun isn’t so much in the video clip, as it is with the intro to our Ghostwatch crew and show. They have huge trucks dramatically appearing from behind their rollup doors. Each one being loaded with spools of wiring, camera and gear bags. All with dramatic music, a brief glimpse at our ghost crew, and then an intro to their show.

Like I said, it’s cheesy as hell, and I love it.

So on with the show.

The house we are investigating is on Foxhill Drive, and our host is introducing us to their technical expert Dr. Lin Pascoe, as well as what we have to look forward to during their periodic intermissions. Where they shall share the publics ghost stories, as well as taking phone calls FROM the public. On site we have as well a rather nice, comical and oh so loved reporter. The man himself, who got me interested in the fine delicacy that is curry foods. The man himself, Craig Charles who played Dave Lister on the incredible loved and entertaining Red Dwarf. If I needed more reason to love this, I found it. But also it has me wondering how people saw this, saw him, and didn’t think to themselves this was a fake thing. But hey I shall not question it yet, that’s for later.

For now we are learning how the show will operate which is great. I like knowing they have planned segments, an area for phone calls, panel of experts and audience participation , while camping outside the families home awaiting ghost activity, while interviewing Mrs. Early and her family.

Who tell us that at first she blamed her kids for the broken objects around the house which, makes sense, but we also learn aside plates, tea cups, and the like all being broken in large numbers, that there is also a fowl odor in the house that accompanies the haunting spirit. No one can explain it and no one thus far has been able to help.

It isn’t sounded too terribly bad, aside well, the cost of replacing broken kitchen plates of course. But its enough that its scared them out of the home several times. They’ve all witnessed a dark figure at some point in the home and the girls bedroom. The girls even named this entity, which is kind of cute. I mean any time you name an entity it kind of becomes cute, unless you call it hairy angry titty beast.

Which I do not recommend.

Also no, that is not a reference to an ex. Of any kind.

Shame on you.

No, the girls call this entity Mr. Pipes. Because at first they believe it was the pipes they were hearing, until they began hearing it also in their room and claimed it would hide in the corner of their room by the window.

Still calling it cute and I don’t care. Mr. Pipes sounds super British which this is, and is right up there with Captain Howdy from The Exorcist.

You want creepiness, have no fear. We are going to get it, and of course we’ll get it from a cute kid. Because no one delivers creepiness better.

Our creepiness comes from the youngest, Kim. Who informs us she knows where Mr. Pipes lives. Which is a very appropriately creepy boarded up stairwell door. Seriously it’s a wood door with another broken piece of wood laid across the door and nailed shut. Kim tells us how she peeked behind the door through the cracks in it, and saw Mr. Pipes staring at her. She even drew his picture and shows it to our wonderful reporter inside the house. The drawing is, a pretty scant on the details drawing of a somewhat round man with blood leaking out one eye and several cuts along his torso and leg.

She tells the reporter that he’s rather difficult to look at, but is more than happy to put the picture up on the fridge for us.

It still gets me that this came out in 1992, and it somehow manages to look older. But also just how fun this is. Like outside of Craig Charles taking the piss and pulling pranks now and then, it’s  very by the numbers production and it’s not really coming off cornballish or mocking.

Like one of the recent found footage films that tried doing this same formula, WNUF Halloween special. That thing annoyed me more than entertained me. I know what it was going for, and trying to be. But it tried WAY too hard and focused entirely too much on trying to tickle your nostalgia bone with their retro commercials, versus giving you more content, and what content they did give you was paper thin and stretched out way, way too long.

I’m sorry if you are a fan of it, but it just really rubbed me the wrong way. Like walking naked at night through your garage and rubbing your groin against sand paper ‘accidentally’.

This thus far, has been entertaining and seems to be keeping it much simpler and less about trying to be cool. So that of course elevates it already. Because shit man. Who cares if you make good retro mock commercials that look like shit people watch on youtube for hours.

ANY…WAY. Sorry for the rant.

It’s time to move the story along, kind of, and go off into one of their promised segments, which would be sharing stories from collars! Which we discover multiple collars sharing having seen in the footage of the girls bedroom, a dark mysterious figure near the corner of the bedroom.

It’s actually pretty effective and I’m surprised by that.

It’s actually looking like an effect I’ve only a small handful of films utilize. Which is the idea of hiding in plane sight. Having someone stand in the background to a point they blend into the background until they move.

What I like even more about this though, is that they let ‘you’ look at the scene as it plays out, and let you see if you can find the figure. It’s fun because your mind immediately is going to work and yeah its time to put those Highlight Magazine skills to work with finding what doesn’t belong.

Add to that the fact their technical specialist can’t really see anything, so they bring out a small monitor and begin trying to outline the possible shape. Which once they do, you absolutely can tell it looks like something could be there, someone could be.

But the film isn’t going to give us that. They look at it a while and then both our host and technical expert come up with what caused the shape and it’s flagged as a false alarm. It reminded me a bit of JAWS and how they created the theme for the shark. So that way people would ‘know’ when the shark was there even when it wasn’t seen. You didn’t hear the theme when the boys swam around with the fake shark fin, but you heard it when a lady saw the shark headed for the lagoon. It was pretty effective in keeping you on your toes, and I like that the movie is sort of teasing us with that, it knows what we want to see, and it’s going to help feed us bits and pieces but not deliver yet. Just give it time.

And if it doesn’t Oh I will have some words for this movie.

So we’ve heard from the kids and their experiences with Mr. Pipes. What about Mom? What, if any. Has her experience been with Mr. Pipes.

As it turns out, not very pleasant and rather pants crapping scary.

She said she was the one who boarded up the door under the stairs. She didn’t keep Harry Potter down there in the cupboard under the stairs, but she did keep letters and paperwork. So as she needed to pull up a letter from her divorce, she went into that small room to look for it, found it and went to leave. Only to find the small door and shut on her and she couldn’t open it.

She began freaking out because it felt like someone was pushing with all their weight against the door to keep it from opening. She began banging on the door and screaming as she became scared. Hoping her kids would hear her and help out.

Kids can be scared little shits and not help what so ever. But hers she said claimed they never heard her screams. They heard the banging from her on the door, but they also. Heard Mr. Pipes banging and thumping in their room. “It’s Pipes! Mr. Pipes! He’s back!”, the mom fought harder to get out and as she’s telling this story begins to break down a bit, telling the reporter she swears it’s the truth, but she could feel a man in there with her, breathing against her face. His breath stank of rotting cabbage much like the gas coming from my talkative ass. But I didn’t eat any cabbage, just some homemade Texas Red Chili. Which is goddamn delicious.

But back to the movie.

So Mom is getting a face full of stank breath, the kids are hearing thudding and banging in their room, and no one is sleeping well that night. When mom finally broke free of the room she said that she immediately boarded up the door and told everyone to stay the fuck out of there, otherwise it’s their ass, and she WILL make a new kid to replace them. So you know, don’t fuck with mom.

So at that point, Mom tried writing their council and a social worker about having them moved. But unfortunately they were laughed at and told they all needed psychiatric help.

Of course once the news got hold of their story, every British rag out there was immediately out and calling them nut jobs, making it worse by saying they believe the devil is haunting their home, spicing up the story just to make it sound more interesting and insane. Which did not help them what so ever, and just made it that much more difficult to find actual help. So she reached out to television for help, and that’s what brings us where we are at the time of this BBC recording.

Well luckily for us we will get to see Mr. Pipes eventually I am sure wreaking havoc on broadcast television or at least that is the hope. But we. Shall. See. Indeed.

For now let’s just hope things work out for her.

And now for something completely different. They are beginning an introduction into each section of the broadcast studio as we got before and I’m glad they’re doing so for us as it’s pretty fun.  The segment of having people call into the station to tell us they all SAW something in the film was great, but now it’s onto actual collars. Even more so, it’s a chance for the collars to get in contact not just with the shows host apparently, but also with Pamela herself. They’ve even setup a nice little broadcast booth for her outside of her haunted and popular home. Our first caller Sandra Hughes is on the air! She’s calling to sympathize with poor Pamela and relating her own story of having lived in a similar situation where a figure had haunted them, and discovering that said figure was unfortunately a young boy who’d been murdered there, She’s rather shaken in her recollection and with how connected she’d become with the story and the haunted figure, and it’s a nice little momentary break from things. No ones called to call her out yet, which is nice, and it just sort of adds to the whole overall feel of the show.

Which speaking of, we are about to get a real fun treat! This is after all supposed to be spooky and we hadn’t had much of that yet. But for good reason. At least it feels like it, yes. We are learning that our technical advisor on the show, wrote a book based on this haunting and the family. She was part of the original paranormal investigation into these happenings in fact. She also helped conduct some minor test on the family. Nothing major or anything just you know. Strapping the Pamela’s daughter down to a table and filling her daughter Suzanne’s mouth with colored liquid and sealed her lips shut with tape because.

Oh. Right. Well, they did this because for reasons they don’t give and just now decided to lay out there for us. Suzanne has been speaking out in a voice not her own. Which is totally fine of course for a ‘haunting’ and not at all an indication of something far more sinister what so ever.

It’s also funny to note the more of this that comes out and how the story is evolving, the members of the family as well and these test. It’s all very much like the story for the second conjuring film.

Interesting tidbit I know, but WHY DOES SHE HAVE DEMON VOICES COMING FROM HER?! Well lets find out if they actually ARE demon voices, or just some really good ventriloquism.

“Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear, one step two step take her,” that’s the words of Mr. Pipes and, well that’s ever so mildly concerning. They seem to speak in nursery rhyme as well and it’s. Well appropriately creepy. Also damn modern cinema for redoing these scares. Seriously all of this likely to stand out as old treading ground for fans of the Conjuring’s 2nd film. Right down to the British reporters attitude during the whole questioning of the girl channeling the ghost through herself.

Add to that the family being that of a single mom and the idea of a broken family. The only difference from the two really just being the addition of a younger brother. Which again, going back on this film when it was made I would not doubt at all it took heavy inspiration from the actual case related to the Warren’s but who can say for sure, and for now who cares.

It’s just fun but also feels a bit of a shame given that people today might dismiss it for these similarities and not enjoy the ride they signed up for.

Any woozle wazzle.

So we have broken dishes, bent silverware, voices coming from little children, creepy figures seen in the dark and stank breath. Add to that as well the eldest daughter having marks and scratches all over her face, claiming she felt Mr. Pipes walking over her. All of this just sounds like a wonderful summer, in the most horrible way.

Of course why not introduce a skeptic into the story. Emilio! He’s part of a group set on disproving paranormal events. He’s American, he’s from New York, there for he is annoying and unwilling to listen to spoopy stuff, only accepting logic and science. He claims everything presented thus far are all things that can easily be faked. Thrown objects caught on tape during the bedroom scene earlier can all be explained with wires of course. So naturally Dr. Lin believes he’s an absolute dildo. And we are compelled to believe her. Because science has proof that this man has no penis and is in fact, a giant fake cock.

Giant talking dildo’s aside, the show is moving along rather briskly. Sarah our reporter inside the house is happily sharing a story of her own little haunting which is. Mildly concerning when it involved a woman with tightly drawn skin, coal around her eyes, which roll back completely into her skull, and oh you know, just the sounds of screaming and the damned. It’s all rather normal for most of us.

One of the funniest things, unintentionally. Is a small segment where Sarah is interrupted with her perfectly natural story about a rolled back eye lady with tightly drawn back skin, as little Suzanne is tired and wishes to go to bed. So they must do so! The show is moving up the stairs and helping her along to her bed, why is it funny? Because the little girl says she wants to tell her mother goodnight before she goes to bed. Which seems reasonable given the kid has to be a bit scared with everything going on. However mother is not in the house. The show moved her into that broadcasting booth outside earlier if you recall. So Sarah points to a camera in the corner of the hallway and tells her to tell mommy goodnight up at the camera. Of course her mother can hear and see it. It’s just funny as hell to me that the mom is leaving her family inside this haunted by a demon house, the reporter tells the kid the house is perfectly safe and things are fine, like…yeah kid. Everything is totes fine, nevermind the fact mom got the fuuuuuuck out of there and left your asses to deal with Mr. Pipes. So you know, sweet dreams and good luck with that shit.

I love it. But anyway.

So the littlest is left to sleep upstairs, with a camera watching her, As Sarah goes down to the kitchen and begins making tea for the crew and herself, because Coffee is the drink of the weak and Tea is what gives you strength. We all know this to be true, the bean is a lie.

It’s a small break in the show that both hints to us as the crew talk to Sarah about little things they’d noticed or heard around the house during their recording. Clocks stopping, electronics in the house not working, sounds happening here and there picked up by their boom mic. But who cares! It’s time for our other segment, where YOU the people get to share your spooky stories! Yes we have a normal average everyday human male ready to share their ghost story

Its an anonymous man talking about how he and his wife were having a laugh about their bed cover being tugged off their bed, and they thought it was rather funny. That was until they were having themselves a nice Mackerel dinner outside and noticed saliva all over the mackerel. Man I hope that was just saliva. But they stopped eating because well. Spectral spit. So naturally he became rather upset at this ghost for ruining their dinner and he began to cuss out out and tell it to stop all this rubbish at once. So the ghost retaliated and spit at him. He has a spitting ghost, a very saliva happy ghost that enjoys covering his food in spit, his doorstep, his feet. His wife’s brand new hand towels which stay stiff after washing. It’s just odd.

Well he continued to be confrontational and he learned that spirits are very much like cats. When you yell at a dog or spank a dog, they learn they did something wrong and are sorry for it. Cats when you yell at them or spank them, tell you to get fucked and shit in your shoes, piss on your side of the bed and look at you while flashing cat gang signs.

Naturally this ghost did the same to this man, only they smeared shit, literal shit on his cabinet doors and around the house he lived in. You’d think they learned a lesson but, apparently no.

Some people just don’t learn, it’s best to walk away when you have a spectral being spitting on you and wiping shit across your cabinets. So obviously everyone wants to just walk away as promptly as they can from the shit spit ghost story,

So let’s check in with king of curry Vindaloo Sir Craig Charles. He isn’t knighted but he damn well should be.

Having Craig Charles in anything is a bonus, Having Craig Charles in something AS Craig Charles. That’s just a Christmas gift the whole year round. He’s here to keep the funny going and lighten up peoples spirits while, making kindly jokes at spirits because, well it’s Halloween after all, and if this all turns out to be fake then, at least we can say he entertained us. As he always does.

So Craig is taking us on a bit of a break and down the street to talk with a local about other strange goings on about the area, Yvonne Etherly. Yvonne and her friend are being interviewed about their experiences living by the Early family and their demon ghost issues. She shares with all of us how being next door to them they hear rather a lot. Recalling one evening where they all heard banging noises and things breaking. They found the two girls in the garden hiding and offered them tea, which only goes to prove my point further, don’t believe the lies of big bean, Tea is the true helper of even those being hassled by demons.

More importantly though, Yvonne tells us about other, happenings. Like a 5 year old getting knifed at the playground there, and how two boys found a dead black Labrador that had been gutted, and the little fetuses of its puppies strung out around the playground, ripped from the dogs belly, She ends it with telling us how those boys couldn’t sleep after that. Leave it to Craig Charles to find the humor in the situation and agree that yeah he guess’s no one would be sleeping after that and he quickly leaves the woman sharing stories of mutilated dogs and torn out puppies for something a bit more lighthearted. Like a man named Arthur. Arthur had tried to Exorcise the home of Foxhill Drive. He prayed with the family and attempted to remove whatever spirits could be there. The priest said he could sense an overwhelming evil presence, rotting vile evil. The experience left him feeling sick for a week, he also smelt blood for days on his hands after the attempted exorcism. Just as he’s about to get further into it and give us a bit more, we are pulled away unfortunately.

It seems Sarah has some news to report.

If you scare easily, or find yourself weak of heart, I warn you this will be rather intense.. You have been warned.

A scare has occurred within the house while we were gone. The scare turns out to be, a wet circle on the carpet. Someone has likely pissed on the carpet and formed an award worthy perfect circle on the carpet.

Yes, that is why we cut off out segment with Craig. Because of a wet spot on the carpet.

BUT it could be demon piss, or a spitting ghost for all we know. So we are taking this seriously, naturally, so we are testing the above ceiling lamp to make sure water hasn’t dropped down or anything from the ceiling, but the lamp is clean. No moisture no nothing. So we are taking samples now of the possible piss, possible saliva, possible toilet water. It will be taken and tested to find out if it has calcium deposits or anything that would be consistent with water from inside the house.

It's honestly a first as far as I’ve seen with haunting movies and kudos on them for it. But there is more. We are hearing noises now within the house. Scratching along the walls. Sarah the bloodhound reporter is on the case and chasing down the scratching and upstairs noises. At least until the noises begin to intensify from downstairs. As Sarah takes off  for the kitchen, we find Suzanne’s artwork sprawled across the floor, in a trail leading to a circle of crayons on the ground.

Which is rather odd.

Until something more happens and we get full on banging and pounding all around the upstairs of the house. The youngest daughter is burying her head into the bedding of the room while the clanking and banging only increases. Sarah and her crew, in fact the whole show are deeply freaked out, but also concerned, because Sarah has just noticed that, the oldest daughter is nowhere to be seen. She’s not in the bedroom, and she’s not in the hallway. So she tells the studio to operate the hallway camera and scan around. Eventually the camera turns toward the door of the girls bedroom finding it open just a slither, and the camera pans down. As it does, we are FULLY going into where the Conjuring 2 got its basis off of, as we see the eldest daughter Kim pounding away at the side of their door with what looks like a pipe. As she notices the camera she freaks out, slams the door and hides herself under her beds sheet. The jig is up! She has been exposed, caught in 4k etc etc. It would appear she was the source of the haunting noises and now the great veil of mystery is lifted, and Michael Parkinson our distinguished host is upset that we have all been played as fools by a teenage brat. Oh how far the youth of this world has fallen to begin making a mockery of true hauntings for the sake of attention.

Of course this is bullshit and you don’t need to even make a bet on it. This was a case of Kim being told to do this by the demon otherwise it will hurt them or their mother, obviously. Well possibly.

It’s not ruining the film for me, knowing that a lot of this has already played out for me in a recent film. But it does take away some of the surprise while at the same time, it makes me appreciate this film far more. Because it’s doing something the Conjuring sequel had to do through jump scares and loud music, and giving the ‘nun’ a story.

This film is actually creepy, and its not using cheap tricks and jump scares to get there.

For instance. Once it is revealed that the teen daughter might be the one behind all of this, because she didn’t want to lose her mother. The station is ready to shift focus to another haunting story and hope for something far less horrible after having their Dr. on air exposed for having fallen for a girls tricks, tricked their viewers and wasted nearly an hour of their evening on a supposed haunting that never existed. But they are getting a mass flooding of calls. All falling into two different groups.

The first group of calls, are noting their own paranormal happenings. Not just through their life like earlier either, No. These calls are from people claiming that ever since having watched this broadcast, things have been happening to them. They’ve been seeing shadow figures. Hearing noises. A man claims his sandwich plate flew from his chair and crashed into the wall, they assumed he was drunk and dismissed it. A woman called, audibly shaken as she tells them how her home has a solid heavy glass table, and that night her husband touched it with just his finger and the entire thing shattered, cutting his face and hands. Painting the wallpaper in blood, and the entire time, up to the ambulance arriving to take him away, and to the point of her being on air talking. She says her children have not stopped watching the television and their ghostwatch program. They just stare at the screen unresponsive. She actually blames the show and ask how dare they continue to broadcast this, why are they doing this. When she’s told how late it is and the fact her children should be in bed, she tells them how she had no idea what the time was until they mentioned it, because all the clocks in her home stopped at 9:30.

The other group of calls? Are all people calling reporting seeing the shadow figure and what it looks like. All of them saying they can see what appears to be a slinder tall man, with a skull white head, dressed in a black robe or buttoned dress. Like a priest. Or…a nun. Everyone is calling reporting the figure in great detail in the clip from earlier. And other moments during filming that evening. Dr. Lin has the studio play back an earlier clip of herself interviewing Kim about Mr Pipes and asking what he looks like. The girl explains in great detail, exactly what all the viewers were saying they saw. The creepy part about it is that her interview with Kim had never been shown to reporters or the description she’d given of Mr Pipes told to anyone. So how everyone can be seeing the same thing and describing exactly what the girl saw while having had no idea outside of Suzannes very unclear kid art. It raises some concerns to say the least.

Add to that, we can now add an anonymous woman calling in with a story to share, her story is about how growing up, her and her siblings. Whenever they would misbehave. Their mother would tell them to behave or Mother Seddons would come for them.

Mother Seddons, as we learn. Worked as a child-minder. She would collect children from homes and instead of watching over and caring for them, she’d drown them. This woman researched and found out not only was it a real person that did this very real and horrible things. But also scarily enough. She found that the real Mother Seddons, lived Foxhill, and if you couldn’t guess it on your own. She lived in the home our family currently occupies.

All of this? Everything we are being told and fed secondhand, and first hand from callers. Is far and away creepier than the shit in the Conjuring films. And it only gets worse.

There have been moments in the film where “Mr. Pipes” aka Mother Seddons has been visible. They’ve absolutely appeared just vaguely in the girls bedroom at the beginning. They did appear for a second in the bathroom when Sarah rushed in to help with calming Kim down. And if you ever ‘think’ you saw something? I can promise you that you did.

So we are still sticking with the house, because even though it was exposed that one of the girls was possibly faking things. There are still problems persisting at the house. Like the fact Sarah has reported hearing cats. Now earlier we saw one cat, a very lovely fluffy cat outside the house. But now we are hearing dozens of cats, yowling and hissing all around the house and what sounds like in the walls of the house. Mom and Sarah bolt upstairs as it seems that’s the source of this yowling, and what they find in the girls bedroom is the eldest, under her sheet. When they pull it back her eyes are open staring at the ceiling, her face is covered in dozens of what look like cat scratches across her face. Sarah mentions how the room is as cold as an icebox, but the eldest daughter however, is burning with a fever.

Any time they touch her the girl immediately reacts, well. Like I’ve seen myself do when having cluster migraines. She doesn’t scream for them to stop or leave her alone. She just sharply inhales, tenses up and quietly tells them not to touch her. Something is scaring the hell out of her and we can’t see it but she absolutely can.

Once they are able to calm her down the mom has decided this is enough. She is getting her daughters and they are getting the hell out of there. But as they ready to leave, Suzy is not ready to go. She needs to talk to Mr Pipes she says. But mom says fuck that noise, and rushes her daughter from the room. As they do the room comes alive with knocking and banging once more. The cameraman pans back around the bedroom to look over it, and again. If you think you saw something? You fucking did. If you want to see the thing you saw? Pause the film at 1:12:15.

Say hello, to Mother Seddons. This has to be, hands down. And from the 90’s no less. The creepiest looking effect shot of a rotting demon corpse…thing, I’ve seen in ages.

Like if that appeared in the conjuring film instead of a fucking nun with yellow eyes? I would absolutely have trouble sleeping, because holy shit that’s creepy. And seeing it paused on your screen is just that much more so. It’s even better concerting they pull an actual now you see it, now you don’t as once we see that shape, it’s instantly gone a second later with the turn of the camera.

Naturally as soon as the scene happens the Ghostwatch show is getting flooded with even MORE calls. People claiming their microwaves stopped working, their pets are howling, yowling, and going crazy. Kids are making glasses break and video is beginning to distort.

It’s getting insane and they can’t do anything about it.

Michael Parkinson tells them to calm their collective tits and act like professionals. He doesn’t want crackpots on television, this is BBC 1 for gods sake. Not the weekly world news! So he wants to return to the house and ask Sarah how things are going.

Well Sarah tells him shit is just far from fucking fine.

Suzanne is not calming down, and she is curled up behind a chair in the living room. She’s carrying on about how they need to stay and show everyone. That everyone wants to stay and see Mr Pipes, and Mr Pipes wants all of us watching to continue doing so. Sarahs video is going wonky which is always a good sign in these films, and her audio gets so bad at one point she is forced to remove her earpiece because it’s just blowing up the inside of her ear.

And with that, the house is alive once more with thumping, banging and pictures now falling from the walls.

To top it off, Suzanne has begin talking in a demon voice. “What big lips you have, what big lips you have”, her mom has had enough of this shit and demands her daughter stop this crap. As she demands this, Suzanne stops the voice and returns to her own normal voice. Only to end up insulting her mother, about how she ruins everything, and of course she knows they need to leave the house, because it’ll ruin things.

If you can’t tell, things are just going amazing.

Like, super super amazing.

So Suzanne was talking in demon voice, but what about little Kim? Well Little Kim, not to be confused with Lil Kim, is hiding somewhere in the house.

Sarah is on a mission to find her so they can all get their collective asses the hell out of there. She does eventually find her. Just not upstairs or anywhere else you’d think she could be. Instead she finds her in the kitchen. Hiding behind the open fridge. While the sink was left running over a stuffed bunny with no eyes. Kim tells Sarah that Mr Pipes said the rabbit was very naughty and had to be put there, to make things even better, Kim holds her hand out for us and shows us she has the stuffed rabbits toy eyes in her hand.

Again, things are going super amazing.

Well once Kim is going its back to the sound of things bumping, banging and cats yowling. Why? Don’t know. We shall see. I imagine at least. Sarah is fully invested in this now, It’s a game of survival and career making footage, so she’s going for gold on all fronts. She’s rushing the family out but stops when they hear the cats once more. The Boom man is tracking the cat yowling and wouldn’t you know it? It seems to be coming from, of all places. The door that was boarded up under the stairs. So naturally they begin taring at the boards covering and sealing the door, revealing what looks like a red door.

Which. Again. If you pause at just the right moment when they open this door? You will see…well. A man. A bald man, sitting, wearing a dress, with buttons going down its length. Which is what the people described seeing in the girls bedroom. It’s a quick glimpse because the door immediately shuts and glass shatters. A mirror on the wall has exploded and  looks like it, or something worse, has caused the boom man to fall unconscious to the ground and appears to be bleeding from his ears.

At this point we lose video from within the house, just as we hear Kim shouting about being touched, how Mr Pipes has her, is touching her and screaming for him to stop, she screams and the camera feed suddenly ends.

Well now it seems our show might be over with, unless you know. SOMEONE GOES INSIDE TO HELP THEM!!!

MAYBE!!

Seriously all this freaky shit going on and no one has thought to break the door in and get them out of there? I guess it just wouldn’t be very proper, given this is a British family and they would likely think it rude.

Absolutely no one and nothing is of any help, they even think to cut over to Craig Charles and see what he’s up too. Only to discover he’s hanging out, being Craig, hassling trick r treaters and talking shit about ghost and hauntings. CRAIG is a man you could send into that house to rescue people. He’d do it, not for the heroic nobility of it, but just because it’s something to do!

Well Michael Parkinson is getting grumpy and they need something to do, but thankfully it seems that camera feed has resumed inside the house! So is Kim and Suzy okay? How is the Boom mic man? And Sarah?

Apparently they are all super duper fine. They’re sat on the floor by the coffee table and enjoying a nice bit of soda. After midnight because well, I’d make a joke but here we are. Adults. Drinking coke at 2am so…you know.

Even Michael seems a bit put off by this. How they go from hearing screams all around the house from the eldest daughter, who was talking in demon voice, and their sound man bleeding out of his ears. To now everyone having a nice little soda party in the living room, with no audio.

It really is a very….sudden change and not exactly right. But get ready for more fun, as we have yet another caller. A very distressed called with absolutely no plans what so ever to identify himself. But he was apparently a case worker for someone, a very disturbed someone. We learn that the tenants of that house previously, had a hidden room built where they took iin their newphew to care for. This person was Raymond Tunstall. Raymond was a disturbed individual. He was convicted of 7 counts molestation, aggravated abuse, abduction of minors, He was released to their custody from a mental hospital. Obviously he should never had been released into the public but here we are.

As if that wasn’t enough. He used to claim that a woman. Would enter into his body, and make him do things. Things he didn’t want to do. So he began wearing dresses, Like long black dressed with buttons and a petticoat. His delusions got so bad he eventually took his own life. He said Tunstall had hung himself with wire under the stairs in the room they built for him. It’s where they also kept their tools. He’d turned on a laith and it propelled him upward to hang himself. His family members were on vacation for twelve days before his body was discovered. The house, had dozens of cats living there. They began to eventually get hungry and well. Remember the blood marks on Mr Pipes in the drawing? Yeah. The cats began turning to his corpse for food and began eating his face and body.

So we have touches of the Conjuring story AND Insidious. I’m digging it.

The one person NOT digging it however is Michael Parkinson. He believes that this person, as well as the person talking about drowning kids, the flying plates. ALL of them are drunk or rubbish phone calls that are lowering the standard of their very serious ghost show.

A very serious ghost show with a sudden problem with wild wind on their studio stage. Yes they are now dealing with wild gust of wind on the set and our constant professional Michael Parkinson is dealing with it as only he can. With a rugged chin and stiff lip. He is crying out for normalcy and our resident Dr. Lin is beginning to suspect, no she KNOWS what we see on camera is bullshit now. As she watches the feed of the girls being all to happy and chatting with Sara and the sound guy. She notices on the wall perfectly hung up are some of the earlier found hung photos that went flying off and crashing, bursting to pieces.  So she is calling shenanigans on all of this!

So the demon ghost whatever in a dress decides FINE I’ll show you what’s going on. The house is an absolute horror show. Deafening roars and thumping noises, the girls screaming at Mr Pipes “We gave you what you wanted, why, we gave you what you wanted” as the camera feed goes distorted again. The mom is broken, Kim is in tears.Suzanne and Sarah however are not yet accounted for, along with the sound man.

So yes, we have confirmation the girl did what Mr Pipes wanted by making it appear like they were hoaxing things  AND getting the crew to stay for the haunting only to be betrayed, that crafty spiffy demon, ghost…thing.

The police are no longer waiting. They’re flying over to the house and ready to rescue people. But too late you fuckers!!

No not too late as in the family is dead now. Too late as we already have a hero on site. A hero thousands of years and millions of miles away in the making, that’s right Craig fucking Charles. The man is an absolute legend. Jumping in and helping escort Kim and Pamela to the safety they desperately needed. Our sondman has his head bandages up and is being escorted to an Ambulance. All we need now, is to locate Sarah and Suzanne who are STILL unaccounted for even after the chaos.

But thankfully we have camera feed once again in the house. Our brave cameraman is using predator vision on his camera to show us heat signatures and we see in the darkness of the house that he has found Sarah. The two make way for the kitchen in the dark until they uncover a flashlight. NOW we are cooking. The two begin searching the house for Suzanne, but where is she?

Now…I keep calling the door under the stairs, the door under the stairs, I do this for all of you.

Because if I used the movies name for it, you’d all be losing your minds, as I have been. Because I am extremely immature. The door has been called ‘The glory hole’

So yes, when Suzanne again is saying don’t touch me and calling for aid, and Sarah says “She’s at the glory hole”, well yes.

ANYWAY. MOVING FORWARD LIKE ADULTS.

Sarah has made it to the door, but its blocked. It can’t open, there are large gust of wind, and things are absolutely going out of control. But the door at long last opens and Sarah wonders inside to retrieve Suzanne. Only for the door to suddenly slam shut behind her, the cameraman is unable to help stop it from doing so, because he’s carrying a huge ass camera. With that the cats from earlier returning to growling and yowling. So why not cut back to the studio yes? Good idea.

ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE IDEA! The studio is a slobberknocker of cat noises too, high winds, equipment no longer working and Mr. Pipes is in the rafters as well! The whole place is going to British hell in a hand basket and there is no place truly worse and more deserving of the name hell, than British Hell. Trust me on that. But in the midst of this  indoor hurricane of ghost activity, Dr. Lin has at long last figured out what they’ve done and how horrible this truly has become. The camera feeds, the signs in the house, all of it. They’ve accidentally conducted a séance. Which is a real oopsy poopsy humdinger of a thing, but also bad for all of us! The spirit used all of this to move itself into the homes of all the viewers!

With the studio in chaos and people running for their actual lives, the camera cut out and fade slowly back. The studio is covered in darkness, there’s no sounds or wind, nothing. Just our host Michael Parkinson roaming trying to find a working camera, the lights, anything.

What he finds instead is Mr. Pipes, who confronts him off camera. Bringing back some of our earlier conversations with the voice. Only this time Mr. Michael Parkinson is reciting the ‘round the garden like a teddy bear’ line, and we hear Mr. Pipes, “You didn’t believe them, about mother Seddons and Mr Pipe” next thing we know, poor Michael Parkinson is the center of attention of cat yowling and hissing. The wind is back and. The camera feed ends.

As does our movie, while credits roll and almost a full minute after, we still hear the wind howling through the studio.

The End.

This was absolutely fun. Cheesy yes, but oh so fun. It got downright creepier than it needed to be. Which is funny saying because I was sincerely thinking this movie would be something along the lines of show less, and corny fun. Like the McPherson Tape. Seriously when you have a home movie made with your family and grandma, featuring aliens played by kids in black leotards with silly mask. You kind of expect a certain thing. But hell no. This movie absolutely said screw that, enjoy these nuts to your face. We had everything.

We had visits from Mr Pipes that built up from shadows in the background, to nearly definable forms to out right horror show and finally full form. It was well done. Really, the effects in this were surprisingly good. And AGAIN especially for something made in 92. The mix of cheap gags earlier on from pillows being tossed off screen, and the knocking, to then bloody eyed people standing in the shadows. Bravo. Seriously.

And the narrative itself in the story growing from a news report, to concerned citizens calling in, to people experiencing their own hauntings through watching the television, right up to a full take over by Mr. Pipes. I didn’t think it’d go that far. I just expected it to be a, they go into the house, we get some cheap scares that we never see, no scary ghoul reveals and then everything would come to an end either with dead camera feeds or they leave it up in the air for you to decide what happened.

Did not expect them to have Mr Pipes replay old footage on the show making it seem like everything was fine while he tortured the family and film crew.

It was a very proper and well done horror film with a great story. Again I can see why this popped up on a lot of list and having heard over the years about it, I’m sorry I didn’t see this earlier.  I really have to stress how surprising it was that so much, literally a majority of this was used in the Conjuring 2, but the film did it so shittily. Where as this film managed to come off a hell of a lot creepier than a 90’s film should have the right to be.

This is a great comparison film for how you can manage to get people invested and properly scared without clanging instruments together at scary moments, LOUD jump scare tactics and making innocent items 1000x scarier than they ever should have been.

YES ITS AN OFF TOPIC KIND OF RANT! But damnit. DAMNIT. I really just don’t like it, or understand it. In the Conjuring universe, you have the Annabelle Doll. Thing looks damaged and evil straight from the asshole of hells most bored mongrel It just looks ready to chase your ass down it’s so overly blown evil. But if you google, the actual Annabelle doll, a giant size Raggedy Ann doll. That thing looks perfectly normal, no stains, no cuts over the eyes, no blood or black oozing puss marks, torn dress or looking like it was buried and pissed ontop of then dug out and shit on look. It is perfectly fine and clean and normal looking. But you see that thing and it immediately creeps you the fuck out. Even Poltergeist nailed this simplicity with the evil clown doll. The entire time its in the boys room, it freaked people out. It was just an innocent clown toy, but in the film setting, and seeing it just there. Existing. It was a hundred times scarier. Then at the appropriate moment it actually CHANGED into something scary and malevolent, it LOOKED evil because it WAS controlled by the kids nightmare of being scared of the doll. So we saw how the boy always saw the clown doll.

The point is, simplicity. Don’t over think your jump scares, and don’t set out to create the most evil looking of evil looking things and try to tell us people just had it in their house, just cuz.

Really though, this was a surprise in every way, and I kind of can’t get over that. I loved that it was, and that it was being clever. I can see why this thing freaked people out when it aired and upset a LOT of people because they all believed it was a real thing happening. It was a modern day War of the Worlds like event, and it worked. You know you did well when you had actual people calling the number provided by the show trying to scream at it what they were seeing, and people investing in the story being played out.

It really did remind me of the first time I saw The Blair Witch Project and how my own damn friend was telling me, in full seriousness, not lying or anything, the dude was completely and super cereal when he told me “I found out everything that was shot in black and white? That was the actual footage they recovered, the stuff in color is what they reinacted.” Which if course means the very end of the film and its twist was supposed to be real. I remember him telling me this, in the days before youtube took off and all we had were small chat forums you needed to program and log into, and thinking holy shit. It was entertaining, scary and fun. It marketed itself well and had built up a nice web of hype and prep for people before seeing it that helped sell the ‘realism’ behind it. Only to then shatter many peoples mind when the cast appeared at the MTV movie awards still very much alive and disappointing a lot of people who felt stupid now, having tried convincing and having days long conversations with their friends on how real it was, why it was shown in theaters if it WAS real, and how the hell did they have that many battery packs considering cameras back then had absolute SHIT battery life.

This had that feel to it, and it had that effect apparently when it was released, so absolutely well done to the creative team on that one, Lesley Manning directed and Stephen Volk wrote it. The cast playing themselves were great, like I said anything with Craig Charles is promised to be gold at least for some of us, though it should be all of us.

I love the poster for the film and its absolutely cheesy goodness of Sarah and Mike on the front looking scared and unsure, while Michael Parkinson just leans into frame with a ‘What the hell are you looking at’ expression. It just sells it well.

It brings you in with its corny feel and look, then it gets going and is anything but. The girls and the mom were all great in this, I mean everything was just well sold and delivered. The phone calls that escalated and even ones we were told about but never got to listen to, like people who repeatedly tried calling in and would lose connection, Mike stressing how badly some of these calls absolutely needed to be taken on air only for Michael to dismiss them and move on to other matters. It was just. Fun. It’s everything that for me WNUF missed the mark on.

Nothing in this felt forced or like it dragged. The movie ran like a show and kept the ball rolling. One segment after the next it kept things moving forward and you didn’t have any real slow points in the story. It was all a steady build up toward its eventual explosion into insanity.

Which also looked appropriately silly of its time, I mean I’m not going to sit here and say the wind in the studio had my balls shriveling in fear. It was funny. I also cheered when I saw Mr. Pipes in the studio rafters during that segment. But again it’s one of those cases where when a film really does entertain you, and get you involved. Even silly moments like that, which may not really look right or authentic. You can give a pass to or just nevermind. Because the whole experience has been a joy to that point. So you don’t mind it.

Had the film been shit from the beginning absolutely it’d make a difference. You’d either be bored out of your mind, looking longer for snacks or asking ‘is this thing still on?’ after a short nap on the sofa.

I’m up at a time people being haunted are usually being woken by restless spirits watching this damn thing, and I loved it. Sure my mind is mush and I should likely edit this review before posting but who. Cares. We had fun, it was fun. It was a fun ride. The show exercised patients and restraint, with a pay off at the end, and it paid off. If other modern films could learn to do that, we’d have even scarier memorable films, and not films that pop up every decade or so and remind us horror used to be a fun thing.

I’d highly recommend this to anyone out there who hadn’t seen that, which again shame the fuck on you for not and just reading a play through review, go watch it you pansy. Also go watch Red Dwarf, it’s a fun show and will keep you busy a while.

Seriously no real gripes or complaints. I liked that we didn’t see too much of Mr. Pipes. I liked how it delivered background story to us and the escalation of events. It all worked in a fun believable way, and I can only hope someday someone will make something similar that’s actually as good, and not 35 minutes of fake lame ass commercials for nostalgias sake.

So until next time, if you are haunted and being possessed by an evil spirit making you do bad things, if you experience ghost spitting at you and your maceral dinner. If you experience unexplained phenomena or receive contact from people beyond the grave? Call Craig Fucking Charles. He’ll take care of them and he’s the only ghost destroyer, Demon kicker and space traveling spectral expert ordained by royalty. Just knight the man for gods sake.