31 Horrors: Ghostwatch (#18)

Wherein I attempt to watch 31 horror films over the course of October. 31 horror films that I have never seen before, from obscure to acclaimed classics. We'll see how well I go in actually finding the time to watch and then write about them in some way.

It's like Paranormal Activity in Prime Time!

Imagine Lake Mungo, with it's investigative Dateline/Australian Story/60 Minutes approach to a family's haunting, but done live to air. In 1992, before "found footage" was a term used to identify films of its kind. When the prospect of national celebrities portraying themselves on a BBC special event wasn't even entertained as fiction, but rather a very real documentary. Such is the idea behind Ghostwatch, a British television program that would become one of the most controversial of its time and scare almost an entire nation into believing that ghosts were real. That is, until those involved were forced to apologise for misleading the public even though the program's credits don't leave much in the way of ambiguity. Such is the rabid hysteria of the public.

Man oh man, did I love Ghostwatch! Relatively obscure outside of Britain I should imagine, but its ten year ban by its own network, the BBC, suggests it should be held in higher regard. Playing the ol' Orson Welles/War of the Worlds trick on unsuspecting British TV viewers on Halloween night resulted in thousands of calls and even a controversial implication in the suicide of a mentally unstable man several days after it aired. Ghostwatch, beyond its scary surface and spine-chilling revelations, digs deeper into the national psyche than, say, Paranormal Activity, by also working as a tell tale sign of society's more gullible nature and the domination that television has (well, had) over them.

Ghostwatch was supposedly a special event piece of television, broadcast on BBC1 and heralded as live reality. Cameras and reporters were placed in the scene of a house on Halloween night that had, before then, become known as a hub of poltergeist disturbances. Hosted by famous chat show personality Michael Parkinson, featuring several well known British identities (including Red Drawf's Craig Charles), and including actors portraying psychic professionals as well as the very haunted family of mother and two daughters, Ghostwatch takes its time to really get going, but those who are paying close attention will get chills out of the entire enterprise.

By the time the film's final 20 minutes or so comes around, I was already well and truly intrigued and had experienced a couple of very decent frights (my suspicions were right when I thought I'd caught a glimpse of the mysterious "Pipes"). What I didn't expect was the level of almost paralysing fear that the climax would throw at me. Rigid with fear and audibly gasping on a high frequency, Ghostwatch worked spectacularly well and more than justifies its reputation as an oughtta be eminent Halloween classic. The final image especially of a dazed Michael Parkinson - remember, he's a huge star both in the UK and Australia - mumbling about the BBC set before creator Stephen Volk's last chilling utterance made getting to sleep a harder task than I'd expected.

Readers would be aware that I am very much a fan of the Paranormal Activity features as well as The Blair Witch Project and the aforementioned Lake Mungo. When this type of film works well there's almost nothing I find scarier. Ghostwatch is another stellar example of it, made even more provocative by the project's history and the way its makers went about it. I watched it nearly 20 years to the day since its British premiere (it's never played since) and it's very much as effective now as it was in 1992. It's also the best thing I've seen during my month-long horror trek. A

Review: Lake Mungo

Lake Mungo
Dir. Joel Anderson
Year: 2009
Rating: M
Running Time: 87mins

David Lynch is, perhaps, not the chief person you would think of to inspire an Aussie ghost story, but there it is clear as day right there on the screen. Joel Anderson's debut film, the suspense-filled fright fest called Lake Mungo (for those unaware of Australian geography, it is a real place and holds the key to the film's central mystery). In retrospect I feel like those haunting synethesisers of Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks theme should play over the - very eerie - opening credits. It's actually a shame that the overriding sense of Anderson snatching bits and pieces of Lynch's resume is so obvious because it occasionally distracts from what is a really great movie.

Filmed in the style of a documentary, Lake Mungo traces the story of Australian teenager Alice Palmer who accidentally drowned in a weir while on holiday with her family. Her family believes her ghost is haunting their suburban home and in trying to solve the mystery, they uncover the dark secrets that Alice withheld. The same secrets that, ultimately, cost her her life. The similarities to Twin Peaks are already immense. Throw in paedophiles, hidden video tapes, sexual escapades, supernatural twists, kooky doctors and even a scene in which a man is seen hiding behind a piece of furniture in Alice's bedroom and you've got yourself a sort of mix tape of Lynchian Twin Peaks shenanigans. And I'm not even mentioning the fact that the film's biggest scare is seemingly taking a big ol' page out of the INLAND EMPIRE book. Oh wait, there I go talking about it. I told myself I wouldn't!


Thankfully though, the film emerges out of these shadows that it creates and succeeds at being a scary little movie that you should try and seek out with its scares that are far more creative than the latest piece of Hollywood pap. It is not jump-out-your-seats-gasping sort of scary (although that did happen to me once, I literally JUMPED OUT OF MY SEAT!) but works with the sort of frights that creep up on you. The emergence of a shadowy figure in the background or the sudden appearance of a figure in the frame. The hairs on the back of neck stood on end and at several moments I found myself cowering in my seat.

While the film owns an obvious debt to David Lynch, there is also a strong element of The Blair Witch Project. From the opening title card and onwards, the film actually makes the faux-documentary structure work for it. Ghosts are always going to be less scary and harder to make work than being alone in the forest with things that go bump in the night, so presenting the film as a documentary, as if it is true and real and not just a story being told by a group of filmmakers, really helps overcome that. Suspension of belief becomes true believing.


It also helps that the film is so well cast. While Talia Zucker doesn't get much of a chance to shine as the deceased Alice, Rosie Traynor, David Pledger, Chloe Armstrong and Martin Sharpe all work wonderfully, as assorted family and friends of Alice, in letting the viewer believe the situation that is unfolding before their eyes. At one point when I thought the film was beginning to wear out its welcome - a scene at the titular Lake Mungo filmed entirely on a mobile phone camera - it does a complete 180 that results in one of the scariest moments I've seen on screen in a while.

And make sure you stay during the closing credits. Just as with the opening credits, the closers are creepy and have stayed with me. They also made me want to watch the movie again right that second to see if Anderson had been as smart all along as he is implying (you'll see what I mean). And then, again, wait until the very end where the film ends with a flash of eerie imagery, which reminds me to also mention the fantastic cinematography of John Brawley. A documentary-styled movie might not seem like the natural place for fantastic lensing, but some of the images on show here are frightening and deceptive in their simplicity. Lake Mungo is one of the finest and most original scary tales in a long time. B+