33 Years Ago, This 100%-Rated Found Footage Bombshell Shocked the Whole Country
How a fake poltergeist show stunned the viewers on live television, was banned from rebroadcast, and eventually gained cult status.
33 years ago, in 1992, on Halloween, the BBC aired Ghostwatch. It was a mockumentary, filmed in advance. But the film was advertised to viewers and shown as if it were a real TV show, broadcast live.
Ghostwatch Creators Made Viewers Believe It Was a Real TV Show
Ghostwatch begins with a presentation by the host, who says that this program will be a unique analysis of paranormal phenomena in one of the British houses. A woman and her daughters hear some noises at night and assume it is a ghost. Their suspicions confirm local rumors that the ghost of a murderer is really connected with this house.
An expert in paranormal phenomena is on stage with the host. There is a call center which offers to call the given number live on air and tell your own stories about contacts with ghosts.
The studio contacts reporters and operators who work right in this house. Everyone is very skeptical. Ghosts do not exist and this will now be proven live.
But not everything goes according to plan. People call the studio claiming to have contacted the ghost, and the poltergeist actually appears in front of the reporters. Moreover, the live broadcast itself seems to give the ghost power, and it bursts into the studio itself.
Ghostwatch Was Never Shown on British Television Again, Sparking a Wave of Criticism
By the next day, Ghostwatch was being discussed all over the UK. The show was criticized, banned from being rebroadcast, and accused of experimenting on viewers, betraying trust, and misleading.
Despite the fact that the creators added opening and closing credits that listed screenwriter Stephen Volk and all the actors, a large number of viewers decided that they were watching a real live broadcast that had been invaded by something sinister.
Even the standard on-screen number did not help: viewers who decided to call in had to first listen to an audio message that what was happening on the screen was fiction, and only then could they tell their story, but due to the busy line they only heard rapid beeps.
Viewers Were Psychologically Harmed by Ghostwatch
A few months later, a British medical journal published an article examining the effects of the movie on the mental health of two ten-year-old viewers.
Experts noted that this was the first case in medical practice of a TV show causing high levels of anxiety in adolescent children and subsequent symptoms, some of which resembled PTSD. There were also reports of large numbers of children refusing to sleep in their rooms with the lights off.
Ghostwatch Became a Cult Classic and Popularized the Mockumentary and Found Footage Genres
But in the history of cinema and television, this pseudo-documentary became a significant and iconic event. Thanks to Ghostwatch, the mockumentary genre has gained immense popularity.
The 1999 horror film allegedly The Blair Witch Project used the ideas of this film, bringing the mockumentary genre and found footage techniques to an international level and achieving instant cult status.