Pipes!
From UFOs to ghosts... I seem to be on a bit of a mystery gig at the moment. It's entirely Sir Arthur C. Clarke's fault. In the last few weeks, I've watched both his Mysterious World and Strange Powers series in their entirety. If you have the chance, you must see them. For me, they're priceless nostalgia, and the theme music still gives me icy chills. Sir Arthur passed away earlier this year, and is sorely missed, but his work endures. He was also, like Nigel Marven (see earlier post), a great supporter of The Gorilla Organisation.
Anyway, ghosts. No, I haven't seen one, though I can honestly say I believe I have heard one, but that's a story for another time. Halloween is almost upon us, and, for me, it's time to look back 16 long years to the freakiest damned Halloween I ever had. It was all thanks to a BBC programme called Ghostwatch.
Some of you may remember this show. It garnered so much controversy after it aired that the BBC banned it from being shown or released at all for 10 years. It's available on DVD now (about bloody time), and is well worth seeing. Though the thrill of actually believing it was a real documentary has long worn off, it still has its moments. Even just reading the wikipedia entry about it made my room seem unusually cold.
Documentary, you say? That's right. The BBC presented it as a live documentary, using some very familiar and trusted faces, which explains a lot of why it freaked the nation out and caused alleged post traumatic stress disorder in certain children. That's how damned scary it was.
The programme was very well researched and concerned the suffering of a family forced to endure the ghostly terrorism of a long-dead, mentally disturbed man. He got his name, Pipes, due to his habit of banging on the plumbing. He did a lot more than that in the programme, though. His fleeting appearances were some of the cleverest and most spine-tingling moments I've ever seen on TV.
The programme is showing its age now, and some of the actors/actresses turn in some pretty hokey performances, but the strong elements more than make up for it.
I'll definitely be watching this again on Halloween. What will you be watching?
Anyway, ghosts. No, I haven't seen one, though I can honestly say I believe I have heard one, but that's a story for another time. Halloween is almost upon us, and, for me, it's time to look back 16 long years to the freakiest damned Halloween I ever had. It was all thanks to a BBC programme called Ghostwatch.
Some of you may remember this show. It garnered so much controversy after it aired that the BBC banned it from being shown or released at all for 10 years. It's available on DVD now (about bloody time), and is well worth seeing. Though the thrill of actually believing it was a real documentary has long worn off, it still has its moments. Even just reading the wikipedia entry about it made my room seem unusually cold.
Documentary, you say? That's right. The BBC presented it as a live documentary, using some very familiar and trusted faces, which explains a lot of why it freaked the nation out and caused alleged post traumatic stress disorder in certain children. That's how damned scary it was.
The programme was very well researched and concerned the suffering of a family forced to endure the ghostly terrorism of a long-dead, mentally disturbed man. He got his name, Pipes, due to his habit of banging on the plumbing. He did a lot more than that in the programme, though. His fleeting appearances were some of the cleverest and most spine-tingling moments I've ever seen on TV.
The programme is showing its age now, and some of the actors/actresses turn in some pretty hokey performances, but the strong elements more than make up for it.
I'll definitely be watching this again on Halloween. What will you be watching?
Labels: Ghosts
posted by Steve Parker at
4:02 PM
2 Comments:
I didn't see this when it was first broadcast and I haven't seen it since, but just reading about it on Wikipedia (following your link) left me feeling cold and uncomfortable.
Mr Pipes has to be one of the greatest horror creations of the last twenty years. The whole concept behind him, from his own possession by another ghost to his suitably strange moniker... brilliant and chilling.
I write what some might term as horror and certainly all of my fiction writing has horrific elements to it but only two things have properly unsettled me in a long time. The first was the original Saw movie (which I saw for the first time last week) and the second was reading about Ghost Watch.
Go figure.
Glad you liked (?) the info on wikipedia, Jon. If you can find a copy of Ghostwatch going for a few quid, it's well worth a watch, despite the odd weaknesses.
Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene and Craig Charles all did a fantastic job.
Isn't it high time the BBC put out more genuinely spooky content? ;)
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