Hot Picks
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Ghostwatch
UK 1992
produced by Ruth Baumgarten, Richard Broke (executive) for BBC
directed by Lesley Manning
starring Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Mike Smith, Craig Charles, Gillian Bevan, Brid Brennan, Michelle Wesson, Cherise Wesson, Chris Miller, Mike Aiton, Mark Lewis, Linda Broughton, Katherine Stark, Derek Smee, Roger Tebb, Colin Stinton, Keith Ferrari, Ruth Sheen, Diana Blackburn, Brendan O'Hea, Mark Drewry
written by Stephen Volk, music by Philip Appleby
TV-show
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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Renowned television host Michael Parkinson presents a live television
show in which TV presenter Sarah Greene is to spend Halloween night in a
alleged haunted house while he discusses paranormal events in the studio
with expert Doctor Lin Pascoe (Gillian Bevan). Soon though, things take a
disappointing twist when all the happenings in the alleged haunted house
are attributed not to an actual poltergeist, but to the daughter of the
house (Michelle Wesson), who has never really come over the divorce of her
parents and now seems to want attention. Parkinson is ready to stop the
show right then and there, with only Doc Pascoe not convinced that
everything was a hoax ... but then the (real) poltergeists launch an
attack on the house, scaring everyone shitless before the link to the
house is somehow broken - and then the poltergeists launch an attack on
Parkinson's TV-studio as well, creating strange wind phenomena and
knocking out all the studio lights - before the show comes to an abrupt
end ... Notorious and controversial fake documentary/Halloween
hoax that was initially presented as a live show (which it wasn't) and
which succeeds in creating an authentic look by having some well-known
British TV-personalities (first and foremost of course Parkinson) playing
themselves in rather typical roles. However, the more actors not playing
themselves are brought in, the more phony the whole thing looks, and the
finale, in which the poltergeists are taking over the TV studio is nothing
short of ridiculous as well as unsatisfying (though it might have worked
better when the program was originally screened). That all of course says
nothing about the quality of the film as such - and actually, the whole
thing is only mildly amusing and very clichéed in its presentation of
spooky phenomena, and it could have done with tighter pacing, the tossing out
of many scenes faking authenticity to focus more on narrative and a better
finale. Still, as a piece of television history this one might be worth a
look - if you don't expect a masterpiece.
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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Robots and rats,
demons and potholes, cuddly toys and shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill Your Bones to is all of that.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to -
a collection of short stories and mini-plays ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle,
all thought up by the twisted mind of screenwriter and film reviewer Michael Haberfelner.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to
the new anthology by Michael Haberfelner
Out now from Amazon!!! |
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