The 10 Year Itch (Ghostwatch)

Member Name: chubberman

Product:	Ghostwatch
Date:	16/10/02 (361 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great entertainment, Will scare the kids rigid..., ...probably the Missus too!

Disadvantages: Not everybody has seen it

I was 16 on the 31st October 1992. Trick or Treating around the neighbourhood was a thing of the past and, bobbing the apples apart, Halloween was all a bit silly now.

If like me, my brother and my next door neighbour on that cold and blustery night back in 92, you had flicked through all the channels to find nothing else on TV that night, except for Micheal Parkinson and Mike Smith rattling on infront of a fake mantlepiece, you'll know where I'm about to go with this.

Ghostwatch was the only decent thing on that night, as I remember. Being 16, I wasnt a big fan of the dour-faced Parky, the impish-Smithy and kiddies favourite Sarah Greene. But ghosts and the supernatural - now that appealed to three teens sat in front of the TV, with a washing up bowl full of water and golden delicious apples as their only other source of entertainment.

We sat transfixed as events began to take a turn for the worst infront of our disbelieving eyes. I clearly remember the image of a little girl cowering behind a chair and upon being found beginning to talk in a voice which was clearly not her own. I remember seeing a figure stood behind the curtain and the cameraman double-taking only for the figure to have disappeared. Needless to say my next door neighbour didnt hang around for the end. His mum and dad were in next door.

I only became aware that this was a hoax right at the end as Parky begins reciting nursery rhymes into a camera and the credits begin to roll. Had I seen the opening credits I am convinced that I wouldnt have been scared out of my wits as I was tuning in mid-way through.

Having never seen Ghostwatch again since that night, every Halloween I have been expecting it to return to our screens without success. I have heard mumblings that it may be released Halloween 2002 as a special edition DVD. Lets hope so, because I have genuinely never been as scared as I was that night, and I'm sure people who have
n't seen it will wonder what all the fuss was about when it eventually gets released, but put yourselves in the shoes of three young boys home alone on Halloween and only then can you fully appreciate what a genuine masterpiece of British filmmaking Ghostwatch was and still is today.

Chubberman
(16/10/02)

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