I’ve never seen or heard of Ghostwatch. Do you think watching it as an adult in 2021 it would still be scary or is it one of those ones where watching it as a child, you carry the fear with you into adulthood and so it’s still scary but only because of the memories?
The thing about Ghostwatch was that they trailed it for days on the BBC, including on kids shows like Going Live, so everyone who watched it went into it thinking it was going to be some mildly scary Halloween thing. It was presented by a respected broadcaster in Michael Parkinson, the reporter at the house was Sarah Green, kids TV presenter. Craig Charles was on it too. It was all set up to be a suitable, legitimate BBC broadcast.
We weren't expecting the sights or the sounds we saw, nor did we expect to see much-loved TV presenters being 'posessed'. It was the whole build up to it. To an adult now, it probably seems tame, but there's an entire generation of kids who were
tit-scared of it, and rightly so. The BBC were irresponsible in their billing of the show. There was a 10 year ban on it being repeated, and I don't think they ever have, but its on YouTube. I think you probably had to be there at the time to get the full effect. I've seen brief clips of it since, and I still don't understand how they thought it wouldn't cause a problem with children.
I've watched a lot of horror, especially as a teen. The Shining scared the tit out of me, more recently (sort of) Sinister with Ethan Hawke. Some truly creepy scenes that have stayed with me even 8 years later.
Sinister is one of the few horror films I have actually watched in recent years, yet I hardly see it mentioned for some reason. I agree, very creepy. Good film too, a cut above the usual stuff from the genre.