Ghostwatch: a 30th Anniversary Immersive Experience

In 2022, a major UK-wide film and events season called ‘In Dreams Are Monsters’ was launched by the British Film Institute (BFI). It was an exploration how the monsters of horror have evolved, and made physical the anxieties and social issues of their times. It was structured around five key archetypes: beast, ghost, vampire, witch and zombie. As part of the season, cinemas and festivals could apply for funding for events and special screenings that tied in with the ‘In Dreams Are Monsters’ criteria. 

We at team Celluloid Screams set about brainstorming ideas for an event, as this opportunity was too good to pass up. I’d always wanted to put on an immersive event, given my love of themed immersive experiences, so I used that as a starting point. Reading through the information provided by BFI on the season, I saw ‘Ghostwatch’ on the list of suggested titles, and my stomach did a huge flip. What if we could create an immersive screening of Ghostwatch, in which the paranormal events that took place inside the BBC studio in 1992 are re-triggered by screening Ghostwatch to an audience in the present day. An ostensibly normal cinema event, with a cast and crew Q&A, but it all goes to hell at the hands of Pipes, who is revamped for the digital age.

I nervously pitched the idea to the rest of the team, and thankfully, they were on board. We enlisted the help of the amazing Live Cinema UK, who helped us with the BFI application and set about working with us to design and create the immersive elements of the screening once our application had been approved. Things moved quickly from there, and every step of the process was more surreal than the last. I vividly remember being on a Zoom call with director Lesley Manning and writer Stephen Volk, unveiling our grand plans and silently praying they’d be on board with our shenanigans (fortunately, they were).

The technical aspects of the experience evolved as we worked to shape the event into something that was achievable in the space and on budget (my original notes call for electrical equipment “exploding in showers of sparks”). We landed on Peddler Warehouse for the event, an ideal venue with a lovey team behind it. We ran rehearsals for the segment where everything starts to go wrong, which is after the screening and at the tail end of my Q&A with Lesley, Stephen, and Gillian Bevan who played Dr Lin Pascoe. The idea was to do allow some genuine questions from myself and the audience, which would be plagued by minor tech faults, followed by a fake question to trigger the large scale unravelling and the [hopefully terrifying] on-screen Pipes takeover. It ran smoothly, but my nerves were setting in.

On the night, I vividly remember walking into the warehouse (which was lit in an eerie blue light with a hazy fog effect) and I was completely overwhelmed. It looked incredible, I couldn’t believe it. The dream event was out of my head and happening for real. We had our Ghostwatch T-shirts on, there was a replica van with the Ghostwatch logo parked outside for photo ops, and the audience were steadily filing in. Other than some carefully rehearsed timings and code words, this wasn’t all that different to a regular screening and Q&A (which I’ve facilitated many times), but I was horrendously nervous. I wanted everything to be perfect (and I really wanted the audience to be scared!)

The event flew by - I don’t remember much of the film being on, but I remember kicking off the Q&A and proceedings that followed. Much to my delight, our microphones began cutting out for real at one point in the Q&A. Ordinarily I’d be irritated by this, but it elicited genuine reactions from us, which blended well with our ‘fake’ reactions and added verisimilitude. One audience member who was asking a question seemed like she was onto us, but then doubted herself immediately – I loved that. Before we knew it, it was time to run off stage and let Pipes haunt the warehouse in our grand finale.

Within days of the event being over, we learned that the BFI wanted us to bring our Ghostwatch event to their Southbank cinema in London, and show it in NFT1, their largest screen which seated 450 people. I was gob smacked. Before I knew it, we were booking our hotels and hitting the road. If I thought I was nervous in Sheffield, that would be nothing compared to what my stomach was doing in the BFI green room (the free bar helped a lot though!). We had to scale back some elements of the show for it to suit the venue, so London wasn’t quite the same as the warehouse event, but it was still an incredible experience that I’ll never forget.

When saying our goodbyes to Stephen and Lesley, they said our event would forever be part of the Ghostwatch legacy. While this is obviously a huge honour, their words didn’t fully hit me until 3 months later, when I was at a horror exhibition at Somerset House that featured a section on Ghostwatch. I promptly burst into tears in the middle of the gallery. It’s a strange feeling to have a new and significant connection to a film I adore so much, and I feel immensely lucky to have had this opportunity, bolstered by the support and input from so many talented people.

Maybe one day, team Celluloid Screams will bring you another immersive event. Hopefully Pipes won't haunt that one too!