Sarah Greene says cult horror show 'Ghostwatch' has been banned from ever being repeated by the BBC because it was too terrifying for viewers.
Sarah Greene has spilled that cult TV show Ghostwatch will never be repeated on the BBC
The found-footage pseudo TV documentary was broadcast on Halloween on BBC One in 1992, and featured Sarah and her late husband Mike Smith as well as TV legend Sir Michael Parkinson - who passed away in August 2023 aged 88 - conducting an apparent live investigation of a haunted house in the fictional Foxhill Drive, Northolt, Greater London.
Greene was ‘reporting live’ from the house to capture paranormal activity by a malevolent entity called ‘Mr. Pipes’ who has been terrorising the Early family, whilst Parkinson presents from the studio and Smith takes ‘calls’ from the public
The programme ends with Mr. Pipes taking over the house and possessing Parkinson in the studio after creating a nationwide séance during the broadcast.
Following it’s broadcast, 'Ghostwatch' attracted thousands of complaints from viewers who believed the events to be real.
In recent years it has gained a cult audience, but despite calls for it to be aired again – as it has been abroad – Greene says the BBC are too nervous to show it again.
Appearing on the 'Beyond The Title' podcast, she said: "They won’t even repeat it, people have repeatedly asked the BBC to repeat and they won’t, they won’t repeat it. I think it would be fun.
“But part of me thinks actually it’s probably best they don’t because then it stays in that kind of slightly cult, niche area.”
Greene, 65, doesn’t believe there’s any chance of 'Ghostwatch' being re-made either because modern audiences are too smart to be duped.
She added: “I don’t think you could do another one, because it’s been done and people would spot it a mile off. They’d say, ‘Well, this is a drama.’ I don’t know if you could do that again, really. I think the BBC would be very nervous of it.”
The former 'Going Live' presenter is very proud of the impact the show had and the fact that it inspired the found-footage horror genre which was popularised by movies like 'The Blair Witch Project'.
She said: “It went out and it had a huge audience and it had an amazing reaction. It got a massive audience on the night but it sort of gets more popular every year, it gains a new audience and even though it now looks quite old fashioned, it does look old fashioned, I think there’s something about the story, the energy of it that still holds up for people watching it for the first time. I think that’s down to the writing of it and certainly down to Lesley’s direction. I don’t think we realised it was going to be ground-breaking. Mike and I realised there might be a lot of hitting the fan straight after but we didn’t think of it as ground-breaking, I don’t think you ever do at the time, when you’re doing something, you don’t realise, it’s only with hindsight that you see that it did break ground. It laid the foundations for things like The Blair Witch Project, Most Haunted, all those sorts of programmes. “
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