Scary tricks and treats

BBCi: Ghostwatch played ingenious tricks on the viewers. In particular, showing a scene with the ghost clearly visible, then showing it again with the ghost removed.

Stephen Volk: That moment is my favourite because it really messes 100% with the viewing audience.

They are, in fact, involved as a character at that point. "What? He says he didn’t see anything – but I DID!"

Again it’s about the theme of trust, and later on the moment when Lyn Pascoe (the scientist) looks at the video wall, sees the picture is up there and shouldn’t be, and realises the ghost is in the machine (bad pun: couldn’t resist it!).

It was quite tricky to gauge in that we had to do a lot of teasing in the first 45 minutes, as I say. I guess how much to ‘see’ Pipes was difficult to gauge and I know Lesley put a ghost in very subtly at points that weren’t scripted: there’s a game fans play guessing how many times the ghost is seen. I think the answer is eight, but some are pretty obscure!

I was very keen to avoid the man in a rubber suit syndrome. In fact we make that joke early on with Craig Charles jumping out of the closet: as if to say, ‘no rubber suits tonight folks!’ It’s also a homage to a similar moment in my favourite TV ghost story The Stone Tape (by my favourite TV writer Nigel Kneale of Quatermass fame). As soon as special effects or make-up jobs are in evidence you’re not being scared, you’re looking at how it’s done.

Read our review of Ghostwatch >>