Hauntings

“The problem with such a well-known case is that it’s haunted by the ghosts of all the other times it has been told and retold. It’s like making yet another documentary about the Bermuda Triangle. Unusually for the BBC’s grid-like schedule, the episodes are only 45 minutes long. An extra 15 minutes spent investigating the fascinating byways of human suggestibility would have strengthened the case for yet another rummage around among these yellowing cuttings.”
Jasper Rees, The Telegraph

“Perhaps that is the reason we love this case so much: not just its irresistibly late-1970s feel (the brown pebbledash, the flock wallpaper, the Starsky & Hutch posters in the girls’ bedroom), but the credibility of the witnesses. A series such as Hauntings rests or falls on this, and the Daily Mirror photographer and the eyewitness reporter from BBC World at One were as sane and serious as a ghost story could ask for. Perhaps the programme didn’t look very hard for rational explanations — the comments around the famous photo of Janet in mid-air felt somewhat credulous — but then where is the fun in debunking things?”
James Jackson, The Times

“The stupid, infuriating Halloween season gets under way on the small screen with our publicly funded broadcaster pushing out four meaningless lengths of programming that have not a spark of creativity or wit to recommend them.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian