Ghosts, Ghouls and the Supernatural

Programme Outline

The programme consists of:

• Extracts from:
  • The Matrix by Jonathan Aycliffe
  • The Journal of a Ghosthunter by Simon Marsden
  • The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
  • The Shining by Stephen King
  • Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You My Lad by M R James
  • The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
  • The Vanished by Celia Rees
• Interviews with:
  • Kim Newman - a writer and critic, who theorises on the universality of fear.
  • Jenny Jones - a Point Horror writer whose work includes The Carver, featured in Programmes 2 and 3. She analyses the responses of audiences and readers - what happens 'when they are really frightened'.
  • Jonathan Aycliffe - a writer who talks about the way supernatural fiction challenges reality.
  • Simon Marsden - a photographer whose work is inspired by ghost stories.
  • Ramsey Campbell - a writer who uses his own fears as inspiration for his fiction.
  • Celia Rees - a Point Horror writer, who discusses story writing and the common themes of stories of the supernatural.
  • Stephen King - the most famous horror writer of the twentieth century, who talks about his relationship with his own writing and the way the unreal can become real.
  • Kirsten Skidmore - editor of the Point Horror books, who explores the idea of horror as a genre that stimulates the emotions and challenges logic.
• A group of schoolchildren telling the urban myth of The Vanishing Hitchhiker.
• A film clip from Nightmare on Elm Street.

Texts and Film Extracts

[VCR counter numbers may vary slightly on different machines.]

00.04: The Matrix by Jonathan Aycliffe

The programme begins with images of an overgrown graveyard and a dark forest. Writers discuss how horror writing makes explicit our deepest fears: 'Everybody is afraid of something some of the time.'

02.03: The Journal of a Ghosthunter by Simon Marsden

Simon Marsden reflects on the powerful effect of certain types of buildings upon the imagination.

02.38: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Dusk gathers as we circle the exterior of a large country house, the camera positioning the audience as the spirit that haunts it.

05.18: The Vanishing Hitchhiker

Celia Rees introduces the oral tradition of telling ghost stories. A story is told to a group of listeners by a young schoolgirl.

06.54: The Shining by Stephen King

Jonathan Aycliffe considers effects on both the writer and the reader: 'What's frightening in the ghost story is that you start looking over your shoulder...' This idea is developed by Stephen King, whose comments are interspersed with a reading from, and visual representation of, the text. About a terrifying woman brought back to life in The Shining, King observes: 'I kind of succeeded in scaring myself ... I'm thinking to myself, that's silly, you made that woman up, she doesn't exist. And the voice inside is saying ... "She does now!" '

10.06: Nightmare on Elm Street

Kim Newman draws attention to the unique potential of film for communal experience. The film clip makes use of generic stereotypes.

11.30: Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You My Lad by M R James

In an atmospheric setting, a great English horror writer turns the ordinary into the nightmarish. The mixing of text, sound and vision pulls the audience into the dreadful nightmare.

13.00: The Vanishing Hitchhiker (continued)

The girl continues the telling of her ghost story to her engrossed audience.

14.18: The Fall of The House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

After Simon Marsden speculates on how a place becomes haunted, Poe's apprehensive narrator encounters 'the melancholy House of Usher'.

16.05: The Vanished by Celia Rees

Jonathan Aycliffe considers arguments for and against the existence of ghosts. The argument is settled by narration from The Vanished while the camera explores stealthily down dark tunnels.

17.12: The Vanishing Hitchhiker (concluded)

The audience is gripped as the girl's story reaches its climax.

Complemented by some symbolic camera work, the programme ends with a quotation from Edgar Allan Poe:

'The boundaries which divide life and death are at best shadowy and vague;

who shall say where one ends and where the other begins...'