When Horror Hides In Plain Sight

Comments · 1.9K

• KI

  @kitwhitfield7169 · 2 months ago (edited) · pinned

  Bit of history: a ‘baby farm’ (heads up, this is upsetting) was an unlicensed orphanage, in particular for illegitimate children or babies whose impoverished parents for some other reason had to put them somewhere and pay for their maintenance. You ‘farmed out’ the baby to someone who promised to care for them full-time.<br><br>Because more babies meant more profit they tended to take in more infants than they could responsibly care for. They had a reputation for leaving lots of babies in their cribs all day, dosed with laudanum or gin to keep them quiet.<br><br>Most were probably cases of neglect by women who didn’t understand the damage they were doing; mortality was above the national average (which was already high) because the babies’s conditions were so unhealthy, but they might survive long enough to be handed over to a workhouse or someone looking for child labour. If a baby died their body might be dumped or buried illegally, both to avoid legal scrutiny and to avoid expense.<br><br>In a few cases the ‘farmer’ simply decided that the most profitable course was to murder the babies, relying on the fact that the mothers didn’t usually visit. They were a minority but notorious, not only because of what they did but because they showed up some harsh realities nobody liked to think about. <br><br>So yeah, ‘baby farmer’ is a boogeyman term; anyone hearing it on the first screening would have flinched. For a ‘baby farm’ to become a haunted house would make perfect sense; it’s actually surprising the idea hasn’t been used more often, and if it hasn’t it’s probably because it’s too upsetting even for most horror.

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• GE

  @georgemccune2923 · 2 months ago

  If I was a reporter and a traumatized little girl showed us a little booth under the stairs called a &quot;Glory hole&quot; where a &quot;mysterious&quot; male entity named &quot;PIPES&quot; lives I am calling Child Protective Services.

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• PI

  @pipticken · 2 months ago

  One correction, it wasn&apos;t a faux news broadcast, it was a faux live Halloween special. The idea was that nobody expected anything to happen, not even the hosts who were all famous tv personalities at the time, people watching thought it would be a lighthearted Halloween programme where people talked about a haunting but nothing would actually happen.

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• UJ

  @ujustgotpwned2008 · 2 months ago

  It&apos;s also worth saying about Ghostwatch is that it was hosted by Michael Parkinson, who had no history of acting or horror, he was a much-loved late night chat show host.

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• GR

  @Greatness942 · 1 month ago

  The Pipes sighting that freaks me right the hell out is the third one, the one where he&apos;s behind the boots-on-the-grounds interviewees. Not only is it such a clear and up-close look at his design, the deformities in his eye and nose, but it&apos;s also just unsettling to know that, even then, he was never confined. He was right there, not just observing the crowd, but a part of it.

  239

• AR

  @arabidllama · 2 months ago

  I love the idea of the double-ghost - the ghost of one evil person possessing another evil person, and then on death the two souls combine into an entity far worse than either of the original subjects. Unpredictable and understandably completely insane.

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• OO

  @oogliebooglie8796 · 2 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXGi0XbsI5g&amp;t=350">5:50</a> ngl, it is disturbing, but all I can imagine is the sound that’s made when you’re blowing into a game cartridge to try and get it to work.

  581

• GO

  @goosenman2 · 2 months ago

  I remember the BBC getting so many complaints and call ins over the show. What may be hard for some to grasp is that the people in the show, the reporters, guy in the studio etc where all famous BBC personalities. These weren&apos;t unknowns brought in to make it seem like actors playing reporters, they were essentially playing themselves. I think that added another degree of realism to proceedings, and made it seem more like a real thing.

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• SA

  @sadcowboy3731 · 2 months ago

  It should be more emphasized how this movie was presented as a live show with an actual number the viewers could call. A lot of viewers didn&apos;t know it was fictional, despite the credits at the end. The movie plays with this and it&apos;s amazing. For example: The first video of the bedroom doesn&apos;t show Pipes. After the woman calls and the footage is shown again Pipes is there. The viewer at home thinks &quot;huh I must have missed it the first time&quot; now when the video is shown a third time Pascoe is supposed to draw the shadow in Pipes once again isn&apos;t there anymore. For the viewers at home this must have been insane because the movie is messing with them by showing different clips but (most of) them believing, this is a live program would think they&apos;ve seen an actual ghost which then disappeared again in front of their eyes.

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• BR

  @BruceLeroyUK · 2 months ago

  The thing that needs to be emphasised is those of us that watched it live in 1992, had no idea it was a film. It was presented to us as a real live tv documentary presented by the renowned broadcaster, Michael Parkinson.

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• FR

  @FR3SH1NK · 2 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXGi0XbsI5g&amp;t=424">7:04</a> &quot;it&apos;s in the walls.... ITS IN THE GODDAMN WALLS—&quot;

  132

• JA

  @JamesStarbullet · 2 months ago (edited)

  I want you to understand how important Ghost Watch is. In college, at the University of South Carolina. I had a Perception in Media class. We had an entire lecture on this movie. This is the modern version of the War of the Worlds Radio Drama. It&apos;s very important.

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