Picture the scene: it’s pitch black and you’re armed with nothing but a torch. You’re alone in what is purported to be one of the most haunted locations in the country, and somewhere in the distance a dusty old clock strikes midnight. Your heart is racing, palms sweating, and every slightest sound strikes fear into your very bones. Your only comfort is your team of fellow ghost hunters, but they’re all just as shit scared as you are. Daylight can’t come soon enough.
Sounds utterly chilling, doesn’t it? No one in their right mind would willingly put themselves in that kind of situation, surely? But that’s exactly the kind of scenario the Most Haunted team go through on a regular basis, visiting addresses where paranormal activity has been reported – things flying off shelves, ornaments moving of their own accord, apparitions walking down vacant corridors, that kind of thing.
So who better to investigate these strange reports than Yvette Fielding, the go-to choice for any ghostbuster (obviously). Each episode sees our brave Yvette stepping into the realm of the unknown, eyes wide with terror that’s set off so perfectly by the night vision cameras. By her side is husband Karl, ghost hunter and camera-fiddler extraordinaire, and some other blokes who don’t get much more than a ‘what the f*ck was that?’.
Into the night they go, starting off as a group of bolshy spirit botherers. ‘You don’t scare us’, they arrogantly proclaim. ‘Come on, do your worst!’. Wow, these guys are seriously brave. Those ghosts must be quaking in their boots.
But then they decide to split up and each goes off to a different room to stake out, and very quickly the bravado fades. Every sound is amplified by the silence of isolation, and we see our brave heroes flinch and whimper at specks of dust – sorry, ‘orbs’. If it’s a particularly good episode, we’ll even get a scream out of Yvette, or one of the crew will pretend they’ve had enough. We’re led to believe they’re fed up of those nasty ghosts, but in reality they’re probably pissed off with Yvette and Karl.
Throughout the show, the team tells us of horrific happenings like a clock being flung down the stairs or malicious laughter, but we’ll never actually get to hear or see any of this. What we do get to see is, well, not a lot. We get to listen to some apparent recordings of spirits saying things like ‘say what you want to me’ and, of course, ‘Mary loves Dick/dick’, but it’s not exactly difficult to fake a recording. And there’s an awful lot of tapping which is supposed to be the ghost’s way of making contact, but we all know it’s the crew messing about next door. Sorry Yvette.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love a good scare. Who doesn’t? But with this kind of entertainment, you start off watching from behind a cushion and end up thinking ‘Why am I watching a bunch of fully grown adults pretending they’ve just seen a marble fly across the room?’. Ghosts could exist, but if you’re looking for solid evidence then you won’t find it on Most Haunted. And remember, if you do come across anything paranormal, give Yvette and the team a call. Their dramatic overreactions will show you that there’s nothing to be afraid of.
Two Martini Breakfast 