Based on Edward Chitham’s 1973 novel, Ghost in the Water is a no-nonsense, pleasingly old-fashioned ghost story first broadcast on BBC One on New Year’s Eve 1982. It wastes no time in getting going, sketching out what back story we need to know with some economy in the first few minutes before plunging us into an intriguing mystery that’s neatly wrapped up in just shy of an hour.
Tess (Judith Allchurch) and David (Ian Stevens) are school friends into local history. They become particularly interested in one Abigail Parkes, whose gravestone in the local cemetery is inscribed “innocent of all harm.” Investigating, they learn that Teresa is related to Abigail and finds herself seemingly possessed by the dead girl. Abigail had been traumatised by the death of her true love in a mining accident and subsequently drowned, apparently killing herself in her grief. But the kids uncover a very different story.
Unusually, Ghost in the Water is set in the Black Country, a region of the English Midlands, west of Birmingham and the largely non-professional cast (the two young leads didn’t act in film or television again) sport authentic regional accents, notable at a time when the protagonists of most children’s dramas on the BBC were either terribly nice middle class kids or very broadly drawn working class caricatures. The lead performances are far from polished (though there are strong supporting turns from old hands like Hilary Mason, Jane Freeman and Paul Copley) but that simply adds to their charm – Tess and David are effortlessly likable and nice character touches like Tess worrying that the girls in the glass will tease her if they thing she and David are seeing each other ring very true.
There are some fantastically creepy moments in Ghost in the Water as one might expect from director Renny Rye who had started out with altogether less intimidating spectres directing episodes of Rentaghost (1976-1984) before going on to oversee the Christmas favourite The Box of Delights (1984), children’s science fiction series The Gemini Factor (1987) and several Dennis Potter projects (Screen Two‘s Midnight Movie (1994), Karaoke (1994) and Cold Lazarus (1994)). Most notable is the made-up horror movie being watched by Tess’ family late one night on television which has some very striking images.
Ghost in the Water wouldn’t have been out of place in the BBC’s long-running and much-loved A Ghost Story for Christmas strand. It’s moodily lit, and shot through with the sort of melancholy that was surprisingly common in British children’s television in the 1970s and 80s. Tess’s visions of what really happened to Abigail are initially ambiguous – is she really possessed, having psychic visions or just dreaming? – and although the climax is clear cut, as befits a film made for younger viewers, it’s no easy cop-out ending and the film remains a terribly sad and downbeat tale to the very end. There are moments that perhaps wouldn’t make it into a children’s production today – Tess tries to recreated Abigail’s death by submerging herself in her bathwater, a disturbing scene capped by some chaste but unexpected semi-nudity – and indeed it’s hard to imagine a film as bleak and potentially upsetting as Ghost in the Water finding much favour with modern parents.
Ghost in the Water made quite an impact on those who saw it in 1982 and several of the scenes – particularly the dramatic finale – have been seared onto the memories of impressionable young viewers. After a single repeat broadcast on 3 March 1983, Ghost in the Water receded into the memories of those young viewers before being returned to the spotlight by Simply Media who released in on British DVD in February 2018.
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