Panic Fest Film Festival Coverage
Haunted Ulster Live review.
A live broadcast goes off the rails in expected (and unexpected) ways. A faithful recreation with some real tricks up its sleeve.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Haunted Ulster Live
Directed by Dominic O’Neill
Written by Dominic O’Neill
Starring Mark Claney, Andrew Dickson, Dave Fleming, Brendan Quinn, Owen James, Siobhan Kelly and Aimee Richardson
Haunted Ulster Live Review
I’ve already done the found footage diatribe once this month…so let’s just cut to the chase. Haunted Ulster Live presents footage from a “live broadcast” in 1998. It’s Halloween and the local channel is presenting a spooktacular special event. A live broadcast straight from a haunted house. The investigation yields some expected results…and some wildly unexpected ones. Found footage haters fear not…Haunted Ulster Live isn’t what you think.
The easiest thing to compare Haunted Ulster Live with is the recent release Late Night with the Devil. Both contain footage of a television broadcast that goes haywire. Each provides the full show as aired…but continues during the breaks with never-before-seen footage. Think…less “shaky cameras: and more “faithful recreation of period accurate television”. There’s actually a closer comparison style wise than Late Night with the Devil. It’s a famous broadcast from 1972 called Ghostwatch. A BBC special that had a similar impact as Orson Welles’ famous radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds. It’s impossible to watch Haunted Ulster Live and not see the influence of Ghostwatch.
Our host, Gerry Burns (Mark Claney) guides us through the night with the help of children’s presenter Michelle Kelly (Aimee Richardson), DJ Declan keeping the beats in the attic, and a rotating cast of characters. The Belfast home is currently owned by the McKillen family. An early interview with them sets the table full of expectations for what kinds of spooky things the broadcast may have in store. The whole town knows the legend…whether they believe it or not. Many have turned out to witness the live broadcast in person. Michelle is on the scene to get their take on things.
The program proceeds largely as you’d expect it too. An unexplained poltergeist moment here…strange writing on the wall there. Gerry interviews a medium named Sinead (Antoinette Morelli) to find out what kind of paranormal spirits they’re dealing with. We learn the tale of Blackfoot Jack. A ghost believed to be searching for his daughter. A girl who bears a striking resemblance to the young Rose McKillen. In a situation that can only be called parental neglect…Rose’s mother allows Sinead to perform a séance using Rose as a vessel to communicate with Blackfoot Jack.
Haunted Ulster Live is a tremendous recreation of a late 90s TV special. The cast does an A+ job whether in a starring role of briefly appearing as a talking head on the street. In our review of The Ceremony Is About to Begin we talked about how movies of this nature require two strong parts. A commitment to delivering a successful recreation of whatever format they are using…and a suitably wild finale after it falls apart. Haunted Ulster Live delivers the first part in spades. It’s a fun movie full of memorable characters with a hint of horror playing in the background. Then it becomes something new.
The third act of movies like this are generally where the fun happens. When the documentary or late-night show or, in this case, live haunted house broadcast becomes all the things that it’s been talking about. Haunted Ulster Live handles this in some of the most unique ways you’ve ever seen. We won’t spoil things here but there are twists that you couldn’t possibly see coming. Brilliant narrative transitions that change our perspective on everything. The movie gets effectively spooky as things we believed are upended before our eyes.
Scare Value
With a commitment to creating an authentic experience and a few rugs to effectively pull out from under us, Haunted Ulster Live is an unqualified success. It’s an entertaining watch that becomes something new and unpredictable. This is found footage done in a way that even the people who hate it would enjoy. It does what you expect…and follows it with things you’d never thought of.
4/5
