Panic Fest 2024: ‘Haunted Ulster Live’ Movie Review: A Limp Horror Approach To Uncover The Paranormal On Live Television
Photo from Panic Fest
From Jeff Nelson
The chase to uncover paranormal secrets is a common genre trope, pitting the believers against the skeptics. Dominic O’Neill’s Haunted Ulster Live brings the topic to a live television broadcast that brings Lesley Manning’s unnerving Ghostwatch to mind, which left audiences wondering if it was actually real. However, it doesn’t achieve the same tension-building horrors that its inspiration achieves.
Television host Gerry Burns (Mark Claney) joins forces with popular children’s present Michelle Kelly (Aimee Richardson) for a special 1998 Halloween night broadcast. They investigate a family’s allegedly haunted house located in Belfast. The further the team digs to capture real haunted footage, the more bizarre happenings unfold.
O’Neill melds comedy with supernatural horrors, capturing the look and feel of a late-90s television broadcast. It shifts between cheesy dramatic re-enactments, a paranormal tech hideout called the Ghost Tent, and on-the-ground reporting within the house itself. The footage alternates between the crew’s live takes and behind-the-scenes action between commercial breaks. The potential ghostly threat is only one of Gerry and Michelle’s obstacles, as they struggle to maintain their composure amid off-camera drama with producers and the local community.
The Blackfoot Jack urban legend runs throughout the narrative, feeding us more of the old tale one segment at a time. Paranormal experts arrive on the scene to provide their services, as they try to uncover the entity’s identity and how to set the spirit free. However, it doesn’t welcome their presence. O’Neill pokes fun at genre conventions, such as mysterious writings on the wall and ominous voices captured on sound recordings, which undercuts any bubbling tension. The horror doesn’t truly kick in until the third act after a long, monotonous second act.
Claney and Richardson anchor their portions of Haunted Ulster Live, infusing the film with a natural, likable flow. However, the story’s overall pacing flatlines, never escalating to a point worthy of the wait in an only 80-minute movie. The seemingly effortless execution found in Ghostwatch is missing, all while lacking scares or a creep factor that should make this supposedly haunted house feel dangerous each time the crew steps inside.
Haunted Ulster Live doesn’t utilize the suburban Halloween setting to its potential, spreading itself to the point where it falls short on both chills and laughs. There are smart concepts sprinkled here and there, although they don’t make a cohesive whole. We’ve seen this concept done better.
Rating: 2/5
Haunted Ulster Live played Panic Fest 2024 on April 7th, 2024.
