The Enfield Haunting

August 1977. A family living in a council house in the Enfield area of London are subjected to bizarre and terrifying events that bear the hallmarks of poltergeist activity. A rookie paranormal researcher and an experienced but sceptical investigator join forces to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Why we’re looking forward to this: Those of a certain vintage will remember a genuinely scary BBC drama from Halloween 1992 in which real life television personalities such as Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene and Red Dwarf legend Craig Charles supposedly fronted a live investigation into paranormal events that were taking place at a house in London. Sound familiar? Well that’s because Ghostwatch was based on the real life events that had occurred in Enfield fifteen years previously, and now the Sky Living channel has produced its own drama based on the case, The Enfield Hauntings.

Starring veteran British actors Timothy Spall (Harry Potter series), Matthew Macfadyen (Spooks, Ripper Street) and BAFTA and Olivier award winning stage and television actress Juliet Stevenson (Pierrepoint, Atlantis), The Enfield Haunting isn’t short on star power, and rather than update the story to present day, the original 1977 setting has been retained which will hopefully give the tale a feel of the old Hammer House of Horror tales and evoke that other great 1970s possession classic, The Exorcist

With poltergeists being very much in vogue at the moment, witness the ongoing Paranormal Activity film series and the superb upcoming book A Head Full Of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay, this three part drama is full of promise, and all the more so because it’s a British production flying the horror flag for a change.

The Enfield Haunting begins on Sky Living on 3rd May 2015.

RICHARD COSGROVE