For a good scare with a local twist, look no further than Haunted Ulster Live — a new Belfast-based spookfest that is streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
When interviewed last year by this newspaper about the comedy-horror film, director Dominic O’Neill had described it as being a bit like “UTV meets The Blair Witch Project”.
Now he has referenced it as also being a love letter to Northern Ireland in the “90s, and local community television”.
A synopsis for the movie says: “On Halloween night 1998, Northern Ireland TV veteran Gerry Burns teams up with popular new children’s presenter Michelle Kelly to investigate poltergeist activity in a reputedly haunted house in Belfast. Light entertainment turns to horror when an unseen terror reveals itself.
“Combining found footage horror, folklore and a nostalgia for regional television, Haunted Ulster Live recreates a familiar world of 90s light entertainment which, much like Belfast itself during the Northern Ireland Troubles, is haunted by something unseen and sinister.”
Haunted Ulster Live premiered at FrightFest 2023, with a local premiere at the Belfast Film Festival.
It earned acclaim at leading international film festivals, including Fantaspoa and Panic Fest.
And now audiences worldwide are able to view the 77-minute feature from the comfort of their own homes.
“A lot of people don’t understand the festival scene, because we’ve been talking about the film on social media for ages and people have been dying to see it. We’ve had to do the festival scene for the last year to build some momentum, so it’s nice to finally tell people they can watch it,” Dominic explained.
The story follows a local TV station as it investigates a reputedly haunted house in Belfast, which was filmed in a property just off the Castlereagh Road.
Mark Claney in Haunted Ulster Live
Having been released on streaming services on October 14, Dominic said the film has had “a really good reception and great print reviews”, including glowing reports from The Guardian, and movie/fantasy magazines such as Total Film, SFX and Filmhounds.
Dominic added: “We’re trying to hit everywhere that you’d expect when it comes to promoting the film, but we’ve also found that people are finding it themselves coming up to Halloween.
“It is a crowded market, because there are so many new TV shows and films out at the minute. I cannot keep up.
“It was released in America a week before here because US distribution is different. North America is 70% of the market for films, and that is the most important thing in that sense, and a lot of Americans are really into it, despite the very Northern Ireland specific context.”
However, as has been proven through the success of Derry Girlsand Oscar-winning film Belfast, international viewers seem to love the nicheness of Northern Ireland, and Dominic assured that none of the actors in Haunted Ulster Live “watered down their accents”.
“It makes you realise that people love region-specific stories, especially horror, because a lot of people are into foreign-language horror movies,” the 44-year-old director and writer added.
“They might not watch any other kind of world cinema, but people will happily watch foreign horror films. It works in that way as well, horror is universal.
“We call it horror, but there is quite a bit of comedy in there. The local TV aspect of it has really been picked up on. In America, they have their own public broadcasting which is like community television and it’s almost a love letter to that 90s broadcast style, which feels like 100 years ago now.
“So it’s also a bit of nostalgia for that sort of world, which seems almost like a simpler time than now.”
Haunted Ulster Live (Beyond Visible Films)
In 1992, the BBC created a TV drama called Ghostwatch, which starred hit presenters of the time, including Michael Parkinson and Sarah Greene.
“A lot of people thought it was real, and it’s not that well known now, because the BBC were a bit traumatised by the reaction to it, and they wouldn’t repeat it for years,” said Dominic.
True enough, Ghostwatch was presented as live television during its first UK broadcast, resulting in over a million phone call enquiries to the BBC switchboard on that Halloween night, comprising of a mixture of complaints and praise for the programme’s unique presentation.
Haunted Ulster Live (Beyond Visible Films)
Dominic added: “The premise for our film is a little bit like that, but doing it from an Ulster perspective.
“The two presenters in our film are like analogues for Gerry Anderson and Zoe Salmon — the idea of a young, bubbly children’s TV presenter being paired up with an old-school broadcasting legend who maybe thinks he’s at the end of his career.”
Viewers can buy/stream Haunted Ulster Live now on Prime Video, Apple TV or Google Play