Acclaimed Wigan director produces major new series on Britain's most famous haunting

For Chris Jones is bringing to life the country’s most famous haunting: the Enfield Poltergeist.

Apple TV+ is screening a four-part documentary on the dramatic and sometimes terrifying events that were caught on audio tape and camera by investigators at an ordinary-looking north London semi in 1977.

The Hodgson family claimed to have been plagued by a very noisy and disruptive ghost and while Chris says that there were clearly some things that were fabrications by the four children, there were some incidents which are very hard to explain away as hoax or figments of imagination.

He brought the series together while also working as a splinter director on the latest Mission: Impossible film so it’s been a very busy time for him.

But this is a project which has been close to his heart for decades.

Billinge-born Chris told Wigan Today: “This goes back a long way. In 1998 I made a film called Urban Ghost Story which was loosely based on the Enfield poltergeist. When we made it the internet isn’t what it is now and I couldn’t track down the people involved in the original case, but after the film came out I was able to make contact with them, especially Janet who was at the epicentre of all the activities.

"We became friends and talked about making another film and a documentary. Then just before the pandemic I was contacted by a film company about making a programme.

"We took the original audio recordings made by paranormal investigator Maurice Grosse and reconstructed the 1970s scenes in the house using actors lip-synching. It was all done in exquisite and accurate detail.

"This is interspersed with interviews with surviving witnesses to the happenings. This is a sensitive, serious and thought-provoking documentary.

"We didn’t walk into this believing that everything reported was true. It is pretty clear that the children did make certain things up as the got caught up in all the publicity. But there are other things which are far from easy to dismiss. There is a policewoman who was in the house and watched a chair move 5ft across the room in front of her.

"She examined it afterwards and it wasn’t attached to anything or unusual in any way. She testified to this incident and it cost her her job and yet she still maintains what she saw to this day.”

Then there is Bill – and old man whose voice comes out of 11-year-old Janet’s mouth. Investigators even put water in her mouth and taped her lips and he still spoke (she spat the water out afterwards too).

It turned out that Bill had died in the house and Janet knew things about his death that she couldn’t possibly have discovered.

Chris said: “Whether this is down to telekinetic activity, some other forces that have yet to be discovered or what some people would regard as a classic haunting I don’t know. But I am pretty sure that some weird stuff did go on in that house.

"And while some people have profited from what happened all those years ago and still fascinates to this day, virtually nothing has gone to the family who still stand by their stories.”

The Enfield Poltergeist will be available to watch on Apple TV+ as of October 28.