Peckham Poltergeist (webcast)
- You may be looking for the titular entity.
Peckham Poltergeist was a P.R.O.B.E. Case Files webcast initially released by BBV Productions on their YouTube channel in 2021. It was subsequently removed from this free upload to be sold commercially on the BBV website, and later still collected on DVD in P.R.O.B.E. Case Files - Volume 1.
Set earlier than previously-released YouTube shorts, served to feature a glimpse into the era of P.R.O.B.E. prior to the loss of Archie MacTavish, which cast a shadow over the events of Arcbeatle Press's then-upcoming anthology Out of the Shadows.
Summary[[edit] | [edit source]]
Giles and Archie investigate a home haunting in this new PROBE adventure from BBV Productions.
Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]
On 23 April 2018, Giles's video diary relates P.R.O.B.E.'s latest case, involving a much-storied mainstay of the Bureau's supernatural rogues gallery: ghosts. The tale begins about a week earlier, when Archie MacTavish begins monitoring a supernatural-focused Facebook group which recently popped up in the London area. As he shows Giles, some of the pictures and videos posted on this one do reach the fringes of true phenomena instead of being purely composed of hoaxes, with one video depicting a blurry view of none other than P.R.O.B.E. operative Tasha Williams performing an exorcism in an abandoned church.
Investigating the group further, they find that one member, Garry Nelson of Peckham, has recently been asking for advice on "how to deal with a poltergeist". The latest post from Garry sees him being worried for the safety of his son Steven, as the entity's latest bit of mayhem was shattering a mirror in Steven's bedroom, covering the floor with shards of glass. Maxie quickly finds the Nelsons' address, and within minutes, Giles and Archive are in the car.
When they pull up in front of Garry Nelson's house, they find all the curtains drawn, and glimpse a strange blue light flickering intermittently from within. As Nelson ushers them in, Archie's E.M.F. meter immediately spikes, and a dinner plate zooms at them from the drying rack in the kitchen, smashing into the door behind them after narrowly missing them. Though Steven is terrified, the Nelsons refuse to leave the house, even to wait in P.R.O.B.E.'s car, while the professionals deal with the threat.
Giles and Archie split up to search the house for a focus-object of the haunting; Giles's search is fruitless, but Archie finds an old-looking Ouija board under Steven's bed, of which the child denies any knowledge. By then the two P.R.O.B.E. agents have little doubt that they've hit jackpot, as Ouija boards, in untrained hands, can "very easily be used to open a door to the Dark Dimensions, where all sorts of nasty creatures can strep through". They initially speculate that it was Garry who acquired the Ouija board, in order to attempt to contact his late wife Rachel, but Garry seems earnest as he denies it, and a tearful Steven eventually confesses that it was him who brought it into the house after all, having bought it at a novelty shop to try and contact his mother.
Deducing that a portal must have formed in the cellar during the ritual attempted by Steven, they head there and Archie detects the portal at the back of the room using the EMF meter. However, as the two P.R.O.B.E. operatives attempt a banishment ritual, the spirit fights back with surprising strength, creating a whirlwind of flying items and resisting the banishment. Giles and Archie soon realise that Steven's mental anguish about the death of his mother and his increasing estrangement from his father is serving as a psychic food source for the poltergeist, and they need to sort out their issues if they Peckham Poltergeist is to be defeated. The father and son have a heart-to-heart, coming to understand their different ways of processing grief, and successfully drive away the entity.
Not wanting to outstay their welcome, Giles and Archive leave them to their reconciliation; after returning to P.R.O.B.E. HQ, Giles also ties off the final loose end by asking Maxie to use her technological wizardry to erase all footage of P.R.O.B.E. from the Facebook page, feeling that the organisation "works better in the shadows", though they commit to continuing to monitor the Facebook group to deal with new real threats as they are reported.
Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Bill Baggs - Giles
- Warren Lewis - Garry Nelson (photograph) (uncredted)
Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]
Mentioned only[[edit] | [edit source]]
Crew[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Writer - James Hornby
- Script editor - Lucy Wood-Ives
- Art - Warren Lewis
- Theme - Mark Ayres
- Logo - Lucas Kovacs
- Editing and Post-production - Callum Brown and Bill Baggs
- With special thanks to Hunter O'Connell and James Wylder at Arcbeatle Press
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Giles observes that "no matter how many ghouls, demons or UFOs [his organisation] encounter[s]", "ghosts remain P.R.O.B.E.'s bread and butter".
- In Giles's experience, a poltergeist's connection to the place it haunts is usually through a specific object.
- According to Giles, Ouija boards are often used by drunk university students at parties.
- Rachel Nelson, Garry Nelson's wife (and Steven Nelson's mother) died last year "just before Christmas".
Story notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The YouTube video title called the story Giles Case File - Peckham Poltergeist, but the title card in the video itself read Case File - Peckham Poltergeist.
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
- This webcast depicts a case handled by the team of Giles and Archie, serving as the first of several flashbacks to Archie's time at P.R.O.B.E. following his first mention in PROSE: The Door We Forgot [+]Loading...["The Door We Forgot (short story)"].
- Giles notes that ghosts are "P.R.O.B.E.'s bread-and-butter". One of the original P.R.O.B.E. films, HOMEVID: The Devil of Winterborne [+]Loading...["The Devil of Winterborne (home video)"], featured an antagonist who believed himself to be possessed by the reincarnated spirit of Isaac Greatorex; while this original film left the truth of this ambiguous, the ghost of Isaac Greatorex, taking on the appearance of the by-now-deceased Christian, would also go on to appear as an antagonistic force in the fittingly-titled HOMEVID: Ghosts of Winterborne [+]Loading...["Ghosts of Winterborne (home video)"].
- The title card for this short was seen in WC: P.R.O.B.E. CASE FILES - TRAILER [+]Loading...["P.R.O.B.E. CASE FILES - TRAILER (webcast)"].
- The EMF meter would reappear in HOMEVID: Fog [+]Loading...["Fog (home video)"], and an image of it was featured in HOMEVID: A Message From Sir Andrew [+]Loading...["A Message From Sir Andrew (home video)"] amidst paraphernalia from past case files, alongside images of the Peckham Poltergeist himself and the laptop displaying the occult-related Facebook group.
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Official Peckham Poltergeist page at bbvproductions.co.uk
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