I admit, when I sat down to watch Bayview Entertainment's Abigail's Castle: The Haunting of Featherstone Castle, I didn't realise it was a documentary, and had expected a horror film! Compared to other recent docs I have watched, this one felt very indie and low budget. Despite a slight meandering feel, the subject matter was interesting, and it served as a good bit of escapism.
This was written, produced, directed and starred Warren Speed (Zombie Women of Satan) and takes place entirely within Featherstone Castle, which can be located in Northumberland, England. Over an hour and fifteen minutes, Warren speaks to the head of a paranormal investigating group, a group who currently have exclusive rights to investigate the alleged hauntings of the castle. With the original part of the castle being over a thousand years old, its key event occurred in the 16th century, when the majority of the family who lived at the castle at the time were murdered by a rival family during an ill-fated hunting trip on the day that Abigail Featherstone was due to be married. Since then there have been many accounts of shadowy figures spotted and strange noises heard throughout the many rooms.
The documentary was quite basic, outside of an opening narration by Speed, this takes place almost completely via on camera interviews Speed has with members of the paranormal investigation group, chiefly with Graham Burney. There isn't a fancy way the film was made, these interviews feature mainly static shots of the interviewer and interviewee, often sat down next to each other on couches. There was never a good sense of the layout of the castle, various rooms are talked about in detail, but these places seemed disjointed from one another. Occasionally there will be a little silent bit of footage of a camera person walking around the place, and throughout there is atmospheric music playing. Having been used to the American style of documentaries, it was fresh that there wasn't an attempt to spice things up. Speed came across as genuine, and a bit rough around the edges, fiddling with his hair unconsciously, asking questions that had already been answered, and reacting naturally to what he was being told. The people he interviewed likewise came across as genuine, it felt these people believed what they were saying, rather than exaggerating for the camera.
The focus was a bit unsettled at times, with there not really being much to say about the castle itself, the documentary was instead more about getting told stories about the various possibly paranormal events the investigators have come across in the place. There was only a small part at the very start that looked into the history of the castle itself. There was even one long interview about the investigator's own personal paranormal experiences himself as a child growing up in a terraced house somewhere. Nothing whatsoever to do with Featherstone Castle, but I did find this side story quite interesting in its own way.
Abigail's Castle: The Haunting of Featherstone Castle was obviously a low budget documentary, and one that never tried to be snazzy. It keeps things grounded and calm, making for something that was interesting to watch, but didn't really have too much variation to it. It would have been nice for Speed to attend one of the investigation group's nightly visits, rather than just interview people about what those visits are like. Still, escapism is always welcome, especially nowadays with such a broken world we live in.
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