Abstract

This paper looks at Living TV's popular ghost hunting programme Most Haunted. Immersed in Gothic imagery, Most Haunted may be seen as style over substance. However, I argue that the text is actually firmly rooted in the tradition of subversion and Victorian Spiritualism. Most Haunted is about imaginatively transporting the viewer into its Gothic spaces through low-tech production values and a distinct and apparent amateurism. Most Haunted invites the audience into these Gothic spaces precisely through this almost rigid refusal of expertise, technological wonder and proficiency. Most Haunted subverts the elitist and masculine traditions of ghost hunting, creating a new contemporary Gothic space which returns to a more rowdy, sensational and distinctly working class tradition of popular ghost hunts. Most Haunted displays a happy irreverence and this paper argues that it returns the Gothic to where it should be - out of the bourgeois and back into popular culture.