2 out of 5

Directed by: Kristoffer Nyholm

Despite some amazing performances – particularly by child actress Eleanor Worthington Cox as the poltergeist-afflicted Jane – ‘The Enfield Haunting’ is so all over the place in tone and focus such that you can’t decide whether to treat it as a dark comedy, or a thriller, or a drama; and if the intention was to swiftly blend the three (or four, or five, or however many other genres peek through the script / direction)… well, it fails.

A ‘based on true events’ affair based on reports / recordings from a purported haunting in 70s Enfield that was investigated by noted (? I think – not my field) psychical researchers Maurice Gross – played with a uniquely relatable reserve by Timothy Spall – and Guy Lyon Playfair, to whom Matthew MacFadyen brings the same stern approach he brought to Ripper Street – though thankfully is allowed some room to be a bit more affable – Enfield, when focused on the daytime relations between Guy and the haunted Hodgson family, provides a strong dramatic story with the right dashes of smiles, and one not without supernatural flecks of interest as well.  Played along these subtle lines, the series could have been pretty effective.  Unfortunately, someone remembered that anything dealing with ghosts is supposed to be all quick-cut edits and in your face, so we must face non-subtle representations of spirits and growling ghosts and weird camera angles and whoosh whoosh scary smash cut.  And double unfortunately, this editing discrepancy seems to extend to all of the story points that aren’t those Guy / Hodgson bits, such as the overwrought subplot (which tries really hard to become non subplot) with Guy’s wife, Betty (Juliet Stevenson).  Even the title sequence is troubled to fit in: with each episode it drops out of nowhere, like someone forgot to queue it up.

Wasted performances in service of plot buffer and tossing physical scares – probably to play up that frightful “true events” tag – into a series that, had it just played it cool, could’ve milked out a much better dramatic and potentially frightful nail-biter.