HorRHIFFic 2025: ‘Britain’s Greatest Ghost Stories’ Review
Stars: Louisa Warren, Lee Hancock, Sarah Dorsett, Daniel Jones | Written and Directed by Steven M. Smith
Britain’s Greatest Ghost Stories is billed as two episodes of a TV “series” that follows a team of paranormal investigators who use modern techniques and advanced technology to look into some of the most famous ghost stories in and around Great Britain.
In reality, this is more of a mockumentary, from writer/director Steven M. Smith, that delves into two of the UK’s most renowned hauntings: Britain’s most haunted building, Borley Rectory, and the eerie Pluckley Village in Kent, reputedly the most haunted village in Britain.
Smith is a filmmaker who’s more than familiar, in fact you might say he has a fascination with, the Borley Rectory – the subject of the first half of this short film – having made not one but TWO feature films about the locale in the past, 2019’s The Haunting of Borley Rectory and 2021’s The Ghosts of Borley Rectory. The latter of which also appears in narrated footage here!
While it stars the likes of Louisa Warren (herself a low-budget filmmaker) as a private investigator, Lee Hancock (Jack and Jill, The Leprechaun’s Curse) as a historian author, Sarah Dorsett (Midsomer Murders, Doll House) as an empath, and Daniel Jones as a paranormal investigator, Britain’s Greatest Ghost Stories blurs the line between fiction and reality by using interview footage with real-life experts such as the authors behind the book The Borley Rectory Companion.
Smith is already apparently in pre-production of The Haunting of Pluckley Village, which probably tells you all you need to know about this film’s second segment, which repeats the same style of storytelling as the first – interviewing our fictional “experts” and intercutting that with additional footage. Only this time it is of Pluckley Village itself, given that Smith hasn’t even begun filming his feature yet!
Shockingly this is not the first time Warren, Jones and Smith have collaborated on this type of quasi-documentary paranormal investigation film – they worked together in 2021’s Ouija Hosts, which explored very similar territory, to about as much success as this short. Thankfully though, Britain’s Greatest Ghost Stories does keep things short and sweet – making this wannabe reality TV show pass by much less painlessly than the aforementioned film!
**½ 2.5/5
Britain’s Greatest Ghost Stories screened as part of this year’s Romford Horror Film Festival on Friday, February 28th.
