Help! My House Is Haunted: 'Nightmare Nursery' - Series 5, Episode 10 Review

The recent episode of 'Help! My House Is Haunted', now streaming on Discovery+, takes us to a nursery in Bury, Greater Manchester. Nina, the owner, urgently sought the team's assistance after experiencing a series of shocking events. "When we first bought the nursery, there was a lot of renovations that needed doing," Nina recalls. Her unsettling experiences began during these renovations, feeling as if "someone was always watching you." She vividly describes seeing a white silhouette of a lady and recounts eerie incidents relayed by the children, including sightings of a man they called 'Carlos'.

As the team, comprising Barri Ghai, Ian Lawman, and Jayne Harris, drives to the location, they discuss their anticipations. Barri expresses his intrigue, "It has all the hallmarks of a fantastic haunting." Ian, sensing a peculiar medical smell and taste of iron, mentions an odd connection to Barri's name, suggesting an eager anticipation from the spirits. "It's almost as if spirit[s] are waiting for you," he notes, adding to the sinister undertone of their quest.

Upon arrival, Ian embarks on his solo psychic sweep. As always, he enters the property without any knowledge of the cases to ensure genuine psychic insights. He immediately senses a dark atmosphere and again notes the medical smell. He describes witnessing a shadow in the doorway and feeling breathless. He wonders if the property had a medical history. Later on his walk around, Ian encounters a small mist-like entity and a lady in white in the basement.

Meanwhile, Jayne and Barri engage in some background research to shed light on the property's past. Jayne's visit to the Fuselier Museum confirms a link to Wellington Barracks, as local historian Robin reveals the building's origins as accommodation for the Fuselier and its brief stint as a recovery hospital. Barri meets with Amanda, a nursery staff member, who tells him about her terrifying experiences of seeing a man's silhouette and, on another occasion, feeling his breath on the back of her neck.

With their initial research complete, the team regrouped in order to conduct their first experiment, which they call "spirit triggers." This involves asking Nina and Amanda to join them in the hopes that their familiarity will encourage spirits to communicate.

Barri begins by using a spirit box in hopes of establishing a connection. A spirit box scans through radio frequencies, and the idea is that spirits can communicate through this device.

Barri encourages Nina to call out to the spirits, leading to an eerie interaction. Nina, with a hint of trepidation, asks, "Hello. What's your name? Can you hear us?" To the team's astonishment, they discern responses, including the name "Sarah" and phrases like "I'm here." Believing they'd made contact with Sarah, Ian said, "There were a lot of responses in there. She's very talkative."

Encouraged by this initial success, Barri focuses on Amanda, whose numerous encounters at the nursery make her an ideal participant. He proposes a daring step, "You said that you're quite scared of being up on your own in that top floor, potentially this male spirit... I would like you to go upstairs on your own." He provides Amanda with an AliceBox, a device designed to audibly announce spirit voices.

Amanda asks, "Hello, is anybody there?" and "What are you doing here? What do you want?" The AliceBox responds with a single word, "Anthony," leading Amanda to question, "Who's Anthony?" Ian senses a shift in the spiritual atmosphere, observing, "I'm now sensing that Anthony has been joined in the room by a second spirit. The energy has changed. It's different."

Amanda asks the spirit if it can move an object, to which the AliceBox chillingly responds, "Easy." Barri reflects on the session, "I don't know if you realise, but the words, you were definitely talking to a little boy at one point." Ian confirms, "So Anthony was definitely, I feel, a boy that you were connecting with... But at one point, the energy started to change for me, and I did feel uncomfortable."

Once Nina and Amanda had left for the night, the team began their night-long investigation in the upstairs area. Almost immediately, Barri witnessed a startling visual encounter. "I saw a man's head!" he exclaims after spotting it in an adjoining room. This is quickly followed by a physical interaction, as their camera operator feels a touch on the shoulder. Jayne then seemingly makes contact with 'Carlos', a spirit mentioned in Nina's story, through an Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) session.

EVP is a technique used to capture ghostly voices on electronic devices. In this case, the team used an audio recorder to capture the responses. "Who's here with me now?" Jayne asked, and a voice appears to respond with "Carlos." The team continues to probe, asking Carlos about his past, to which a voice revels that he was a soldier and responds, "shot dead."

Barri attempts to attract a child spirit believed to be 'Anthony', using a toy robot named Brian. The gesture-controlled robot, reacting as if controlled by an unseen force, moves on its own. "Something is definitely operating him," Barri says. Ian calls out to the spirit, encouraging Anthony to bring the robot closer to him, which it seemed to do.

The investigation then takes a chilling turn when a door slams shut in front of Barri. "How the hell did that close?" he questions, bewildered by the unexplainable event. Ian notes, "There was a large shadow behind you. That's what I saw, and then that happened."

Later, the team goes down to the basement and shifts their focus to the female spirit, believed to be 'Sarah'. "Sarah, if you can hear me, can you tell us why you're here, please?" Jayne calls out. The team receives confirmation of Sarah's presence through another EVP.

Returning to the scene of the closing door, Barri undertakes a lone vigil upstairs. He admits, "Guys, I'm absolutely sh***ing myself," as he requests the spirits not to scare him again. But a whispered "I see you" sends him fleeing from the room, leaving the camera behind. "Someone was in that room with me whispering... loud," he tells his teammates, shaken by the encounter.

The episode concludes with a cleansing session led by Ian. He guides the team in visualising a pathway for the spirits - Sarah, Carlos, and Anthony - to cross over into the light. "We pray for you, and we ask you to keep walking into that light," he says, offering a peaceful closure to the spirits they encountered.