Help! My House Is Haunted: Tivetshall Murder House - Series 2, Episode 9 Review

Barri Ghai, Chris Fleming, and Jayne Harris head to their next haunted location, a modest house in Norfolk that could be home to a dark and sinister spirit.

After six years of sleepless nights, the home's current owners, Des and Trudy, have had enough and have called the team in to help them get to the bottom of a string of unusual paranormal activity. Trudy says, "I am convinced that the house doesn't like me, as mad as that sounds". Des thinks that whatever haunts the property is "smug" and "self-satisfied". He added, "it's almost as if we don't belong".

The team's psychic medium, Chris, always insists on being kept in the dark about the location. He said, "whenever we work on a case or an investigation, I don't like to get information before hand". He added, "I want to see if I can communicate with this spirit on the way there". During the journey he said he was getting the strong feeling of a woman with long black hair. He said, "I'm seeing the old dress that really tightens in the waist, she's got a white thing around her waist too." He worked out this was probably an apron.

While Barri and Jayne head off to try to uncover more about the local area and the paranormal history of the house, Chris started the investigation with a solo walk around the property. As soon as he stepped inside, he says "right off the bat, there's something about this house".

Upstairs Chris becomes aware of a path that he says the spirit takes, and points out a wall that the entity passes through into another room. He recommends placing a camera on this area later in the investigation. In another upstairs bedroom, Chris started to feel a negative reaction. He said, "my abs and my stomach are starting to tighten up". Chris says this suggests there's something negative here that wants to make people sick. He added, "I'm getting something angry".

Chris was then drawn outside to the large shed, where straight away he felt a dark energy. Chris pulled out his digital audio recorder in the hopes he might capture some spirit voices in the form of EVPs, or Electronic Voice Phenomenon. He asked out, "are you human?" and when he replayed the audio the noise he'd captured sounded like a voice saying "no".

Jayne went to a nearby pub to meet local historian and author, Neil Storey. He tells Jayne about the county's historic connection to witchcraft, specifically Matthew Hopkins who was known as the Witchfinder General.

Later Neil took Jayne to the site of an ancient murder at the hands of a local man named Elijah Snelling. In 1890 he brutally killed his mother-in-law on a country lane. He also tells Jayne how Elijah had attempted to kill his wife seven years previously. Neil thinks it's entirely possible that the house the team are investigating is built on the same spot where Elijah lived and committed his crimes.

Meanwhile, to try and get a better understanding of the activity Des and Trudy have been experiencing, Barri went to meet their neighbours. He learns that the family living next door have also experienced weird happenings, including unexplained slamming doors and footsteps.

With their own individual investigations completed, the team re-group with a better understanding of the area and the spirits they might be facing. They share what they've learnt and put a plan of action together with Des and Trudy. Jayne invites the couple to join them for their first vigil. She hopes that their involvement might act as a trigger and encourage the spirits of the house to interact with them.

They started in the living room and used a pair a hobnail boots as a trigger object. These boots were given to Jayne by Neil the historian and would be familiar to Elijah Snelling. She also drew a daisywheel, a symbol that was once used in the area to ward off witches.

Chris is using a spirit box, a device that rapidly scans through radio frequencies and allows spirits to communicate by manipulating the white noise.

Trudy starts by calling out "did you come here to scare me or are you benevolent?" A voice through the spirit box seems to say "devil" in reply. Jayne then picked up the symbol she'd drawn and asked "what is this? What am I holding?" A voice said "daisy" through the spirit box.

Chris and Barri then take Trudy to the shed, the part of the house she fears the most. She blames the shed for dark thoughts she's had. During their time in the shed, Barri suddenly felt as if his coat had been pulled and jumped around, but the team refused to show any fear. Once outside Chris lifted Barri shirt to find three scratches on his back.

A shaken Barri said, "I didn't feel it being scratched, I thought my coat had been pulled".

As the light fades outside, Des and Trudy leave, and static cameras are rigged around the property. The team are then locked down inside the house for a 12 hour investigation throughout the night. The team begin their investigation upstairs in an ensuite bathroom, a room where Trudy claims to have seen a dark figure lurking.

Barri is armed with an SLS camera, a device that is supposed to be able to map anomalies invisible to the human eye and highlight these potential manifestations by showing them as stick figures drawn over the camera's image.

As soon as they walked into the bathroom, Chris felt as if something grabbed his leg, despite the fact there was nothing behind him. Seconds later an anomaly was detected by Barri's camera and a human-like stick figure showed up on its screen behind Chris.

Chris began to feel drained and needed some time out, while Barri and Jayne continued their investigation. They used an audio in an attempt to capture more EVPs. Jayne asked any spirits present for their name, a voice in the recording seemed to say "Bobby".

A little while later, Chris was back up on his feet and called for the others when he heard sounds coming from up in the attic. The team called out and listened to the noises coming from above them and heard what sounded like running coming from above their heads.

Of course it was Barri who was nominated to go into the attic. After all in the show's opener it does say Barri is "never afraid to take the investigation to places others fear to enter". As Barri is preparing to enter the attic, Jayne notices something on the wall. Shining her torch for a better look, she realises the wall is covered in several dead flies. This is really weird considering the wall was clear moments before.

Upon climbing up into the attic, Barri found "millions" more dead flies, and just as he was about to climb back down the ladder, something touched his arm and hastened his exit. This was followed by more running sounds coming from the roof space.

Chris then decides he wants to workout what is hiding in the attic. He says, "demonic entities like to conceal themselves away in the darkest areas of the house". Chris climbed the ladder and could immediately feel its presence and wondered if it could be the murderous Elijah Snelling.

Back in the bathroom, Jayne had set up a REM-Pod, a device that radiates its own electromagnetic field, if something gets close and interferes with that field then the device emits a tone and flashes. Jayne called out, "we'd like to know for certain if Elijah Snelling has any connection at all to this land". No sooner had she finished speaking, the REM-Pod flashed wildly and relentlessly for several seconds.

Barri and Jayne took this to mean that Elijah was with them, but that's not actually what Jayne asked. It could have been another spirit confirming that Elijah had a connection to the land, given how pronounced the response was, perhaps it was one of his victims. However, Chris was a bit more grounded and told Barri after, "well it could mean they don't like him, it doesn't mean it's him".

Moments later, Jayne excitedly ran through from the bathroom after hearing something move in the room with her. She called the others in and noted a significant drop in temperature. The REM-Pod also began to trigger aggressively, which lead Jayne to say "something in here doesn't like me, this feels intimidating".

Jayne continues to question the spirit and the REM-Pod continued to trigger, leading the team to believe that they were in fact dealing with the evil spirit of Elijah.

As Jayne was eliciting such a response in the bathroom, she went alone to the shed armed with a still camera, and began to call out. After a little while she heard a loud band behind her, but refused to let it drive her out. Instead she used a fog machine, the type you'd see a mobile DJ use. Jayne said this was a form of hydromancy, which was originally a type of divination that allowed shapes and images to form in the water vapour.

Jayne's hope is that any spirits at the property might be able to use the smoke to communicate and she'll be able to pick up those shapes with her camera. Jayne showed the photos to Des and Trudy at the end of the episode, one of which looked like there was a figure made of smoke.

The investigation ended with Chris performing a thorough cleansing ritual of the land and house, including the attic, in the hopes that this would banish all of the spirits and negative energy. Jayne helped by smudging the house with sage. Chris said he could feel the change straight away.

The episode was pretty creepy in places, especially the moment with the dead flies... which was odd. The story of the property was a little more straight forward than in other episodes, no imps, pixies or elementals, just what seemed to be a negative haunting at the hands of the dark spirit of a killer. Was this a demonic entity? Maybe, maybe not. Something sinister may have driven Elijah to commit his crimes.

Unusually, there was no resolution on what Chris said he was feeling on the way to the house. The woman with long dark hair and an old-style white dress. There was no mention of any female spirit at the property, unless the team were wrong in their belief that they'd made contact with the spirit of Elijah. After all, the did get arguably clearer responses earlier in the investigation saying "Bobby" and "Devil", but the Prince of Darkness probably has better things to do than haunt a house in Norfolk.