Paranormal Reality Shows

[Phalon]

I was a bit disappointed last night to tune into my favorite paranormal reality show - the only one I've ever watched for more than 5 minutes while flipping through channels - had ended its season last week: Eli Roth's "A Ghost Ruined My Life".

Other paranormal shows I found cheesy...the ones where a ghost hunting crew films themselves investigating some type of haunted place. "Did to hear that?!!!" Whatever they heard is replayed 5 times at slow speed, with a subtitle across the bottom of the screen that reads something like "Mama, I'm here and hungry" or some such thing, but all you actually hear is the sound of a pipe creaking, or the dials on their equipment go crazy with what is interpreted by them as "dark energy".

"A Ghost Ruined My Life" is a bit different though and I enjoyed every episode. First, I like Eli Roth - love, love, love his series "History of Horror", which aired on The History Channel during October for the past couple of years. Second, there's no (in my view) cheesy ghost hunting team trying to make things sound scarier than what was actually happening. Just a person telling their story of being haunted, and believable actors reenacting the events with well-done special effects. Roth is a seasoned actor,director and producer himself in the horror genre, so "A Ghost Ruined My Life" is, in my opinion, one of the better offerings in this type of show available.

[Mini Mia]

I watched Ghost Hunters when it first aired. I enjoyed it at first. It came off as real to me . . . until. . . in one scene, two of the ghost hunters were in their vehicle driving to the next location. These two were the leaders of the group, owners of the business. The driver was venting about one of the crew, who screwed up, IIRC. And during this rant, I suddenly noticed the seatbelt appear and disappear. It was over his shoulder. Then not over his shoulder. I realized this “conversation” had to have been recorded multiple times, and pieced together. And that was the last time I watched the show. It also soured me on most other such shows.

Other than Celebrity Ghost Stories. I enjoyed that for a long time, until they had a psychic go through a celebrity’s apartment and building. In the beginning of the show, the psychic dropped the object in her hand, and it broke into smaller pieces. She kept the largest piece, and went about her mission of finding ghosts. That piece of crystal, or whatever it was, switched back and forth between being a sliver of the larger object, to being the original size. I stopped watching the show after that.

Those events are why I am very picky about watching reality shows. I enjoyed Undercover Boss at first too. And then the undercover boss was on the phone with a customer. The microphone on his headset moved from his mouth to his forehead. So, stopped watching that show.

I’d love to watch a reality show that was real, or at least was upfront about being for entertainment purposes. And the show would have to be entertaining, and not faking the events as real. So, I haven’t checked out any new ghost story reality shows. But, perhaps I should give some a few episode watches before writing them off.

[Phalon]

I haven't seen any of the shows you mentioned. I'm not a fan of reality shows generally - the "reality T.V." that I watch are more competition shows than reality shows: I've watched Survivor since the first season (I believe it's the 40-something season that just started a few weeks ago); I like Chopped on the Food Network, and I really miss Syfy's Face Off, which was a special effects makeup artist competition. I guess the only actual reality show I like that isn't a competition show is Pitbulls and Paroles.

That's why I liked "A Ghost Ruined My Life" - it was an hour-long ghost story, suspenseful, and at times, downright cover-your-eyes scary (at least I thought so), with nothing that was supposed to come off as being filmed in "real time" but actually took a number of takes as in the scenes you noticed in the shows you mentioned.