I am a pretty much a sucker for those Ghost Hunter shows. From the Cheesy mockumentaries like Discovery Channel's "The Haunting" to Scooby Doo Reality shows like "Ghost Hunters". When I saw promos for A&E's "Paranormal State" I knew I was going to watch. Especially when "Paranormal State" was juxtaposed against a weak Monday Night Football game.
By the end of the pilot of "Paranormal State" when the main "character" in this reality dance macabre gives a Creepy Kid a bottle of Max Von Sydow Holy Water and reassures him by telling this boy that he, too, had a unspecified bad experience as a child with things that "came out of the closet" and the (Catholic) Church gave him a Holy Water to fend off the Things Coming Out of the Closet I knew I should have given Monday Night Football another shot.
The shtick behind "Paranormal State" is a group of Penn State students all got together and started their own Ghost Hunting club. Or Society. Or Super Adventure Club. And they run around Pennsylvania researching the most terrible hauntings and the lost plot to an M. Night Shymalan Movie.
The "They" is kind of a misnomer. Really Paranormal State revolves around a Nittany Lion named Ryan Buell who would probably be running Penn State's yearly Anime Convention if it wasn't for this show. He is often accompanied on "investigations" by hot co-eds and some other people seen in the credits but rarely caught on camera. Hey, are they ghosts too?
This is Ryan Buell's show. Paranormal State is his "vehicle" as we like to say in the Biz. And, oh, what a dull ride in a vehicle he can be.
Did I mention Ryan narrates the entire episode of Paranormal State in a star date-less "director's log" voice over? Almost immediately that gets annoying because the obvious intention is to give Ryan's ghost hunting some gravitas, but his filtered monotone does nothing but provoke grunts and laughs. Seriously, every serious intonation sounds like the radio chatter from a Call of Duty video game.
The "investigations" -- the plot that each episode revolves around -- are interesting on the surface. No haunted Inns or Restaurants to be found in "Paranormal State". This is a show about fearing the unknown like a good Catholic Boy and by god they give you stuff to fear.
Small children are harassed, things loom in the dark, voices encourage the living to kill, and the Aleister Crowely in me rubs my hands. Of the two episodes I watched each revolved around violent, nasty hauntings tied to violent, nasty deaths.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Everything in "Paranormal State" is short-handed into half hour, "Dog the Bounty -- er, Ghost Hunter" blocks. Every time there is an interesting, verifiable shred of evidence -- the murder of a family in a farmhouse in the 1800s -- the proof is waved in front of the viewer like a con artist trying to convince you a stack of papers currently under your nose is proof of that ten million coming from Nigeria and then yanked away before you can get a good gander.
At least with Sci-Fi Channel's "Ghost Hunters" there is a somewhat over-exhaustive need to trot out every possible shred of evidence and present it to the viewer. EVPs that could be a rat farting, cold spots in a drafty house, and "orbs" that even the Ghost Hunters themselves discount as dust. It is a sort of Scooby Doo like approach that makes "Ghost Hunters" ... almost believable.
Whereas "Paranormal State" claims to have EVPs but gives the viewer a ten second video clip of a wave file in Garage Band with no audio. Yep, see, an EVP, right? People are claiming to see dark figures in the basement... Well, we will just go and see about that... while leaving the night vision camera on an enthralling stationary shot of the living room. Ryan, the intrepid leader of this pack of Penn State Graduates, is claiming to see "visions" of a demon's name he knows and that might be involved in a paranormal haunting... But he can't tell us, the audience, or his team of gothed out undergrads, because... He can't. You never say a demon's name out loud, Ryan informs the wide eyed Co-Ed who dare inquires.
Well, how very very convenient for you. Especially since this is a Television Show where the audience cannot read your mind.
"Paranormal State" is all Turn and no Prestige. The audience gets told what is supposedly happening but you never see an ounce of proof that the creepy kid is seeing Dead People. Not even grainy video of a chair moving, or a black blob running between prison cells. Nothing. You are just told what happened by Ryan in yet another mechanical voice over.
If you are going to try and spook me dress it up a little. If you are trying to sway me, show me a orb or a blob and have the fat chick who works days at Hot Topic tell me why that black orb is really the spirit of an ax murderer. And if you want to make me watch a ghost hunting show give me something besides trotting out Lorraine Warren by the second episode.
"Paranormal State" is weak sauce. Not really worth watching unless you are hard up for TV time, or just have that thin of a DVD collection. Or unless you want to know what really happened in that closet with the Holy Water.
By the end of the pilot of "Paranormal State" when the main "character" in this reality dance macabre gives a Creepy Kid a bottle of Max Von Sydow Holy Water and reassures him by telling this boy that he, too, had a unspecified bad experience as a child with things that "came out of the closet" and the (Catholic) Church gave him a Holy Water to fend off the Things Coming Out of the Closet I knew I should have given Monday Night Football another shot.
The shtick behind "Paranormal State" is a group of Penn State students all got together and started their own Ghost Hunting club. Or Society. Or Super Adventure Club. And they run around Pennsylvania researching the most terrible hauntings and the lost plot to an M. Night Shymalan Movie.
The "They" is kind of a misnomer. Really Paranormal State revolves around a Nittany Lion named Ryan Buell who would probably be running Penn State's yearly Anime Convention if it wasn't for this show. He is often accompanied on "investigations" by hot co-eds and some other people seen in the credits but rarely caught on camera. Hey, are they ghosts too?
This is Ryan Buell's show. Paranormal State is his "vehicle" as we like to say in the Biz. And, oh, what a dull ride in a vehicle he can be.
Did I mention Ryan narrates the entire episode of Paranormal State in a star date-less "director's log" voice over? Almost immediately that gets annoying because the obvious intention is to give Ryan's ghost hunting some gravitas, but his filtered monotone does nothing but provoke grunts and laughs. Seriously, every serious intonation sounds like the radio chatter from a Call of Duty video game.
The "investigations" -- the plot that each episode revolves around -- are interesting on the surface. No haunted Inns or Restaurants to be found in "Paranormal State". This is a show about fearing the unknown like a good Catholic Boy and by god they give you stuff to fear.
Small children are harassed, things loom in the dark, voices encourage the living to kill, and the Aleister Crowely in me rubs my hands. Of the two episodes I watched each revolved around violent, nasty hauntings tied to violent, nasty deaths.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Everything in "Paranormal State" is short-handed into half hour, "Dog the Bounty -- er, Ghost Hunter" blocks. Every time there is an interesting, verifiable shred of evidence -- the murder of a family in a farmhouse in the 1800s -- the proof is waved in front of the viewer like a con artist trying to convince you a stack of papers currently under your nose is proof of that ten million coming from Nigeria and then yanked away before you can get a good gander.
At least with Sci-Fi Channel's "Ghost Hunters" there is a somewhat over-exhaustive need to trot out every possible shred of evidence and present it to the viewer. EVPs that could be a rat farting, cold spots in a drafty house, and "orbs" that even the Ghost Hunters themselves discount as dust. It is a sort of Scooby Doo like approach that makes "Ghost Hunters" ... almost believable.
Whereas "Paranormal State" claims to have EVPs but gives the viewer a ten second video clip of a wave file in Garage Band with no audio. Yep, see, an EVP, right? People are claiming to see dark figures in the basement... Well, we will just go and see about that... while leaving the night vision camera on an enthralling stationary shot of the living room. Ryan, the intrepid leader of this pack of Penn State Graduates, is claiming to see "visions" of a demon's name he knows and that might be involved in a paranormal haunting... But he can't tell us, the audience, or his team of gothed out undergrads, because... He can't. You never say a demon's name out loud, Ryan informs the wide eyed Co-Ed who dare inquires.
Well, how very very convenient for you. Especially since this is a Television Show where the audience cannot read your mind.
"Paranormal State" is all Turn and no Prestige. The audience gets told what is supposedly happening but you never see an ounce of proof that the creepy kid is seeing Dead People. Not even grainy video of a chair moving, or a black blob running between prison cells. Nothing. You are just told what happened by Ryan in yet another mechanical voice over.
If you are going to try and spook me dress it up a little. If you are trying to sway me, show me a orb or a blob and have the fat chick who works days at Hot Topic tell me why that black orb is really the spirit of an ax murderer. And if you want to make me watch a ghost hunting show give me something besides trotting out Lorraine Warren by the second episode.
"Paranormal State" is weak sauce. Not really worth watching unless you are hard up for TV time, or just have that thin of a DVD collection. Or unless you want to know what really happened in that closet with the Holy Water.