SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

cudkey Host Linda Blair, in a black Spandex catsuit, strolls through a faux-Giger industrial set making spooky faces and trying to introduce paranormal pieces with an occultic solemnity. Narrator Zelda Rubinstein peppers the stories with melodramatic soundbites in an insistently insinuating tone. Cue Halloween music, and throw in some demonic intimations. Don't forget the grain filters, EMF meters, graveyard lighting and shaky body cams.There are a lot of good family freak-outs on offer. At Charleville Castle, after enduring innumerable noises, chills, dark passages, doors slamming, "pictures dropping", etc., Susan Ulrich has a complete meltdown and refuses to go on. Ditto Jen Ordonez at Lucedio Monastery - it all ended in tears, and Mom spazzed out at one point as well. I can't count the number of times throughout the series that a story ends with "(So-and-so) refuses to talk about it", as though everyone's permanently psychically scarred. And I laughed out loud when psychic Joyce Morgan told a traumatized girl to go and sit with her husband because "He's a grounding rod." At the Goldfield Hotel, a woman simply walked into an empty room, then walked back out, crying and saying, "That was so bad." Geez.Not saying that the show is predominantly phony - in fact, I think some of it is probably quite real. But even if it were 100% contrived, I would still like the way it's put together. It has the feel of a dark, gritty 70s exploitation chiller. Also, the dire gravity with which everything is treated is endearing.

the_wolf_imdb Sorry guys. I know it is very hard to make a decent scary show if all you have is a couple of photos with a flash blips on dust particles, but this is unwatchable. The fundamental problem is that the editor is on meth. I mean A LOT of meth. The cuts are usually faster than one second, sometimes many cuts in less than a second! It has the dynamics of music video or a couple of movie previews mixed together.One thing is to observe "paranormal investigators" who are usually very ugly fat white people with as weak flashlights as possible and with some devices that are supposed to measure something. It is an interesting psychological study: The leader shows them a texture on the wood saying "you can see a demon face here" - and they start to scream. Well, in Rorschach test you can see all the crap you could possibly imagine! This actually has some qualities of, say, home video or of a very cheap horror flick like Paranormal Activity.But the editing fueled by a lot of meth makes this mixture of random scenes, previews, insane cuts and who knows what else really really unwatchable. Maybe if you adjust your mental speed with some massive load of stimulants you can actually keep with ultra fast edits.It is really a shame. More capable filmmakers with better scripts and drug free editor could actually take the same stories and make them at least watchable. Unfortunately many stories are explained very poorly and have no conclusion at all. In the end all you can see is a epileptic freakshow of ultra fast edits. Horrible!

rajaspencer Watched the Rose hall episode with interest as I am an author and Babalawo (with Wanaldo) of Orisha worship and IFA (roughly on par with a Catholic Arch Bishop).Orisha worship & IFA you may know is the mother religion of Voodoo (Voodum), Santeria, Palo, Macumba etc. I trained in Cuba. The Babalawo is the high priest and specializes in divination throughout our religion, we are trained specifically for this. Herein lies mistake number one: Your Voodoo priestess is not on the same level as a Babalawo, so if indeed this "priest" named King was or is a real Babalawo and not a prop, he should have been directing the ceremonies, not her. Rank is important in Orisha worship and this trickles down to its various forms. Mistake number two was trying to expunge the "witch" rather than respectfully ask her for her help. Here, they tried to confront her and throw her out of her property! "Priest"King called his ancestors to protect him and then had what we call a "Tambor" where an Orisha would take control or "mount" him.....(Babalawo's can not be mounted). While many of these are shams, let's assume it was real (extremely doubtful).. of course then he could not be a high priest.....anyway.even if he was mounted he is not in control ...the Orisha is. What they had here, was a combo of them trying to use: The Dead, The Ancestors and The Orishas....None of which we control. The Dead protect us, The Ancestors guide us and The Orishas are how we obtain Ashe (Nature's energy) All but 3 of the 201 immortal Orishas represent Nature and have a natural element that the respective Orisha.can manipulate and guard (not to be confused with each Orisha BEING the element as they are not). Any Babalawo or serious student of our faith knows that 1) The light is stronger than the darkness and defeats it with the right tools. 2) That when working with spirits it is important to find out what the spirit wants,and how to appease them and give them peace.This is done through divination. The Babalawo is the expert in divination not the Santero/ Santera/ or priest or priestess. He is a priest of Orunmila, the Orisha of divination (one of the three Orishas that do not have a Natural element (the two others are Eshu and Eleggua). The Babalwo has unique equipment to divine with that lesser rank is are prohibited from. In fact of the 256 Odu or signs possible, lesser ranks are prohibited from "reading" certain Odu. Once the Odu is discovered it then becomes a matter of how knowledgeable the Babalawo is. Think of him as the consular who reads the diagnosis and prescribes the medicine. Let us hope that in the future they will do a better job of obtaining qualified experts. Indeed there are many scams with our religion and with all religions, yet we get enough bad press as it is. Movies like The Believers are loosely based on our religion and show the smoke and mirrors because the film has made a poor choice of "expert" consultants. In that case Ms. Gonzalas - Whippler. She is a successful author but gives second hand accounts as she has little more than a toe in our religion. Orisha worship has followers of around 150 million, only fools take it lightly. Very Truly Yours, Charles Spencer King (Awo Ogbe Sa)and Author of Nature's Ancient Religion

Thor2000 In recent years we have lost Unsolved Mysteries, Sightings, Haunted Lives, Paranormal Borderline and several more good shows which discussed true ghost stories. Hosted by Linda Blair and narrated by the creepy voice of Zelda Rubenstein, this show is definitely going to give you nightmares with its shaky angles, out of focus shots and provoking images as it goes in search of ghosts through some of the most haunted houses and edifices on the earth, and takes families to some of the most frightening places in the world to find spirits more unnerving than anything in the movies. Even if you don't believe in such things, this is the show for you.