Paranormal Shows (The Fiction Edition)

       

(Before I get going on this, I just want to say that I’m not including Supernatural in this particular piece because Supernatural is its own beast. And I do love me some Dean, Sam, and Castiel!)

But what put the topic of paranormal shows into my head is the new one on CBS. It’s called Evil and if you haven’t seen it, you really should. I mean REALLY should. It’s well-written, it’s spooky, it has a good cast, and the premise is the investigation of supernatural incidents. As CBS itself describes the first show, “Forensic psychologist Kristen Bouchard is hired by the Catholic Church to work with David Acosta, a priest-in-training, and contractor Ben Shakir, to determine whether a serial killer is possessed by a demon or merely a psychopath. Kristen finds that she has a taste for the work and is invited to join the team on a permanent basis.” And it was excellent.

If you haven’t seen it, please do so right away.

But that’s just this year. The path to this kind of program was forged way back in the early days of television with shows like The Twilight Zone, One Step Beyond, and Alcoa Presents. Later on in the sixties, ABC picked up a summer replacement series from England called Journey to the Unknown and it was fantastic. ABC also produced a series called The Sixth Sense in the early ‘70’s as well.

Fast forward to The X-Files. While I know it’s really famous for its motto “The Truth is Out There”, and while I know the mythology of the show was based on Mulder’s search for what happened to his sister and what-about-all-those-aliens, their stand-alone paranormal stories were truly frightening. I still remember the one about the Golem, or the one about the vengeful spirit that killed it’s victims by strangulation. From inside the victim’s neck. Their tales of apparitions, possessions, and demonic creatures were second to none and I loved every hair-raising minute of it.

But there were also some lesser-known, short-lived shows that explored the same area as the show Evil currently does. Do you even remember a series called Mysterious Ways? It ran from 2001 through 2002, and featured Adrian Pasdar and Rae Dawn Chong investigating strange and spiritual phenomena. I never missed an episode and was truly sorry when the show ended. Then there was Miracles, a show that popped up in 2003 and only lasted one season, which was a real pity, because this one was SCARY. It featured Skeet Ulrich and Angus Macfadyen, and I never missed an episode of that, either. In fact, I own the series on DVD and there were a couple of episodes that never had a chance to air. I don’t know why either of these two series were canceled so quickly. All I can say is that I am happy that the Fox network let The X-Files find its audience because when it did, its popularity was a phenomenon in its own right.

There were other little paranormal blips like Brimstone (Peter Horton) and Proof (Jennifer Beals and Matthew Modine), but nothing stuck like The X-Files, until Supernatural came along.

There always seems to be an audience for this type of show and I’m glad because I, for one, am always looking for this type of show! Of course, there are more alternatives to getting programs like this on the air, thanks to streaming services, and some of them have been amazing.

I may write ghost stories myself, but I’m always up for someone else’s tale. Thank you, CBS, for Evil!

Like Dr. Evil Says

 

I want to watch a ghost story.

I want to see a really good ghost story movie because I haven't seen one in a long, long time. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that all the scary movies I have watched lately have been horror/demon type stories, as opposed to horror/haunting stories. I probably missed something, but I feel like the last true ghost story I watched was The Others, and that goes back fourteen (count 'em) years already. 

There have been a couple I watched that came from Japan, The Grudge being the most notable. But even that, disturbing as it was, rated more on my horror scale than on my ghost story scale. My favorite haunted house/ghost story movies are still The Haunting (the 1963 version, done in black and white and starring Julie Harris), The Changeling (1980, with George C. Scott), and probably The Sixth Sense (no notes needed). I like these films, these stories, because they are purely about ghosts, and not always malevolent ones. I don't cotton to the movies where the spirits in the story are beyond vengeful. I don't like slasher films made out of ghosts. I admit Nightmare on Elm Street is hair-raising, but it's still not my idea of the ideal ghost story. Maybe people think ghost stories just for the sake of the hauntings are boring?

So lately, I have been confining my ghost story viewing to things like Ghost Hunters and The Dead Files with occasional forays into A Haunting, Paranormal Witness, Paranormal Survivor, an occasional Haunted Highway, and when I can find one that I haven't already seen, Haunted History. Sometimes SyFy will do me a huge favor and repeat an old Haunted Collector, but for the most part, I'm in a ghost desert here. Cue to Dr. Evil imploring, "Throw me a bone, people." There's just not enough of the good ghost stuff out there.

The spark of hope lies in the fact that we are now in October, and programming will set its sights on appropriate Halloween fare. So more of my favorite shows are coming back this month: Supernatural and Grimm being the headliners. I love me some Winchester and Castiel stories, but boy, I wish they'd do one that was just a stand-alone ghost story, because the only other show that did such high-quality stand-alone ghost stories was The X-Files (golem, anyone?)

(Maybe that's not quite accurate. There was a short-lived British series on ABC back in the late Sixties called Journey to the Unknown that featured one-hour long supernatural stories each Thursday, and they grew progressively more frightening each week. Try watching that and going to sleep in a haunted house afterward! But boy, they were amazing and imaginative and truly scary and I miss that.)

Still, the old hope springs eternal. I am hoping that this month will bring me some good, chilling stuff having to do with haunted houses, or visitations, or apparitions in the mirror, or unexplained appearances on security cameras. My writing self lives for that stuff. I'll have to start looking for the paranormal offerings and specials that I hope will be coming up as we get closer to Halloween. I hope.

Throw me a bone, people.