Film Review: Ghost Hunters International S1 – Part 1 (2010)

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SYNOPSIS:

Ghost Hunters International (abbreviated as GHI) is a spin-off series of Ghost Hunters that airs on Syfy. The series premiered on January 9, 2008. Like its parent series, GHI is a reality series that follows a team of paranormal investigators; whereas, the original series primarily covered only locations within the United States, the GHI team travels around the world and documents some of the world’s most legendary haunted locations.

REVIEW: 

if you haven’t been exposed to the Ghost hunters series at some point, its pretty safe to say you’ve been living in a cave. This particular series has grown so much that the original team can’t keep up with number of requests coming in to investigate. As we are explained in the beginning, the international team was created to investigate particularly the European haunts that the Us team can’t get to. So without further ado, a team is put together to travel overseas and investigate these haunts with the same skepticism that the US team has. An impressive group of colleagues are hand picked for the occasion.

There first stop Chillingham Castle is a rather gigantic structure that would seem to be more than appropriate to house rouge spirits. The team does their best to capture as much as they can in the short time, but ends up debunking alot of the claims with common explanations. Even a flying orb is easily dismissed as a dive-bombing insect. EVPs are presented, but in my opinion were a bit of a stretch as well.

Names and words are pointed out but really lack anything entirely convincing. The first stop although impressive turns out to be just a cool looking structure without much in the supernatural field. I found this release to provide alot of the technical and expert opinions that the US series features, though what might be a let down is the lack of hauntings in the England regions. In fact its a bit of a irony that these buildings look like the kind of structures that would be appropriate for serious ghost haunting. When the episodes round themselves out, we find alot of personal experiences but lack of on camera experiences.

In normal circumstances, you would expect a team to exploit these little instances to make for better screen time. But this team is honest in its approach leaving many locations without any real evidence. We do get a bit of “brush on the shoulders”, cold spells, slight EVP’s and eerie circumstances. My take on the mission was more of a glorification from the location owners to try and beef up an on camera experience for perhaps a tourist attraction sell. This seemed to fall short at least as hauntings were concerned.

This experiences are well traveled and done professionally. I believe the team to be top notch and capable of the tasks. One thing that struck me funny was that the case worker along for the ride kept experiencing battery drains on her camera. After this happened in more than 2 episodes I began to think…shouldn’t she have just brought along a few spares?…or maybe it’s the camera that needs replacement. We visit alot of very ornate and mammoth structures such as the Frankenstein’s castle, Vlad’s original castle and various village and forest locations. Each location is haunting in its presentation.

For review purposes I listed the team on board for all 11 adventures. Andy Andrews – Lead Investigator, Brian Harnois – Tech Manager,, Donna La Croix – Case Manager Shannon Sylvia – Investigator, and Angela Alderman – Investigator .

The DVD collection consists of 3 DVD’s totaling over 8 hours of adventures. The set also includes some deleted scenes. With this listed as series 1, part 1 you can bet there is alot of content still coming. Whether you expect all haunting’s to transpire or not, there still is a great value of content to fill up a few of your evenings. I think you’ll find this a welcome alternative to shows like the “Ghost Adventures” which tends to feature angry overacting somewhat embellished performances on screen. Ghost Hunters international remain calm and cool which says alot for their professionalism.