Ghost orb phasmophobia4/1/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Right now, Phasmophobia is a truly excellent haunted house. Their drive for providing context for the phenomenon they research supports their inclusive approach to the occult, providing not just the thrill of a haunted house to their viewers, but a mystical paradigm to inhabit and investigate. The Newkirks are also dedicated to research, often literally pulling books out of their expansive library to delve into a new tangent on screen, or heading to the local library to pour through maps and records while on location. The crew on Hellier, led by Greg and Dana Newkirk, take a more holistic approach to supernatural experiences, weaving distinct strands of esoterica into a more complete whole. The show details an expedition into reports of mysterious goblins tormenting a doctor in Kentucky, that eventually expands to include UFOs, thelemic magic, Indrid Cold, and the usage of synchronicity as a divination device. These aspects of Phasmophobia bring to mind more a recent paranormal show, Hellier. Phasmophobia is a game about screaming into a walkie-talkie while another friend is safe in the van, watching you flail around a basement on remote video, allowing you to safely experience the ghost hunting experience without risking demonic attachment. Likewise, identifying ghosts is not the real point of Phasmophobia. However, the point of Ghost Adventures is not to prove ghosts are real, but to provide a vicarious thrill. You’re supposed to collect evidence and identify the ghost before it kills you and your friends. ![]() You’re also able to use more mystical methods of contacting your ghosts, like a ouija board or spirit writing. You and up to three friends get all the gadgets, the EMF detector, a fancy digital thermometer, a “spirit box” (a device that rapidly cycles through radio frequencies, ostensibly to give ghosts a sonic palette to manipulate) that responds to questions spoken into your computer’s microphone, video cameras (to detect spirit orbs), and more. One of the surprising hits of 2020, the game focuses on recreating the television-friendly pseudo-scientific explorations of creepy-as-heck places, ranging from banal suburban two-stories, to abandoned asylums and jails. ![]() It’s this experience that Phasmophobia excels at recreating. Shows like Ghost Hunters (one of the original ghost shows in the States) and Ghost Adventures started capitalizing on the format in the 2000s, and haven’t looked back. The visceral nature of the story is perfect for television. A demonic haunting legitimized by relatively horrific tragedy, complete with apocryphal rumors of Native American burial grounds, and priests driven from the home, paved the way for the pulpy pleasures of the modern ghost hunting show. Modern ghost-hunting, as represented by shows like Ghost Adventures, can be traced back to England in the 1600’s, with stops in the Spiritualism movement and post-war Britain along the way, but the real immediate antecedents of Bagans and crew are the folks involved in the Amityville Horror incident, especially Ed and Lorraine Warren (Bagans even has a museum of cursed objects of his own now). If the history is shaky, the metaphysical aspect is flimsier, a vaguely new age hodge-podge of various Christian traditions. They collect dubious evidence, and present it all in a hilariously lurid fashion, leaning heavily on historical reportage that makes your local ghost tour seem reputable. Zac Bagans, Nick Groff, and Aaron Goodwin dare each other to go in haunted basements, or abandoned jail cells, and shriek into walkie-talkies and handheld camcorders. It’s less a scientific exploration of the possibilities of the afterlife, and more of a gleefully nonsensical horror movie, the fun coming from watching the bro-y protagonists ignore common sense to breathe asbestos and get scared by the creak of a floorboard. There’s a certain chaotic joy in the early episodes of the television show Ghost Adventures. ![]()
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