Are They Worth It? The DVDs of the Internet #7 - Haunted Investigators Season 1
During the last review I mentioned that the next DVD set I would be taking a look at was, let’s say not too impressive. I actually am not looking at the one I originally had in mind when I wrote those words, but oh man this one fits the bill. This is a set I had no intention of looking at when I first made the list of DVDs to cover, but curiosity got the best of me and I just had to take a look.
This is Haunted Investigators Season 1.
The Pre-Amble
Haunted Investigators is the brainchild of Chris Bores, most well known for being The Irate Gamer. I’ve already made my thoughts on the Irate Gamer perfectly clear in the review of the first season so there’s no need to rehash that here. I wasn’t really familiar with any of his work prior to that show so it felt like I should go back and take a look. Wow.
You may look at this show and immediately conclude that it’s simply a rehashing of Ghost Hunters, and yes, you would be pretty bang-on with that conclusion. That actually doesn’t bother me too much, having only seen a couple of episodes of Ghost Hunters. If this show were entertaining I would be willing to let that slide. Alas, this show is not entertaining, at least not in the ways that it tries to be.
The Content
Haunted Investigators Season 1 includes 6 episodes of the show, all of which have been available online for quite some time now. Each episode consists of the three members of the team checking out a different haunted locale to gather up evidence. The team consists of Chris (team leader I guess?), his buddy Alan (a Buddhist priest) and his at the time girlfriend Jennifer (team photographer….also I’m not terribly proud that I know she was his girlfriend).
Right up front, I don’t think these guys know a whole lot about catching ghosts. They say they are qualified because of their college educations, but based on what I’ve seen here, you could read any book about ghosts and be just as prepared. In fact no, you wouldn’t even need to read the book. You could just take a guess at how to hunt ghosts and end up doing the same things. They do have some equipment but their primary strategy for hunting ghosts is to simply wander the environment asking “hey so is there anyone here who wants to talk to us?” Seriously, that’s about it. They occasionally switch up the phrasing (“if you would like to speak now is the time”, “if you’re here you should make that bicycle move or something”) but that’s about the extent of their ghost hunting abilities. If you made a drinking game out of how many times they just ask a ghost to talk or do some random shit, you wouldn’t make it halfway through the very first episode.
Nothing too paranormal happens but that’s kind of the problem with these types of shows. You know you’ll never get the definitive “hey guys we proved ghosts!” episode so what you’re left with are photographs with orbs that are almost definitely just dust particles. As a result, you better hope that what you’re given is at least entertaining but that is not the case here.
The one thing I will give them credit for is that at least they don’t try and pass off everything as some crazy supernatural shit happening. If it was just a cat running through the frame, they’ll say it was just a cat. Granted each investigation still ends with a bold statement of how much evidence they’ve gathered when really all they have is an orb photograph and maybe maybe maybe something whispering. A lot of the evidence is pure hear say as well, with many “oh man some freaky shit just happened right off camera man I swear” moments.
I also give the show some credit because the Buddhist priest can be pretty funny sometimes. When the ghosts aren’t answering them he’ll get all up in their face and start calling them out. “Come on you too scared to talk to us?!” It’s pretty great and the whole show should just be him trying to get ghosts to reveal themselves by calling them pussies.
Something that struck me as odd is that even though this is a web show, it’s produced like a TV show. Unless I’m way off base and it did air on TV, but I really don’t think that’s the case. There’s the intro with the cast (complete with dramatic head turns and stares off into the distance), spots for commercial breaks, and even a “next time” spot at the end of each episode, with a voiceover that’s trying so hard to be ominous that it’s just incredible.
Haunted Investigators isn’t so much terrible as it just boring. There’s nothing here. Nothing interesting happens and while it’s fun at first how much they just ask ghosts to say shit, the novelty wears off fast. Episodes tend to drag, even if they’re relatively short, and the entire thing is just a slog.
Presentation
Here’s what is sort of interesting about this set. I have the Season 1 set of the show, which comes in a single DVD case housing three discs. These previously came (and on Amazon, still do come) as three separate DVDs, each one a different volume. These are clearly the same DVDs only with new packaging. One interesting thing is that Jennifer has been cropped out of the DVD cover. Doesn’t take much to figure out what happened there.
There’s also something strange with the numbering because there’s an Episode 4 on both the second and third disc, and each one is different.
Other than that there’s not much to say. Aside from a run-on sentence, the back of the box blurb does not provide any fun either.
Audio/Visual
I mean it’s a Youtube show that’s filmed in 90% night vision, don’t expect too too much.
Bonus Content
This may be an even worse showing than the first volume of Irate Gamer.
The same Meet the Team feature appears on all three discs, which is a crazy concept even when considering these were all sold separately. It runs less than 2 minutes and gives you the most basic overview of the three leads. I do find it funny that even though Chris Bores is doing the voiceover, he continously refers to himself in the third person.
A few additional features are found on the first and third discs. Disc 1 has about 2 minutes of deleted scenes, as well as commercials for the other 2 volumes. Disc 3 has a single deleted scene and a brief segment of Alan on a radio call-in show discussing an exorcism.
All in all you get less than 10 minutes of bonus content across all three discs. Pretty sad. Even just throw one commentary on there! I would actually love to hear that! Bah.
Is It Worth it?
Noooooo. The season set retails for 16 bucks plus shipping on the official site and you should not pay that. All of the content can be watched in about two hours and basically none of it is interesting.
What’s crazy is that if you buy this season set on Amazon, it’s 30 bucks! I can’t even express how much you should not do that. The idea that the individual volumes are being sold for 13 bucks a pop is fucking crazy to me. Each one has maybe 30 minutes of bad content, it has to be the worst value proposition I have ever seen.
DON’T!
For each of these reviews I will be showing at least a part of it to my wife in order to get a quick perspective from someone who is not that familiar (if at all familiar) with the material.
What did my wife think? - *makes a face* "That was stupid"
