Although I've seen and am reviewing Soul Hunters this is a fairly consistent series and my remarks apply to episodes generally.
Hotel Paranormal is an engaging television show that fuses witness testimony with talking head commentary and staged reconstructions.
Having watched quite a few of these I get the sense that the reconstructions are a little over-egged so that the ghosts look like extras in Michael Jackson's thriller video and the filming generally owes a lot to Hollywood horror. This makes for effective watching but there is clearly a formula that is repeated over and over and you have to take the artistic licence for what it is.
In Soul Hunters a nurse in a rocking chair is made up to look as if she is a zombie and we never hear the witness actually say she looked like that. Did she? Possibly, but the makers of the programme seem to favour that look.
That said, Hotel Paranormal does seem to veer towards the darker side of the ghost world and so it does make sense that if they are selecting demonic and negative experiences the make up department is going to get to work on their actors.
Besides the horror film vibe what also detracts from the series is when North American actors are used to do British characters and can't do the accent. Interiors of hotels don't always look authentic, either.
Hotel Paranormal also lacks the participation of hotel owners themselves and often there is just one witness describing events.
There is a vastly superior series called Ghost Hunters narrated by William Woollard and for me this is still the gold standard. It can be obtained second hand as a DVD boxset although annoyingly the DVD programmes were slightly abridged. Alternatively, I think Amazon Prime may still have it and they show the full episodes.
However, though Hotel Paranormal isn't the best thing since sliced bread it's still good TV and I recommend it.
Hotel Paranormal is an engaging television show that fuses witness testimony with talking head commentary and staged reconstructions.
Having watched quite a few of these I get the sense that the reconstructions are a little over-egged so that the ghosts look like extras in Michael Jackson's thriller video and the filming generally owes a lot to Hollywood horror. This makes for effective watching but there is clearly a formula that is repeated over and over and you have to take the artistic licence for what it is.
In Soul Hunters a nurse in a rocking chair is made up to look as if she is a zombie and we never hear the witness actually say she looked like that. Did she? Possibly, but the makers of the programme seem to favour that look.
That said, Hotel Paranormal does seem to veer towards the darker side of the ghost world and so it does make sense that if they are selecting demonic and negative experiences the make up department is going to get to work on their actors.
Besides the horror film vibe what also detracts from the series is when North American actors are used to do British characters and can't do the accent. Interiors of hotels don't always look authentic, either.
Hotel Paranormal also lacks the participation of hotel owners themselves and often there is just one witness describing events.
There is a vastly superior series called Ghost Hunters narrated by William Woollard and for me this is still the gold standard. It can be obtained second hand as a DVD boxset although annoyingly the DVD programmes were slightly abridged. Alternatively, I think Amazon Prime may still have it and they show the full episodes.
However, though Hotel Paranormal isn't the best thing since sliced bread it's still good TV and I recommend it.