Product Description: Sci-Fi Channel s Ghost Hunters introduces Jason and Grant plumbers by day ghost hunters by night! Ghost Hunters a one-hour weekly docu-soap follows a group of real-life ghostbusters as they investigate haunted houses throughout the country. Plumbers by trade Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson head-up a group of intrepid souls that are far from the usual collection of be-spectacled Ph.D.s. They re ordinary everyday people with an interest in getting to the bottom of your otherworldly disturbances. Every week Jason Grant and their team investigate a new case from poltergeists who throw a child's toys around an attic to a lighthouse whose late keeper still welcomes visitors. This team of moonlighting ghost hunters are our first and last defense against uninvited paranormal visitations.System Requirements:Run Time: 660 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 881737130099 Manufacturer No: 13009-7
Ghost Hunters I love Ghost Hunters. I can watch them repeatedly. Now I can watch all year long. If you like Ghost Hunters you will want the DVDs.
For Curious Skeptics and Grounded Believers I have never followed the paranormal field, including ghosts. I always used to find the topic silly. I like a good ghost story (such as what might come from the hand of Shirley Jackson or Richard Matheson), but ghost stories as told by a next door neighbor or some tourist attraction with claims of a skulking "blue lady" (how many "blue ladies" are there, anyway?) have never interested me in the least. I have always waved all this off as over-active imaginations.
So when Sci Fi Channel started running this series, I'd flip right on by it. I saw a few of the commercials and snickered to myself. I have seen way too many set-up "reality" TV shows. Take for example one of the earliest: Divorce Court. The host would whisper into the microphone during transitionary moments to explain what is going on, as if he was standing in a real court room during a real session. And they would presume to show you a real court case unfolding. It was all phony. It was not a court room, it was a set on a sound stage at a studio lot. The host was reading from queue cards, and all the participants were actors and the entire audience were extras. How do I know for sure? Because I was there, on set around 1986 or so, watching them tape the show (I believe it was at the Burbank studios). I watched take after take. Whether it was based upon a "real" case or not didn't matter, the show itself was an act. Fiction.
And not to rain on anyone's parade, but most reality shows are set-ups. Some more than others. But don't fall for everything that proudly calls itself "reality."
I figured Ghost Hunters featured a crew running around rigging things OFF camera so that they could make a big deal about it ON camera. I figured it was all phony, trying to pass as real.
So I missed many episodes, until one day, in early 2008, I just happened to stop on an episode while flipping by. My finger poised over the channel button. There was something that captured my interest: They were proving that a house was NOT haunted. Huh???
Slowly my finger left the channel button. Slowly I set the remote aside.
This was opposite what the previews made it seem. These guys are trying to DISPROVE hauntings, not prove them. Jason's philosophy is that if you rule out every possible realistic explanation and you still can't explain it, you *may* have evidence for paranormal, and in more extreme cases, a haunting.
Now that makes sense, and it's very interesting. So I kept watching.
I watched a few more episodes, and a few more. Fast-forward a couple weeks, and my DVR had recorded back-to-back reruns, and I was staying up late after the kids went to bed to sneak in a few more episodes. I bought their DVD's and Jason's book. I was hooked.
I do not like the Sci Fi production itself: they use too much "spooky music" and introduce flashes of silly ghost images in the editing. I think this not only hides the more interesting native sound from the camera, which would give us a "baseline" for the environment, but the distracting images and cheap FX which are intended to entertain are just irritating and dumb the show down. None of this has anything to do with Jason & Grant and their crew however.
So after being mostly a pure skeptic and having no interest in this kind of show, I am now a fan of Ghost Hunters and I'm on the fence as to what these guys are capturing. It is impossible for me to really cross the line and *believe* without actually being there to debunk myself. There are lots of questions I would ask that I don't hear asked on the show, and scientific experiments I would like to see conducted that aren't. Probably because time constraints simply edit a LOT of things out. I have to put some faith that these guys are doing the best they can.
Every now and then they bring in someone who uses divining rods, or practices some pagan craft, in order to evaluate a possible haunting, but I'm not sure what this really accomplishes toward debunking. It seems to serve only to entertain the serious paranormal believers watching the show, but I'm not that audience, so I try to look past these sidekicks. I have lots of doubts about "sensitives," I think most of them are attention junkies. It's the attempts at debunking that make the show, especially when they've tried their best to debunk and simply couldn't explain something they caught on camera or on digital audio. A chair moves, a shadow blocks the light, etc.
Another aspect of this show that seems wanting is that everyone on crew is a believer. Most of them are grounded, yes, but they are believers in ghosts, no question. It'd be nice to have a really serious skeptic on the show, perhaps someone who is skilled at magic or cons -- a James Randi type of person. (Not that Jason & Grant can't detect a con -- they easily found several, but, as the old saying goes, you can't trick a trickster, and magicians are pros at it.) It would be chilling for a skeptic of this discipline to say, after a thorough inquiry and analysis, "well, that was weird, and I just have no reasonable explanation."
I am especially interested in all the EVP evidence, as that seems to be the most abundant, and I've never heard this kind of thing before outside of fiction. The causes are pretty limited: a) hoax / tampering b) possible radio frequency interception (very doubtful, based on what I heard) c) re-used tapes (bleed from previous voice recordings, also doubtful considering all the surrounding noise and the timing of some of the answers) d) legitimate disembodied voices.
Out of those possibilities, (b) and (c) are too weak to support. As for (a), if all these EVPs are tricks -- purposely made for the show -- someone on the "inside" is going to spill the beans sooner or later and that'll be the end of Jason and Grant. They just don't seem like the kind of guys would want to take that kind of risk, not with all their fans now watching. Unless someone is pulling the wool over their eyes, unbeknownst to them -- but how could that continue for so long without them catching on? They seem to have a sharp eye for skulduggery.
That leaves (d) as the strongest possibility: It's real. Which really clashes with my traditional sensibilities.
I recommend this series if you are a curious skeptic or a grounded believer. If you're a hard-core skeptic, forget it -- you'll never believe anything no matter what; and if you're a hard-core believer, what's the point? You'll believe every creaking door is a ghost entering the room. For the rest of us, open-minded and logical, this is a worthy show to study.
Absolutely Horrible. I got this DVD over Paranormal State, A Haunting, and some others. I was told this was the "best out there" to feed my addiction to paranormal "stuff". I watched the first disc in one sitting and it was horrible. They got maybe uh, 2 decent EVP readings? And nothing else? I know they are out to "disprove" everything but honestly, it may be better if you just fake it a little or something, make it interesting. It also looks like an amateur is walking around with the camera; constant unsteady movement. Gives me a friggin headache. They do paranormal investigating out of a trailor? What? And it focuses on them being plumbers way too much. Not recommended at all. Absolutely horrible. Paranormal State blew this out of the water.
GREAT SHOW! DISC 1:
EPISODE 101 [Altoona, Pennsylvania] Case 1: Brenda`s House * EPISODE 102 [Altoona, Pennsylvania] Case 1: Mishler Theater / Case 2: Railroaders Museum * EPISODE 103 [New London, Connecticut] Case 1: Lighthouse Inn / Case 2: John Stone Tavern
BONUS FEATURES:
DELETED SCENES EPISODE 101 The Black Figure + Eddie's Spot + Big Bird Talking + Voices = (Total Running Time - 7:22)
DELETED SCENES EPISODE 102 Mishler Theater Tour (Extended) + Wireless Infrared Cameras + Mishler Basement Investigation (Extended) + Jason Makes Fun of Brian`s Infrared Goggles (Extended) + TAPS Tour an Old Luxury Railway Car + Railroad Museum Tour (Extended) + BBQ with the Family = (Total Running Time -15:50)
DELETED SCENES EPISODE 103 Tour of Stone`s Public House + Jason & Grant at Daddy`s Junky Music Store + Jason Scares Cameraman + Jason & Grant Race on Mini Scooters = (Total Running Time - 6:18)
BONUS: Interview with Jason & Grant = (Running Time - 5:49)
DISC 2:
EPISODE 104 [New London, Connecticut] Case 1: Race Rock Lighthouse * EPISODE 105 Case 1: Eastern State Penitentiary * EPISODE 106 Case 1: Church Residence
BONUS FEATURES:
DELETED SCENES EPISODE 104 Jason & Grant at the Paintball Store + Race Rock Moving Chair (Uncut) = (Total Running Time - 3:30)
DELETED SCENES EPISODE 105 Eastern State Penitentiary Reenactment + Gary's Encounter with "The Shadow" + Tour of Al Capone's Cell and Death Row = (Total Running Time - 7:12)
DELETED SCENES EPISODE 106 Van Chit-Chat + Tour of the Converted Church + TAPS Plays a Prank on Donna = (Total Running Time - 4:18)
GHOST HUNTERS GLOSSARY: Apparition + Astral Plane + Cold Spot + Digital Infrared + Camera + Digital Thermometer + Ectoplasm + Electromagnetic Field Recorder + EVP + Exorcism + Floating Orb + Ghost + Ghost Hunter / Investigator + Haunting + Materialization + Matrixing + Ouija Board + Paranormal + Residual Haunting + Thermal Imaging Digital Camera + Vortex
DISC 3:
EPISODE 107 Case 1: New Bedford Armory * EPISODE 108 Case 1: Fortuna Apartment / Case 2: Topton House * EPISODE 109 Case 1: New Boston Inn / Case 2: Gloria's House * EPISODE 110 Case 1: Johnson's House / Case 2: Zubrowski's House
BONUS FEATURES:
DELETED SCENES EPISODE 107 Ghost of the First Sergeant + Frank's Fall (Various Angles) + Analysis (Extended) = (Total Running Time - 5:41)
DELETED SCENES EPISODE 108 History of the Fortuna House + Cold Spots + Topton Tour (Extended) = (Total Running Time - 6:36)
DELETED SCENES EPISODE 109 TAPS Plays a Prank on Steve + Driving Through a Pittsburgh Rainstorm + Steve's Fear of Heights + = (Total Running Time - 6:34)
DELETED SCENES EPISODE 110 Basement Tour + Brian Flirts with Jen Rossi + Dowsing Rods = (Total Running Time - 5:03)
BONUS TRAILERS: - Ghost Hunters Trailer - The Triangle Trailer
Ghost Hunters The Complete First Season If you are an avid fan of Ghost Hunters, then this will keep you spellbound. I plan on buying the rest of the seasons to make a complete set. If you have never seen Ghost Hunters but like the paranormal, this would be a great place to start to meet the team and what they do. They catch some really cool stuff.
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