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Ghost Hunters International: Premiere Episode Review

by Cynthia on January 4th, 2008

From Waverly Hills Sanitarium to the Amityville Horror and the spirits that inhabit the Queen Mary, the United States is filled with ghosts and ghost stories. But that’s nothing compared to the stories you’ll find in England, Scotland, Italy and France where ghost stories are as common as salt in the kitchen. The Ghost Hunters have gone International and we’ve been invited to come along.

Ghost Hunters International is an all-new spin-off series that will hit SCI FI Channel beginning on January 9, 2008 at 9:00 pm. The series combines some of your favorite Ghost Hunters from the US version mixed with some new faces and experts from the area.

The show follows the same format as the original version; a brief overview of the haunted location, equipment set-up, then it’s lights-out for the night. Infrared cameras pick up the crew as they investigate and come morning they pack up and go. The last quarter of the episode is devoted to reviewing the evidence and the “reveal” to the person who hired them to investigate in the first place. It’s a tried and true formula, so why mess with it?

What’s different about Ghost Hunters International is the scenery and I don’t mean that lightly. There’s something about walking around inside a centuries old castle that really adds depth to the idea of hunting ghosts.

In the premiere episode, the team will be investigating both Chillingham Castle in England (a portion not on the preview DVD I received) and Mary King’s Close in Scotland.

The ghosts at Chillingham are so well known they even have their own section on the Castle’s website. Lady Mary Berkeley and Blue Boy wander the castle as noted by the rustle of a dress in the hallway and the halo of light that illuminates the spirit of a boy dressed in blue. You can read more about them at the Chillingham Sightings page so you’ll know what you’re looking for when you watch the premiere episode of the series.

One part of the episode I did get to review was the trip to Mary King’s Close. A “close” is the entrance to narrow street; in this case an alley between a series of closely situated tenement buildings that run under the city of Edinburgh. Legend has it that in 1645, at the height of the Black Death, the city council members walled up the close leaving the plague victims inside to die of starvation. It makes for a great ghost story, but historically it may not be true. It’s possible that the victims quarantined themselves, creating a kind of community for the diseased under the city. Either way, it’s a place full of sorrow and death and a perfect breeding ground for the paranormal and the international ghost hunters spend the night there to check it out.

Though some innocuous events are portrayed as spookier than they really are, this is still a fascinating segment. Just watching the episode, I felt the weight of despair and the story of young Annie had me reaching for the tissue box. The image of human beings living in such desperate conditions, just waiting for the black death to take them one-by-one — well, that alone is dramatic storytelling and you don’t need an apparition to make it any more so.

With the tried and true Ghost Hunters formula mixed with the incredible, centuries old landscape of Europe, Ghost Hunters International is a welcome addition to my DVR line-up. There is so much history here; you know there have to be ghosts about, even if they’re too shy to be caught on camera.

Ghost Hunters International premieres on Wednesday, January 9 on SCI FI.

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POSTED IN: Ghost Hunters, Reviews, SCI FI Channel