Dead Files Episode 1 Review

Erieville, New York 

Hello wonderful people!

Let's talk about a show I just discovered it is possibly new to the travel Channel, Dead Files.

There are three main people in the episode whose names I've already forgotten (and I'm finishing the episode as I type this so that right there is a bad sign.) There's a psychic, the guy that works with the psychic (filming her on investigations and whatnot) and the other guy with a New York accent (his name is Steve and Amy is the psychic.) They reintroduce themselves in the reveal portion of the episode to Elvis (their client.) I normally am interested in psychics but Amy annoyed the hell out of me as well as her segment in the first episode mainly because they don't know how to show complete thoughts with her. They just cut in and out of explanations that the “spirits” are telling her. I don't see how it's possible that a person who is being shown things by the spirits can't get complete stories when it's something as traumatic as abuse (spoiler alert.)

Steve is a retired New York Homicide detective and I have no idea why he's involved in a paranormal show. He mentioned nothing in his segment of the opening about how he cares for the paranormal or anything. That almost doesn't matter because he does all the interviewing and historical research so he's that guy of the 'team.'

Matt is the third guy who follows Amy around on the walk though of the location. That is all the information you get on that guy… He just follows Amy and went in the house before to move some stuff around before she gets to the location.

It is brought to the viewers’ attention that Amy relies on Steve; however they don't talk about anything except where the place is located. They meet after they've done their job and discuss if anything significant has been discovered during their research. Well that sounds a lot like another 'theme' from another show...

Anyone remember Paranormal State? It was an okay show, it could have probably been a lot better, but it was (along with Ghost Hunters) one of the 'mainstream' paranormal shows. There have been other shows but I remember when Paranormal State was seen on many channels that had nothing to do with A&E so I guess it was well received (despite its controversies, I will not deny that towards the last few seasons it got really boring, in fact there were very few episodes that kept me highly entertained... but that's for another review.) The point I was trying to make was that they claimed that their psychics never knew about the cases until they got there... even though it is rumored that one of their psychics had indeed known about the cases, from the producers of the show, NOT Ryan Buell so in a way he was right when he states how he never tells him anything, but other production staff might. I have no clue if this will take a “Paranormal State” turn becoming riddled with controversies, or turn out to be the fakest of fake shows out there. I honestly hope it doesn't it stains fans of the paranormal and makes the genre look stupid and incompetent.

Ending my mini Paranormal State side track and going back to Dead Files, the first episode of the first season is called “Evil in Erieville,” there's a guy named Elvis who renovates a house in Erieville, New York in hopes of turning it into a bed and breakfast. However negative energy presents itself to the owner and he calls in these people to investigate his house.

That's all fine and dandy however they conducted this show in all the wrong ways. I got a really big Paranormal State rip off vibe from it. Now I liked Paranormal State... sort of... The I Am Six (and Return of Six) has to be the episode that still sits vividly in my mind to this day. I've seen it only twice and that was over a year or so ago. Anyways, Dead Files, it feels like it's kind of trying to be Paranormal State but at the same time it's not mainly because of the film style is the same. It has the same 'documentary' feel to it that Paranormal State has as well as how they go about the episode, extensive research by one person (Steve) and another person (or group of people) go on an investigation. However they hardly show anything worth anyone's time and if it is important it's been buried by so much other stuff that you miss it or think it doesn't matter until someone else has a scene cutting into the investigation confirming that happened in some way, shape or form.

The only thing they don't do is 'ghost hunt' they obviously don't have to do that since Amy is the psychic so therefor if nothing happens in the house then there's no paranormal activity going on or so that's what you'd logically assume.

Another thing about the opening segment is that Amy says “there's only one way to find out if my findings are real...” if your findings aren't real then they are lies, therefor you are lying about what you're experiencing and that makes you a liar aka a fraud. Your reputation (if you are a real psychic) is then tarnished and the more you stain it the more people don't want your help. Why would you admit that on national television? Do you realize how insanely stupid that sounds,

Amy: 'the spirits told me this'

Steve: 'well that's nothing like what I found out. Here look at these-' (shows research)

How do you react to what's documented I mean sure things released to the public aren't always 100% accurate but people tend to believe what's written down or what is most likely supported by a lot of hard evidence. Not a lot of people believe in the paranormal or psychics so when the psychic doesn't match up with reality, there's a problem there.

Moving on now to the episode, look at this...

Amy states that “Matt will go in [to the location] before me and he'll remove anything that will distract me from communicating with the dead so he cleans the slate...”

Amy arrived 12 hours before the clip showing Steve introducing the case and going to interview Elvis. Are they saying that (obviously after Elvis contacted them) that Matt walked in one day and took everything that might distract her, did the walk through and after that happened Steve came in and did the interviews and research... that seems a little out of order. I think the editors made a mistake... the world doesn't work like that. You don't have a psychic walk through your house then meet with the research person. It's the other way around. Strike one show...

How will pictures distract you from communicating with the spirits? If anything it’ll help know who or what you’re supposed to be communicating with. Say you’re on a case that sounds demonic, and you get a small child when in reality it’s a demon. You’d want a picture to know if any small children did indeed die there and what they look like so if the demon messes up you know exactly what it messed up on.

Here's strike two, the walk through itself is done COMPLETELY wrong. I hate it, that might be her style of investigating but being cryptic all throughout the episode is not suspenseful it's annoying. Right off the bat as she's driving to the house (twelve hours before Steve gets to interview Elvis) you hear her say “this women hurt her children” but they're not even at the house yet so either it was some premonition she had the previous day or the editing crew thought they would be cool and spoil the big surprise reveal at the beginning of the show.

Another editing trick they thought was cool was not playing pieces from the episode in a coherent order or they can't seem to show a clear separation from the show and those little bits that happen before commercials. They show what's coming up in the episode and you normally know it's not the episode it's leading to the commercial break. However this show has ADHD and can't show anything in a certain order, hell I'm having a hard time keeping this from start to finish without wanting to jump around, but I'm making an effort. This show makes very little effort to go from start to finish. Case in point, how the show starts the opening sequence is fine. Amy introduces Steve and Matt as well as their jobs. Steve explains the setting and why they are going to the place as well as the paranormal claims. Then things get weird, it flashes back to 12 hours earlier. Why? There is no point to have the walk through the day before the history research and interviews are done. The entire time she's investigating there are bits and pieces of stories being told, the entire time it only comes together at the end of the episode. It's highly irritating to constantly hear, “She hurt her kids,” “she did something bad to her kids,” and stuff of that nature for a majority of the episode. That's not everything she says there's more to the story you get in pieces.

I mean I understand you can walk into a room and feel like something doesn't want you there. That's reasonable. But her here's what's annoying. “This woman she's pissed, she hates me with a passion.” -Points up the stairway- “She's right up there” that happens MULTIPLE times. After that happens they just cut to the interview when we already know they've investigated the house.

I doubt Elvis knows much about paranormal fanatics. There are some people who like investigating places with negative energy. Take Ghost Adventures, Zak, Nick, and Aaron have stated they don't like when the dead pick on the living so they in some way, will go to a place with dark energy to try to get rid of it. The Paranormal State crew do the same thing (although I might not credit them after I review their show... the controversies they are involved with are quite shocking.) Point being that there are people who will come help you or just stay in your place because of the paranormal claims. It doesn't always kill your business sometimes it helps it.

Then we go back to are ADHD style, and cut to the walk through right after they mention him showing a spot where Elvis had seen an apparition. He doesn't even get to explain what he saw or what happened at that point in time so the psychic coming out and saying 'there's a woman with a dominating personality and controls how she wants to be perceived' is a massive kill. This whole clip would have been better if after he said what he saw in the house it cut to Amy and Matt arriving at the house to do a walkthrough of it.

Then again on the opposite side of the coin it kind of makes sense despite being a buzz kill. We know this show goes through some fancy shmancy editing and production process. It's not Ghost Adventures there's a camera crew following them around and it might not help the skeptics of the paranormal, but it leaves you with some valid things to keep in your head when they get to the reveal.

However, the reveal in this show isn't needed since the whole thing is a reveal by itself. All they would need to do is meet up with the client and say what they think is up with the place and if they need to leave or try to get the activity to calm down or stop, or if they can just go about their normal life because there's nothing to worry about.

The entire show goes from interview/research to the walk though. The stories after what we've already seen. Honestly it's hard to determine if I like it but at the moment I find it annoying.

The one point I know they didn't bring up was how Elvis seemed obsessed over building a fourteen foot table and then finding the picture in between the wooden planks and wall paper. That could have been an interesting time for a clip of the walk through to be shown but nope it is never brought up again. However what is mentioned is Elvis's attempt to communicate with (what we now know is the dominating woman) whatever is in the house. Steve got real uptight about it. He was not happy with hearing that Elvis tried to do this... however he just said, he doesn't deal with the paranormal, it's not his forte and covers his ass by saying “...I'm not saying I disbelieve it or that I believe in it...” I found this weird. It rubbed me the wrong way, like you don't say I don't deal with the paranormal, I just do the investigations and interviews other than that I want nothing to do with this, but I'm going to judge you (in my head but let my facial expressions show that I am clearly offended by this) on your attempt to find out what's going on in your house. That's just... wrong...

Here's the psychic again saying how the woman is upset about them being in the house. She's mad about being called vein and is apparently offended by how the psychic felt this woman's presence. So how can she be mad about how Amy felt this woman presenting herself, if you don't like people feeling you have a tendency to be very vein and you are in control of how people perceive you I think you need to change your ways. It's not Amy's fault for stating that she feels that the woman was vein it's the woman fault. Anyway, Amy and Matt go upstairs ostensibly the woman went upstairs all frazzled because Amy isn't leaving and starts ranting and raving about how she doesn't want to talk to her and how people ruined something but we don't get names of who is saying these things.

The bits of things that happen in the episode are in the dialog from Amy. We get no names, repeated sentences and it's really confusing. She said “It wasn't worth it then and it's not worth it now” then says “there was some kind of sickness and pain... constant pain and suffering ...” and then it shows a clip of her saying “it wasn't worth it then and it's not worth it now” as well as “She hates it here” directly after it. So the dominating woman hates the house she's in yet she doesn't want to talk to the psychic who could help end her misery. That makes total sense, I mean I know some people have issues swallowing their pride but really you're dead and you're forever stuck in that house until the right person comes along and set you free... you'd think a 'spirit' would know when someone is extra sensitive than the average person who comes through and would latch on to every opportunity to be free and move on to their place of belief, not shove the help away and say I hate it here so I'm going to rant and rave and tell you to go away.

It is clear to see why she didn’t talk about Matt much in the introduction. He literally doesn’t contribute to the walkthrough in this episode. He says maybe one or two things and that’s it. I’d be asking more questions and trying to make sense of things. Unless she has some strange rule that he can’t talk much unless absolutely necessary. He just doesn’t interact with her much, maybe he’s anti-social, I don’t know but I need to see more interaction with Matt and Amy during the walkthrough. Maybe make some sense of what’s being said.

They go back downstairs only for Amy to point out the lady is still upstairs glaring at her. Why did they go downstairs in the first place to end up right back where they started in the walk through? Why not just stay on the second floor where the lady ran to as you walked up the stairs? Did she run downstairs as you were following her and then run upstairs? Don't just switch rooms and places without mentioning why you're doing it. After this happens it’s back to Steve doing interviews to check if he’s sane and not making this up, or if he has a history of lying about it… or something…

There's no reason for questioning the people's sanity when you're dealing with paranormal but I understand the need for validity in the person's claims. They also need to make it look like they don't communicate with each other so Steve has to ask around if Elvis isn't a nutcase and how many people believe he is genuinely experiencing paranormal Activity. Now it’s time to go back to Amy and Matt walking through the house.

Okay Amy, there are two kids near the banister and they died in the house. How can you be seriously unsure who they are or how they're related? They're supposed to be telling you these things and if I was a spirit who died of a horrific death I wouldn't beat around the bush, I'd tell you my name, all about my family members, and how I died (if I was aware of who killed me then I'd reveal that too.) What do the graves being in a circle have to do with anything relating to them? The person who buried them could have just put them in a circle because they didn't feel like the traditional row by row.

And yes we know there was some unspeakable horror done to them because you keep mentioning it but never giving us the full story and it's really irritating.

“What did she do to them”-Matt

“Oh that’s a touchy subject” -Amy

 No Amy, it is not a touchy subject you can't tell us she did nasty things and then back off like that! It’s stupid to beat around the bush like that either come out with it or don't mention it at all!! See what I mean? She does it all the time. It's highly annoying this is suspense done wrong, if you want suspense done right, watch Ghost Adventures they do it right. Congratulations Amy you know something bad happened there good job now tell us what you know in coherent sentences or not… just keep dropping hints to murder.

Now the smart people know that already the woman killed the kids. They must be her kids as well because they are brother and sister. It is also stated that she (Maude Purdy is the woman she keeps mentioning a neighbor does the name dropping in an interview with Steve) was mentally ill. She snapped and it is revealed that there was a poisoning of an entire family, the Purdy family.

Time to point out another editing fail I'd rather have seen the psychic walk through reveal the sickness and symptoms of the poison rather than have it told to me. I know I just bashed on Amy a lot but it would have been more effective if she'd been shown first then shown Steve at the library. They didn't completely fail though; they don't explain the effects of the arsenic poisoning until after you see Amy talk about the physical effects she feels from the children in the house. It's not all bad though, they have a spot near some trees in the backyard where they feel at peace. Since they hate being in the house why do they even bother going back inside when they're dead and have nothing to bind them inside... except their overbearing mother... but that almost makes no sense because they can go outside. They can get in and out and she explains that passageways are places that spirits can walk in and out freely. Why are the children trapped there if the passageway is over their graves? It makes no sense as well as absolutely no mention of the father... who was poisoned by the mother.

Did he move on because he was in love with her and wasn't really sure he was poisoned so he figured he was just sick and later died at peace? But if that's the case, did he ignore the abuse his children were put through? That would leave him with a guilty conscience and therefore not able to rest in peace. He should be haunting the house as well isn't that usually a symptom of hauntings, someone who hasn't done something or really regrets something in life as well as a traumatic event leaving the spirit bound to the place they died?

One last complaint, Elvis was inside his house doing the communication, so how did a 'portal' a few feet from the room he was in open up. Wouldn't the portal be in the room that the communication was attempted? That's like trying something in one state and then it having immediate effects in another country or something... like someone sneezes in American and then someone in Italy hears that specific person. That's a little extreme considering the paranormal can do things not in just one room but in multiple rooms but a human open that portal.

This all sounds seriously hypocritical and like I doubt psychics or something like that, but that is not the case. I absolutely love anything paranormal psychic abilities interest me but this show rubs me the wrong way on the first episode, that's never a good sign. I shouldn't have so much complaints it bothers me that this show is a major fail at the starting episode. I hope in the future it will clean its act up and be a little more interesting. Does Dead Files have potential? Not really, in my eyes I don't see it getting any better. I shall continue to follow the series and maybe review one of their better episodes if they have any, for now my focus will be with Ghost Adventures and/or Paranormal Witness both of those shows have captured my attention and rarely ever let me down and Paranormal Witness has only three episodes aired... but I can't give it all the credit in the world... some of it has to go to an older paranormal show “A Haunting.”

This is Pugsly and I wish you all a very Happy Haunting.