DTW: Smells like Team Spirits...

I clearly remember horror movies on television that scared me as a kid.

The Exorcist (1973) terrified me for weeks. The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975) left me shuddering; incidentally, a remake of that movie is in development. After watching The Fog (1980) I was afraid to go outside at night ( I still prefer it to the 2005 version, which I thought was a bit of a bore). I still enjoy 1980’s The Changeling because it shows that a good scare doesn’t have to be blood and gore filled. Although these movies have been rated at various levels by the critics, each had an effect on me.

Television was no slouch either when it came to series about ghosts and other things that go bump in the night. 1975’s Kolchak: The Night Stalker starred the talented Darren McGavin as a newspaper reporter who investigated paranormal happenings in the city of Chicago. The X Files created quite a stir when it leapt to popularity on the small screen in 1993. Supernatural is great fun as well as a fan favorite that began in 2005 and occasionally features a mock ghost hunting team consisting of a bumbling crew of misfits that create more problems than they solve.

1984 brought a new idea to film when Ghostbusters was released. A group of four men (including the recently deceased Harold Ramis) hunted and trapped ghosts that were bothering people. (The movie is not to be confused with the 1975 American children’s show of the same name.) The Blair Witch Project (1999) was a fictional movie about several film students who attempted to make a documentary about a legendary witch that haunted a forest. A lot of folks claimed not to have cared for the movie, but as a documentary junkie I was comfortable with the format. I also found the ending to be horrifyingly effective.

Ghost hunting 'reality' shows began to pop up in the first half of the 2000s. Ghost Hunters premiered in 2004 (with Ghost Hunters International appearing in 2008), as did a documentary film Ghost Adventures, which became a television series in 2008. Paranormal State reared its head in 2007. Quite a few copycat shows followed these, but these three seem to have had the most impact. While Ghost Hunters focused on “scientific” methods to document the existence of the departed, the other two - while they had their ghost measuring gadgets-  seemed more apt to discuss 'demonic' entities. I have watched and enjoyed (but not necessarily believed) all of the above series.

The question I am considering is have these television shows had a negative effect on Horror movies..?

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