28 Days Haunted review: Substandard attempt at proving the paranormal

Netflix’s 28 Days Haunted is an investigative horror reality series that follows three teams as they spend the titular amount of days in three potentially haunted locations across America.

Story

28 Days Haunted aims to expand on the works of the most famous paranormal investigators in history, Ed and Lorraine Warren. After working on no less than 10,000 cases, they discovered that it took them 28 days to fully break the veil between the living and the dead, and they labelled it the 28-day cycle.

Since the couple passed before they could prove the finding, this show gathers three teams of experts and sends them to separate haunted locations across America to test this theory.

The experiment is conducted by the Warrens’ paranormal research society, N.E.S.P.R. (New England Society of Psychic Research). It is run by their son-in-law, Tony Spera, who oversees the footage of all three locations, alongside paranormal expert and journalist, Aaron Sagers.

As an added layer of immersion, the teams do not have any connection with the outside world or access to phones and the internet. Furthermore, they do not have any information about where they’re going to be staying.

The first team heads to Lumber Baron Inn in Denver, Colorado and features paranormal investigators Shane Pittman and Ray Cozzi alongside natural sensitive (people who have the ability to detect energies and supernatural presences), Amy Parks.

The next team’s location is Madison Dry Goods in Madison, North Carolina. This is the only team to have two people, fifth-generation psychic medium Brandy Marie Miller and demonologist Jereme Leonard.

The last team travels to Captain Grant’s Inn in Preston, Connecticut and is made up of psychic medium Sean Austin along with paranormal investigators and tech gurus, Nick Simons and Aaron Thompson.

Once inside their respectively assigned properties, the experts try to uncover the horrifying secrets about these places over the next 28 days, relying only on their skills and equipment.

The aim is to prove the authenticity of the 28-day cycle so that future paranormal investigations can take a tried and tested approach.

Positives

For starters, 28 Days Haunted is indeed mildly entertaining to watch. The history associated with each place mixed with the gradual revelation of evil secrets, builds a decent amount of suspense.

The actual stories that these places have attached to them are very interesting to learn. They are mostly associated with actual murders, some of which still haven’t been solved. Furthermore, Captain Grant’s Inn is situated near a cemetery and even has a history of occult practices.

The show also provides a look at various ways of communicating with spirits, including radios, sensory deprivation, thermal imaging, motion sensors, mirror and candle scrying, séance, and more. All these techniques are intriguing to witness.

Negatives

On the negative side of things, this series is hardly believable and feels more like a laughable prank. One needs to wholeheartedly believe in the paranormal to take the narrative even slightly seriously.

As the experts talk about seeing spirits, feelings ghostly touches and having haunted dreams that lead them to new discoveries, it just feels extremely fake.

Furthermore, as things get intense, the show turns into a typical horror film (complete with bad acting, banging noises, flickering lights and creepy voices) rather than sticking to its original agenda.

What makes 28 Days Haunted feel even more scripted is its desperation to make things seem more intense than they actually are. The amped up sound effects and crescendoing music make the watching experience worse (because there aren’t even any jump scares to justify them).

Sitting in different locations, the teams have breakthroughs at the same time, they have disagreements at the same time and they even have the last big “battle” against the evil entity at the same time.

Furthermore, the swift camera movements, botchy editing, and more handheld cameras filming the teams inside the buildings (not stationary cameras) are tremendous distractions.

Verdict

28 Days Haunted can be a fun series if you can bring yourself together to believe what the experts are facing. It is safe to say that this show only feels authentic if you go into it with an extremely open mind and do not expect a lot of logical explanations.

In addition, it might also float your boat if you are a horror fan and consider this a form of fictional entertainment.

28 Days Haunted
28 Days Haunted review: Substandard attempt at proving the paranormal 1

Date Created: 2022-10-21 21:13

Editor's Rating:
1.5

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