Let’s go back to Hamilton Street.
I’m starting to feel guilty about giving these movies middling reviews when I keep coming back for more. They are enjoyable for fans of ghost hunting documentaries without over-the-top hosts. Sadly, the grounded approach of this series is probably why they haven’t had as much success in breaking through to the mainstream.
I mentioned a couple reviews ago I’m not interested in getting into the debate of whether the evidence they find is legitimate or not. My interest is in how entertaining the documentary is as a viewing experience.
This is the team’s second outing. The lighting is significantly improved here. We get the standard fare of a lengthy interview/showcase of the location before Prozak (with a name like that you’d expect him to be obnoxious, but he isn’t) and team set up to do their lengthy investigation. One thing that I do like about the interview portion is we only hear from the people who work or live in the area. The host is not present while they tell their story, and this increases the ethos of the storytelling.
They are investigating The Stable, which I had thought meant they would be investigating a literal stable, but no, it is a outfitter store. The location used to be a funeral home, which I suppose gives it some credence for being haunted. However, no matter what, a retail store simply isn’t the most compelling location for a haunting.
I worked retail, and I suppose it could be creepy late at night after the main lights were off, but it just doesn’t make the best setting. Sure, this might seem nitpicky, but homes seem more intimate. Here, when we have shelves of stuff behind them it doesn’t feel as interesting.
To their credit, they do seem concerned about how easily the investigation could be tainted with so many entrances, heating and cooling units, and so forth. This is obviously done to lend credence to the investigation, but it is interesting to see them take stuff into consideration.
The camera effects throughout are somewhat jarring. I see this in almost all these shows or series—please stop. For me, the shakiness or zooming is simply distracting.
The series is like Ghost Adventures without douchebags. (Granted, I think people watch that one for the obnoxious host…). I know there’s a bit of controversy with one of the Seekers team members in this film, but he didn’t seem over-the-top comparatively for me. People more saturated into the genre seem to have stronger opinions, which is fine, but from my perspective he is just another dude.
We get a bit of haunted history. Fans of a more historical look at what makes certain areas have a reputation for being troubled will find a lot to like here.
Oddly, this one almost seems to have a more episodic structure. We don’t get the standard interview—long investigation—short interview, instead we get a series of investigations focusing on different things with new experts and information coming through. This is a bit of a double-edged sword, we don’t have the monotony that sometimes creeps up in these movies, but we also have a lot of information coming at different points. It isn’t easy to keep everything in mind as more and more information is given between investigative portions.
Folks who like a more grounded approach to ghost hunting will enjoy this one. I think this might be a better entry point than the actual first one.
Also, if you’re tired of me reviewing these… sorry. They are an enjoyable, if imperfect way to spend the evening.
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