Two new paranormal TV shows are changing the landscape of ghost-hunting shows

A few months ago, I joined a team of paranormal investigators, visiting haunted locations for the first season of a brand-new indie ghost-hunting show called Inhuman Beings. This month, we launched a Kickstarter to finish Inhuman Beings and a paranormal documentary series called New Blood. The two shows aim to present a new outlook on the supernatural, showcasing the esteemed specialist in the occult, Michelle Belanger. Her expertise has been previously displayed on several publications such as Paranormal State, Portals to Hell, Conjuring Kesha, among others. Locations have been chosen for the first season of a brand-new indie ghost-hunting show called Inhuman Beings. This month, we launched a Kickstarter to finish Inhuman Beings and a paranormal documentary series called New Blood.

Inhuman Beings

Each episode of Inhuman Beings features a different location with a reputation for high strangeness. Rather than trying to banish ghosts or uncover demons, we approach the unknown with a sense of curiosity, keeping an open mind and looking into ghosts, UFOs, cryptids, the fae, and more.

We use some traditional paranormal investigation techniques, experimenting with REM pods, spirit boxes, a Kinect SLS camera, and an Ovilus. But we also get weird, trying out remote viewing experiments, using dream sigils to communicate with entities, and following our curiosity as far down the rabbit hole as we can go.

That led us to some strange places. During production, we found ourselves crossing a remote river to visit land ruled by the fae, exploring a strange castle with a mysterious past, and investigating the most haunted building in a small town.

As the team’s paranormal researcher, I dug into the locations before filming and was floored by how many anomalies had been reported in each spot.

In one episode, we venture to the area of the original Loveland frogman sightings, along the banks of Ohio’s Little Miami River. While doing preliminary research, I couldn’t believe how much lore was concentrated in one small area and how interconnected the different paranormal phenomena were there.

I had heard the famous 1950s story about a man encountering strange, frog-like humanoids—one of whom carried a wand emitting sparks—but the more research I did, the more reports I found about local sightings of UFOs, cryptids, aliens, and ghosts.

That was my first hint that things were going to get a lot stranger than I had expected. However, I was not fully prepared for the firsthand experiences we had when we arrived at the site and engaged in conversations with the locals, conducted our own experiments, and gained a true understanding of what the place was truly like.

New Blood

Much of the cast and crew of Inhuman Beings are also in New Blood, a longform docu-series about modern-day vampires.

In New Blood, a series of synchronicities leads witch and host of paranormal podcast Follow the Woo Fen Alankus (she/they) to move from LA to the spooky Midwest. There, she conjures an investigative film crew to document a secret society of vampires.

They delve into the mysterious world of vampires while staying in a haunted Airbnb. The experience, which involves visiting sacred vampire ritual spaces, braving the creepy woods of Ohio, and performing out-of-the-box psychical experiments and spells, changes all of them. Season one was a wild ride, and the next phases of initiation have already begun for the team.

The Kickstarter and team

Michelle Belanger (he/she/they) and Fen Alankus (she/they) have gathered a top-notch crew of film professionals and paranormal investigators. That includes historian and medium Stephanie Bingham (she/her), who has been featured on the CW’s Mysteries Decoded, Destination America’s Paranormal Lockdown and SyFy Channel’s School Spirits; tarot/oracle reader Tigresse Bleu (they/she); filmmaker, forager, and hedgewitch Aubrey P. Archer (they/them); and photographer and skeptic-turned-believer Taylor Brown (she/they), and me.

More than 100 hours of footage have already been shot for these shows, and both shows are slated for release in Fall/Winter 2023.

With the Kickstarter funding, the team will finish up the first seasons of both shows, start pre-production on the next seasons, and more. Backers get rewards like magically imbued Ouija planchettes, Bigfoot and Pride Demon T-shirts, subtle-body portrait readings, bonus and behind-the-scenes content, executive producer credit, guest spots on their shows, and more. Spread the word and help bring this fresh paranormal project into the world!

"A Murky Path Down Archer Avenue" Short Documentary

Few things make me happier than figuring out how to construct documentary projects through research and shooting plans.  Everything is safely practical during those planning stages but, once the production actually begins, it's an entirely new reality of headaches, revisions, and inevitable screw-ups.

I have an independent horror film coming up later this year.  It involves an updated camera hard drive and constant editing learning curves.  Doing documentary projects can be relaxing experiences in the best scenarios so, I figured, what a better way to try out some new horror-centric content than to do a documentary revolving around real, creepy, pre-existing scenes?  I didn't want this documentary to be too easy since it's a sort of drill for that bigger shoot.  A few years back, I had done a short doc about the spirits of Detroit--it's literally called "The Spirits of Detroit"--and I wanted to do something in a similar vein in my usual home city (I was born and raised in the metropolitan Detroit area and I now live in Chicago).

Chicago has too many ghosts.  Doing a documentary about the spirits of Chicago would encompass too much so I decided to stick to one general area.  Archer Avenue isn't one spot, per se; it's a far-reaching street that begins in the South Loop district and stretches beyond the city limits into the southwestern suburbs.  Slicing through hundreds of years worth of multi-layered, unpleasant history, the road serves as a microcosmic sample of what this American region represents.  A well-worn Native American route collided with European immigrants and the psychospiritual baggage that they dragged along with them.  The result is a very long, appropriated, and renamed boulevard lined with myth-drenched cemeteries and woodlands.  The Archer Avenue area is absolutely beautiful and you can feel the history surrounding you.  

This sinister little project was designed to be speedy so I did the best that I could to rush viewers through a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride-inspired jaunt mixing the archived past with a large helping of urban myths and local pop culture.  Whatever's going on with Archer Avenue has staying power.  These are old tales passed down through generations, constantly being remixed and updated.  

Are there actually haunted places on Archer Avenue?  People swear that there are.  The energy in these places, speaking through firsthand experience, seems to back this up.  Did a couple of weird things happen?  Yes.  But I made this documentary to reflect Archer Avenue's potent mesh of history and paranormal rumors, not to present some kind of video diary.  It's an old-fashioned approach: location cinematography and actors in costumes used as live-action illustrations, fleshing out stories.  The supposed scenarios revolving around Archer Avenue and its various locations read like fragmented scripts from B movie horror films.....so why not offer a glimpse at these scenarios utilizing some custom-made B movie horror film fragments?  It makes perfect sense.  Research, narrative compression, and a little bit of technical exercise for me and a thoroughly unnerving, quick, paranormal history adventure for viewers.  If you enjoy the possibility of running into monsters, dead monks, and cursed damsels, there's a few places in Chicago that you may want to visit.  All that you have to do is take a trip down a specific street.

"A Murky Path Down Archer Avenue" is a short documentary by Derek Quint via Addovolt Productions.  This project is narrated by Michael Marius Massett and features music by Andre Almaraz and Michael Marius Massett.