By Helen A.S. Popkin, Technology editor
Introduction
Thanks to Dan Aykroyd’s lifelong obsession with the paranormal (Have you seen his Crystal Head Vodka Internet infomercial?), a lot of the gear and ghost-associated gab in “Ghost Busters” isn't far off from what’s used by real-life paranormal investigators.
No, your local ghost club can’t get access to Proton packs with beams you must never ever cross (unless your brain accidentally conjures the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man). What’s more, you can’t buy an ecto-containment unit, not even at Ghost Mart, your paranormal discount store.
But the PKE meter Dr. Egon Spengler uses to detect “psychokinetic energy” isn’t far off from the EMF detectors ghost hunters use to identify fluctuations in the electro-magnetic field.
And when Dr. Peter Venkman gets slimed with “ectoplasm” — that’s a real term first coined in the 1800s when mediums “in spiritual contact” allegedly oozed a gauzy substance which was actually cheesecloth used to create illusions for gullible customers. You know, like in the movies.
Here’s a look at how other ghost hunting movies match up with the real world of paranormal investigation.
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‘Poltergeist’
While there’s no known evidence of unspeakably adorable little blonde girls getting sucked into televisions, there are certainly plenty of far less interesting accounts by university eggheads, such as “Poltergeist’s” Dr. Lesh and team, spending hour upon dull hour waiting for something — anything — to happen.
In fact, the least realistic aspect of the fictional U.C. Irvine paranormal squad in this movie is the super high-end equipment they haul in the house to record the action.
Remember, “Poltergeist” came out in 1982 — high-end electronics cost a lot more back then. No way would any university agree to foot that foolish bill.
The team’s investigative method however, is dead on — an initial interview with the family, a tour of the home, etc. Yep, it’s just that yawn-tastic, including the team member’s tale of using time lapse photography to film a toy car roll seven feet across the floor in only seven hours. That’s right before an unimpressed Craig T. Nelson opens the door to the kid’s room and hilarity ensues.
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‘White Noise’
The sad fact is ... well ... this movie stinks. Also, unfortunately, it’s not unusual for those who have recently lost someone to latch onto Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) or other aspects of paranormal investigation. This happens to Michael Keaton’s character after his hot young wife dies mysteriously. He becomes obsessed with the voices he hears in the static noise of radios and TVs.
The late filmmaker Friedrich Jürgenson is credited with first documenting EVP almost 50 years ago, which he came upon after recording birds in his garden. While playing back the recording Jürgenson heard voices that seemed to discuss the bird song. The specificity of the topic caused Jürgenson to eschew the theory of stray radio transmissions (which many scientists believe EVP to be) and theorized the voices belonged to the dead — and more specifically, his late mother.
In “White Noise,” Keaton commences to spend all his time and money on all manner of high-end equipment used to analyze and isolate portions of sound recording — much to the detriment of his relationships in the living world. Hey, it happens.
Then the static beasties start popping out of the TV like those metal pin trays you could get at Spencer’s Gifts and when you press your face against them, the other side takes the form of your nose and mouth. That part doesn’t happen in real life.
Meanwhile, almost everyone’s experienced some form of EVP, at least casually. You know — that voice under the failing radio transmission that demands you buy it a Coke or whatever. Turns out, the human brain is predisposed to finding patterns in random stimuli. In other words, we will “hear” things that aren’t there.
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‘The Haunting’
We’re talking the 1963 version of the Shirley Jackson novel “The Haunting of Hill House,” not the awful 1999 remake in which Owen Wilson gets his head bit off by a lion-headed fireplace flue.
In the good version, anthropologist Dr. John Markway (back then, you couldn’t get a degree in paranormal studies, apparently), sets out to investigate a notorious haunted mansion. As many paranormal investigators do, he brings some people sensitive to the supernatural. These days we call them “psychics.”
Dr. Markway does manage to get in some manual investigating, figuring out all the doors are hung oddly on their hinges, causing them to swing open in a spooky manner. And certainly, observation is an important ghost-hunting tool. But for all his scientific posturing, Dr. Markaway fails to bring in any form technology.
No doubt in 1963 it was rather difficult to acquire an infrared digital video camera or EMF detector, what with there being no Internet and all. Still, there’s Dr. Markaway, astonished at random cold spots yet brandishing not even the most primitive of thermometers. No wonder Dude never got his own documentary-style paranormal cable show.
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‘The Ring’
Here’s a movie chock full of ghost-channeling technology — much to the chagrin of all characters involved, seeing as none of them are paranormal investigators. Still, the little-black-and-white-girl-who-lives- in-a-well takes full advantage of the instruments employed by real paranormal investigators.
First, a victim views a VCR tape of what appears to be some art student’s crappy master thesis. (What, no laser disk?) Then the victim gets a telephone call from the little-black-and-white-girl alerting the victim to his or her seven-day expiration date.
When Naomi Watts views the deadly video, she becomes an accidental paranormal investigator, utilizing the video equipment at the news station where she works to analyze frame-by-frame the crappy art student master thesis in order to free the little- black-and-white-girl from the well, who then crawls out of the TV to kill Watts’ baby daddy.
While this movie is more about horror than paranormal investigation, it does manage to check off the big ticket items on the advanced ghost hunter’s shopping list.
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‘1408’
John Cusack plays the skeptic’s ghost hunter, building his cynical-yet-profitable career by debunking infamous accounts of alleged hauntings and then writing best-selling books about his experiences — or lack thereof.
Naturally, his hubris raises the ire of the Gods and he receives an invitation to spend an evening in evil room 1408 at New York City’s fictional fancy-schmancy Dolphin Hotel — where guests check in and then die horribly. If the fact that the room numbers add up to “13” wasn’t warning enough, Dude should’ve ran the minute he learned that Samuel L. Jackson is the hotel manager. (Never a good sign.)
Instead, and despite Jackson’s monologue of warnings, Cusack checks in. Once the door shuts, not even his tape recorder, over-clocked laptop and even his well-honed disbelief can save him from ghosts that look suspiciously like that old 8mm footage in your mom’s attic.
In the end, Cusack preservers against the forces of evil and emerges with evidence on that inexpensive but immensely important ghost hunting tool — his hand-held tape recorder. And what it recorded isn’t any fuzzy EVP nonsense, but a full-on conversation with his deceased little daughter — the one he thought he imagined.
A word to wise paranormal investigators everywhere — always bring extra batteries!
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