It always starts the same way. The reality show host drives toward their destination in Smalltown, USA, discussing the details of the house and its owners. We, the viewers, are shown the exterior: majestic, imposing, possibly in a state of disrepair. We meet the owners, who tell us a little more about themselves and then run through the house’s myriad problems.
I’m referring, of course, to both the paranormal investigation show and the home improvement show, which in their opening beats differ only in music and lighting. On the repair show, the hosts will next walk through the house, demonstrating everything that is wrong with it to exaggerated effect. On the paranormal show, they catalogue the past hauntings and disprove one or two to show they are serious investigators.
Both shows dive into the meat of the episode. In repairland, the renovations begin, dogged by trouble in the form of rotten joists or unexpected termite damage or the show’s decorator going over budget. In ghostland, they spend the night. Who is whistling? Did that shadow move? Maybe they unpack some equipment and start recording. They jump, and pant with panic, then play back the sounds of the whistling and their own panicked pants. In the end, they present their findings to the owners, who either move out or learn to live with their ghost. On the other show, the new spaces are shown to the homeowners, who will say “Oh my god!” regardless of what they think.
This is where I admit I find the home improvement shows far scarier than the paranormal ones. I think part of it is the layer of removal: The investigators react to a ghostly voice, but the TV doesn’t give directionality. They say it came from in front of them, but they’re facing away from the camera, so who’s to say it isn’t one of them talking, or someone on the other side of the wall? Jump scares usually get me, but these jump scares, coming at the exact same moment episode after episode, are too predictable to terrify.
I asked a friend who is a licensed paranormal investigator what she thought about paranormal reality shows. She didn’t hesitate. “They sensationalize what we do; the real process is mundane. There’s no methodology to their approach.” She went on to explain how her team would systematically checks for faulty wiring, mold, asbestos. One person sketches every room, drawing in the furniture, the type of flooring, the outlet locations. There’s a photographer, an interviewer, someone using an electricity meter. None of that is sexy or dramatic, so instead the shows force feelings that aren’t there.
Not being a trained investigator myself, my reaction to these shows is not professional annoyance, but hilarity. The overwrought reactions make me laugh. I contrast that with home improvement shows, which I find genuinely distressing. “Jill is leaving town for the weekend. While she’s gone, the neighbors will secretly renovate her house.” Did Jill throw her dirty clothes in the hamper before she left? “We decided to give Jose’s apartment the upgrade it deserved.” Jose returns to find that his cozy lived-in space has been transformed into a soulless hellscape. The walls and furniture are gray-beige. The pillows say “It’s Five O’ Clock Somewhere” or “Live Laugh Love.” His bookcases are gone, as are his books. “Finally, a room where he can relax,” the host says. I scream.
I scream because the result is devoid of personality. I scream because we’ve only seen the room from one angle, and the team only had six hours to work, and there is no possible way that they have renovated an entire apartment well. The room must reek of wet paint. Given the camera angle, I worry the back wall has been demolished.(This happened to a friend who went on one of these shows — they were left with one half of a beautiful room and a construction zone just outside the camera’s gaze.)
The haunted house shows could learn a lesson in suspense from the home improvement shows. At the end of the day, they’re equally contrived, but the stakes seem much higher to me on the repair show; it has all the dread that the paranormal show lacks. The hauntees only have to live with a ghost in their handsome old house; the renovatees have to live in a space that has been constructed as quickly as a movie set. Are there even cabinets behind those cabinet doors?
My book Haunt Sweet Home takes you behind the scenes on a combined paranormal/home renovation show. New homeowners renovate by day and sleep in their supposedly haunted house by night. The homeowners on “real” paranormal shows have lived there long enough to get to know the patterns of their hauntings; the homeowners on my fake reality show have only just moved in. They’re tiling or grouting or smashing walls all day, and just as their eyes close, they are interrupted for another interview, and another. Are they hallucinating the noises? Who knows? The audience for this show experiences the new homeowners’ terror for the first time, when they know they’re on a ghost show but they don’t know what form the haunting will take.
Meanwhile, the reader sees it all through the eyes of Mara, the show’s haunt-er, scrabbling through crawlspaces and across rooftops night after night to make sure everyone in the house is properly freaked out. It’s a soft haunting: I wanted to explore the manipulation that scaffolds so many reality shows, and I liked the idea of doing that through someone who discovers herself unexpectedly in the very unglamorous role of the professional haunter.
Ultimately, I thought it would be fun to play with the formulaic nature of both renovation shows and paranormal shows by letting the classic framework play out around a character whose life is not going at all to plan. Maybe we’re meant to be comforted by reality show structures: stress out along with us, they say, and eventually the ghost will be identified, the space will be tamed. That’s not the case for Mara, and that’s not the case in real life. That’s why at the end of the day, I think fiction is far more fun: I want to be frightened or moved or surprised; I want to see people transformed by what they have experienced. My real fear is that if we accept the same-old plot offered by reality shows as good enough, we’ll lose the stories that truly have the power to move us.
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