If Don Wildman is not careful, he’s going to step on toes and piss off the wrong people (living or dead) in Buried Worlds. Before joining Travel Channel, he was the voice behind the series Cities of the Underworld and Mysteries at the Museum. With this latest series at its halfway point, the formula is firmly established. It sends this host into the field, getting involved in seances and perhaps meeting people that he really shouldn’t in the quest for answers to well-known unsolved mysteries.
He better be careful in what he digs up. It may not be pleasant not only for the viewer, but also those better versed than him when dealing with the occult.
Anyone who loves the supernatural flavour which comes out of traditional Japan should tune into Spectros right away! The series blends paranormal with breakfast club mentality from three teens–Pardal (Danilo Mesquita), Carla (Mariana Sena) and Mila (Cláudia Okuno)–coming together to deal with the supernatural coalescing in their neighbourhood of Liberdade in São Paulo, Brazil.
Ultimately, this series is the type of cheesy pulp action style fun expected when showrunner Douglas Petrie was a key figure in the production of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.
The only real problem with the Insidious series is in how many times can the producers play with a familiar plot and Astral Projection?
By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
The Insidious series is one of those guilty pleasures where I hope some answers are given about Darth Maul — er, The Red Faced Demon. The previous films, which I had to see again before penning this article, and the latest, The Last Key, do not necessarily follow in a logical order. This franchise is taking just as long as the Paranormal Activity series to offer answers. I fear I will have a complete head of gray hair by the time any will be offered.
All we get with this latest work is that it looks at the life of Elise before she became a full time paranormal investigator, and everything that has plagued her life, before taking on the case presented from the first film.
This prequel has its moments, and actually has one great jump scare which caused me to gasp. I often wondered if I could ever get that reaction with any horror movie, and this film actually delivered. It’s very rare for me to get startled. Also, Specs and Tucker (Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson) are hilarious as always. This movie’s saving grace is with how well-developed the character of Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) is. She defines and saves this franchise from mediocrity.
Whannell is also this series lead and co-writer. He develops what goes on in the Astral Realm known as The Further in baby steps and the details which matter is nothing new to those who study the occult. In what goes on there are darker reflections in what goes on in the mortal world. Rainier has skeletons in the closet and I am not surprised at the visions she sees in this other world. When she’s called to investigate her childhood home, all those memories are going to surface in some horrible way. To watch her deal with, bury the past and deal with her demons makes this fourth film better than the previous. Her resolve is being nicely developed.
Ghostbusters fans now have three versions of “Tobin’s Spirit Guide” to tap into for getting caught up in all this film’s paranormal lore. One is an out-of-print role-playing games supplement by West End Games for players to use in games (the ghosts are organized by country of origin) and the other two — one tries to be a complete volume of knowledge (sorted alphabetically) and the other abridged (put into categories of ascending danger). The forward in this latest version by Insight Editions tells readers that this pocket guide is meant to provide the essentials of who is recently haunting New York City and the Eastern Seaboard.
Anyone wishing to gaze at the authoritative edition should make a sanity roll (like in the “Call of Cthulhu” RPG by Chaosium Inc) in order not to prematurely age while spending years to absorb all the knowledge in the 35-pound tome — of which these published editions are based. Between these smaller books, each entity’s origins and classification are offered. For the daring, just where to locate them are also provided. Just who wants to seek them out must be fearless though.
By Ed Sum
By Ed Sum 
