I don’t believe in ghosts. That said, if presented with properly compelling evidence I would be more than willing to change my mind. As of yet, that compelling evidence has yet to be presented.
Zak Bagans, the lead ghost hunter on Ghost Adventures, did have one of those life changing experiences and that’s why he does this show, so he says in the opening credits. And while he is convinced, episode after episode, that they are always capturing great evidence to spooky and specters, I still don’t believe.
The EVPs are suspect; the white noise machines even more so and the speak and spell sounding machine is just stupid. And nine times out of ten when they see a spirit going in or coming out of them, I just see a piece of dust floating by. The most interesting thing that happened in this collection of episodes was a door slamming, which will surely make the hair on your arms stand up when you see it, but so do scenes in films like Paranormal Activity. I’m not saying they faked it, I’m just saying it would be very easy to do so.
My biggest problem with this show is that these guys are looking for evidence and are so desperate for it that they will believe just about anything they see or here no matter how preposterous it might be. In Ghost Hunters, a similarly themed show, they find evidence and do everything in their power to debunk it. Debunking rarely happens on this show. The unbelievable evidence they collect makes the potentially believable stuff like the door slamming all the more suspect.
This can be a fun show. I can’t say I wasn’t entertained while watching, but I often laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all and found myself shouting “oh, come on!” on more than one occasion. And one time I even said, “Did he just take his shirt off to taunt some ghost nuns with his tattoos?” Yes, yes he did.
It’s also worth pointing out that this box set is mislabeled as Season 4, when in fact this is a collection of twelve episodes from a 26 episode season. Not even half. Also, the episodes are not presented in air date order. Disc one offers up episodes 1, 12, 5 and 23. Why they are presented out of order I have no idea. And while long seasons are often broken up you’d think Season 4, Volume 1 (as this should have been called) should have at least consisted of 13 episodes and the first 13 at that.
The episodes are presented in a widescreen 1.78:1. Sound is Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound. Being that most the show is shot with night vision cameras the show looks as good as you’d expect. It’s not the best shot show, but it’s good for what it is.
There are no Special Features.
A couple of these episodes were mildly amusing, but as far as ghost shows go, this is not the best. If you’re really into ghost shows you’re probably going to want to watch these, or even more likely you’ve already seen them. I don’t see any of these episodes being rewatchable.
Gaiam and Travel Channel present Ghost Adventures: Season 4. Created by: Zak Bagans and Nick Groff. Starring: Zak Bagans, Nick Groff and Aaron Goodwin. Running time: 508 min. on 3 discs. Rating: Not Rated. Released: September 4, 2012. Available at Amazon.com.
