Hellier

Caught the trailer on youtube. Decided to give it five mins. There is so much drivel in the paranormal world these days. Mostly driven by the endless disciples of Zak Bagans and his awful melodramatic twaddle. This was smart, beautifully filmed. No drone footage of pretty trees which seems to be the flavor right now. The people involved had back stories and flaws. There was a genuine camaraderie between them and an obvious desire for exploring more fringe ideas. I watched all 5 episodes in a row. It wasnt perfect but it was damned close. Karl Pfeiffer bhas an amazing future as a Director ahead of him. His obvious love of what he does shines through in his work. Some people might get lost as it moves away from where you thought it was going into an investigation into consciousness itself. In the end though. A satisfying modern tale of the darkness and the necessity for opening your mind to see the connections we all miss.

My wife and I were intrigued by this and according to the rating, it held some promise. We were both in deep after the second episode-there was a lot of suspense and this young crew of experienced paranormal investigators were going to go solve a thing or two, or at least give us a Scooby-Doo-esque mystery to solve.

Instead, and with much regret, it takes a dreary turn for the worse after ep. 2.

I have never seen a more unprepared group of people go out on an expedition. First of all, they don't call ahead to set up any interviews, but rather just sit idle at a gas station hoping for people to come to them-what kind of investigator does that? It doesn't matter if you're a paranormal investigator, or a P.I., you have a job to do and you need to be methodical.

They did at one point drive hopelessly around the town looking for a house that they didn't have an address to, or a chance in hell of finding. Major waste of time. They called around a bit and got no answers from places like the police station and I found myself wondering... "these guys have cars, why don't they just drive to the police station and try to get some answers?" Not very good investigating if you just call and that's where it stops. You're in town... go knock on doors. Investigate for goodness sake. It would have at least been a bit more entertaining.

So what do they do... they decide to go back to their cabin and talk for hours at length about the way the feel, and about synchronicities that honestly feel more like a collective high gathered from the excitement of the group; which apparently has the power to stop critical thinking.

We don't need to hear each person tell the same thing in a slightly different way. It's like, one tiny thing would happen and each "investigator" would get their chance to sit in the cozy chair and talk about it. Why?

It bothered me greatly that they didn't prepare at all for their excursion(s). They didn't have any infrared, or thermal imaging of any kind. They relied on one camera (maybe two) and their cell phones. Absurd! What kind of paranormal investigator doesn't have all of the proper tools to investigate?

Honestly, I believe I could have grabbed my wife and a couple of friends and done a better job. Again, it comes down to planning-there was none-and that made for a thumb twiddling boring and droning documentary.

We didn't even finish the last episode because it was clear they weren't going to find anything, but then... they weren't really looking. Most of the time they stayed at their cabin talking about how interesting this synchronicity was, or how odd that they thought something similar. Who cares?

They went on two night excursions (both lame) and on the second one they went to a cave to investigate the would be goblins lol... now, as any person going to investigate something you'd think, "hmm, surely they'll go in the cave to investigate." You'd be wrong. Instead, they sat milling about outside of the cave too afraid to go in. What was the whole point of going to the cave again... to just sit outside of it? Oh yeah, right! They could have just stayed at their damn cabin because they just sat outside looking like a bunch of high school students too scared to go in. It's embarrassing.

Instead of doing any REAL investigating, They put on these noise canceling headphones to listen for spirits... they hear like one or two things and of course we, the audience, is forced to sit through another round of all of them sitting in a chair talking about it-AGAIN!... It's like, dude, we just saw it... we don't need all of you to retell it to us. I think they all just like the sound of their own voice a bit too much.

I think they believe they are much smarter than they are and it just comes across as being arrogant and verbose. Furthermore, isn't this supposed to be about the search for goblins? The whole thing seemed to be more about ghosts than goblins.

Also... guys. There's no one named David Christie. You know it, we knew it... you don't need to do an entire episode getting to that point. Complete waste of time. This entire documentary could have been 1.5 hours MAX. That would have made me at least less sour that I wasted 5 hours of my life on the most boring documentary I have ever seen.

My advice... next time you decide to make a documentary: be prepared, have a plan for God sakes, and actually do some investigating.

The one thing I did like about this documentary was that it seemed well polished with some nice suspenseful music and graphical treatments (post production). However, that just makes the bitterness of the experience that much less palatable. It had the framework of a good documentary, it simply lacked the depth to carry it through. Too bad!

p.s. If this IS fiction as some of the reviews state, then it's even worse and poorly written. If it was actually fiction, I would think the writers would write in actually finding something; so this gives me doubt that it's fiction. Cause... blah!

A small group of paranormal researchers travel to Hellier, KY to follow up on a tip of goblin sightings and find....

Absolutely nothing. And spend a lot of time talking about it. A lot. Of. Time.

Total nothing sandwich. Don't waste your time on this group of self-important nobodies.

I'm just your average person with a lifelong fascination with the paranormal and unsolved mysteries. I've checked out the Week in Weird occasionally and listen to various podcasts when i have time. That's the extent of my paranormal experience. I'm not a hardcore skeptic or a true believer. I'm simply open to the possibilities. I did originally read about the David Christie emails on the website but had no idea there would be a documentary till I heard about it on a podcast. My only bias here is I like a good story. This is a good story.

I have to wonder what the negative reviewers expected when watching this. Beyond the good story, I enjoyed the inside view of an investigation. The mystery only became more mysterious in my eyes. Your enjoyment of the movie may depend on your perspective going into it. I wasn't expecting them to present proof on a shining platter at the end. I'm left with even more questions and that's ok with me. This was certainly better than anything in the paranormal genre on tv in quite some time. I'd definitely watch more documentaries by this team.

I kind of felt like a sucker after watching this. The episodes are long and too much talking, no action. If you like to see how paranormal investigators operate, this is for you, otherwise...not much story. It falls flat.