Paranormal Pop Culture: 10/01/2010

Supernatural Sugar Rush: Best Paranormal Candy for Halloween

Twilight Sweethearts
A tween vampire take on the classic Necco message candy, these hearts say things like, “I (heart) EC,” “Forks,” “Bad Boy,” “Bite Me,” etc. How do they taste? Like flavored chalk, yet remain addictive. Some things never change.

CVS Brand Cherry Liquid Filled Gummy Skulls
For a generic brand, this gooey gummy candy explodes with a tasty cherry “blood” when you bite into the skulls.

Tootsie Ghost Dots
Based on the packaging, these look like they should glow in the dark and have cute faces. They have neither, but are delicious assorted gum drop flavors.

Skeletal Sweets
A green glow-in-the-dark coffin filled with bone puzzle pieces that actually assemble into a skeleton? Yes, please! They’re sort of Sweet Tart-y and come with an extra giant candy skull.

Investigate The Stanley Hotel with TAPS

After watching the Live Ghost Hunters investigation tonight, get into the act by joining the team at The Stanley Hotel on Nov. 5-8.

Visit Beyond Reality Events to purchase tickets for the investigation of the historically haunted hotel with TAPS and Chip Coffey.

If you can’t visit, follow along with Paranormal Pop Culture expert Aaron Sagers’ live audio/video blog of the TAPS investigation:

Saturday, Nov. 6
Midnight, EST
www.beyondrealityevents.com

Halloween a paranormal hunter's holiday

Clare Toohey

According to locals in the know, the ones who will talk about it, the Sun Inn in Bethlehem, Pa., is one of the more renowned haunted locations in the area. Situated in the town settled by the Protestant Christian Moravian Church in the 18th century, the restored 250-year-old building witnessed pivotal moments of our nation’s founding and hosted founding patriots such as George and Martha Washington, John Adams, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Ethan Allen and Marquis de Lafayette.

Now, the Sun Inn recently hosted a group of ghost hunters, including yours truly, to investigate a very special landmark poised to become the next big thing of paranormal tourism, and I was invited by the small investigative group largely as a witness or documentarian of sorts.

But as I got dressed, assembled my collection of gear and began the exploration of the preserved guest rooms and kitchen – searching for a “vortex” in the basement or shadow people in the attic or an elderly woman in the second-floor dining room – I became aware of how consumed I was with a childlike excitement.

The Night Shift: Hallelujahs & Halloween

The Night Shift is the production diary of Fighting Owl Film's new independent supernatural-adventure-comedy of the same name currently in "post" in Mobile, AL. Over the course of the next several weeks and months, you'll get an insider's peek at what it's like for filmmakers to craft a new entry of paranormal pop culture from Erin Lilley, a producer and actress on the film.

Hallelujahs and Halloween

As I type this, the sound people are doing their thing, the special effects guy is doing his thing and the composer is ... well, in class, actually, but as soon as he gets out, he'll be doing his thing. This movie might actually get finished soon. Hallelujah.

This past weekend, Khristian (Rue Morgan, our leading man) and I (Claire Rennfield, at your service) recorded the little bit of dialogue we needed to loop, and filmed a couple of insert shots: Some hand acting, one close-up that was forgotten, etc. I think we spent about four hours total over the course of two days, and part of that was spent eating pizza. We still have to record all of Herbie the skeleton's dialogue, and we have to go in and trim any dead spaces (no pun intended) in the video, but with those shots in place, the editing work is basically done. Now we just have to wait for all the pieces to come together.

Like a real life Indiana Jones, Joe Maddalena must solve riddles, navigate through tricky situations and use his charm to discover treasures and save the day.

The main difference is that instead of battling booby traps and Nazis, he must negotiate with owners and convince them to hand over their own idols – not ancient archaeological artifacts but rare movie memorabilia.

The son of antique dealers, Maddalena is the founder of Profiles in History, an auction house he began in 1985 to sell historic documents, including baseball cards, comic books, and novels from great American writers like William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Over time, Profiles began to deal with prop and items from the movies, such as current sellers like the hover board from Back to the Future II, an original golden ticket from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory and Brand Routh’s Superman suit from Superman Returns.

Most recently, Maddalena gained headlines for his Lost auction that pulled in more than $1.8 for items like the Dharma VW van (for $47,500) and 12 cans of Dharma beer ($5,000). But the auctioneer and movie buff is about to get headlines again with his new Syfy show Hollywood Treasure, which premieres tonight with two back-to-back half-hour episodes, and airs Weds. at 10 p.m., ET.

On the show, Maddalena and his team travel to various destinations to track down leads and find highly collectible Hollywood memorabilia for fan auctions. Over the course of the 12-episode series, Joe pursues the carpet bag used on camera in Mary Poppins, the hat worn by the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, the genie bottle Barbara Eden lived in on I Dream of Jeannie, miniature biplanes King Kong swatted at in 1931 and many more legendary items.

We spoke with Maddalena to discuss Hollywood Treasure and his life on the auction block. Additionally, we’ve included video from the Hollywood Treasure panel at the Syfy Digital Media Press Tour in Orlando, Fla. earlier this month.

Paranormal investigator, 28-year-old reality-TV star, author, former Penn State college student, bisexual celebrity; chances are good that however you choose to label Ryan Buell of Paranormal State, you're partially wrong.

Like the paranormal, it is hard to define and explain Ryan Buell. Long before Buell was a TV ghost buster, he was a college student from Sumter, SC, at Pennsylvania State University, where he studied journalism and anthropology. Then, in December 2007, the founder of the college’s Paranormal Research Society became a celebrity when State premiered with 2.5 million viewers. Since then, the show has remained a contender amongst the reality-TV paranormal docudramas, and began its fifth season Oct. 19 with 1.4 million people tuning in.

The success of Paranormal State, which airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on A&E, is attributable to a variety of factors such as adept cinematography, high production values, creepy settings and a rotating cast of compelling characters that has included twentysomething investigators Sergey, Heather and Psychic Kids star Chip Coffey.

Yet the main focus of the show has always been on Buell. That focus on a brooding young man who has had a lifelong fascination with the supernatural and has been investigating since age 15, and with personal demons - as in a literal demon he believes was stalking him – has earned Buell countless fans and more than a few critics.

Now it’s his chance to respond. In his new biography, Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown, Buell discusses, in his own words, his upbringing, Catholic faith, and the beginning of PRS and the show – as well as his revelation as a bisexual man, which has earned the book coverage in the mainstream press. But for Buell, who sits down after a book signing to chat at the Stone Rose lounge in Manhattan’s Time Warner Center, it’s a chronicle of his backstory and the show’s first season. He says the book is less of a memoir and instead largely documents a life transition between college and adulthood

“It's really only a sliver of my life,” says Buell. “I was graduating but was still in school for another degree. We were starting to realize we are getting older and about ready to leave college in another year or so; that's when the show comes along.”

Buell adds that his life changed right at the moment when he “was contemplating having a normal life for a change.”

Within pop-culture, there are a lot of monsters, ghouls and maniacs out there that want to terrify us. Especially around Halloween, werewolves, demons, ghosts, mummies, maenads, fairies and half-dead men with hockey masks or razor claws make their presence known. But let’s face it, these beasts that go bump in the night lack a certain bite.

For the true masters of horror pop, one need look no further than the two reigning champs of chomps, vampires and zombies. More than any other, these creatures capture the imagination and inspire ferocious loyalty. Zombie lovers corpse-up, congregate in flash mobs and hijack constructions signs to read “Caution: Zombies Ahead.” Vamp fans wear molded ceramic fangs, make pilgrimages to New Orleans and Transylvania, and drink Tru Blood.

But really, which beast is best? The walking dead or undead? The brain eater or blood sucker? In order to settle the Zombie vs. Vampire debate, we’ve collected notable films of both genres from the last 25 years, and arranged them in different categories (emphasis on gore) to determine who each might triumph.

Although judgments on winners are completely subjective, I tried to channel George A. Romero and Bela Lugosi for guidance since they were incredibly influential in both genres. Lugosi starred as the count in the first official version of Dracula in 1931; he also gave the world the grandfather of the zombie movies, White Zombie, in 1932. Meanwhile, Romero remains the reigning genius of the zombie genre after directing 1968’s Night of the Living Dead. Romero also contributed heavily to vampires on screen with the underrated deconstruction Martin (1978).

The Night Shift: It doesn't suck

I can officially announce that the movie does not suck! Thomas and I sat down with Soren (first asst. director and cinematographer) and Genna (first production assistant) to watch the rough cut, and we were pleasantly surprised. The sound needs work, there isn't any music and the special effects still need to be added, but all in all, the bones are there, and they're looking fairly decent.

Honestly, given everything that went wrong during filming, I really had no idea what we were going to end up with. None of us did. We lost our original cinematographer three days before shooting began, so lighting and shots had to be figured out as we went along. The recording system worked when it felt like it, so audio was hit or miss. It was hot and humid, and makeup and hair don't like heat and humidity (neither do actors or crew, for that matter). The cops tried to bust us. Twice. Herbie had mechanical difficulties (the diva). Time was not on our side. There was a train track, and a highly used PA system, both right next to the main cemetery. There were landscapers who thought it was hilarious to run their weedeaters and blowers until we said "cut," then start up again at "action" (and let me assure you, it's not).

But with all that (and a little more I won't bore you with), we really didn't know what to expect. Thomas and I had seen each scene come together separately during editing, but nothing in context with the rest of the movie. Genna and Soren hadn't even seen that much. In fact, most of what Soren had seen had been upside down because, well, that's just what the 35mm lens adapter does. We sat down, pads and pens in hand, ready to rip the thing to shreds.

The FauX-Files: Attack of the ghost pic app

Just as Agent Mulder believed, the truth is out there, but one often has to see through falsehoods to get to that truth. In that spirit, The FauX-Files is a collection of intentionally faked (or debunked but convincing) paranormal "evidence." The purpose of The FauX-Files is to serve as a tutorial of how to spot doctored images, videos, etc. so everyone is less likely to get suckered by them. If you'd like to be submit your own FauX-File, email TheFauXFiles@gmail.com with a description of the "evidence" and under what circumstances it was captured/created. Please be as specific as possible (camera models, software, lighting conditions, location).

For this entry of The FauX-Files, parapsychology researcher Sarah Harmon sent us an image making the rounds on the interwebs, along with one sent to psychic Ericka Boussarhane as "evidence."

Take a look:


A "ghost photo" circulating on the Internet


A photo sent to Boussarhane as "evidence"

Notice the similarities between the "ghosts" in each photo? That is either one globetrotting, photo bombing yurei or a fake. Harmon rightfully suspected the image and decided she'd try to do one better by faking her own pic.

You may have heard about it here, but Britt Griffith is no longer with Ghost Hunters on Syfy. The situation was over derogatory words he used in an interview (which I won't repeat and don't condone). The interview was first reported on at Examiner.com.

To be honest, I've heard rumors about this for days now and remained silent. A decision I made in the interests of allowing the man to release the news in his own time perhaps reveals me to be delinquent in my reporting duties.

See, I know Griffith personally, and live and work closely with members of the homosexual community. So any way I look at this, I cannot be subjective about this topic.

I vehemently disagree with his word choice and sentiments. With that said, I don't think Griffith is a bad guy, but a good guy who said some bad things that - based on conversations with the man - I do not believe accurately reflect his thoughts.

Beyond that, this site will not opine on the matter or on Syfy's decision. However, I do hope one potential positive outcome of this situation is that, as a nation, we will continue to discuss diversity, tolerance and the power of language.

Paranormal Statements Giveaway

Are you a fan of Paranormal State, and a bigger fan of lead investigator Ryan Buell? Then you're in luck, because now's your chance to pick up an autographed copy of Buell's new memoir, Paranormal State: My Journey Into The Unknown. Here's how:

This week, we'll be interviewing Buell about the new season of Paranormal State and about his book - and we want you to be a part of the interview.

First, click on an advertisement to the right. Next, send one question for Buell to contest@paranormalpopculture.com with your name and mailing address. We will collect all submissions and randomly select as many as possible for Buell to answer. If your question is selected and Buell answers it, then you win the kewpie doll.

Twitter option: You may also follow editor @AaronSagers and direct message the question to him to be considered.

Fine Print: Keep it clean and original. Any inappropriate or standard biographical questions already likely to be asked in the course of an interview will be discarded. Giveaway only applies to U.S. residents 18 years-old and older. One submission per person please. Giveaway winners will be announced on this site next Wednesday Oct. 27.

'Destination Truth' sneak peek, Josh Gates panel interview

Destination Truth fans rejoice. Not only do we offer you a super sneak peek at the new DT episode, "Haunted Island Ruins," but we also want to share the panel interview with Josh Gates at last week's Syfy Digital Media Tour.

Gates talks with our own Aaron Sagers about movies, and what movie replica Josh would love to get his hands on through the new show, Hollywood Treasure.

In this Thursday's episode at 9 p.m. on Syfy, As the team "scuffles through the desert they come across footprints as a full moon sets in. They enter a cave to try and cure their curious appetite but may get more than they bargained for in the end."

Sounds spooky. Tune in and find out.

'Vampire Diaries' stars glamour Chicago

If you are a superfan of CW's Vampire Diaries, live in the Chicago metro area and spent the day chowing down on addictive Pretzel M&M's because you had nothing to do ... well, you might want to stop reading now or suffer extreme disappointment.

OK, if you're still with us, it means you want to hear about yesterday's pretty large event in the Chicago area celebrating the second season of Diaries.

Two stars of the series, Steven R. McQueen (Jeremy) and Michael Trevino (Tyler) appeared at the Hot Topic store in the Westfield Fox Valley Shopping Center in Aurora, Illinois. They answered questions, signed autographs and there are still reports of fan swooning taking place.

Pop/rock band Sounds Under Radio, whose song "All You Wanted" appears on the new Vampire Diaries Soundtrack, played for the crowd as well.

For photos of the Chicago event, and to check out other images from the fan tour, head to the CW site.

On John Lennon's birthday: There's UFOs over New York ... again

John Lennon, NYC T-shirt, photo by Bob Gruen

"There's UFOs over New York and I ain't too surprised ..."

John Lennon wrote those words for the song "Nobody Told Me," which was released on his 1984 posthumous album Milk and Honey. The lyric was referring to a 1974 moment during his "Lost Weekend" (which was actually an 18-month period) when, in the East 52nd Street penthouse apartment he shared with his companion May Pang, he saw an unidentified, flying circular object hovering close to the terrace. Lennon was naked when he saw it and excitedly called Pang out to be an eyewitness.

When Lennon's photographer Bob Gruen looked into it, he learned the Daily News and local precinct received other sightings that night in the same area of New York, and Lennon added this liner note to the Walls and Bridges album he was working on at the time: "On the 23rd August 1974 at 9 o'clock I saw a U.F.O. - J.L."

John Lennon was born on Oct. 9, 1940 and would have turned 70 last Saturday. The event was marked with celebrations around the world, including one organized by his widow Yoko Ono at the musician's Strawberry Fields memorial in Manhattan's Central Park.

Four days after crowds gathered to celebrate Lennon, UFOs were spotted hovering over New York City.

News outlets went wild with coverage. One popular theory, reported on by the good folks at Ghost Theory, points to a new book by retired NORAD officer Stanley A. Fullham that predicted aliens would appear over a major city on Oct. 13, 2010.

Nice prediction, eh? Not so much. It turns out the UFOs may just have been children's balloons, or balloons from a Spanish Tourism event.

But honestly, although the "UFOs" were probably nothing from another world, I like my initial theory: That the aliens Lennon saw 36 years ago were popping back in to wish the Beatle a Happy Birthday, and to join in on the celebrations.

The Night Shift: Lots of odds and close to the end

I think my highlighter may be permanently stuck to my hand. I've been carrying it, a steno pad and my tome-like distributors guide around for a couple of weeks now. I even put up my cute little handbag and pulled out the Mary Poppins carpet-bag that my chiropractor hates, just so I could carry everything with me, in the event of a little downtime. Some red lights do take longer than others, after all.

Thankfully, after a couple of weeks of searching, highlighting, notetaking, lathering, rinsing and repeating, I can now announce that I've made it through the domestic distributors. And by that, I mean, I've made up my full list of places I should check out online. That's right, folks. I've only made it through phase one of researching domestic distributors. Once I make sure all these places exist (already found one that didn't!), are legit and check submission requirements, I get to move on to international distributors and start all over again. Joy.

After that, I will sit down and type up address labels, personalize and print out cover letters, and mail off these press kit puppies. We are going to sell this thing, by gum.

The rough cut of the movie is almost done. I think, at last count, Thomas had about four or five scenes to go, and some transitions to add in. Of course, this does not mean the movie is almost finished. No, sir.

We still have sound, effects, color-correcting and music to contend with before we can call this "finished." What it does mean, however, is that we will have something we can sit down and watch, steno pad in hand, and scrutinize for continuity errors, timing issues and anything else that we can fix to make the movie flow as smoothly as possible.

'Sanctuary' returns, star Robin Dunne speaks

The monster-helpers of Sanctuary return for Season Three tonight on Syfy at 9 p.m. In the season opener of the paranormal/sci-fi show, the team tries to prevent catastrophic tidal waves from killing millions. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) defends her position as the head of the Sanctuary Network and Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) is fighting for his life in Mumbai.

A sneak peek of the premiere is embedded below, along with an interview with Robin Dunne from the recent Syfy media tour at Universal Studios Orlando.

Return of the Stripping Dead: Dead, nude girls invade Chicago

It was only a year ago that we first reported of the Admiral Theatre, a Chicago "gentleman's club" that combined a popular horror trend with naked women to birth "Night of the Stripping Dead," a performance spectacle described as a "evening of gruesome burlesque and undead lap dancing."

Last year's event was successful enough for another, and like any good sequel, this year's "Return of the Stripping Dead" is bigger, with more gore and more nudity. Spread out over two nights on Oct. 19 and 20, "Return" boasts performers Mark the Knife, a comedian who juggles bowling balls with knives sticking out of the finger sockets; Miss Maya Sinstress (NSFW site), a dominatrix zombie burlesque dancer who has, in the past, removed her clothes with a chainsaw; headliner Masuimi Max (ditto NSFW), a pin-up model writer and fire performer.

The Admiral will be decorated as a Horror Drive-In, complete with adult horror movie parody screenings, and there will also be a Zombie Pin-ups Beauty Pageant (no nudity required), Zombie Belly Dancing and "undead tableside dances."

If you go, tickets are $25 in advance or $35 day-of, so have fun and try to refrain from "rigor mortis in my pants" or "Zombieland Rule #2: Double tap that ass" jokes.

Slightly NSFW coverage of last year's event embedded below.

Mega comic crossover pits zombies vs. pop legends

To boldy go where no walking dead has gone before?
A real American zombie?
We ain't 'fraid of no reanimated corpses?
Undead robots in disguise?

Now I must warn you fellow geeks, clamp your mouth shut and try to prevent drooling (it's hell on keyboards) because Captain Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, G.I. Joe, the Ghostbusters and the Transformers are all joining together in an epic comic book crossover event to battle zombies.

Comic publisher IDW announced the crossover, entitled Infestation, will launch January 2011 with Infestation #1 set in the Zombies vs. Robots universe. So says the press release:

This initial 32-page story begins in IDW’s own ZOMBIES VS. ROBOTS universe, where something goes terribly wrong and ultimately infests the worlds of TRANSFORMERS, STAR TREK, G.I. JOE, and GHOSTBUSTERS with zombies and infected robots. From there, the story spins ferociously into each of the four properties throughout February and March, and culminates in April’s bombastic finale, INFESTATION #2.

In February, TRANSFORMERS: INFESTATION #1-2 and STAR TREK: INFESTATION #1-2 will ship bi-weekly. The TRANSFORMERS title will also be written by Abnett and Lanning, with fan-favorite Nick Roche handling the art. STAR TREK will be written by mainstay writers Scott and David Tipton and illustrated by Casey Maloney (Zipper).

March will see the release of the bi-weekly G.I. JOE: INFESTATION #1-2 by writer Mike Raicht and artist Giovanni Timpano, as well as GHOSTBUSTERS: INFESTATION by Erik Burnham (THE A-TEAM: WAR STORIES) and Kyle Hotz (Marvel Zombies).

No doubt such a high-concept crossover will be hard to pull off, but I'll certainly be reading. Of course, we can all safely assume anyone named Snake Eyes, Venkman, Optimus and Spock will survive the zombie attack, but I sure wouldn't want to be a Red Shirt in that world.

Raven Quinn appears on Grammy ballots

At about 4 a.m. this morning I received an excited email from tunecore musician Raven Quinn with the subject line "Grammy News!"

Initially I thought the young tunecore, paranormal-influenced artist - whose self-titled debut hit last April - was emailing me to announce she'd be attending the show, but this was much bigger.

Eliciting what she describes as "shocked/happy surprise," Quinn wrote that she's listed on the Official Grammy Ballot for the 2011 Grammy Awards. Her name appears "across several categories including rock, pop, record of the year, album of the year and best new artist."

This is essentially a pre-nomination phase for Quinn, and the next step is for members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to vote and determine who should be nominated for a Grammy.

We've been following Quinn's music since last spring and it appears she might be poised to take a big leap to the majors. More as the story develops, but in the meantime, a few of her songs are embedded below.

'Scare Tactics' sneak peek

As if the ratings boost from the live episode of 30 Rock wasn't enough, Tracy Morgan hosts another all-new Scare Tactics on Monday night. The synopsis from the clip embedded below is that "a caretaker unintentionally becomes a participant in the exorcism of a demon baby." If you ask me, in the episode "Killing Rosemary's Baby," it would appear it's actually an alien abduction victim who returns to creep out yet another unsuspecting mark.I suppose we have to watch Scare Tactics on Monday at 9 p.m. to find out.

Praise for Paranormal Pop Culture

“Consistently witty and well-written – Mr. Sagers is a pro with the pen.” – Cheryl LaGuardia, Harvard University

One of the “10 Best New York Comic Con Panels”:
“Ghost stories are always much cooler when they come from someone whose authority you trust” - Crushable.com

"One of our favorites" of New York Comic Con –BettyConfidential.com

"Celebrities? Ghosts? We’re in! Given by ... all-round 'ghost guy' Aaron Sagers, this talk made our skin crawl with all sorts of real-life ghostly encounters" - 94.2 Jacaranda radio, New Zealand

“This was a very fun panel … If Aaron is ever in your area giving a talk, I suggest checking him out. He’s a lot of fun and very charismatic.” – KillerFilm.com