halloween

Some Peace and Community for Queer Ghosts: Queer Ghost Hunters Series

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I’ve been charmed by a Youtube docu-series: Queer Ghost Hunters. It is unlike anything else in the genre of ghost hunting reality series.

Yes, it’s remarkably well-produced and edited.  It’s funny, and it’s poignant, deeply moving at times.

The Stonewall Columbus Queer Ghost Hunters accomplishes these things because it’s doing everything so differently than other ghost hunter shows.

  1.  They aren’t reacting to a disturbance or a sighting.  The ghost hunters don’t (so far) go to a place because they’ve been called by folks disturbed by ghost activity.  They are seeking out where they believe queers would have gone in cities and rural areas.  Theatres, prisons, convents.
  2.   The goal is not to get the ghost on tape, or to prove that ghosts exist.  The show takes as a premise that ghosts exist.  Their goal: to provide a safe space for queer ghosts to talk about what it was like living queer in different moments of history.
  3. They’re looking for QUEER ghosts specifically.  Their focus drives their narrative.  They are looking to bring a safe community to a group of queers who can’t move out of their places to find other queers. ( It’s not like ghosts can pack up and go to San Francisco or Greenwich Village.)  The show’s aim is to chat amiably with queer ghosts who may not have had anyone to talk to in their lives about being queer.
  4. All of the ghost hunters fall on the Queer spectrum: genderfluid, lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgendered, pansexual, even a bear. 🙂   This is about diversity in the cast as well as diversity in the ghosts, but they are talking about LGBT issues.
  5. This is MORE than just ghost hunting: it is an examination of the history of LGBT people and, in some ways, how people lived, hid, coped with being queer in different places.  In that, it is a reflection–and a chance–for people to talk about what it is to live as queer in any time.

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MAD goes into Outer Space for Halloween

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alien1Kudos to the kids of MAD (Music Art Drama) for their Haunted House this year, with its, yes, SCIENCE FICTION theme.  I won’t give anything away, but it’s a lot of fun.  

I didn’t know what to expect, but I was pleasantly shocked.  I really enjoyed the opening number with their rendition of “Science Fiction/Double Feature” and the old movie posters and clips through that number!  Brought back a lot of good memories.  

My advice is not to come too early because you’ll be sitting for a bit.  Come closer to the times they let people in: 1:00 and 2:30 on Halloween.  

You have a hard choice–whether to go through the line and into the haunted house, or sit and watch some cute homemade films from the kids.  I say, stay and enjoy the films at first; the haunted house will be there, so you don’t need to be in line up front.  

I won’t tell you what’s in the rooms, but they’ve done a good job at recreating some of the frights of space travel that have been highly “documented” in science fiction…and playing them for all their worth in front of people.  

I just want to tell the kids: You got me back for scaring you.  The rooms are excellent.  I left wanting more rooms.  There’s some nice originality in these scenes.  I love the Observatory!  But it was the room with the synchronized bodies in it that freaked me out….  The use of the scrim on the stairs was a nice, scary touch, too.  What the MAD kids seem to know is that it doesn’t matter if you show all the details…they leave a lot un-shown, and that’s what frightens you.

Five Dollars will get you a good scare!  Go out and support these high schoolers from MAD.  They’ve done an awesome job. 

And thank you, Jeff and Mary, for thinking of Science Fiction when you think of scary…