August 24, 2008
GHI: Dracula's Castle
The Ghost Hunters International team was back in Romania and a few days ago we were graced with the airing of their investigation at Curtea De Arges Castle, otherwise known as the castle Vlad III Dracula, aka Vlad Tepes, chose to make his big stand against the Turks in. That's some pretty heady stuff. What's more, the team takes this opportunity to try out a new investigative technique: triangulation.
How this works is the team splits into three groups and each group goes to a different part of the castle and records for an hour. Next, they review each others recordings and pick the place with the most suspected activity to focus all of their energy on as a collective group. That's not exactly triangulation from a technical standpoint, but in this case kinda-sorta is close enough (I guess).
Out of the three recordings, only one of them had anything odd on it — and after the team focused all their energy on that one spot, nothing happened. In fact, when they went back and reviewed the recording they initially thought had potential EVPs on it, turns out all the sounds were readily identifiable as local animal or environmental noises, like falling rocks and vampire bats. I'm kidding. Vampire bats don't make noise.
Unfortunately, that's the best I can do to spice this one up. Somehow, despite obviously conducting this investigation some time before it aired, Pilgrim decided to save it for the season finale. In fact, they decided to make it a "2nd-halfer", the twenty-minute investigation long-time viewers know is doomed to be utterly boring the moment they see the team pulling up to a new location when the episode is more than half over.
I guess Pilgrim was counting on keeping viewers riveted with the whole "OMG, They're investigating DRACULA'S CASTLE!" Bravo, Pilgrim. You got me to watch and now I hate you more. At least put the boring stuff up front next season. If I'm bored 15 minutes in but I see they're already up to the reveal then I can have some reasonable expectation the rest of my hour won't be quite as painful.
This is one of those situations where I don't fault the GHI team at all (yes, it happens sometimes) — they did what seemed to be a pretty good investigation and even tried something new and relatively scientific that could have increased their chances of catching something. "No evidence" is a completely respectable result, the problem in this case is that we're watching it on television expecting to be entertained. As the production company, that's Pilgrim's job and I think they fell short on this one — and considering how often they bear criticizing (and how this was supposed to be the exciting season finale) that's kind of annoying.
Bannfy Castle, which was the investigation that aired in tandem with this one (Bannfy airing in the first portion of the episode) was a much more interesting investigation — don't worry, we'll get to that one in the next few days! — but if I was cutting these episodes and the production schedule forced me to air these two investigations together as the finale, Bannfy would have been a much more worthy note to leave off the season on, and I'm going to reprogram my brain to remember it that way because otherwise I might not be able to turn on the premiere next season 
Filed under Ghost Hunters International, Posts by Logisti
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Comments on GHI: Dracula's Castle »
Hal @ 6:11 pm
Thank God Brandy is still around providing nice "eye candy," because this episode was really B-O-R-I-N-G! I understand how we need to appreciate serious debunking, but c'mon man! When they don't find ANYTHING at all they should either not air the episode or, at least, promise to return in the future in case the spooks took a night off.
On a different note: last week some of you posters were dogging Andy and his "quartz battery in the cave" theory. Let me add, albeit a little late, my two cents on his eloquent explanation. It sounded like one of the ripest crocks of bovine fertilizer I've heard in a long time! Andy would make a terrific used car salesman! Can anyone say "BARF?!"
Jef @ 4:51 am
"triangulation" is interesting, but I worry that they are losing time that could be better spent gathering muffled "EVPS" and who knows what else. What if the ghost activity shifts after they dedicate their resources? Too many questions.
In the end, a wasted 20 minutes of my life that I will never get back. I would have rather watched Barry cooking stew than watch "Dracula's" castle become boring and lame in the hands of crappy and irresponsible post production.
This bit was so bad I didn't even notice if there were any hats I needed to mention disparagingly.
The segment sucked with the force of an F3 tornado.
I nodded off and missed the reveal, but didn't care enough to go back and catch it before TiVo deleted it. As you referred to in your breakdown Logisti, knowing that 20 minutes were left to investigate a location told me they would find a heaping helping of jack squat. I kept watching the minutes roll by as they hauled their gear up the stairs…
What a let down.
Brenny @ 9:21 am
I thought it was funny that the guys had to climb another 1400 steps just to tell the host that they found NOTHING!
Also I wasn't surprised that it was Barry who said he heard something on his recordings that ultimately forced the team to investigate his area and get NOTHING!
Yeti33 @ 9:50 am
Yep, with 20 minutes left I knew we were goint to see squat. It is hard to say this, but I kind of want Brian to come back. At least he gets me going when he claims to see so many shadows. What happened to Brian anyway? I must have missed something on how or why he left.
windwhisperer @ 10:46 am
I'll bet Robb and his team (what's left of it) took a lot of heat after this one aired.
I'm glad it's over.
Well for now we're done with Robb trying to act like a pro, Andy the Great Debunker, Brandy and her eye makeup, Dustin and that eternal upside down backward visor. Barry however has that air about him which I really like. I wish they had made him Lead Investigator and head of the team. Doesn't he have the most experience? Ah, another bad hand cruely dealt.
I wonder if GHI will come back with a couple of new members.
I guess we'll have to nervously wait to see if in the new season Robb will look alive and interested, Dustin will lose that visor, Brandy has a makeover, and Andy..well.
I'll just wait for the real GH.
jack @ 11:00 am
Somehow I think Barry has never entered a building that he didn't have some 'paranormal' experience in.
I can picture him walking into a crowded MacDonalds' and going, "shhhh–didja hear that? there are voices!" all the while ignoring the presense of the other patrons, "and, Andy, I think I can smell meat. Yes, it's definately meat–and it smells cooked."
I keep waiting to see Victoria Principal wake, up, wander into the bathroom, and have Barry pop his head out of the shower and say that the whole series was a dream–he's headed back to 'Most Haunted'.
wwayneross @ 12:42 pm
It's interesting that they never mentioned that they were back in Romania. This one really had me confused because I thought they visited it last season when they had to climb up hundreds of similar stairs in a blizzard with their equipment. I also seem to remember the team mentioning Dracula several times. Anyway, Citadel Rasnov was much more interesting than these ruins.
windwhisperer @ 1:06 pm
You know, I thought the very same thing. That they were there before.
Logisti @ 1:50 pm
Yeti33,
http://www.skepticalviewer.com/forums/ghost-hunters-international/brian-and-donnnaleaving-the-paranormal/page-1/
blinddog50 @ 5:04 pm
Fell asleep in the recliner, missed the reveal, didn't care.
Garflonk @ 11:54 pm
God almighty. This was the most boring, uninteresting, contrived, wasteful, pointless, unnecessarily, useless ____ offed, dumbedown, lamest, insulting, torrid, asteroid sized-turd, tired, waste of precious life I have ever experienced.
There was nothing redeeming about this episode. They should just cancel the series and integrate the GHI team back into the GH team. Splitting the team into 2 is like the NHL, NBA and MLB expanding the league and watering down the talent. Really cool locations this season, they really mixed it up a bit: but it's so Eurocentric it sickens me. GHI only does things the American way-of course minus Barry Fitzgerald who-being European-understands that the world is multi-lingual.
Robb is just phony and really nearly comes close to insulting alot of the "clients", rather the hosts, of the structure they are investigating. So in conclusion, this episode reeked of pretentiousness, repetitive, rhetoric that was truly tiresome and devoid of any reedeeming quality. Hang up the BDRGDTUT (B.S. Doesn't Register a G.D. tangible usuable thing) Meter and give Barry Fitzgerald his own show, enough of the B.S., ____ it GHI.
[edited by Admin]
trvlmom @ 6:34 pm
Did anyone happen to catch the fact that when Robb went to Bannfy Castle, he was investigating in FLIP FLOPS! I mean, really! It's bad enough they already give Americans a bad name with their baggy jeans, hoodlum hooded sweatshirts, and don't even get me started on Dustin's stupid visors. But whenever you're conducting a "professional" (and I use this term lightly with GHI) investigation, I think proper footwear would be in order.
Roll on GH!
Garflonk @ 11:51 pm
Thanks for cleaning up my post. I tried to censor myself, but I guess it was still obvious what I was saying.
Anyway, I am really glad that this season is over. There were really awesome locations, but it seemed phony and rushed, without any real evidence that made me go…hmmmm that's freaky. Utter disappointment.
Thanks for letting me tell you how I really feel….:)