All Rise...

Judge David Johnson once punched a ghost in the face. That's just how he rolls.

Editor's Note

Our review of Ghost Hunters International: Season One, Part 1, published May 28th, 2010, is also available.

The Charge

All real.

The Case

The popularity of the Syfy mega-hit reality series Ghost Hunters spawned this spin-off, which finds a new team of paranormal professionals combing the globe for more spectral investigations.

Ghost Hunters International actually makes a lot of sense. Why limit the ghostly gallivanting to the continental United States, when there's a whole world of weirdness out there to point your night vision googles at? If you're a fan of the Ghost Hunters mojo—or supernatural reality shows in general—there's a decent amount of amusement to be had with this collection.

Just to be clear: I'm not a fan. I've reviewed a large number of these paranormal investigation shows and they all follow the same set-in-stone game-plan: We learn about the haunted venue, watch an interview with the terrified owner, the investigators deploy their equipment, turn off the lights, listen for bumps in the night, then examine the "evidence," seizing on any sound or temperature drop they may have experienced as proof of ghostly shenanigans. I hazard to say your investment in Ghost Hunters International will be proportional to how much stock you put into the fact that, if there are damned souls cursed to haunt specific edifices, the best they can do to transmit their malevolence to the living is by rolling an empty can of Tab down a dark hallway.

Yeah, I'm a cynic, but I don't doubt the earnestness of our heroes. Frankly, I have zero interest hanging around creepy abandoned asylums in the dead of night. So kudos to the GHI crew.

One big advantage Ghost Hunters International has over its domestic brother is the sheer geography it gets to cover. The gang travels everywhere from the Czech Republic to Italy to Ireland, dropping in on legitimately intriguing and exotic locales. This collection offers up 13 episodes on three discs (the fourth disc is bonus features) and each show offers a cool and different haunt. The investigations themselves tend to be the same old same old—odd sounds, flashes of light, a shadow or two—but the back stories for some of these accursed domiciles are genuinely interesting. Cripes, these guys are investigating Hitler's ghost! Not bad for a low-budget cable reality series.

Adequate DVDs all around: standard definition 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, Dolby 2.0 stereo, and a metric ton of deleted scenes for the mini-Ghost Hunter in your family to sift through.

The Verdict

I'm still not a believer, but I enjoyed the haunted travelogue. Not Guilty.

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