TELEVISION

FT’s very own couch potato, STU NEVILLE, casts an eye over the small screen’s current fortean offerings

Paranormal Witness

SYFY

Last time, I looked at an example of the more hysterical end of the paranormal TV spectrum ( Paranormal Caught On Camera), replete with lowlight whooping and uncritical analyses. While many series fall, or indeed career headlong, into this category, there are also some genuinely well made, sensible and balanced programmes out there, with the added bonus of being considerably more unnerving for all that. Paranormal Witness is just such a programme.

From the start, it signals firmly what its standpoint is: straight narrative, given proper time to develop, and first-hand testimony from ostensibly sane, rational people; and it laudably confines itself to two stories per episode. Series 1, Episode 3 is a good example. The opening credits are very much in the US horror genre – jump cuts, Saw- style lettering – but once they are done the show settles into an altogether more sober format (except for the sustained use of edgy discordant music and breathy, growly sound effects).

Using a mixture of

The phenomena soon ratchet up, with spectacular telekinesis

straight-to-camera narration by the witnesses themselves (though they are clearly answering interview prompts, neither the questions nor questioner feature) and dramatic reconstructions, the tales are told chronologically, often from multiple viewpoints. The first part of the episode, “The Poltergeist”, charts a particularly virulent polt attack on a suburban family, starting with the usual low-level polty stuff (mysterious stains, stuff being chucked about, doors slamming; with teenagers at home this could all be entirely non-paranormal in origin). However, the phenomena soon ratchet up, with spectacular telekinesis. In one rather startling vignette the family had attempted to make peace with the presence with the gift of a small ceramic cat placed on the mantelpiece: when polt stuff continued regardless, the father took it from the shelf and threw it down the garden; when he returned to the lounge seconds later, the figurine was back. Then, overnight, the word “cat” was scrawled all over the house; this is illustrated with multiple photos taken at the time. This scene is particularly effective, as are later elements when the presence starts attacking pets and eventually people.

The rest of the episode, “Watched in the Wilderness”, features Jeff Boiler, a former Oregon US Deputy Sheriff, describing his encounter with a Sasquatch. Off-duty and hiking in a remote area of the Cascades, Boiler first sees the creature up-close and is then actively chased by it from the area. The calm, professional testimony coupled with a well-constructed re-enactment is utterly compelling, and the genuine terror Boiler felt tangible. The whole series is of a similar standard, and could teach a good many shows a lot about less being more.