Review: Ghost Adventures - Season 14, Episode 1 March 25, 2017 Stone Lion Inn

If you haven't seen this episode yet, you can through Amazon, click the link below.
Stone Lion Inn

With Ghost Adventures having thoroughly replaced Most Haunted as the worlds number 1 "Paranormal Investigation" type TV series, I thought I would give it another chance, and since I got sent an episode from the little known "Ghost Adventures Mole" who is definitely 100% NOT Zak Bagans (No relation to Bilbo I am told), I thought I would check it out. Now I should also let it be known I am not and have never been a fan of the show, I do not follow it, I do not know the characters and crew. And I only know the name Zak Bagans because h̶i̶s̶ ̶n̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶r̶i̶t̶t̶e̶n̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶t̶u̶r̶n̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶u̶n̶d̶e̶l̶i̶v̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶c̶k̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶j̶i̶f̶f̶y̶ I googled the show to see who was the main person.

The only other thing I recall about this show is Robert Bess, inventor of the Parabot Containment Chamber, got caught blatantly cheating on a Halloween special in 2009. You can google that if you like.

There may be some comparisons made by me during this review, with Most Haunted. I wonder if Zak and his Scooby Gang have an equivalent of Watson or GORT?

So with that said lets check out the official blurb.

Season 14, Episode 1 Stone Lion Inn
The crew investigate the Stone Lion Inn in Guthrie, Okla., where it is said the owner performs satanic rituals in the local cemetery. Later, Zak attempts to uncover the truth about what happened to the famous outlaw Elmer McCurdy after his death.

Firstly much like Most Haunted, this show is 100% a spoof. It is written, acted and performed. It is NOT in any way a legitimate investigation. But we will treat it as if it is real, as I know a lot of fans of the show really do think it is real despite the fact that ghosts do not exist which in turns makes this entire show pointless.

We are told that this location runs murder mystery tours, so instantly you have to be suspicious of the motives of the owners of this place for inviting the GA team to investigate. They rely on tourism, so what better way to boost that than to pretend the place is haunted.

We start off by being introduced to this lovely lady.

Becky Luker is her name! Also the Travel Channel ad for "Booze Traveler" is nothing to do with her, and in no way am I insinuating that the only spirits she has ever seen are Jack Daniels and Jim Bean.

A quick google of her name and she has done hundreds of interviews claiming she believes in ghosts, her Inn is haunted and so on.

The GA crew ask her if they are a part of her Murder Mysteries tour, and she says NO! And that nothing has been set up. She admits that she has been accused of performing Satanic rituals, but not that she has actually done them. My first thoughts are that this is a huge PR stunt by Becky, she has all the facials down, she looks and acts in a spooky manner and so on.

Worth noting the really high production value of this show. Much much higher than Most Haunted.

We learn about Elmer McCurdy and how she has based her mysteries on him. He sounds like a fascinating character. And I would advise anyone to go read about him.

It is revealed that Becky Luker off camera said that after her death she has arranged to be buried next to the body of Elmer McCurdy in an adjacent plot. What a lovely thing to make public.

Zak now tells us that Becky's "activities" in the cemetery may have inadvertently raised the spirit of Elmer.

We next hear from Michelle Smith

She talks about the scary things she has seen and heard, yet she still happily sleeps in this incredibly spooky room, and has not left her job. Hmmm.

Also bizarrely someone who I assume is Zak is dressed like this while talking to her.

I have no idea why he is dressed like this, it doesn't look cold, as Michelle is dressed in just a thin shirt, so not sure why he has the woolly hat on. I have no idea why he has a face mask on, unless he is really a Japanese woman on the Tokyo subway.

We hear a few more stories, and Zak does his best spooky voice in the narration and talks about "Scrying" a thoroughly debunked practice.

We then have a bizarre conversation between Zak and Becky whereby Becky reveals how many people she has killed over the years. And then follows it up with "as part of the murder mystery" Zak does play along, and acts scared, which is quite funny. Zak is like-able if a strange character.

Zak convinces Michelle to stay in a room on her own and conduct an EVP session on her own.

One quite annoying thing about this show is the constant sound effects and musical score going on. It makes viewer participation completely pointless. Sometimes shows can over produce, and take the viewer out of the moment, Ghost Adventures is very guilty of this.

We then cut away to a short interview with Grant Aguirre who is Becky's oldest son. They talk about Michelle, I wonder if she is gonna get blamed for the whole scam?

We are now back with Zak and Michelle and they are examining the EVP recordings. They have got something. They play the recording, and there is some cursing, she denies that she said said it. Zak accuses her and she looks incredibly guilty.

Luckily they have video of her in the room, they play it and amazingly it is not her saying the curse words! Cue dramatic music.......

Zak exclaims he is 99.9% sure that it is a spirit voice.

But hang on a second, the swearing is NOT picked up by the audio on the video footage, only by the digital recorder. The video footage seemingly shows that Michelle does not say the swear words, but it also shows that the swear words were not audible to the video camera.

So there are two possibilities here.
1. Michelle swore under her breath without moving her mouth, which is exactly what you would do if you were faking an EVP and knew you were being filmed. This would also make sense in that the camera filming her would not pick it up since she is speaking directly above the digital recorder.

2. The other possibility is that the swear words were added after the event through the digital software they were using on the laptop to analyse it.

So the conclusion we can gather from all of this is something I have been saying for years and years and years. EVPs are evidentially worthless, since they can be so easily faked.

Now if the video footage had picked up the swearing too, then it would be more interesting since physically we have something to look at that would in part back up her claim of not saying it, as well as the evidence of the swearing itself. And yes even then that could easily be faked too, but what I am saying is that it would overall be a more impressive thing to release as "evidence"

But instead we are left with Zak saying he has caught a spirit voice, when the truth is, he has caught nothing that has any real value at all.

Not to mention the fact when she was first asked if it was her, she looked so guilty like she had been caught out, and when they said they had video footage of her, she looked very panicked and not at all confident she was telling the truth.

It is worth saying that at least this show is giving me something to examine, to think about. It is not just idiots throwing stones about, and ridiculous screaming and so on. I am sure that happens on Ghost Adventures, but in this particular episode I am more impressed by the entertainment factor, and the effort made to make everything look good. Yes scientifically GA is completely inept, and they have no idea what real evidence should be.

They decide to go out side and do some experiments by the grave of Elmer.

It is a bit windy, they have some various pieces of equipment which they claim will help Elmer travel to the Stone Inn. They talk to Elmer, and using fancy equipment are getting no response at first. Some thing called a Puck ITC is used and they start getting answers back to their questions. This all stinks and the equipment they are using looks like the usual crap you buy from ghost hunting websites. Completely pointless exercise which is only fooling the kind of idiot fans who think these shows are real.

They turn on a "Spirit Box"

It is basically just a radio scanner and a speaker. What that has to do with spirits I have no idea. As usual people have taken technology that already exists, stuck the word "spirit" in the title, and then sell it to the kind of idiots you can only find on ghost hunting forums. Cathy I am looking at you here.

Nothing they provide in this portion of the show impresses me. It is 100% theatre, pre planned, pre written skits. Very poor.

Nothing they give I would class as real evidence. Just entertainment for the cameras and viewers at home. It would be a rather boring episode if they just sat outside in a tent and nothing happened.

But for Zak to say they have "irrefutable proof that we have made contact with Elmer McCurdy" is a joke. I refute everything they say and show, as it is NOT scientific, they are using ridiculous unproven equipment.

Even Most Haunted never use language like that, instead they will say that its the best evidence they have ever seen, but they never say they have irrefutable proof.

Back in the house and they have footage of a door opening a bit by itself. Looks to me like it has been gimmicked, possibly with some wire or string.

Zak is now in bed with his woolly hat on! Asking the ghosties to touch his toes.
The whole thing is getting a bit silly now, and not in a good way.

And the music effects in the background are so distracting too.

We get some more noises, a camera "falls" over, and they capture an orb! Yes ladies and gentlemen, the orbs are back in 2017!

I must say the first 20 minutes of the show were quite good, I was entertained, but then they started getting silly, setting up stunts, using ridiculous equipment and they have very quickly lost my attention.

The spirit box malfunctions so this of course is proof of spirits. Yes that is how they think.

Into the last 5 minutes of the show, and the whole thing is coming across as very set up and fake. I expect we will now have a big finale.

The whole group is back at the "nerve centre" they start to review footage etc, as they are doing this the door to their room opens a bit by itself. They then ask the door to close and it slams shut "all by itself" in one of the more laughably fake moment of the episode. (Big finale moment) As they examine the door, the spirit box turns itself on, and starts making noises. I think the whole thing is getting a bit ridiculous now.

They finish off by photographing the whole area with a full spectrum camera, yet get no evidence whatsoever (this bit takes no longer than 5 seconds).

So they had all these things happen, everything that is easily faked, they claim the place is very very haunted, poltergeist activity a plenty, yet they don't capture a single piece of real evidence, not one thing that could be examined scientifically. Nothing at all.

And as the credits role, they even have a door slam shut by itself as part of special effects! Yes they actually did that as part of the end credits! Not part of the investigation, not evidence, but part of the effects that they finish the show on.

I would be amazed if anyone watched this and thought it was real. The vast majority of people must realise it is all faked right?

The show was mostly entertaining though, I will admit that, the characters were likeable. Michelle was easily my favourite cause she was clearly on the scam. Becky was way over the top to be taken seriously.

I give the show a solid 6/10

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By Jon Donnis