Most Haunted Live: Satan's City - by Liam R and Claire The Karma Whore
Night 4: Pietro Micca Tunnels
It's a good thing I don't get paid for this stuff because I paid fuck all attention to the name of the tunnels beneath Turin that the team would be investigating, and for that I don't apologise. I mean, it's bad enough having to watch this, but then relive it and type it up is bad enough, which is interesting as no matter how bad Most Haunted Live gets (and believe me, when it's bad it's mind-fuckingly bad) I still manage to force myself to watch it for my loyal band of half a dozen readers. Anyway, the big story for night four is that the team is completely underground and therefore communication with the studio will be non existent. And also, with it being underground and Antix and Living both having years of experience in television production, you would hope that there will be no technical difficulties whatsoever down there. Yes, really.
Something that Ciaron O'Keefe mentions right off the bat is that the curators of the tunnels would not like any spirits moved into the light, and that the team should treat any spirits with respect. It was at this point I think I may have just about wet myself as I'm pretty sure the camera panned or cut to Stuart and Karl standing there like muppets. Do you honestly expect those two to treat anything except each other's bottoms with respect? After a slow start Brian picks up an explosion in the tunnels, which would be amazing if there wasn't a section of the tunnels called 'the explosion trench' but never mind. Brian then tops that by doing a Derek and apparently being pulled into a tunnel, just without the style or charisma that our Derek did it with.
It goes without saying that this particular night was one of the most boring we have ever witnessed, as pretty much from 10pm until the end there were technical snafus galore as sound and vision was lost constantly, leaving me unable to take any decent notes. Yvette does, when the camera and mikes allow it anyway, ask one of the spirits to "drum as if your life depended on it", which is a bit silly to ask a dead person isn't it? There are also two odd noises heard of equal length which are put down to a tram, and let's be honest I'm going with that too. Even the webcam texters seem to have been unusually restrained, despite calling all the technical problems evidence of paranormal activity. Sorry you retards, but they were underground, in a tunnel broadcasting live, and as such these things happen. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if the whole thing was faked in the production suite during the broadcast.
So after two and a half hours of sweet fuck all going on, at the very end we get something that makes it all worthwhile. After climbing a set of stairs in a tunnel (which some moron had texted in to say there was a river of blood flowing down it on the webcam - how this idiot guessed it was blood when the webcams are in black and white I do not know) our Stuart attempts to lean against a wall, fails miserably and takes a stuntman tumble down the stairs. I have no idea what you'd call it, but I'd call that karma and I hope it hurt like a fucking bitch you slap-headed fuck nut. Still, only one more tedious night to go and I can only hope it's better than the shower of shit inflicted on night four.
Night Five: Moncalieri Castle
So to recap, we have had three moderately entertaining nights of supposed paranormal investigation and one absolute pile of shit on a stick. Could Antix and the team come up with something, anything to salvage this mess? Read on to find out, but what has become very apparent is how sick of Brian Shepherd Yvette has become, with him getting all excitable when she has asked for quiet and her body language throughout has become so obvious you would think at times she was quite prepared to thump him. Something has given way and after hearing some supposed noises, she gets particularly angry and asks everyone to stop moving for most of the first hour.
More lunacy comes from a webcam sighting, where someone says that they can hear orb noises which is a shock to me as an orb is a ball of light which certain people believe are the first stage of a spirit manifestation, but since Most Haunted stopped focussing on them so have other people. Orbs are SO 2004 people! With not a lot happening, a séance is in order complete with Yvette's stupid chanting and even stupider pestle and bowl thing which due to misplacement of the boom mike starts making my TV feedback. Thanks for fucking up my hearing Antix. The séance does produce some nuggets, like Karl mentioning pantaloons for no reason (it later turns out that Karl had made bets with members of his own message board about trying to sneak certain words in during the course of the evening), Brian picking up on witches and then Brian coming up with The Grail (well, a horrible attempt at the French pronunciation which ended up sounding like Homer Simpson destroying his pit BBQ), The Shroud and The Knights! Well they are in Turin after all.
After the séance, everyone splits up and… well let's just say the proceeding three clips will tell the story as there is no way I can do it justice! (Bear in mind, each clip runs between 7 and 9 minutes).
And that right there is why we still watch this guff. Of course, the team would then go and ruin it by having a joint séance which ultimately goes nowhere but still, I was pissing myself laughing during that so the objective was achieved. But after five long and at times tedious nights, was it all worth it?
The End Bit
May as well get what was bad out of the way to begin with, and a lot of the online vitriol is stemming from the choice of Brian Shepherd as psychic medium and to tell the truth I can see the point. He seems to be an attention whore of the highest order, getting over-excitable at the wrong moments, seeming to lapse into possessions at the drop of the hat, giving particularly vague readings just like Derek Acorah did in his prime but Derek at least made what he was saying interesting and gave his possessions full gusto. Brian was just plain annoying, especially during moments when quiet was needed due to sounds being heard and as for the supposed drag down the tunnel? Hell, Derek did that better too. Other bad things include the total lack of respect shown by the team towards supposed spirits and as I say time and time again, I don't care if this shit is real or not, but these were people at one point so at least try and treat them as such. And antagonising a ghost (again if they exist) or something worse when you don't have a clue what the fuck you're dealing with is a supremely bad idea. Cath getting sick on night three and the director showing it on the replay was also in supremely bad taste, and I though that after the self-cutting in Edinburgh they would have stopped doing that sort of stupid shit. While I can say from experience that a coughing fit can make you puke, you would think that they would have cut away from it and not shown it again. Finally, the five night investigation is just far much Most Haunted Live to deal with, as the earlier one night or even three night shows were tolerable but five nights is just stretching the patience of the audience to breaking point.
On the other hand, the first three nights were actually entertaining enough, with enough supposed weirdness to keep the attention going. Night four was a complete write-off due to the technical problems but the whole thing was saved by Cath, Yvette and Leslie's solo vigil on the final night, as it gave most of the audience a glimpse of how good (or not shit anyway) and fun Most Haunted can be when they do away with all the gadgets and mediums and just show people reacting in a haunted location. In fact, the shenanigans with Brian compared to without Brian show that Most Haunted would in fact benefit from not having a medium there at all, or at least try and claw back a tiny shred of credibility. So while it was overly long, mind-fuckingly dull in places and still Most Haunted, I was reliably entertained during the show which at the end of the day is what you want really. We'll go ***1/2 out of five stars for the effort.