Most Haunted Live 15 Review: Summer Solstice Edition - by Liam R
Day One: The Rutland Mill Complex
Location One: The Cellars
After twenty minutes of introductory bullshit, we finally step foot into our first location - the cellar. Now a dark basement devoid of light is obviously going to be scary, obviously and makes a logical step to get the viewers hooked. Derek immediately picks up on a boy spirit named James or Jim who is “10 or 11 years old”. Again anyone who did history when they were twelve knows that kids were used as cheap labour in the mills and it’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that just maybe a few died there. A little later, however things get a little murkier regarding the spirits who reside there, but we’ll get to them in due course.
Fingers decides that with spirit contact made a séance is in order. During the séance, several strange noises are heard, with a few coming from behind O’Keefe. It’s just a shame that O’Keefe, being the closest one to said noises, didn’t hear them. I’d also like to mention that at one point during the Cellar investigation, Quark SHILLS Most Haunted merchandise (yeah I’m shocked they’d do that too). Some strange lights are mentioned as being seen but as they aren’t seen on camera, they aren’t followed up on. Nor were the noises for that matter.
The piece de resistance comes just before the hour when make-up girl Cath Howe says that she saw and heard a fridge cable moving (there were a load of old fridges in the cellar for some reason). My bullshit meter went right off the scale as a few minutes earlier they had shown how dark it was in the cellar by turning the night-vision on their cameras off. Now either Cath’s got naturally occurring night vision, or this is crap. One hour and a few strange things which aren’t followed up on. Could we see a trend emerging?
Location Two: The Works Floors
Derek picks a spirit up who died in 1789, which is a shame as the Mill wasn’t built until 1875 and no records show what the site was before that. Richard Jones, under the gravity pull of David Wells own self-importance and belief in his psychic abilities, contends that a factory could have been on the site before 1875. Well wouldn’t a factory that big be in the records, or are they just assuming the audience are all retarded lemmings who believe everything that comes out of Wells and Acorah’s mouths? I’ll leave that for you to decide. Nothing else happens of note for the whole forty five minutes of this segment.
Location Three: What Is The Terrifying Secret Of The Unopened Room?
Well who knows, because it was opened earlier that day. How do we knows this? Health and safety laws, plus there was already tape down in the unopened room covering the cables. Again, thirty minutes of nothing until an object is thrown and everyone (well Yvette) panics. Derek picks up on the spirit of “Alfred Lucas” (curse you damn untraceable names). With not a lot going on, only one thing can keep the viewers interested and that’s an ouija board.
Their first go at it reveals nothing, but after a polish of the table (first night review in ‘The Unopened Room’ section) they get much better results. Surprised? Well you shouldn’t be. Again nothing happens, yet Bull declares that “this is great stuff” without a trace of irony. Seriously, he would have called Sunday’s US GP “great stuff” such is the odour of bullshit he permeates. I’d also like to point out that every time Matthew Smith tries to offer a scientific and rational explanation as to why Derek has got it so horribly wrong as to the dates of the spirits (are they really expecting us to believe that despite there being no records of a mill being there before 1875 and a building that large couldn’t have escaped anyone’s notice, that there has to be one?) Big Mac immediately says he’s not being open-minded? Smith is doing his job and trying to prove that this is a big load of crap, and you have to defend your psychic bumlover? What a load of shit.
As the evening draws to a close, stuff finally starts happening just as Stuart comes into the unopened loft. Funny that isn’t it? Apparently they are being besieged by stones and rather then follow it up on the extra hour of programming they have after the show ends, they leave the building and finish the investigation right there. No follow-up, nothing. “It’s been an amazing night” so sayeth the Bull. No, no it hasn’t. We’re going to need some SERIOUS over-acting on behalf of everyone to save this one.
Random text message quotes (copied verbatim from the screen as they appeared):
"this show is awsome"
"really good but a strong smell of fish in my house" (I'm not kidding on that one)
"Karl ur a dude"
"notice when stu is around there is more poltergeist activity" (best. text message. EVAR!)
"to night's show fab as usual"
"I won't be able to sleep now!"
"Karl is the bravest team member"
"THAT WASN'T AN ORB IT WAS A MOTH"
"it wasn't a moth it was white and round"
Summary: nice quiet stuff, enough bullshit to keep me amused but not a whole lot to tear to shreds. Well there’s always tomorrow…