A Ghost Hunter Review of White Noise

Matt Ferrell, founding editor of GHOST! Magazine and member of the North Florida Paranormal Research Inc and webmaster of the Ghost Tracker Investigations is a real life ghost hunter of some repute and I wondered what he might think of a movie about EVP. He graciously allowed me to share with you what he had to say on the GHOULI discussion board about the movie WHITE NOISE.

Last night I went to an advanced screening of "White Noise".
My review of the night? Went something like this:

My sister and I went, and she brought along a couple of her friends. Mel, who runs the magazine with me, was also there (www.ghostmag.com) and I ran into James there who is part of one of the radio stations here in town and has been on investigations with me, along with roaming around St. Augustine. Bart and Lori of Ghost Tracker (www.ghosttracker.com) were also there. Also ran into Deb Nichols, a psychic that I've investigated with at the St. Augustine, Florida Lighthouse in 2001, and my friends Helen and Dave of SPIRIT Investigations from here in Jacksonville were there as well. Dave gave a short speech before the show on their group, and EVP. He did a good job.

I'm not to big on movies.. so my review probably doesn't really count for much.. but for what it's worth, it was a decent movie. For the most part they stayed true to form as to the method of recording EVP and stuff like that. Although I think the data that was shown/captured was a bit more then what the usual investigator gets. Also of course there was some Hollywood stuff thrown in. For the most part nothing to big though (No 'Ghost Busters' type effects.. hehe), just shadows and figures here and there.. until the end when the Hollywood stuff went all out. But it is a horror/drama type film, so I expected the Hollywood stuff and scary moments and "evil beings" to be put in there.

All in all though, it was a good watch. I viewed it as entertainment, not as "this is how investigations and research is done".. so with that mind set, it was good. If you go in viewing it as "This better be EXACTLY true to form", you're probably going to get disappointed by at least SOMETHING. That goes for anything in this field though, including other groups' websites you may go to, TV shows and documentaries you may see, etc.

With such a controversial topic as ghosts, where everyone has their own ideas and theories, you know you're going to run into stuff that doesn't mesh well with your ideas, and you know that many people have different ways of thinking about the subject. Especially with Hollywood/Movies, you know they're going to throw the special effects and scary moments into a ghost film. You just have to watch it and deal with it. It's entertainment where someone merged their thought of how true research is done, with that of what they think is a good script.

If anything, maybe it'll spark more interest of the subject into people, and they'll go out researching and finding more credible info about the investigation and research side of things, rather then going by just what the movie shows. It's like the holiday Halloween. It's a quirky holiday where people dress up in costumes and everything else, but it sometimes sparks an interest in people and makes them think "What If?".. then from there they seek out and learn more about the unexplained, and sometimes even become some of the top names in paranormal research.

So watch it. Enjoy it. And don't take it too seriously.It's a movie made for entertainment.

Matt Ferrell
GHOST! Magazine

See my Review of White Noise
or read our first reader review and see what Chris had to say.

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