DVD
Dead Famous
The Complete Series 2

Presenters: Gail Porter and Chris Fleming
Contender Home Entertainment
RRP: £24.99
FLX10544
Certificate: 15
Available 09 April 2007


Gail Porter and paranormal investigator Chris Fleming travel across America in search of the worlds most famous celebrity ghosts. This time around our investigators unlock the stories of Bonnie and Clyde, John Wayne, Jayne Mansfield, John Lennon, Buddy Holly, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, Harry Houdini and the king of rock n roll Elvis Presley...

On the surface it sounds like a fun project: Think of some famous celebrities that are now dead, and try and see if their spirits are still walking the earth. But, what may have seemed like a great idea after a few pints down the pub, quickly falls apart when it's actually presented in 45 minute episodes.

The show sees Gail Porter and Chris Fleming travelling across America in a bid to contact the spirits of a number of dead famous people. Porter is the cynic, while Fleming is the "sensitive" who can get in touch with the spirit world (lock the man up and throw away the key). Porter (bless her) is the epitome of innocence. When she speaks you believe everything she says. She is sweet, childlike and has a very credibly sincere persona. Fleming, on the other hand is as believable as the Easter Bunny. Come on man, have some self respect and get yourself a proper job (Much, much more on that later).

The biggest problem (after the fact that it's as fake as a Gucci watch sold by a man standing on Tottenham Court Road) is that any credibility is stripped away because so many things are not done properly. Firstly, where was the actual science? Why were independent scientific experts not along for the ride? Or, at the very least, why weren't the duo kitted out with some seriously good ghost hunting equipment? And on the odd occasion there is someone with a science background why is the audience not told of their qualifications, and why are they simply observers? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to set up some of their own equipment?

One of the episodes explains that Fleming listened to some of the days audio footage overnight and then let Porter listen to what he had heard. I'm guessing he's got some software that can manipulate sound. But even if he hasn't, when we hear playbacks of ghostly voices or pictures of ghostly figures it's still next to impossible to work out what they are saying, even when we are told - a lot of it sounds like background noise. And on the few occasions they catch a spooky ghost on camera I still couldn't make out the figure when it was pointed out to me.

Then there is the fact that the two spend most of the time wandering around in the dark (any fool knows that ghost activity is most common during the twilight hours) with several camera men, yet pretend that they are filming everything on their own camcorders. Then, in good old Scooby-Doo fashion, Fleming insists on the two of them splitting up. This means that the majority of the time Porter scares herself half to death over nothing because she is wandering around on her own (with a camera and sound crew).

Then there is the fact that Fleming seems to get possessed by spirits who are really dumb. They come out with fantastic gems like: "This body is warm". You'd think if a spirit had been hanging around for ages, and then took the effort to climb into Fleming's body they could at the very least impart something else other than the temperature - maybe it's the ghost equivalent of "Lot of weather we're having for this time of year."

They go to some odd places to find their dead spirits. Me, I'd go to the grave, scene of their death and their home. Not, as happens in the search for Elvis Presley's ghost, the derelict brewery that used to brew Elvis's mum's favourite tipple.

And why, when they go to venues that would have been frequented by numerous famous people (film studios or concert venues), do they brush away any contact with other ghosts that try to come through? It was unintentionally funny when Porter looked oh so disappointed when she was told that there were dead spirits of other famous people wanting to come through from the spirit world, but not the celebs they were trying to get in touch with. It was like - "Oh, Jimmy Hendrix? No, we don't want to speak with him..."

Because the people the duo are trying to track down are famous there are also a million and one Internet sites where you can find information on these celebs, as well as all the places that their ghosts may haunt. Fleming seems to possess a canny insight into his surroundings. He knew, for example how many times John Lennon was shot and where his assassin stood (a quick Internet trawl reveals all the information you need to know). Again, oddly this wasn't verified in the show. Is what Fleming felt really what happened?

I am always sceptical of people who make a living out of actually contacting the dead. Psychics are lame enough at the best of times (see the numerous ones here that they employ on their travels), but Fleming makes a dodgy profession seem even more uncredible. He did not have one encounter or experience that I believed in in this series. His "feelings" were verging on the ridiculous and always obvious (for example when investigating Elvis Presley he came up with the startling revelation that he could sense Elvis's first recording and that... wait for it... he was very nervous. No sh*t Sherlock. He lies, twists things, goes back on what he's said, and generally looks like that kid at school (the one who always lied) that no one liked. This is a con man so lame that even the most eager to be convinced in the spirit world will realise he is yanking their chain.

So you'd think that on their travels they'd pick the odd psychic to join them who was a little more credible. Nope. The woman they get to attend the venue where Buddy Holly played his last gig before dying manages to get in touch with... "the name sounds like Rit... R... Ritchie.. Valentine... or something with that sound." Really! Really! Wow she is incredible (in case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic).

I'll give you proof of Fleming's ridiculous charade - more proof than he offers up for his ability to get in touch with the dead.

By far the worst crime is in the search for the ghost of Bette Davis. Fleming walks into a room and asks for a sign from any spirits to prove they are there. He is silent for a while, waiting for a sign, when his tape recorder stops working. This, he explains, is proof that a spirit is present. Pretty impressive stuff. That is until he shows the recorder to the camera. It is a Sony machine with VOR technology (you can very clearly see the letter VOR on the player). What is VOR technology? Well as Sony's website explains:

Voice Operated Recording (VOR) automatically activates the recorder only when audible sound is present, conserving tape and eliminating lengthy noiseless passages on recordings.

So, contrary to Fleming's spooky claims that a spirit stopped his recorded, what actually happened is the lack of sound (or ghosts) resulted in the recorder stopping, as it is designed to.

Then there is the surprising (and only credible) reading he gets at Elvis Presley's old home. He sees corn and a white picket fence and low and behold there used to be a cornfield and a white picket fence (as shown in a photo of the house that the owners have hanging on a wall). Now either Fleming could have seen this coming in, or he could have sent a researcher around weeks before to have a tour of the house and take away some info for him to use later - the residents make money out of showing people around - so when Fleming makes his way straight to Elvis's bedroom he could easily have found this information out another way.

Here's a quick run down of some of the more ridiculous events in some of the episodes:

Joan Crawford: I couldn't help laughing when Fleming asks whether Crawford's home was built on an ancient Indian burial ground (I've seen that episode of The Simpsons too many times for my own good). There is a genuinely creepy moment where the water in the hotel swimming pool starts to bubble on it's own. However this is totally fake (obviously something thrown in there - as we hear a splash - that effervesces) and I loved the way the scene is played back from two different cameras and the other woman there somehow manages to turn and look at both lens' at the same time (you can tell it's supposed to be the same shot as you can hear Porter and Fleming arguing in the background - they go very quite when the woman shouts out to them that something is going on in the pool.

John Lennon: What is wrong with the cameraman? He's not very good at his job. When Chris is in his hotel room he hears something and looks off camera as though something horrible is there. Why doesn't the cameraman move the camera to what he is looking at? Gail's torch battery dies for the umpteenth time. And when the John Lennon look-a-like (he actually looks more like Jack Douglas from the Carry On films) is the one to be possessed by Lennon's spirit (?!!?) you can see Fleming looking a little peed off - he was obviously going to pretend to be possessed - the other guy was only there as background.

Bette Davis: Fleming, a man who gets paid by pretending he has another sense, laughs at the beliefs of the very camp High Witches of Salem - come on Fleming don't ridicule others that have a slightly more credible role than you. In fact it's so credible that most of this episode is co-hosted by the camp High Witch - leaving poor old Fleming out in the cold. A word to the wise - If you insist on making your living talking to dead people, it's not a good idea to sneer at other people. The High Witch takes it all tongue in cheek - he tries to summon Davis to pick up a posthumous award (a Golden Skull Award for acting).

Buddy Holly: At the scene of the plane crash Fleming picks up latent emotions. Get this... "most of them were screaming as the plane came down." At the point of impact (already shown to him by the farmer) Fleming feels the following: "... sadness... something traumatic happened here." Then he reveals that the plane hit, rolled and slid and he identifies where the bodies lay. Again an Internet search will reveal this and the segment is illustrated with a newspaper photo of the crash scene with each victims body position clearly marked.

Jayne Mansfield: Fleming claims a door handle turned on it's own, he later later admits that it didn't (probably worried that the door handle is on camera and will clearly show it not moving). The seance is the saddest think I've ever seen - truly bad acting all round. Even Porter thinks its a bit mental. Something brushes Porter's face and she freaks out, if you watch the recording you can see a bug on the back of her hat - it must have been this flying at her face that startled her.

In all honesty this show will do a lot of harm to the serious side of paranormal investigation. I mean what where they thinking? Think of a dead famous person, and then try and think of where their ghost might currently be residing and then drive over there, pretend to get possessed by spirits and see if you can get in touch with the dead famous person.

As I mentioned earlier, the voices (if you can call them that) picked up the recordings are not obvious. Even when we are told what they say it doesn't sound like that. And all but one of the voices in the Elvis Presley episode just sound like the passing cars driving through puddles.

To be fair, Porter does give a good balance here. She vocally attacks Fleming on numerous occasions. The best being on the subject of Fleming being possessed: "I just have to watch you pull funny faces and saying things that are not very surprising."

This show stinks worse than the remains of the dead celebrities it investigates. It is so fake that you can almost hear the ghosts turning in their graves. Chris Fleming is such a phoney that it is laughable. If there's anyone out there please give us a sign whether we should buy this. Make a number appear below - mark 10 for yes, or 2 for no.

Darren Rea

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