Paranormal State Illustrated


 

Taking a close look at what you see and hear on a “Real Life. Drama.” TV series.

 

DARKNESS FALLS: CHAD- REUSED

Here is a side-by-side comparison of screenshots– the one on the left is from “Darkness Falls,” and the one on the right is from the “Haunted Sex Dungeon.”

This scene with Chad being introduced was ripped-off from the “Haunted Sex Dungeon.”

In the opening sequence of “Darkness Falls,” Ryan introduces Chad Calek. Three brief snippets of Chad are shown: one contained footage ripped-off from the “Haunted Sex Dungeon” episode.

1. Screenshot from Paranormal State
“Darkness Falls”
Appears at approximately 56 seconds.

Chad was creatively edited into “Darkness Falls.”

2. Screenshot from Paranormal State
“Haunted Sex Dungeon”
Appears at approximately 8 min.  22 seconds.
Captioning is as it appeared in the episode.

This is yet another example in which Paranormal State takes footage originally shot for one episode, and creatively edits it into another episode.

The act of incorporating ripped-off / borrowed / lifted scenes, demonstrates that Paranormal State is not a documentary showing a factual accounting of events. Since Paranormal State appears on A&E TV, where on A&E’s Web site it states “Real Life. Drama,” viewers of this type of programming should ask how “real” is real, if the program they are watching was constructed using scenes to create a false record?

SOME OTHER EXAMPLES OF RIPPED-OFF SCENES.
I’m working on a more complete list, and at some time in the future, will add a separate Web page to document occurrences where scenes which were shot for one episode, were creatively woven into other episodes.

I believe there are two categories of scenes shot for one Paranormal State episode that appear in one or more additional episodes, with the possibility of third category. The categories are:

  1. •A scene shot for one episode appears in one or more episodes, incorporating identical footage.

  2. •A scene shot for one episode appears in one or more episodes, using a different “take” that didn’t appear in the “originally-intended” episode.

  3. •A possible third category is what I’ll refer to as “filler” material. It’s my opinion these are added to create the impression that something paranormal-related is happening or about to happen. Examples of “filler” scenes are where episodes use the same lightning, same bird flying, same architectural element of a lion’s head.

EXAMPLES OF EITHER THE SAME-SCENE, OR SIMILAR-SCENE BUT DIFFERENT “TAKE,” USED IN MORE THAN ONE EPISODE:

  1. •Faked haunted door. Although the footage isn’t identical, the door in “The Name” actually belongs in the house from “Dark Man,” and was faked to appear as if it was moved by the spirit of a dead girl.

  2. •Same tree branches, used in “Sixth Sense” and “Devil in Syracuse.”

  3. •The Lowe Hotel, rightly appears in the “Mothman” episode, but different shots of the hotel were creatively added and falsely portrayed as where the PRS stayed in the “Lady Vampire” and “The Name” episodes.

  4. •The microform machine footage shot for “School House Haunting” was deceptively used in “Vegas” to make it look like Eilfie was conducting research in Las Vegas, Nevada.

  5. •The Sony M-670V micro-cassette recorder footage shot for “Paranormal Intervention” was edited in make it look like it belonged in “School House Haunting.”

First published: 02 Feb 2010
Written by: Ernie Marsh

IDENTICAL

REUSED IN:

ORIGINALLY SHOT FOR:

SUMMARY
ANALYSIS
CONCLUSION