A group of ghost hunters spend the night at the spookily active Hotel San Carlos in Phoenix, Arizona, well-known for having a mysterious and frightening past in Ghostly Secrets of Hotel San Carlos.
2002 witnessed a chilling shift in reality television with the arrival of “Most Haunted,” a pioneering show that followed a team of paranormal investigators into supposedly haunted locations and captured their experiences with cameras and night vision. Most Haunted became a phenomenal success sparking a paranormal boom and soon shows like “Ghost Hunters” (2004), “A Haunting” (2005). and “Ghost Adventures” (2008) were on the air all over the world, each one with its own team of investigators and technological arsenal.
The 20+ year legacy of “Most Haunted” lives on in Clay Moffatt’s new 83-minute mockumentary Ghostly Secrets of Hotel San Carlos, inspired by all of these TV investigation shows. The title of this fake show is “Talk About Scary”, and it focuses on the Talk About Scary team, with Moffat and his co-star Adam Beradi playing versions of themselves as they visit the Hotel San Carlos, one of America’s most famously haunted hotels.
Much like the previously mentioned TV shows, Ghostly Secrets relies on all the usual techniques to build its story. The cornerstone, of course, is the interviews with hotel workers and eyewitnesses, done through the usual talking head scenes with an unseen interviewer. There is also the use of B-roll footage, which uses additional shots alongside the interviews and narration with establishing shots of locations and scenes depicting actions or events. We also have a lot of close-up shots of different objects such as chairs and the team’s equipment, with Moffat himself usually on-screen talking directly to the camera, while also giving us some voice-over narration to guide the viewer through the story, providing background information, commentary, or insights that might not be evident from the visuals alone.
The editing in Ghostly Secrets is a critical element in maintaining the film’s suspenseful and eerie tone. Moffat controls the pacing with slow builds leading up to climactic moments. The use of dramatic music and sound effects heightens the tension, punctuating key moments with appropriate intensity. The overuse of Moffat’s Spirit Box phone app becomes predictable, but it does provide some effective moments with interesting sound effects. Just as useful is the use of silence, with sudden drops in audio that leave you feeling isolated and vulnerable, giving you a little bit of time to anticipate the next unknown sound.
We have reviewed a number of Moffatt’s films here at Screen Critix, and we feel that Ghostly Secrets of Hotel San Carlos is easily his best work so far. Looking back at those reviews, the criticism of his previous work stemmed from the lack of budget and funds he had to create what he wanted us to see on screen. Moffat doesn’t suffer from that issue here. Although he still has little to no budget to work with, it is this low-fi nature of film-making that suits Ghostly Secrets perfectly.
The major criticism this time around is that the film is simply not scary enough. There are eerie moments, but they are no more frightening than an episode of Goosebumps. The idea of a paranormal TV show losing control of the spirits they are chasing is a good one, but this is a fictional version of those (already fictional) TV shows, therefore allowing you more freedom to unleash absolute hell. Unfortunately, Ghostly Secrets plays too much like the actual shows it is parodying, finishing limply with no excitement or crescendo of horror.
Leave a Reply