It’s that time of year, everyone is looking for a scare. Scan the listings on your television if there’s any doubt, they are full of programming guaranteed to provide a fright in either the classic horror vein or get you thinking about ghosts and the spirit world in search of paranormal activity. Matt Kondracki and his team have just been greenlit at Amazon Prime to bring Dark Echoes paranormal show to the viewing public. And who doesn’t like a good ghost story, especially a local one? When asked how the show came about, Kondracki told me they had been filming for a while, he had sent the concept of the shows to Amazon directly, and after responding to minor concerns, the first episode dropped last Thursday, October 12, and the team was as surprised as anyone else.
The production team was on-site at The General Stanton Inn in Charlestown for almost a full day of hunting for paranormal activity. The inn has a well-known history of ghosts haunting the halls, so it was a natural fit. Amber, who has worked there since May detailed how she has seen and heard unexplained occurrences, like a man’s “loud exasperated sigh,” and the sound of rushing wind on more than one occasion, usually when working alone; and has told of certain places on the property that are much colder than others, even on summer days. Jackie Moore, the inn’s co-owner, also explained how a guest told her that she saw the ghost of a young girl “walk through a wall,” and when shown where, Jackie pointed out there used to be a door in the spot.
The team also brings investigators that include a medium, Laurissa Rex, and a private detective named Scott who has a paranormal-sensitive dog, named Sundar. During her run-through of the property, employees and the team stated that Rex accurately described scenes from the past and some of the personalities who had visited. When I asked Ms. Rex later why some spirits manifested as ghosts so prominently compared to others, she offered that she believed the age-old adage that holds true in many cultures, “That some die so suddenly, they don’t know they’ve died.” She continued by explaining while some may not know, some may not want to move on, may be afraid to, and some spirits feel the need to wait until the “last of their people,” are gone until they are ready to go.
Being the 21st century, there is a great deal of electronic hardware invested in the search as well. In the basement, the team set up a laser grid hoping to catch something and have it trigger the camera. In the attic, they set up a trail camera and they had devices that measured changes in the electromagnetic field, motion, and other criteria. Accompanying the team into the attic around 10 pm, there was an unexplainable noise coming from almost due north, and then one of the sensors triggered an alarm to the west before the team even set up. This all happened while the team was still recovering from dropping and breaking a sensor they carried up with them. When they recovered and looked in the room, sound/investigator, Tammy Lee and Rex agreed that a device placed earlier had been moved. They later tried using a “Spirit Box,” to coax spirits to cooperate, the device uses open radio frequencies, and sounds were certainly heard.
Give this team credit, they use Red Digital Cinema cameras to film, along with their top-line electronic investigative tools. Kondracki started in the industry in 2009 and has networked his way up to working with and being mentored by, some top-level Hollywood talent. It didn’t hurt that he worked with Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner in The Town, and he made an impression. In turn, he has hired people like Lee to do his sound and make sure she learned the trade well. The same goes for his director of photography, Scarlet Zajac.
Journalists are trained to be open-minded, but also usually end up being skeptical by nature. This one was unsure of some of the things he heard at first but couldn’t deny some of what was witnessed later. The team did have a resident fact-checker who pointed out in one photo that what some investigators thought was activity, was in fact, an electrical junction box creating a heat signature. And at the end of the pilot episode, Kondracki does make the disclaimer that viewers must decide for themselves if the team makes the case for paranormal activity.
In the end, The General Stanton Inn episode is something for locals to see when it comes to Amazon Prime. Just remember, you will have to click on the search tool and manually enter Dark Echoes. There was an additional charge of $1.49 to watch the pilot, so the same probably goes for every episode. The added cost might make viewers selective when it comes to which episodes to watch immediately, but it may well lead to binge-watching next October. Enjoy!