Hosted by Robert Stack
Executive Produced by John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer
Six individually boxed sets of four DVD discs: UFOs, Ghosts, Miracles, (Psychics, Bizarre Murders and Legends available in 2005.)
A consistently popular TV series, Unsolved Mysteries has appealed to our curiosity and addiction to the titillation of fear of the unknown for over 15 years. The winning formula for this show works as well on DVD and this set of six, of four DVDs each – on Ghosts, UFOs, and Miracles, with Psychics, Bizarre Murders and Legends promised soon – serves as a fascinating reference to all our favourite rationality-defying puzzles.
The impact of the show has a lot to do with presenter Robert Stack’s trademark, deadpan, wooden documentary style, his face impassive, body still and eyes intense as he introduces his subjects in broad strokes hinting at deeper discoveries to come. Belying this, he is dressed more often than not in his Untouchables trench coat, the sole dramatic touch in a characteristically understated role. Only minutely does he vary his performance. His face crinkles slightly more quizzically into the barest suggestion of a smile with the ghost material. About UFOs and aliens he is as sombre as the grave. The intention, of course, is to give credibility. And it does. The bizarre, inexplicable and frequently self-contradictory material is far more acceptable to the average sceptical mind (and also to those who simply want to be thrilled or entertained) for the sober, non-reactive way in which Stack presents it. It is a style and format much-copied by similar TV docu-dramas since the first successful series. Consider how familiar is this typical introductory phrase, intoned with ominous import: ‘What you are about to see…. is based on verbatim transcripts of what occurred that night….’
The format is calculatedly palatable and intriguing. A series of short pieces on a theme; contemporary news footage; atmospheric black-and-white (or green-filtered) re-enactments interposed with historical material such as sepia-toned photographs and physical and anecdotal evidence; voice-over narrations by survivors which bracket or overlay the re-enactments; amateur videos and interviews with credible eye-witnesses and ‘teams of experts’ putting forward inexplicable facts and observations; and not forgetting the backing of unsettling, suspenseful music – it all rests on a nicely judged dramatic tension.
The masterstroke of this show however, is the impression it gives of impartiality, resting in the way the final decision to believe the material or not is handed to the viewer. This is often after a contradiction such as on the ‘Vancouver Lights’ segment on the UFOs DVD with the following teasing statement: ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ cameras were unable to reproduce the photographic evidence captured on Dorothy’s cameras’…. More compelling are the interviews with individual members of the military who have witnessed UFOs with various degrees of distance in their close encounters, who confess direct to the camera their erstwhile scepticism and current change of beliefs due to incontrovertible personal experience as well as the denials and silence of the upper echelons of the military. The subtle, unspoken suggestions of military and government cover-ups nicely feed speculations of conspiracy theory in viewers so disposed, while at the same time purporting resolutely to present simple factual evidence.
Echoing with far more credibility than the 1999 movie The Sixth Sense by director M. Night Shyamalan, is the story of the Ghost Boy Michael Jones. Michael sees and is visited by ghosts both good and bad, some of whom interact with him in malicious ways. In my professional experience of many years working with ‘sensitive’ children, this segment absolutely rings true – at least in the reaction of the young boy. Unlike Haley Joel Osment’s character in the above movie, Michael’s years of alarming non-physical interference have not eventuated in his becoming an empathic and wise mini-therapist to ghosts. Altogether more realistically frightened and suffering, this boy and his long-suffering and supportive family are slowly coming to grips with these manifestations and learning to get used to them.
‘Unsolved Mysteries’ is a treasure trove of fascinating, entertaining, intriguing and, at times, frightening stories, enough to compel the attention and engender questions in the most sceptical of viewers.
Offering ‘over 360 minutes in each DVD’ this set of six also contains some special features not seen by this reviewer. They include an introduction by executive directors John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer; behind the scenes of the 200th solved case; 4:3 full screen format; 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound; a special tribute to Robert Stack; closed captioning and eight audio commentaries for select episodes.
© Avril Carruthers,October 2004
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