America's past teems with bizarre, mysterious stories that seem too incredible to be true yet are documented in the archives of the nation's newspapers.
There are some fascinating paranormal stories around but for some reason shows about the paranormal are almost always campy, or worse. I had hopes for this one since it was claiming to explore odd occurrences documented in newspapers. What a huge disappointment.
First of all, the presentation is pure camp. This show doesn't explore news items-- it just dramatizes spooky stories of *very* dubious origin. Absolutely no attention is paid to the veracity of the claims or of the sources from which they supposedly originated, and the "eerie" aspects are played up without any mention whatsoever of the much more obvious explanations.
A modern day version of this show would be rejected soap opera actors dramatizing stories from supermarket tabloids. I suppose it'd qualify as "entertainment" to people who get a kick out of hearing silly ghost stories told around a campfire, but if you're looking for serious paranormal investigations this ain't it.
This one gets a generous 2 out of 10 stars for its production values, but a 1 out of 10 for its presentation and investigative quality. All we can do is hope the quarantine doesn't last long enough to make this hokum start to look good.
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