Scream Stream 2023: Living for the Dead

A five-member team of gay and lesbian paranormal professionals travel the country visiting the most haunted places.  They commune with spirits, both living and dead, and try to find a way to heal the souls of those involved.  The team is comprised of tarot card reader and psychic, Ken Boggle; witch extraordinaire, Juju Bae; psychic medium, Logan Taylor; paranormal researcher, Roz Hernandez; and tech expert Alex Le May.  In the pilot episode, the group investigates a haunted clown hotel directly across from a graveyard that hosts the bodies of seventeen men who died in a mine fire. The motel seems to be haunted by a couple of different spirits, but the team is able to psychically determine that some of it is destructive energy brought in by the not so well-intentioned guests, and the main ghost, a local folk legend, is just trying to protect the place he loves.  In the end, the team exposes some truths about themselves and gives the owners of the haunted space advice on how to appease and coexist with the spirits living there with them, wrapping the episode up with a “happy ending”.

Living For The Dead — – — , shown. (Photo by: Hulu)

First, I really need to say, I am not a fan of “Reality Television”, and find the ghosthunter shows especially unentertaining, but as a gay man, I thought I would give this one a try. Unfortunately, it wasn’t any better than all the others, and in fact, it might have been a bit worse.  I did feel a connection with a couple of the personas, specifically Ken Boggle.  I did like Juju Bae and Alex Le May but felt no sincerity from Logan Taylor and researcher Roz Hernandez.  Besides a brief scene in a bar where Ken talks about his upbringing, the entire episode felt forced and fake, and the production value looked cheaper than normal for this genre of show. The show tried to create tension and suspense and a spooky atmosphere but failed to do so.  There are a couple nice sentimental heart felt moments as mentioned above with Ken, who felt real, but the response to this from Roz, felt like an act.

The show is created by Kristen Stewart of the Twilight movie franchise fame with Rena Lombardo of Scout Productions co-executive producing.  This fits in with the other shows Scout Productions have produced, namely Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Legendary. Describing itself as a “gay Scooby-Doo” the show would have benefited from casting a Great Dane, at least a dog in the series would be bit more interesting and not so mundane.  I think the premise for a scripted program could have been interesting, a group of gay psychic investigators go around to haunted places and solve mysteries, whether paranormal or not, but as a reality show, it fails, at least in this guy’s queer eyes.