From the creators of "Queer Eye" and executive producer Kristen Stewart
Narrated by Kristen Stewart
Starring Alex Le May, Juju Bae, Ken Boggle, Logan Taylor, Roz Hernandez
Premieres on Hulu on Wednesday, October 18th

by Joe Carlough, Staff Writer

It’d be hard for me to summarize the sheer number of hours I’ve spent watching paranormal television: ghost hunters, experts reviewing amateur footage, YouTube ghost sighting compilations. I grew up in the late 80’s/early 90’s New Jersey, so you know I had my Weird NJ subscription. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about ghosts. I’m also queer and spent many years of my not-yet-out life wondering why I cried so, so much during every queer show and movie I watched. I guess my body knew before my mind was ready. Living for the Dead, the new queer Hulu reality ghost hunting show, from the creators of Queer Eye and executive producer Kristen Stewart, feels like it was made specifically for the audience of me—in both a good way and a not-so-good way.

Let’s start with the positives, of which there are many. We follow our ghoul gang of five queer ghosties, each with their own specialty—Juju, the witch; Alex, the ghost hunter; Ken, the tarot reader; Logan, the medium; and Roz, the researcher—and each with their own strong personality that exudes fresh inclusivity, comfort, warmth and humor. No complaints from me here with the casting. Each member of the team is endearing and intelligent (though I do have my favorite (I’d share a donut with Roz any day!), and their chemistry is strong from the beginning—constantly cracking jokes, uplifting each other through difficult memories that arise during the hunts, and taking care of their charges with tenderness and a dash of wry humor, be they the owners of a haunted clown motel, the staff at a haunted theater, or the owner of a funeral home turned headquarters turned… well, that chapter of the building’s life has not yet begun.

Each episode approaches its particular haunting as a problem to be solved in order to help their client heal from some trauma or reach betterment in another way, a la Queer Eye. You know, a young man needs to shake a possibly demonic attachment before proposing to his girlfriend, the girls working at a nightclub want to feel safer in their environment, etc. Living for the Dead really shines when it shifts its focus from the undead to the, well, more alive. Tender moments are shared between the cast and their clients and stories of intolerance and inclusivity are shared around the local drafthouse in moments where the crew can not only listen, but also teach the importance of accepting others as they are. These conversations lead to Dragnificent moments, to invoke the name of another excellent gay reality show, and spoke to the exqueerience of coming out, finding safety in community when you didn’t have it in childhood, and promoting acceptance and kindness towards others, regardless of how they live their life. They’re really special moments.

While Living for the Dead is wrapped in such a charming shell, its actual spirit work left me feeling a little cold, my battery a little drained. The show is missing the organic nature that’s so strong in most successful ghost hunting shows. TAPS, the organization behind the first major ghost hunting show, Ghost Hunters, existed for almost ten years before the show aired, and you really felt it in the way the investigators related to each other. Paranormal State followed a group of students who ran a ghost hunting group at their university. Ghost Adventures had a team more assembled from scratch but had clear leadership in Zak Bagans. Ghost hunting shows seem to work best when there is clear direction and a personality who is, more or less, in charge—someone to focus the mission. My major issue with Living for the Dead is that the goal of each episode feels scattershot. Instead of following a team with one goal—today, we’re going into this prison with a spirit box to communicate with the spirits—Living for the Dead at times feels like everyone is in their own room, practicing their own craft while the others look on, waiting for their own time to use their particular gift. Some of the situations the ghost hunters find themselves in feel a little manufactured, to be sure each person gets an equal amount of screen time and impact in “solving” each haunting.

I think there was a missed opportunity to let each cast member shine more in situations in which they excel, even if that meant some others find themselves a little less connected to certain locations. The show would have benefitted from each episode highlighting one of the ghost hunters and their methods, letting us really get to know them and what they do, maybe with a few episodes peppered in where they work together as a group. The crux of the problem is that each ghost hunter is doing their own method to get the same answer. It’s not uncommon to watch a scene in which the spirit box says “yes” in reply to a question, as the medium hears “yes,” and the witch’s crystals sway forward to signify an affirmative response. Too much time is spent bouncing around to the same effect, leaving a frighteningly small amount of time for actual spirit communication. Each episode ended positively, and the clients always felt better, but it was a little hard to trace what actually happened in each episode to change the attitude of the client besides, well, having a group of warm, friendly people actually listening to and uplifting them. Which I’m not knocking—that is a wonderful thing all its own!

All in all, Living for the Dead is a tender, reflective, and heartfelt show that does a commendable job convincing us that ghosts are all around us and, just like people, would benefit from someone to talk to now and then. While the show can at times feel a little shallow and is missing something almost intangible, I found it to be an enjoyable watch and a great way to spend an evening, cuddled up under a blanket as the cold nights of autumn set in.