Matt Pellowski tackles ‘weird things’ in DVD series
By: Emily Craighead
It’s a tap on the shoulder when no one is near. A light flickering, then vanishing inexplicably.
It’s every ghost story you’ve ever heard and the subject of a reality series about the paranormal by TV veteran and 1997 Hillsborough High School graduate Matt Pellowski.
In a secluded cabin near the notoriously haunted town of Hope, three skeptics, a tarot card reader and a psychic gathered for a seance beneath the watchful eyes of cameramen from Mr. Pellowski and Anastasia Konstantinou’s Red Line Studios.
"When we were filming, weird things happened," Mr. Pellowski said. "It was very subtle and very real, and that’s why it was scary."
In spite of his own ambivalence about the paranormal, he could not explain why the cameras refused to work or why the seance reduced a jovial ex-Marine to tears.
"Before the sun went down, (the participants) were all macho, but after night fell, they were terrified and everyone’s personality changed," Mr. Pellowski said.
By the end of the seance, no one, including psychic Jane Doherty, dared spend the remainder of the night in cabins reserved by the studio.
"It’s almost embarrassing to talk about these things because they’re so bizarre," Mr. Pellowski said during a phone interview from New York Monday.
He wonders if audiences will believe him when he says no Hollywood sleight of hand conjured the spirits who so unsettled the "everyday, average people" in the cast of Jane Doherty Investigates.
The Blair Witch-style reality show is the first in a series of six featuring Ms. Doherty. The second show will investigate strange sightings in a small West Virginia town known as the Mothman prophecies.
A release date for the series has not been determined.
Although he is looking forward to filming the next installment of the series, Mr. Pellowski spends more time looking cautiously over his shoulder after this encounter with the paranormal.
"It’s not wanting to believe something that’s not there," he said. "it’s being observant about the weird things around you."