The ParaPod: A Very British Ghost Hunt

I'm not looking for the ghost and adventures. thank God i only want their British accent lol

source: The ParaPod: A Very British Ghost Hunt

It has been some time -- it's felt like 87 years -- since this movie was announced and it's taken me about as long to formulate my feelings on both the subject matter and the presentations of the two protagonists in the "filuum". I was a big fan of the Parapod podcast, the focus being on the word was. The movie just doesn't work because it presents several problems in its direction. Boldsworth, skeptical star and director appears to not want to be there, like he has been forced into a road trip by his sub-co-host Dodds, a believer with an inability to do research and get the basic facts and figures of even the most famous of haunted locations. Boldsworth however is the director of the movie. He has documented the process on his Patreon account (where a lot of the movie can be watched for free) and it's clearly his project that he is shoulder-charging Dodds out of which creates a juxtaposition that renders the set up as suspiciously fake. This has been further compounded by Boldsworth revealing a lot of behind the scenes footage that shows a lot of what was filmed was a set up. He has contradicted himself several times unwittingly and shown that all is not what it seems onscreen. He has damaged his own product and is yet to realize. For myself, the biggest issue will always be how mental health issues are used as a weapon and argument to attack Dodds and other paranormal enthusiasts with. Boldsworth has himself produced (and since deleted, make of that what you will) a podcast about mental health issues yet is very comfortable referring to Dodds as mentally ill for his belief in ghosts. This deeply troubling trait has legitimized similar behavior both towards Dodds and some of the other believers in the movie (who are never given a chance to prepare or present themselves as the skeptics are) and a re-listen of the podcast shows how much attitudes have changed in the last five years alone towards this thorny issue. A persons belief system is always open to questioning and so is that of the skeptic but when people are referred to as "mental", "braindead", "stupid" and "mentally ill" you have to examine the damage that this could do to the cause of mental health recognition both here in the US and the rest of the world. The stigma that campaigners have sacrificed so much for is back, front and centre here and it is played for laughs. I may be a skeptic myself but I cannot condone this sort of "critical thinking". There is also a sinister undercurrent of homophobia running in the podcast that thankfully has not made it onto the silver screen. Dodds may not be the most academically bright and he may be unconvincing in his presentation of evidence but this does not amount to a mental health issue and this must be called out and stopped NOW. There is also a very distressing scene mid-movie that left me wanting to switch off as it was presented without any trigger warning and others need to be warned about this. I do not normally consider myself an internet commentator but the issues raised above compelled me to make my feelings known. To try and leave this review with some positives, the score is excellent and the editing by Simon Gibbs is exceptional, a pace brisk which is only lacking in the end sequence. He has a bright future in the industry. What a shame I cannot say the same about Boldsworth and Dodds. Two stars, one for the composer, one for the editor.

The Parapod movie is a hilarious jaunt around England based on the parapod podcast. Podcast listeners will be very familiar with Ian Badsworth (the sceptic) and Barry Dodds (the believer) but the format essentially tasks Barry to provide Ian with proof of the existence of the paranormal. There are no tricks and there's no ghost hunting fluff the likes of which you'd find in 'Most Haunted'. It's well worth a watch.

I stumbled upon the 2020 horror comedy documentary "The ParaPod: A Very British Ghost Hunt" by random chance in 2021. Granted, I had never even heard about this movie from director Ian Boldsworth, but I was very fascinated by the movie's cover, and must admit that there was a certain appeal to the title of the movie. And with it being a horror movie (of sorts) that I hadn't already seen, of course I took the time to sit down and watch "The ParaPod: A Very British Ghost Hunt". And "The ParaPod: A Very British Ghost Hunt" was watchable, I will say that much for it. But that was about it. Sadly, the movie's cover actually proved to be the best part about the movie by far. The storyline told in "The ParaPod: A Very British Ghost Hunt" was adequate, but it is by no means a movie with the contents to support more than just a single viewing, as it was barely scraping by the first time around. The movie has a small cast, so those involved had to put on additional effort to keep the movie afloat and watchable. And to a certain extend, then Ian Boldsworth and Barry Dodds managed to do that well enough, I will give them that. Visually then I had hoped for quite something more than what "The ParaPod: A Very British Ghost Hunt" delivered, especially with such an interesting cover for the movie. I managed to sit through the entire movie, though I can with all honesty say that this is not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time. Nor is it a movie that I would recommend horror fans to rush out to get their hands on. My rating of "The ParaPod: A Very British Ghost Hunt" lands on a very generous four out of ten stars.

Two mates, one sceptic & one believer go head to head to investigate the paranormal. An emotional journey ensues full of horror and laughs. Loved the film, look forward to what ever these two come up with next.

I REALLY did want to like it, I love a good ghost movie and doccos are one of my favourite genre, but this film, sigh. I LOVE the fact that it was shot in real life, on location in the UK, a gorgeous country and one steeped in SO much history. I loved the fact we got to see some local haunts and amazing places, but what I DIDN'T LIKE was IAN. He was just plain MEAN. Barry is a believer and wants to prove to Ian that ghosts can and do exist, Ian, is the staunch skeptic. BOTH views are totally fine, BUT the fact that Ian keeps belittling Barry, and treating him like a schoolyard bully would made me angry towards the end of the film. There was one part where Barry feels that he saw an apparition, and is absolutely terrified, even moved to tears. Ian at least treated him with kindness then and some compassion, but for the rest of the film he was simply treating him like an idiot. The film was watchable, and a nice change from the usual "ghost hunter" type of stuff, but would I watch it again, not at all. SIMPLY because I don't wish to see Ian treating Barry like garbage again.

Loving all things paranormal and being a big fan of paranormal based podcasts this one looked interesting. I had never heard of the Parapod Podcast before and after watching this mess I wont be listening to it anytime soon This documentary was neither scary nor informative, it was basically a rather camp and slightly dim believer and an obnoxious smug sceptic visiting alleged haunted sites, no real investigating just silly school boy pranks set up by the extremely annoying sceptic which I think only he found hilarious judging by that awful husky Mutley-esque laugh of his. I still cant believe I managed to sit through the full documentary to be honest, it was beyond cringeworthy seriously. The only segment I found amusing was where Carol the lady living next door to 30 East Drive gave Boldsworth a dressing down for being a smug show off. Don't waste your valuable time with this shambles.

If you were asked to rotate your company on a desert island for a week - would you ask to be joined by sceptics or someone with a more open approach to the possibilities of other layers to reality existing? The problem is that in this era, science has reverted to scientism and skepticism has become a discipline all of its own when in fact science and spirit used to blend in a far more intelligent manner than we are surrounded by today. This film did nothing to change that situation - in fact it detracted from both sides of the "debate" with inane discussion and school-yard humour. Barry 'the believer' was possibly the worst advocate for the paranormal you could find... there's more articulate discussion in random YouTube comments than anywhere in this hour long romp into nowheresville. I'll just add one case to any true skeptics out there... it was monitored and analysed by science based observers... but of course no-one dares bring this case up in any media efforts. The Scoles Project. -

Only way I can describe this is 2 guys -- one who has never thought if a ghost ever existed or not and the other guy is someone who has never thought if a ghost ever existed or not -ever. I would say they were just given a script the day of filming but even that would mean they have never seen a ghost hunting program or a paranormal program or any of the found footage films.. I LOVE this genre and if the movie presented itself as a regular crappy b movie movie I would have given it a 4.2-5 just for the "laughs".(B-movie laughs, there are no regular laughs) It seems like the two main characters are friends in real life and last month they just heard that people believe in this phenomenon called ghosts and then they said to themselves 3 weeks ago - Hey, let's make a movie about ghosts. This gets no stars . That's 0.0 stars out of 10.