Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Haunted’ on Netflix, Where Real People Open Up About Their Ghost Stories

You know what’s scarier than being haunted by ghosts? Telling your friends and loved ones that you’re being haunted by ghosts. In its newest reality series, Haunted, Netflix follows six people as they share the creepiest things that have ever happened to them. 

HAUNTED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A frowning man sits down in a dark room as a voiceover plays. The series gets straight to the point. This is Jason Hawkins and his life is a nightmare. Why? Because he’s been haunted by a ghost called “The Woman in White” his entire life and he believes he’s going to die soon.

The series then cuts to the blood-stained woman in white holding a knife before flipping to its creepy opening credits. There are just enough bloody recreations and tense orchestral cues in this Netflix documentary series to serve as a reminder that Haunted wants to scare you.

The Gist: This October Netflix is expanding its arsenal of reality offerings with Haunted. If you’ve ever watched a reality show on Syfy or anything on A&E around Halloween, you already know what this is. Someone shares their creepy supernatural story as a group of silent actors recreate their trauma. There’s a lot of fake blood and over-the-top performances.

But what sets Haunted apart from similar fare is its audience. These interview subjects aren’t telling their stories to a camera. They’re telling them to family and friends. Haunted serves as a fly-on-the-wall look into people sharing some of their darkest secrets — that they believe they’re being haunted by ghosts — to the people they’re closest to.

Our Take: Right away it’s apparent that Haunted is a higher end version of the typical paranormal reality shows. The music cues are truly, solidly creepy. Also the recreations are pretty good. It’s hard to get scared by a series of disjointed scenes that don’t tell a clear story, but Haunted comes pretty close to making that happen. Overall, the Netflix original is about as scary as the third installment in any horror franchise. It has it’s moments, but it’s really going for a vibe more than nightmare fuel.

But there is one truly incredible reason to watch Haunted over other reality shows — the friends and family. They add a humanizing element to what could be a just another story of the supernatural. This is especially true of Hawkins episode, which shows the reactions of his wife and daughter as he cries through his story about being abused by his family as well as ghosts.

The audience in Haunted also contributes to its watchability in an unexpected way. This reviewer is 99 percent sure that Hawkins tells his tear-filled and clearly painful story about The Woman in White to a buddy who clearly doesn’t believe in ghosts.

Jason’s best friend is also named Jason, though he has an “R.” at the end of his name. And he is unintentionally the star of this series. He’s a hard audience, and he only gets harder as Hawkins bears more of his soul. As the subject of this first episode stumbles over speeches about the inevitability of his death and revelations about his abuse, Jason R. slouches, asks questions, and repositions his arms more, seemingly becoming more skeptical about the ghosts involved. But it’s not just Jason R. who’s seen raising a quizzical eyebrow. The camera is happy to catch anyone in this room giving Hawkins a weird look or a side eye. Sometimes these moments of seeming disbelief build on one another, showing these loved ones starting to believe Hawkins’ unbelievable story. Sometimes they act as a dark sort of comedic relief.

Of course it’s impossible to know what anyone is really thinking save for Hawkins. The series is cut so that the episode’s storyteller is always front and center. Maybe Jason R. truly does believe his best friend about the paranormal and has been cursed with the opposite of a poker face. But there’s definitely room to interpret questioning looks from the room, turing the episode into an unintentional guessing game about who believes what paranormal claim.

Sex and Skin: The fake younger Hawkins is shown taking a bath at one point (clearly with shorts on). But nudity-wise Haunted stays in the PG range.

Parting Shot: After a monologue about how we never really know when we’re going to die, three children are shown as part of a reenactment. They emotionlessly star ahead in a dark room with a light shining on them. The effect is vaguely spooky though it has little to nothing to do with Hawkins’ story.

Sleeper Star: It’s Jason R. and his ever-changing posture.

Most Pilot-y Line: There really isn’t a pilot-y line per se because the entire episode is one man’s account of one of the worst things that have ever happened to him. I suppose Hawkins saying, “Yeah, fuck you. You live in a haunted house. It’s not cool” would count. But that line is more jarringly funny than cringe-worthy.

Our Call: Stream it. Tis the season for creepy binges, and this is a good one that requires a relatively low attention commitment.

Watch Haunted on Netflix