To Hellier and back
The Haunted Objects Podcast
Rating – 
Another queue jumper this week. I have just finished watching the season one of the brilliant series Hellier. This particular nugget of high strange came to my attention after hearing a discussion about it on Some Other Sphere. I duly dug it out, and couldn’t stop watching (apart from writing podcast reviews of course). Since then I started following Greg Newkirk on twitter and I saw that he had a podcast with his wife Dana and their researcher friend Connor. Obviously I subbed immediately and downloaded the entire series.
So what’s it about?
Apart from making outstanding documentaries and investigating the paranormal, Greg and Dana run the Newkirk Museum Of The Paranormal, and it is artefacts from their collection that make up the main part of each episode.
The oddities in question (as far as the podcast goes so far) range from a plank of wood from the Amityville house, to some 1930s goggles to help you see auras. These items are just a jumping off point for discussion though. As the episodes progress, there are deep dives into the histories of the objects and the people connected to them, and plenty of digressions too. Of particular interest to me was the episode on the “Dybbuk box”, a story that I found terrifying when I first read it. I won’t spoil it here, but it’s a very good tale and full of the mystery and misdirection that categorises the Newkirk’s output.
Is it any good?
Absolutely. This series is (like Mary Poppins) practically perfect in every way. The episodes are brilliantly researched and expertly presented. They are spooky in all the right places, and light hearted enough so that you don’t get that brain fog so typical of serious paranormal podcast binges. I say “light hearted”, I mean this show is absolutely hilarious. There have been many laugh out loud moments, especially Dana commenting on how thicc the mothman statue is. Actually, Dana commenting on anything is usually good for a laugh.
The team, (now recently joined by Keelin Mathews) have such a great connection with each other. I think this helps with the telling of the stories, and you really have the feeling that you are sitting in with a group of friends as they happen to be talking about cursed black mirrors and painting that will burn your house down.
I guess all those sigils that Dana has charged over the years are working, because I honestly love everything the the Newkirks are putting out. Maybe that’s because their sense of humour is the same as mine. I think that must be it really, because there are many paranromal podcasts out there that fall short of my complete admiration and fanboy drooling like this one recieves.
Final thoughts
I first heard of the Newkirks quite a while back after reading about their “most terrifying exhibits”. I can’t remember where this was, although I suspect it was while I was using the “stumbleupon” browser addon. Over the years, they drifted from my memory (sorry guys). Even after hearing mention of Hellier I didn’t make the connection. In fact it wasn’t until I actually went to the website to hunt for an email address I had that AHA! moment and realised that the museum was the same one I’d read about all those years ago.
I can’t really recommend this series highly enough, unless you really don’t like anything paranormal. But then I can’t recommend Hellier enough either. You should check both out immediately. So close this window on your browser and get on the case. DO IT. RIGHT NOW!
I’m gutted now that I’ve got through the whole series so far. The best thing about missing the launch of a podcast is being able to binge the whole lot. The bad part is I’ve got to wait for the next episode now. At least I’ve got half of series two of Hellier to binge.
You can get The Haunted Objects Podcast here:
I enjoy their content, however, sometimes they veer way off topic and have jokes amongst themselves which are not funny to the listener, and the kicker is, the audio is not mixed correctly. So what then happens is, you’re enjoying discussion of a paranormal topic, and the “gang” have a great laugh at something and you have to jolt to turn the audio down lest you be deafened by a raucous chorus laughing at nothing in particular, then Connor comes in talking extremely quietly, which is a joke in and of itself because conner is the PRODUCER OF THE SHOW and should handle the audio imbalance, and you have to massively increase the volume to hear him at all. In the end, half of the time, I wish I had listened to something of better quality and spent no time annoyed by the people I am supposed to be enjoying.