Out of body with Busey

Jul 04, 2007 04:30 AM
Vinay Menon

So it's come to this: Even ghosts aren't safe from the D-list celebrities haunting this mortal world.

Welcome to Celebrity Paranormal Project (Slice, 10 tonight), a new show that combines the torque-producing engine of MTV's Fear with the flat tires of VH1's The Surreal Life.

The result? A surprisingly sweet ride.

The concept: Take five quote-unquote celebrities, arm them with state-of-the-art equipment (EMF meters, thermal imaging cameras, laser thermometers, digital recorders), airlift them to a derelict edifice that's allegedly rife with unexplained phenomena, leave them alone for the night with video cameras, then watch as heart-pounding panic escalates until they nearly wet themselves.

It sounds like fun. And it is.

In tonight's premiere, the celebrity ghost hunters include comedian Hal Sparks; Survivor winner Jenna Morasca; America's Next Top Model cast-off Toccara; Baywatch babe Donna d'Errico; and actor Gary Busey, who quickly proves he is far more terrifying than any of the 63,000 "lost souls" said to be roaming the Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Ken.

Built in 1926 to battle a "White Plague" outbreak of tuberculosis, Waverly Hills reportedly lost a patient every hour. Legend has it that many of the dead remain trapped inside the abandoned hospital: from the "Shadow People" in the corridors to the wandering "Man in the White Coat" to the tiny apparitions spotted in the solarium where the sick children once played.

Let's get started.

Our intrepid celebrities set-up a "base station," where rotating team members will communicate with those on paranormal "missions."

First to venture into the ramshackle unknown are Jenna and Gary, a fellow who boasts three near-death experiences. (Dear Ghosts: when Gary vows, "I'm going to capture with my heart and my spirit," yeah, you should probably take that as a warning.)

The duo is dispatched to room 418, which locals say is haunted by two former patients. Gary fires-up his thermal camera, scans the room and ...

Actually, I don't want to spoil certain parts. So let's fast-forward. Gary returns to the base station where the team asks him to explain what just happened.

"I've been in situations like this before, out of my body in different areas," he says. "That is very, very, immensely haunted."

In another mission, Hal and Toccara traipse into the darkness to find the Shadow People. Hal, like the others, is fitted with body-mounted cameras and night-vision gear. Combined with the surveillance cameras, this means there is no need for a film crew.

Things get really unnerving when Gary and Donna go searching for the Man in The White Coat, supposedly a doctor who contracted tuberculosis. Donna uses a neologism: "I'm not really scareable." Five minutes later, this proves to be a lie as she radios a frantic message: "There is just something down to the left hallway. There's something there!"

Alone, Gary records a philosophical soliloquy. "It's a very strange silence that I'm living in right now," he says. "It's a silence that has a lot of activity, noise in it, from a zone that I don't live in on this Earth."

Wait a minute. Gary Busey lives on Earth?

Back at the base station, he's asked if he heard the, you know, "screaming."

"I heard sounds that were like a mechanical tiger," he says, inexplicably.

Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, Celebrity Paranormal Project is fascinating as a demonstration of physiological fear: dilated pupils, nausea, shallow breathing, horripilation, the mind-twisting power of expectation.

I have no inkling into what did or did not happen to these poor celebrities that night at Waverly Hills. More important, neither do they.