MovieChat Forums > The Dead Files (2011) Discussion > Psychic Amy?

Psychic Amy?

posted 8 years ago by SettingItStraight
12 replies | jump to latest

Amy is so hard to take seriously. On some things, she's dead on and right in line with Steve. On most things she's vague. Her husband (ex?) asks very open ended questions which is one of the oldest tricks in the book for cold reading. Every episode is full of 'bad things happen here', 'I don't feel right' and the like. She doesn't reveal what the 'bad things' are, but can describe in detail things that he reveals through his investigation. Yes, I've read that she definitely is a psychic, but this show doesn't do anything to prove that. It's like a 'psychic' on stage saying 'I see someone in the audience with the name Bob'. More open ended questions follow and Bob answers and provides more fodder for the psychic through the answers he gives.

I'm not saying that she is or isn't a psychic (or possibly a medium/sensitive), but this show makes it difficult to believe.

[–] glamgurl3888 8 years ago

Amy isn't a psychic and has never claimed to be. She is a medium and isn't always able to see things within an environment with clear detail. It almost always depends on how strong the spirit/energy is. The stronger the energy/spirit the more detail and clarity she can see it in. She also isn't always able to substantiate the things Steve finds in his investigations. There have been many times that Steve has dug up a great many things that Amy could not directly tie into anything she saw in her walk. To be fair, Steve tends to be more interested in connecting the dots than Amy is. Sometimes there aren't barely any dots to connect. That said, people on here seem to be obsess with trying to substantiate Amy's work and honestly if what you are looking for is scientific proof, you're not going to find ir. Science rarely gels with the supernatural.

[–] SettingItStraight 8 years ago

I wasn't asking for scientific proof, didn't even mention it. I merely said that she can detail most of what Steve digs up and is vague on other things. I do believe in the supernatural...ghosts, spirits, deamons, etc. as I've had my own personal experiences which is why I never asked for scientific proof.

With Amy, I have not seen an episode where the sketch artist has been off and she's corrected them. If she's being filmed with the handheld camera, why aren't there any EVP's? I understand she can't be right all the time, but she seems to be. Also, she tells people what they need to do to rid their homes of the spirits good or bad, but why doesn't she or Steve or the people who run the show help the people find the shamans, priestesses, or whomever she says they need? Aren't they both supposed to help people? It's like they both go in, say what's there and what's happened there, tell people what they need to do and then walk away. If I were in their shoes, I'd make sure the families had contacts for help.

Those are my issues. The only proof I ask for is EVP's. If the spirits are strong enough to give her all that detail, they're strong enough to come through a recording.

[–] glamgurl3888 8 years ago

Sorry for the late reply, I don't come on imdb boards as much anymore. To answer a few things you questioned starting with the sketch, the clip we see in the show where the sketch artist seemingly draws a perfect portrait in two minutes is highly edited. Amy has stated in various Q&As that it very often takes a full day to complete sketch work for something she wants drawn for the reveal. What is edited down to a 30 second clip is likely a very tiny clipping together of drawing after having gone back and forth between the sketch artist and Amy to get the drawing as close as what she sees in her mind as possible. The corrections and edits for the drawings are probably edited out to make it seem like the drawing was produced super fast and accurately. Amy also stated that the show typically gets some of the best sketch artists to sketch for her which is not something she was used to pre-show. With the sketch artist already being top-notched she is able to get very accurate sketches relatively faster than a less skilled artist (I'd imagine she's used to inaccurate artists who either aren't able to get very close to what she saw or take extraordinarily longer to produce a product for her). As far as EVPs, lots of viewers have questioned this before. I personally don't really care that this aspect is not included. I'm not a huge fan of it and it's not really the focus of the show either. So who's to say, maybe they have gotten things are camera before but edited them out because the show isn't really about that. Can't say for sure. As for not helping the families find the needed shamans or chaos magicians or what have you, the filming schedule for this show is rigorous. There's literally no space in the filming schedule for Amy to stop and help search for solutions for every family. On top of that, Amy doing walks already does a number on her body, can you imagine how much more worn out she would be if she had to do extra ground work on top of that? I'm sure Amy would like to help more, unfortunately, the filming makes it tough. That said, in a few revisiteds back when they used to do those, it was mentioned in some that after a family had trouble seeking the help they needed that Amy assisted in finding whatever specialist they needed. This was after filming had wrapped so she likely had more time to assist where she could where she couldn't right when she initially visited with them. I think in general though, Amy does assist on where they should look for the right kind specialist to help them even if she can't search with them. Hope this info all makes sense.

[–] Ruthie09 8 years ago

I'm going to jump in here also. Here is some info that is related to your (SettingitStraight) questions - sort of. Sorry it's so long.

EVP: As I understand it, EVP stands for electronic voice phenomenon. I'm betting that hearing what may or may not be vocal sounds from spirits is the exception, not the rule. If what you are looking for is EVP or video-type "evidence", you are watching the wrong show (I don't know the name of the show that comes on before DF, but that might be more of what you are looking for).

Show prep: Through internet research, I've learned that each episode takes many days (weeks?) to put together and includes meetings between producers and Steve, background research done by staff (Steve could not do it all himself in 2 days), lining up historians, authors, law enforcement personnel, etc., and getting the articles, photos, and other documentation those folks find enlarged so it's legible on screen. The staff also spends a day or more preparing a site for Amy, under Matt's direction, to be sure everything potentially leading is hidden or removed (can you imagine how long it must take to prep a hotel?). Plus, they have to teach people to use the word "apparition" instead of "ghost" (I mean, seriously, how many people even know the word apparition, let alone use it. LOL)

Amy's walk and afterward: Humor me for a second...imagine a 100-piece jigsaw puzzle box dumped out on a table. Now assume that pieces may or may not be missing. Of those that are there, some pieces are right-side up, some are upside down, some are stuck together incorrectly and some are partially hidden under other pieces. Your task, without ever having seen what the final picture should be, take 15-20 minutes to work with the puzzle and then sit down and tell me what you figured out. That is basically Amy's walk. She gets bits and pieces, in no particular order and those pieces may or may not fit together. She no doubt needs time to organize what she got during the walk into coherent thoughts. I suspect that is the reason Matt records her walks - so she can go back and review them and figure out what goes where. I read once that these walks wipe Amy out because they are emotionally and mentally exhausting - it takes her a few days to recover from them. I think we can also safely assume that Amy is going to have a significant number of "misses" and/or unprovable claims (including the vague statements you mentioned) which don't get included in the show.

Help after the show: I expect that Amy spends a significant amount of time with them explaining what they need to do and why. The 30-60 seconds of explanation we see is just a condensed version of that. I'm also confident that she, or the shows staff, explain what type of assistance the people will need and how to find those kind of folks and, at least in some cases, the staff stay in touch with them and film the follow-up activities (as seen on the Revisited shows).

I guess my point is that each 1-hour show takes days or weeks to prepare and more days to edit into a tidy 43 minutes of airtime. So just because we don't see it, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

[–] Lets_talk_about_that 8 years ago

Dr. Barry Taff, who is one of the top parapsychologists in the country, has been courted by all the paranormal shows to appear on air, and he's stated that all of the paranormal & ghost-hunting shows on TV are staged. For that reason he wants nothing to do with them or the many non-disclosure agreements that are a pre-requisite to appearing on these shows.

Some direct quotes from Dr. Taff: "The content on these shows is not real, it’s all staged for the benefit of their audience.”

"I’ve met many people who’ve worked in production on various non-paranormal reality shows and they’ve all said that same thing. Nothing on them is real."

"Bottom line here is that all reality shows are fraudulent, some very near criminal in their nature, in which they’ve forced their participants into signing totally outrageous contracts which prohibit them from ever revealing the truth behind said show. Many production companies producing reality shows have been frequently sued for libel, slander, defamation of character and misrepresentation. So these production companies developed the most insane release forms ever conceived. But as many of the participants are so desperate to see their 15 minutes of fame, they’d sign their life away without giving it second thought.

Descending to the very bottom of the barrel here, let’s focus only on the totally fraudulent domain of paranormal reality, or as my very intelligent and most articulate friend and colleague Loyd Auerbach and I refer to them, paranormal “unreality” shows."

[–] LittleCrit75 8 years ago

To Ruthie:

I understand about editing for the show to fit into a certain time frame (worked for my high school's radio and TV stations). Perhaps once in a while, they could show some of what's being edited out. I've noticed that even Amy's sketches don't vary too much.

Her husband (ex?) helping by covering things, et al, also helps with leading questions. This is one of the main tricks used and is called a cold reading.

I usually don't question these things. I've seen apparitions since I was a child and that "talent" grew into my being an empath or sensitive. I was never told these things weren't real. Funny story is when my ex and I bought our second home, I told him that there was a presence there. He never believed me until someone accompanied a guest at a party who pulled my ex aside and told him the same thing I had said. This person had never been to the house before.

It's just difficult to be believable when one is asked leading questions and is spot on regarding with the detective's research and vague about everything else. For example, going to Lizzie Borden's home and not knowing anything about it? Now granted, I grew up in New Hampshire, but just the mention of Fall River immediately triggers the story of the Borden family. I think that episode was the turning point for me regarding this show.

Now, could I stop watching because I have such a low opinion of the show? Yes. Why don't I? I'm waiting for that time I can watch with a bunch of friends and some alcohol to take advantage of the drinking game that has come out of the show. Plus, I think it's funny. :-)

[–] monsoonpdx 7 years ago

Re show prep: it'll take many days to find historical info about the property, area, & events. I research & write local/regional history, so have a really good idea of how intensive it is to read through documents, photos, newspapers, property records, census data, etc. it cannot be done in the short time they are investigating!

[–] bunny3k 7 years ago

Ruthie09,

I think you have analyzed it correctly. One thing that I like about Dead Files vs. some of the others is that DF doesn't always find exactly what they are looking for. There are many times on DF when Amy's experience doesn't match up to the history. I have quit watching several other shows because they ALWAYS found EMF, etc. when they were investigating buildings, etc. I don't believe in bringing in the mediums and things like that for personal spiritual reasons, but I do find the show so interesting and I think that Amy has a genuine gift.

3k

[–] elwyn5150 8 years ago

On most things she's vague. Her husband (ex?) asks very open ended questions which is one of the oldest tricks in the book for cold reading. Every episode is full of 'bad things happen here', 'I don't feel right' and the like.

Open ended questions are good in this case. They are not leading her.

She is vague then specific. If dropped into an unfamiliar setting, she should be vague before finding out specific details.

She doesn't reveal what the 'bad things' are, but can describe in detail things that he reveals through his investigation.

I don't think you watch the show. She reveal what the bad things are. She often doesn't have names for people - just describes them.

[–] LittleCrit75 8 years ago

Oh, but I do watch the show...in fact, I have it on right now. I'm watching the episode with the mom and her 3 little ones and her husband works for the Department of Defense. Amy does say vague things...it feels bad in here, lonely, sad. Unless I missed it, she didn't give a reason as to why it felt bad, lonely and sad. Oh! But lo and behold! She sees a little girl with wet hair! Just like what the youngest daughter described!

But I must be watching a different Dead Files that also has a medium named Amy and a retired New York detective.

I wholly believe in ghosts, demons, the afterlife, previous lives, etc. I have seen one of my own previous lives while meditating one day. So, I'm a believer. I know there really are reasons for the bumps in the night. I've seen ghosts and I was never told that ghosts don't exist. I'm just not sold on this show, I merely watch paranormal shows for entertainment.

[–] kurt-2000 8 years ago

This show is either 100% the truth or a lie. There is no middle ground. That's what draws the attention and makes is noteworthy from other paranormal shows.

[–] LittleCrit75 8 years ago

It's a shame that the paranormal doesn't get the right kind of attention. You're right, there's no middle ground. Those that believe or have gifts of their own don't discuss it because of the stigma of being crazy is attached most of the time. I don't like to talk about my year locked in a lease with a demon. I don't like to talk about my experiences. I don't like to talk about what I've seen when I put my hands on, say, a building and see it's past. The paranormal is as real as anything else, and it's a shame that there are shows out there that are supposedly real, but are touted as entertainment and that's all they are. IMO, they mock the paranormal more than help bring it into the mainstream.