Search for Haunted Hollywood

I use to have the special on tape but decided not to keep it after watching it many times.

The special was essentially a magic special with a number of ghost stories mixed in. The best part was the appearances by many of the better known Magic Castle members.

Search for Haunted Hollywood is in essence a live American celebration of all things spooky, made just in time for Halloween. It's a little like the infamous BBC programme Ghostwatch, except without the realism and with a much bigger budget; it has a few purportedly real moments but for the most part is full of fakery. The whole programme is a mish mash of content that plays out in front of a studio audience with a cheesy presenter holding it all together.

There are various filmed segments exploring 'true' Hollywood ghost stories involving the spirits of Marilyn Monroe and the like; these are cheesy and dated re-enactments and best ignored. Elsewhere, a magician performs a few tricks for the camera, and they look fantastic, as magic tricks always do. The funniest part of the film is a supposedly live seance presented by poor old Patrick Macnee, no less. The mystic baldy bloke acts up for the camera all the while and there's plenty of supposed trickery that had me laughing out loud. Also, a Hollywood FX guy randomly shows up and turns a young girl into a ghoul. As a whole this really isn't very good, and is best watched as a curio piece from the 1980s more than anything else.