The Hulu series Living for the Dead is produced by Twilight star Kristen Stewart (who also provides some narration), celebrity hairstylist C.J. Romero, and the team behind the popular make-over show Queer Eye. The series puts a sassy swing on paranormal investigations, and whilst it’s incredibly entertaining, fans are asking if the series is real or scripted. We’ll explore this question in this article more deeply.
Hulu’s Living for the Dead premise explained
This series sees five marvelous, brave, queer ghost hunters travel across America, helping the living by healing the dead. The group consists of Alex LeMay, Juju Bae, Ken Boggle, Logan Taylor, and Roz Hernandez, and together they explore some of the world’s most infamous haunted locations, with the aim of shedding light on those not seen and illuminating untold stories.
Similar to Queer Eye, the aim is to have a successful happy ending — the team tries to get the spirits and the living to co-exist peacefully together. It’s not about banishing, being afraid, or running scared; instead, it’s about learning, accepting, and becoming one, which is what the LGBTQ+ community is all about, both in the real world and the spirit one.
With no fancy equipment, but some experts at hand, the team helps spirits by learning where they’re from, what they’re doing, and what they want. In doing this, they then help the people living with them. It’s about finding closure and being content.
Is Living for the Dead on Hulu real or scripted?
To what extent Living for the Dead seems scripted really depends on your belief system when it comes to spirits, ghosts, the paranormal, and life after death. There are sections that feel completely set up — though a lot of reality series are — in the sense that you have to have a location to go to and people to speak to. None of these shows can ever be completely organic.
The ghost hunting part feels, at times, played up, but then there are times when searching for the paranormal is taken very seriously by the team members.
However, what does give the series a sense of truth and realism is that a lot of the locations used in the show are some very well-known places for supernatural activity, which have been used in other ghost-hunting series, such as the Lemp Mansion and the Louisville Palace Theatre. So even if they have a script telling them what to do and what to say, you can’t predict what and how the spirits may react to this.
The series also has the help of paranormal experts, who firmly believe in the existence of the paranormal. They’re empathetic and bring seriousness to the series.
The one thing the show lacks is the impressive multitude of gadgets that other similar series have. These gadgets, whether they do anything or not, do give professionalism and a level of investment to a show like this. In most cases, the show focuses more on the mental health side of living with spirits, rather than the scary and potential dangers.
The legitimacy of the show might be up for question, but what we can be certain of is this fun, fresh series is giving the paranormal investigation game a new, positive name.
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