The Dead Files – The Devil Made Me Do It – S01E02

I really want to like this show because of the premise. You take a psychic and a New York cop, take them to a location where paranormal activity is reported, let them come to their own conclusions and then compare notes. The show isn’t too bad and the information they uncover is intriguing, but Amy Allen, the medium, acts like such a complete loon at times it’s hard to deal with. When she’s just talking and going over details, she’s fine. She’s coherent and everything seems normal. On the walkthrough, she becomes babbling and incoherent. Her actions and mannerisms are the cliché way you see characters in a movie act during a séance. It’s just hard to deal with the constant almost nonsensical chatter she comes out with. It’s like listening to an 8-year old hopped up on Pixie Sticks. Plus, that stupid grainy overlay they put up when she’s talking is ridiculous. This isn’t Paranormal Activity. Get rid of that damn thing.

Stephen Dischiavi, the New York cop, always comes across as calm and collected. He has a matter of fact way of doing business and that keeps things grounded. He keeps the show from being laughable. I like what they’re doing, but there are some parts that are really hard to tolerate.

For this investigation, they go to a restaurant where strange phenomena have been occurring. The owner has seen figures and heard noises. The staff has also seen and heard things and many of them won’t go down there anymore. It sounds like there’s trouble in the basement. So what’s going on down there?

Amy does a tour of the place and flat out says she’s scared to go down to the basement of the building. She feels something evil is down there. Meanwhile, Stephen discovers a murder took place down there. The former owner of the property was beaten to death with a hammer. It turns out the owner made a sexual advance toward a male employee and that employee turned on him and beat him over a dozen times in the head and face.

Amy gets the strong impression of something evil and demonic down there. She’s constantly fidgeting with her hands and saying the place is bad. Amy begins to get impressions of what happened and goes to a sketch artist to get a picture of what she sees. Interestingly, the artist’s sketch looks somewhat like the man who’s been incarcerated for the crime. Amy is saying there is a lot of bad energy down there and it’s been there for a long time. This event may have been brought on by someone possessed by negative energy.

It’s a pretty interesting ride and terribly tragic story. One mistake made by both men and lives are ruined. One man’s dead and the other will spend the rest of his life in jail. But is he a victim too? Was he taken over by some force? Was he truly not himself when the events happened?

Amy gets the owner to perform cleansing rituals on the basement to keep the evil entity in check. Is this something they need to do forever? Will this evil force move on? Will it grow stronger and cause even more destruction? It’s hard to say how things will play out, but the restaurant staff aren’t taking any chances.