It's the team we would have wanted for Cole Sear. All that poor little guy in The Sixth Sense had was a dead therapist.
Today’s kids who “see dead people” finally have support: hightech electromagnetic and infrared gear, paranormal research teams and, perhaps most importantly, children with the same abilities.
Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal leads into the network’s already established hit, Paranormal State. The Website promo asks if having psychic abilities “is a gift or a curse.” The answer is clear in the first 15 seconds of listening to the children profiled:
“When I’m alone I’m absolutely terrifi ed. I’m so trapped.” “I can actually feel them, touch them. They try to grab at my legs and my arms.”
“I feel like I’ll no longer be able to control my life.” The parents of these children say they started describing run-ins with dead relatives or strangers at around age 3. Most of the kids have spent childhoods isolated from friends, spending useless hours with therapists who misdiagnosed them.
Chip Coffey, the show’s flamboyant psychic, understands these childhoods, because his was similar.
“You’re a psychic kid, dead people talk to you,” Coffey says matter-of-factly as he introduces himself to the nervous young people.
The show’s other experts, medium Kim Russo and “sensitive” Steve Fleming, have also had the gift/curse throughout their lives. They say they want to give the kids confidence and new skills for dealing with spirits.
In order to enjoy Psychic Kids, it helps to suspend disbelief. And there are moments, as the courageous kids fluently rattle off details about unsolved mysteries, you may slip into full-blown belief.
“Who pushed her?” Coffey asks 15-year-old Tammy. “A male. They were fighting and he got angry with her so he pushed her out,” Tammy explains in a shaky voice.
“She’s behind you, by the way.” “I know.” AAH! Then erratic camera moves and “Did you see that?! Did you hear that?!” exclamations start the Blair Witch Project-style fl ashbacks in motion, and doubt seeps in.
Throw anyone in any forest at 1:30 am with a night-vision camera and add heavy breathing and cracking stick sounds: it’s freaking spooky. In infrared, with their transparent, milky eyes, even babies in bouncy seats are scary.
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