The Dead Files

The Dead Files is slightly different from what we’ve come to know (and expect) as the standard for paranormal tv shows. Instead of a team of ghost hunters running into a location, setting up cameras, and making their way through a supposedly haunted location attempting to capture evidence of the paranormal activity claimed to take place, The Dead Files sends in the duo Amy Allan and Steve Dishiavi, a medium and a retired NYPD homicide detective to perform separate investigations of the location.

The show follows a specific formula that is shared by every episode with only minor—if any—variations:

• Steve Dishiavi introduces the episode while driving into town with a quick review of the activity experienced by the client
• Matt Anderson goes through the location covering and removing distracting and identifying information to prevent influencing Amy while she conducts her investigation of the property
• Amy’s enters the location and identifying feelings, energy, and spirits at the location, while Matt follows her through the location filming and asking questions
• Cut to “X hours earlier” where Steve’s investigation has begun by interviewing the clients about their experiences
• Steve follows conducts further research, looking into events that took place at or near the location, interviewing experts about it
• Steve and Amy’s investigations jump back and forth, Amy encounters entities that coincide with the events Steve finds
• Amy meets with a sketch artist to draw one or two sketches of the entities that she encountered
• Steve and Amy meet—for the first time during the investigation—to reveal their findings and recommend courses of action to the clients
• The show ends with a text overlay that explains whether the client followed the recommendations and whether the activity is still being experienced.

The Investigation(s):

In order to keep things simple I’m going to look at each of the investigations separately, even though they cut back and forth between the two. More on that later…

Steve’s Investigation:

Steve’s role in the show is client contact, interviewer, and researcher. The first step in his investigation process is to interview the client, their family, and their friends. Throughout the interview process he seems to play up his homicide detective persona—he’ll ask questions in a tone that probably seems normal to a New Yorker, but feels aggressive to my Midwestern sensibilities, especially when being directed toward the client who can be considered a victim of the phenomena taking place.

His questions are pretty standard, exactly what you would expect from someone performing background research on a location, the family, and events taking place. Steve carries himself as being concerned with just the facts, as any detective might.

Once the client interview are complete, Steve moves on to researching the property, former owners, events that have taken place on or near the property, and interviewing local historians, police, genealogists, and many other experts. During the course of each episode he manages to find some incredibly interesting information about a death or historical event that would explain the haunting plaguing the client.

Amy’s Investigation:

Several hours after Steve’s investigation (according to the on-screen message) we jump to Amy’s investigation—her “walk”. This starts with Matt, her assistant, going through the house and hiding or covering anything that might distract or influence Amy. Then Amy comes in and starts her walk. Often, as she approaches the property, she’ll start to have some interactions with the spirits or entities—sometimes as she’s pulling up to the property she’ll talk about how an entity contacted her the night before in her hotel room.

Once the investigation officially begins there is a change in demeanor—how she speaks and composes herself. While not the most awkward thing to experience, it is slightly unsettling. Amy begins to talk and make facial expressions that are child-like. Across the intervening seasons this change began to take on a more inebriated feel. I’m not entirely sure if one is better than the other as much as they’re both mildly uncomfortable to watch. These shifts in her demeanor, however, make her reactions feel more genuine—she’s the only TV medium I’ve encountered so far that has this sort of change, though I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Does it make her experiences more realistic? Or is this just so over the top that it’s completely fabricated. I can’t say, I’m not an expert on mediums, but it is at least different.

The Sketch Artist

At the end of each investigation Amy performs, she has a local sketch artist create an image based on the things she encountered during her walks. More often than not, these are descriptions of the entities she interacted with or observed. Occasionally, though, she’ll have the artist draw a scene that she describes—black masses, oozing goo, spirits harassing or attacking people. Often, the images of individuals are compared to photographs of clients’ family members or previous owners of the location during the reveal portion and are often incredibly similar to the people in the photographs found by Steve during his investigation.

The Reveal

At this stage, Steve and Amy come together to present their findings to their clients. They make a point to tell the client that this is the first time they will have discussed any of their findings with each other, then they proceed to go through their findings, one-by-one—Amy describes what she encountered, Steve then explains how the history of the location lines up with what Amy experienced. The owners or residents of the location are usually surprised and/or horrified by the things that are revealed to them. Their reactions range from confusion all the way through despair at the prospect of what lies ahead of them.

Once they’ve gone through all of the evidence, it’s time of Amy to let the client know what their next steps are. One of two things happens now:

1. Amy tells the client what they need to do in order to make it safe for them to continue living there, which often includes burning sage, calling a priest, or finding a Native American shaman or,
2. She tells them they need to move out to be safe

After the client learns the conclusion from the team, the show ends and we’re given one last on-screen message letting us—the viewer—know how the client responded to the news, whether they’ve followed the advice, moved, or did nothing. With the number of episodes that end with the client needing to leave the location, a lot of these clients ignore the advice or have trouble finding ways to follow through on it. As far as I’m aware, there haven’t been any episodes following up with these previous clients to find out how they’ve fared.

The Verdict

The Dead Files sticks to its formula, almost too well. There is no real variation, aside from the rare occasion where Steve asks Amy to step in and interview a client (in the three seasons I viewed it only happened one time). It’s unfortunate because the show, while changing locations, clients, and experiences, can feel quite stale—watching one episode tells you everything you need to know about every other episode. The real focal point of each episode becomes the client, what they’re experiencing, and the specific details of those experiences and the history of the location. The show won’t be entertaining for some people because the “action” doesn’t really change. I alternated between enjoying watching the procedural feel of it and being bored by it. For having something on in the background with a paranormal feel, this certainly fits the bill since you can tune in and out while it’s on and not feel like you’ve missed anything.

One thing that will seem incredible, and likely get on your nerves, is the way that the two main investigations jump back and forth between information that Steve has uncovered and a spirit that Amy is interacting with confirming each other. It goes a little something like this:

Steve: [During interview with local police] “So you’re saying that one of the original homeowners was shot in the head in his own living room?”
[Cut to Amy]
Amy: [Walking through location] “I’m seeing a man with a wound on his head.”

*Note: This is just a dramatization

These edits give the show a sense that Amy is encountering spirits that match very closely with the history of the property, adding to the sense of the realness of the encounters she’s having. On occasion she will encounter something that Steve doesn’t have a historical anecdote to corroborate, what we’re missing though, is at least one episode where Amy doesn’t really encounter anything of note during her walk. Referring back to the opening of the show where Steve makes a point of saying “we’re this family’s last hope”, it would seem like the producers are going out of their way to ensure that the locations they go to are haunted. It just feels odd that 100 percent of the time, there is a dangerous haunting taking place at the locations they investigate.

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The Dead Files airs on the Travel Channel. You can stream seasons 1, 7, and 8 on Hulu with your subscription, purchase seasons on Amazon Prime or watch them as part of the Destination Unknown subscription, watch all 13 Seasons online at watch.travelchannel.com or on the Travel Channel app with your cable or satellite subscription, or with your Discovery+ subscription.