Are The Ghosties Ready for SNOOKI: THE PARANORMAL ROOKIE? ‘It’s scary, it’s spooky, and you’re seeing it the way we’re seeing it’

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi has a great haunted-house scream. It’s so sharp, and piercing, and seemingly out of nowhere, it even makes some of her co-investigators jump back in SNOOKI: THE PARANORMAL ROOKIE, which premieres Friday, Oct. 2, with two episodes on Crave. So has anyone ever told Snooki that she missed her calling as a so-called “scream queen?” “Well, I’m told that I’m always loud, so I guess so,” she said. “But yeah, when I scream, I’m genuinely scared. And throughout this entire process, I was so excited to do it, because it’s on my bucket list to be a paranormal investigator. But also, I was terrified, because I’d never really done something like this with pros before. So I’m already terrified going into it. Then I hear a noise. I’m on edge. So I scream a lot because I’m nervous.” SNOOKI: THE PARANORMAL ROOKIE follows the reality-TV icon (JERSEY SHORE) as she finally leans into her lifelong connection and unwavering belief in the spirit world. With no formal paranormal training, Snooki joins an expert team – featuring internationally acclaimed psychic medium Kevin Whitaker, occult expert and historian Missy Morrow, and paranormal tech specialist Todd Thomas – as they look for ghosts (or “ghosties,” as Snooki calls them) at reportedly haunted sites across Ontario. In a joint interview, Snooki and Whitaker set the dark and spooky scene: Q: Snooki uses the term “ghosties” instead of “ghosts.” This show is quite creepy at times, but “ghosties” seems to cut the tension a bit. Where did that come from? NICOLE “SNOOKI” POLIZZI: “I just feel like when it comes to ghosts, I want to treat them like I would people. So instead of trying to invade their space, and be annoying, I want to be bubbly to them, and be like, ‘hi, ghosties! I’m here. I want to chat.’ I want to bring a different vibe than the normal way that you see paranormal investigators go into it. I want the ghosts to have fun and be chill, so we can get some stuff.” Q: Kevin, in your line of work, do you get the sense that the spirits are just messing with us a lot of the time? KEVIN WHITAKER: “Definitely. There are times when a ghost either pretends to be something that they’re not, or as we’re engaging, we’re not getting the entire picture all at once, and so we have to be careful that we’re not presuming too much. But there are certainly those spirits who are just out to, you know, grant you a scare, or to mess around with who they are, and where they’re from, those types of things. There are some spirits who give me everything, I can see them, hear them, I can identify where they’re from, what time, and I feel like I have a reasonable engagement. And then there are some spirits who aren’t accustomed to being connected with at all. We had one such location that had no paranormal history, and we really visited that place just to test the theory, and the spirit there caught me off guard completely, only because the presentation was frightening. I think that spirit frightened the entire crew. At one point Nicole looked at me and said, ‘are you scared?’ And I was like, ‘I’m a little bit rattled.’ It felt like it was the first time in 15, 20 years that I could honestly say that.” Q: Even from the first episode to the second episode, Snooki seemed more comfortable with all this stuff. Is it fair to say she became less scared? NICOLE “SNOOKI” POLIZZI: “I think I needed to get the gist of it. I went in really nervous, on top of being worried that I was going to get touched by a ghost, because I feel like I always do. Then once we did the first episode in the first location, I was like, all right, it’s still scary, but I feel cozy with my co-stars, and I know they have my back, because I do get scared. So I guess I felt more comfortable as it went on, but I mean, I’m still scared. That’s why I have spirit juice. Spirit juice is my wine, and I have a nice glass of wine to calm my nerves. And also I feel like when I do have a glass of wine, it opens up my third eye, which is weird. So, like, I can feel the ghosties more. I don’t know, I just get more out of the experience.” Q: Kevin, what’s the biggest misconception about what you do? KEVIN WHITAKER: “For me personally, I find that a lot of people suppose that everything I encounter is evil or negative, or that I have a fascination with the evil or negative. And really, I’m very welcoming of that wholesome, cool, ‘Casper the Friendly Ghost’ spirit being there. I’m just fascinated by what we find out, and advancing the evidence that I think people need to see.” Q: Was there anything about doing this show that you didn’t foresee? NICOLE “SNOOKI” POLIZZI: “Coming from reality TV, and making sure we capture what we need to, it was way harder than I thought it would be to show what we’re feeling, because sometimes you kind of have to be there to feel it. So we needed to get into the habit of saying what we were feeling out loud, or describing what we felt was around us, or what was going on, because you’re not really physically getting it as a viewer unless it’s on the recorders, or whatever they’re called.” KEVIN WHITAKER: “Yeah, we have so many devices, like the SLS (Structured Light Sensor), to demonstrate a spirit in stick form. Sometimes too, adding to what Nicole was saying, we can express what we’ve seen, but there’s a degree of, like, ‘trust me, bro.’ When we’re sharing that we’ve had an experience with a spirit, or I’ve seen what I see, the audience is kind of left to believe what I’ve said. So it’s beautiful to have Todd Thomas, he’s our tech guy, come back and maybe after the investigation, after we’ve left a location, he’s like, ‘hey, listen to what I picked up at three in the morning at this pioneer church,’ We then have the evidence supplied by him upon review.” Q: So much of this series was essentially shot in the dark. How challenging was that? KEVIN WHITAKER: “I’ll tell you what I really appreciate about it, and it was more like a creative choice, I think, by Nicole, our executive producer, and the people behind the scenes. It’s that, rather than have the night-vision cameras that you see in most ghost-hunting shows – we’re guilty of it on DARK DEALINGS as well, if you see me on YouTube, we’ve got the night-vision cameras and stuff – but this was shot a little bit different, with as little light cast on us as possible. I think it’s important to plunge yourselves into the dark as much as we can. This one looks so different, and it’s just absolutely stunning and gorgeous.” NICOLE “SNOOKI” POLIZZI: “When we’re in the club, it’s dark. So I’ve filmed in the dark a lot (Kevin laughs). But I feel it wasn’t that hard, because you have the big lights from the cameras, so you kind of see where you’re going. We have the flashlights and everything. But like Kevin said, I definitely wanted a different feel than all the night-vision greens that are always on these types of shows. I wanted it to be legit. You’re in the dark with us. Like, you’re there. It’s scary, it’s spooky, and you’re seeing it the way we’re seeing it.” Q: Snooki, you made a fascinating observation that one of your gauges of comfort is asking yourself, “could I sleep in this room?” Have you always had that? NICOLE “SNOOKI” POLIZZI: “Yeah, ever since I was little growing up, I just felt things in my room, I felt things in the other room, I felt things walking down the hallway, I felt things outside. So I was never fully comfortable in a room unless, you know, I made the ambiance nice, and the blinds were shut. I just always felt like I was never alone in a room. So even now, going to hotels, just this past week I was in L.A., and I went in the hotel room, and I was like, this is creepy. I feel like somebody’s here. So I always feel like there are ghosties walking around, and I never feel alone. So especially going on these ghost hunts, obviously we’re not alone in these places. So I might say, ‘I don’t think I could sleep in here, definitely not, the energy’s heavy.’” Q: Have you ever actually switched hotel rooms because of those feelings? NICOLE “SNOOKI” POLIZZI: “Yeah, I think once. I think it was in L.A. a long time ago. I just couldn’t sleep, and I felt like someone was staring at me. You know I love my sleep, and I wasn’t getting sleep, so I actually had to switch rooms because it didn’t feel cozy in that room.” Q: Finally, what do you think are some of the best fictional representations of ghosts, in TV and movies? NICOLE “SNOOKI” POLIZZI: “Well, I’m a zombie girl. I’m always a horror girl. So when I want to chill, I put on zombies. I put on World War Z, or THE WALKING DEAD. But when it comes to paranormal and ghosts and demons, I feel like The Conjuring (available on Crave) is one of the best, and I feel like it’s the most accurate. And also, when you read about the filming of The Conjuring and the sequels, there are always crazy things that happen on set to the actors and the production crew.” KEVIN WHITAKER: “Of the two I hold up, The Conjuring also makes my list. I love the suspense and the true paranormal, entity interaction. Also, Insidious was one that really gave me chills, because it so strikes on some of the spirit encounters that I’ve had that were mostly negative. I’m not much for horror/slasher-type movies. I’m just out when it comes to that. But one of my earliest loves for fiction and the paranormal was Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. I love how those spirits were introduced, especially the ghost of Christmas yet to come. It really impressed me. I’m like, ‘that’s pretty dang accurate.’” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv