Reviews
[Review] Amazon’s Horror-Comedy “Truth Seekers” Finds the Humanity and Horror in Paranormal Activity
Amazon Prime Video’s new horror/comedy series about paranormal investigators is a loving look into the genre with a fresh and scary story.
Ghost hunting has turned into an incredibly popular activity with a surprising number of shows on television that cater towards this weird corner of the paranormal. There’s a lot of skepticism around the art of ghost hunting, but there’s often just as much hesitation towards parodies and comedic takes on paranormal investigators. It’s an area that’s well defined, but it’s proven to be hard to properly nail the genre. Truth Seekers’ marketing makes it look like any other take on ghost hunters and clueless content creators. In reality, Truth Seekers finds a fresh energy for this material and it creates a story and characters that are easy to connect with, the series tackling the horror genre from a unique angle.
Truth Seekers centers around Gus Roberts (Nick Frost), a successful technician at Britain’s biggest Internet service provider and mobile network operator; but Gus also shares a penchant for the supernatural. He truly comes alive when he’s doing work for his YouTube channel as a plucky paranormal investigator. Gus’ rhythm gets seriously thrown off when he’s partnered up with a new hire, Elton (Samson Kayo), and they both begin to face real hauntings and paranormal activities on a level that they’ve never encountered before. A lot of shows would perhaps dig into the animosity between Gus and Elton and how he feels threatened by this new partner, but instead the two very quickly fall in step with each other. It’s a real joy to see the friendship that these two find in one another.
The characters in Truth Seekers are one of the series’ strongest assets and everyone is lovable in a way where you just want to spend more time with all of them. What’s also very important here is that Truth Seekers never treats Gus or any of his paranormal partners as fools or makes them the butt of jokes because of their interest in the bizarre. They’re portrayed as passionate and curious individuals and the series looks at this community of people with a level of empathy that’s often absent in ghost hunter content. It should also be emphasized that Truth Seekers is a team effort between Frost and Kayo; Simon Pegg’s involvement in front of the camera has certainly been exaggerated. He plays Dave, Gus and Elton’s boss at SMYLE. He’s a very fleeting presence in the series, but he ultimately gets to prove his worth in a bigger way by the end of the season.
There’s great chemistry between everyone, not just Gus and Elton. Astrid (Emma D’Arcy) is another individual who comes with her own set of experiences with the paranormal and finds her way into Gus’ weird supernatural circle. They’re a strange group, but it doesn’t take them long to find a comfortable rhythm. Truth Seekers also establishes a good dynamic between Gus and his live-in father, Richard (Malcolm McDowell). At first Richard is treated like a punchline that’s a little reductive to elderly characters, but he gains a deeper significance that ties together with Gus’ entanglement with this greater paranormal plot. McDowell also brings a tenderness to the character and the series and he and Elton’s sister, Helen (Susan Wokoma), forge a really sweet and unlikely bond. They’re both very natural and affectionate presences in Gus’ and Dave’s worlds. Some of the most entertaining scenes in the series are when the entire cast gets to be out on a case together. They feel like a real team by the end of the season.
Truth Seekers utilizes a fun structure where different Wi-Fi and broadband-related problems for Gus and Elton end up leading to supernatural happenings. It’s a silly way to mix together the mundane and extraordinary aspects of Gus’s life. Some really beautiful and poignant stories are told through the use of ghosts and unexplained phenomena. Truth Seekers also tells a much larger story that slowly builds through the season until it reaches a breaking point wherein Gus and Elton may be what stands between an evil entity stealing dozens of people’s souls.
Each episode of Truth Seekers is a satisfying self-contained story, but the series does a good job at weaving a compelling mystery that builds over the season. There’s a growing sense of dread that accompanies this and the final episodes of the season become rather intense. The series finds the right balance for how to parse out details and it really works when these disparate threads come together and these beleaguered characters can find a purpose through their unity. There’s a clear love for the different sub-genres of horror that are on display here like exorcisms, haunted dolls, cryptids, and serial killers, but then Truth Seekers will mix it with comedy that all feels very authentic to Frost and Pegg’s style. The recurring themes of nanobots, soul transference, and eternal life also become ongoing fascinations for the season.
Truth Seekers leans in a lot of directions, but it benefits from how it’s actually scary when it tries to be. These moments are well earned and there’s a high-level of quality that’s present here in the monsters and the effects. Some of the recurring ghosts in the series are truly disturbing. It’s one thing for the jokes to land in a series like this, but the show works all the better because the peak moments of the paranormal activities feel like they could legitimately be out of horror movies. Truth Seekers makes sure that both the horror and comedy elements feel authentic when they go to these extreme places. Jim Field Smith’s direction with writing from Frost, Pegg, Nat Saunders, and James Serafinowicz creates something really fun here from a scenario that could easily feel derivative at this point. Those familiar with the rest of Frost/Pegg’s work shouldn’t be disappointed with Truth Seekers. There are definitely vibes of Spaced here in terms of the stylistic flourishes towards the horror genre, but it actually bears the largest resemblance towards Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners and John Carpenter’s They Live, both in terms of tone and scope.
Truth Seekers joins what’s already an overcrowded genre, but it manages to make an impression and not just join the chorus of lost souls. It’s not the best show of the year, but it’s the perfect, lighthearted horror distraction for the Halloween season. It pushes a feeling of optimism and community that’s important now more than ever. The first season of this show touches on some unconventional bases and it’s exciting to think where a second season would take these characters and what fresh aspects of the horror genre that it’d like to examine. Hopefully Truth Seekers will be given a chance to grow, but if it doesn’t it will still stand out as an excellent piece of horror/comedy that tells a complete story on its own.
Season one of ‘Truth Seekers’ premieres on Amazon Prime Video on October 30th.
This review is based on all eight episodes of the first season.
Movies
‘Recluse’ Review – Harrowing Haunted House Horror With Lots Of Skeletons In Its Closet [Tribeca 2026]
A haunted house story is tense, terrifying storytelling when it’s properly executed. There’s been a growing tendency in horror to blend together harrowing haunted house stories with traumatic homecomings. A family member’s illness or death triggers a return to something dark that was intentionally left behind. Recluse hits all the tropes that one expects to find in this type of horror film, yet it manages to push this story in a daring, disturbing new direction that uses sound as a superpower.
It’s a unique lens to experience a familiar story about family secrets, generational trauma, unresolved grief, and the importance of not just legacy, but preservation. It’s a hell of a directorial debut from Henry Chaisson that’s guaranteed to get under the audience’s skin as they’re dragged through this painful, toxic tale.
Recluse is a gothic haunted house story where an isolated audio engineer, Joan (Sasha Frolova), returns to her family’s estate to check in on her father after he suffers a terrible accident. Joan suddenly discovers something much more sinister that paints her family’s tragedies in a very different light. Chaisson’s debut functions as a fascinating companion piece to this year’s undertone, which does a lot of the same things.
These two films make for a fascinating case of parallel thinking that tackles comparable subject matter through a similar lens, albeit in a bigger, less claustrophobic story in Recluse’s case. In fact, it’s the perfect horror film for anyone who was let down by undertone and didn’t feel like it brought enough to the table. It’s a considerably more conventional horror film, but this isn’t meant to denigrate its high quality. Recluse may hit some familiar notes, but it’s a scary, well-crafted haunted house horror story that goes for the jugular.
A gripping mystery that involves the tragic, unresolved circumstances that surround Joan’s mother teases a chilling connection to the recent horrors that have afflicted her father. Joan desperately tries to put these pieces together and give her family some sense of grander peace before she’s pulled under and becomes another victim of this festering curse that’s systematically worked its way through the Wyatt family. By doing so, Recluse digs into some deeper commentary on collective trauma, a very literal look at the “sins of the father” adage, and how one selfish decision can ripple through generations and fracture off into different dilemmas. By the end, Recluse has brilliantly flipped the powerful concept of legacy on its head by illustrating the horrors and sense of entitlement that can be born out of this idea.
A legacy is just another name for a curse under the right context.
”Listen” is a simple but powerful command from Joan’s father that she briefly obsesses over. In a way, it becomes Recluse’s grander mission statement, whether it’s in response to Joan listening to the people in her life, the signals that her body and mind are telling her, or the world’s greater whims. It’s important to reconnect with these grounding pillars, especially when it feels like control is slipping away.
Recluse excels with how audio and soundscapes can create entire universes that are full of rich details that transport individuals to these environments. There’s also a level of objectivity when it comes to audio recordings and the evergreen permanence that they’re able to provide. Joan’s career as an audio engineer makes sense for someone who wants to cling to hard evidence and proof of existence. It provides great insight into Joan without ever getting lost in contrived exposition.
Joan’s entire life is built around audio engineering, and so it makes sense that Recluse features excellent sound design that really goes above and beyond with its production elements. All of the sound design is expertly handled and turns the film into something special. These auditory elements intuitively keep the audience on edge so that they’re more susceptible to the actual scares that eventually strike. The smallest sound effect gets turned into a crushing, cacophonous assault. It’s a really effective way to build terror. Writer/Director Chaisson also handles the film’s music, which achieves a sublime, unnerving dissonance that further heightens the free-floating anxiety.
The story at the center of Recluse is slightly generic in some respects, but the film’s visual language and tone make it feel distinctly memorable. It also doesn’t hurt that the home that Joan returns to is basically an eerie art studio that’s full of contorted paintings. Recluse never struggles to generate mounting dread and terror that pump through every scene. Powerful, thoughtful cinematography consistently reinforces the film’s themes. Joan is constantly reflected in different surfaces or viewed through mirrors. She’s also often confined to tight, constricting framing that all speaks to her refracted identity during this moment of loss and her attempts to regain agency and control by making sense of something that’s seemingly unexplainable.
Recluse is full of truly disturbing visuals that make it seem like Joan is lost in a dream that turns out to be an extended nightmare. It’s a surreal journey reminiscent of invasive psychological horror like Silent Hill, with a touch of Sinister and Hereditary thrown in for good measure. There are so many individual frames that could endlessly fuel urban legends and creepypastas.
It does a great job with how it presents Joan’s fragile state of mind, where chilling flashes of the past sneak up on her and unresolved trauma manifests into unsettling imagery. There are endless shots that are obscured in darkness, or shadow is creeping in from the corners of frames like a suffocating force of nature. It’s very rare that a scene is fully lit. It leads to a very lonely, isolating atmosphere that’s easy to get lost in.
Chaisson’s debut stands out from the many other high-minded haunted house horror films without succumbing to the same pretensions that often drag down these stories. It’s a grief-stricken character study that’s full of upsetting visuals that scratch at something visceral and raw. The horror elements connect, and the answers to its grander mystery provide an appropriate and believable sense of closure. Those who are looking for an atmospheric horror film that isn’t afraid to be different while still channeling something real will appreciate Recluse.
Recluse made its world premiere at Tribeca; release info TBD.
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