The Goblins Are the Point
By: Alana R. Sawchuk
Tags: Hellier, Goblins, Documentary, Culture, Paranormal

Hellier’s premise feels kind of silly at first. A ghost hunter (Greg Newkirk) and a hedge witch (Dana Newkirk) travel to Kentucky after they receive a mysterious e-mail about strange creatures running around the abandoned mines of Appalachia — goblins of all things. And while the series begins with this focus on the possible existence of goblins (and as it’s later explained, “goblins” is codeword for “aliens” in certain circles), it absolutely does not conclude that way. By the end of the first season and throughout the second, there’s an understanding that the A.C.B.T.F. (“Alien Cave Base Task Force”) has entered into some kind of arrangement with what they frequently refer to as “the phenomena.” And whether they really have been chasing goblins/aliens the whole time; or been at the whims of the Mothman and ultraterrestrials; or the Greek god Pan and its many iterations; or even the federal government and cannibal cults, the investigation and concurrent documentary project becomes a completely unheard of phenomenological exercise (or dare I say, “ritual”) within multiple paranormal and cultural spheres.

The tempting blend of belief and disbelief on the part of the subjects is what got me hooked initially. The fact that the Newkirks and their compatriots (Karl Pfeiffer and Connor Randall) aren’t always so willing to believe was what made it so enticingly believable! Mulder and Scully are alive and well in this docuseries — from the frustrating ups and downs to the unsettling synchronicities. As an aside, I’d like to thank Hellier for providing me with the word “synchronicities,” something that almost everyone experiences at some point in their lives and often struggles to name. A friend of mine has gotten into the lovely habit of texting me the word “SYNCHRONICITY” at the most minor of coincidences, but I digress.

noun syn • chro • nic • i • ty 1 : the quality or fact of being synchronous 2 : the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (such as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality — used especially in the psychology of C.G. Jung (x)

Hellier thrives on the idea of coincidence imbued with cosmic significance; of synchronicities as a driving force that has been thought to occur in order to “keep our brains from settling.” It’s even suggested that these coincidental episodes act as a mechanism for healing or creativity — experiences that might awaken us to our surroundings and break us out of a rut we didn’t know we were in. I find this fascinating for a number of reasons, but for the purposes of this particular piece it seems especially relevant in terms of when the series appeared on the scene for public consumption — the contextual landscape in which it arrived. Both literally and figuratively, the setting is absolutely crucial to appreciating this project in all of its many facets. And speaking as someone with little to no lived understanding of that part of the country, I found it to be an intimate and immersive representation of a region that many people struggle to understand.

I’m not wild about injecting our 45th president into all of our cultural conversations, but it’s difficult to avoid the pervasive quality of both him and the 2016 election, which shone an uncomfortable spotlight on forgotten places. Whether they voted for the guy/movement or not, Hellier makes it easy to understand how large segments of the population might feel left behind. As the crew drives into Hellier for the first time they’re quick to note the fact that unfinished highway overpasses sit towering and abandoned — a heavy handed but not incorrect visual of literal separation; as if the community had been purposefully cut off from the world around it.

Unfinished highway overpasses as the crew drives into Hellier (1x02).

This creeping feeling of malicious sabotage absolutely suits the purposes of the paranormal narrative that Hellier sets. “It would be easier,” you might think to yourself, “to get away with something if no one is watching.” And while it could be reasonably argued that the right side of the political spectrum has exploited (and continues to exploit) these hard hit areas, I never got a similar impression when I was watching Hellier.

It’s extremely easy to find paranormal content disingenuous; and it is often passed over due to viewer skepticism, whether that be about the existence of the paranormal generally, or the believability of the investigators. I’ve certainly watched my fair share of the genre, and it was never anything I followed with regularity, but as you might have been able to guess by now, Hellier is different. It helps that Greg and Dana Newkirk are themselves skeptical at the outset of this investigation and throughout the course of both seasons. And it’s not just their approach to the mystery — it’s the way they interact with and care for the people they talk to. The conversations held with Hellier’s residents in the darkened parking lot of the city’s only gas station are just as compelling as their nighttime hikes inside echoing caves. There’s something to be said for the act of listening; holding the weight of other people’s perspectives in your heart as if it’s a precious thing, which was a common refrain long after the 2016 election was over. Indeed, the necessity of communication ripples throughout both seasons — whether that’s between humans or not. A frequent refrain of the paranormal genre is that despite what you might have been led to believe, the danger is not the unknown, rather it is that which we might consider to be most familiar. This is similarly the case in Hellier, which following the conclusion of its first season starts down a rockier and less certain path in terms of who they (and we) should trust.

Season 1 is an exercise in abundant optimism. There’s a feeling of pursuing the unknown with a certain degree of recklessness. Consider “David,” the man who first contacts Greg Newkirk via his semi-abandoned e-mail account with talk of goblins. David’s initial e-mail; arguably the catalyst for the entire project, is objectively crazy so far as the content is concerned, but the man in question reads as surprisingly “normal.” And while most of us have been using the Internet long enough to be skeptical of whoever contacts us out of the blue, there’s something about David’s claims that feel genuine — especially when contrasted with his counterpart that appears in Season 2. The second season takes something of a darker turn, which the investigative team is fairly quick to point out. While Season 1 is almost entirely without feelings of malignancy, Season 2 asks both the investigators and the audience to proceed with caution in a way that hadn’t felt necessary in the season prior. The second season drags out an extremely unsettling reveal — a woman named Amy claiming to have experienced a tangential phenomena appears, only her claims are far more insidious. Again by e-mail, and arguably the sequel to David’s missive, Amy’s message to the Newkirks is almost entirely diametrically opposed to David’s — in content, in voice, and arguably in intent. Amy’s claims are less of a creature feature and more of an uncomfortably familiar caricature of a Q Drop. Season 2 of Hellier was both filmed and premiered prior to QAnon’s existence in the cultural consciousness at large, and I wasn’t aware of it when I watched the show for the first time, however upon rewatching with QAnon in my rearview mirror, the insidiousness felt to me tenfold. Regardless, it absolutely enriched the piece and made me feel all the more confident in my initial premise — that of seeking unrepentant joy as opposed to fear in the face of the unknown; that Hellier is in fact an antithesis of the very thing that pushed QAnon through the country’s open wounds and out into the open.

What’s upsetting about Amy’s inclusion in the narrative (aside from the alleged cult murders) is that you might find yourself falling into a trap. Why might David’s profession; his gender; his class status; his use of language; make him the more believable of the two? In what now feels like a very in-character move, Greg ends up speaking with Amy (who since writing had been incarcerated). Personally, I don’t know if I would have given her the platform; but once you’ve seen the way Greg talks to the residents of Hellier and other witnesses who have claimed to experience “high strangeness,” his lack of judgement isn’t surprising. Regardless of the fact that the team at large is quick to dismiss Amy’s claims, they don’t necessarily dismiss her. I think there’s a very real question here, and it once again bleeds into our current cultural moment — about how much bandwidth we choose to give certain ideas in order to render an act of service (i.e., the act of listening). Even if Amy’s claims are likely nonsense, and potentially dangerous nonsense, there’s still a reason she made them. No matter what judgments you might have, it’s not controversial to say that Amy has experienced real struggle. She seems to have no support network, and she claims to have lost her job and wound up in jail. Like the town of Hellier itself, there’s a very real sense that she has found herself entirely isolated and has sought a connection somewhere in the void.

So far as the content is concerned, David’s claims are easier to swallow. There’s no suggestion of ritual murder for one; no tortured screams or wizard staffs, but it’s also true that we would likely always be given to believing him over a woman like Amy. It’s not the first time Hellier quietly addresses the issue of class status. There’s even a discussion of who tends to experience, or claims to experience, phenomena — frequently it’s people who you could say exist “within the margins” of society, and a sense that the phenomena (whatever it is pulling their strings) relies heavily upon the ideas of “anti-structure” and “liminality.” Like most things involved with this investigation, there are multiple ways to interpret the decision to indulge Amy’s claims. While it’s true that, yes, she’s a human being and we can feel empathy for her situation, there’s also the fact that what she’s actually saying could have potentially disastrous repercussions. “She’s throwing out everything,” Connor concludes after he first reads her e-mail; “everything” being every single conspiracy you’ve heard whispered over the years — The Satanic Panic meets Area 51. “At this point,” he continues, “it doesn’t become fun anymore.” It was a sentiment I very much agreed with, and I was relieved to see that most of the group felt similarly. While this particular facet of the investigation read as almost certainly being related to the phenomena in some way, it was more likely a red herring and an important piece of the story only so far as what it ultimately leads to. Further, what was really eye-opening to me was when these darker elements seemed to coincide with a new member of the investigative team.

Tyler Strand makes a small appearance in Season 1 and only over the phone. He’s a one-man investigative team who provides us with another synchronicity as the first season reaches its conclusion. He shows back up in Season 2 as what we might call a “season regular.” He is bold and brash in a way that the Newkirks, Karl, and Connor are not, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and it’s especially compelling as a narrative point. While Greg, Dana, Karl, and Connor often err on the side of skepticism, Tyler believes recklessly (which you’ll recall from Season 1, would seem to be the point). It’s exciting at times, but starts to become more problematic so far as Amy’s e-mail (what I have lovingly referred to as “the Q e-mail”) is concerned. Tyler is very much ready to consider this line of thinking as legitimate — he frequently uses the terms “They” and “Somebody,” a favorite of conspiracy-prone individuals who love to place blame on some mysterious (and often malignant) entity as opposed to what is far more likely to be real, complicated, and incredibly hard to resolve. Even more interesting is the way in which the futility of conspiracy culture plays itself out on screen through Tyler’s own journey.

Tyler had already intended to follow an old lead into the mountains. He had planned on doing so before Amy’s e-mail, and seems even more enthusiastic after he learns of it. Tyler winds up in what could only be called “the middle of nowhere,” and despite any skepticism you might feel, your heart will likely race alongside his own. After all, how many “nothings” up until this point have unexpectedly turned into something? “They know I’m here,” he mumbles ominously as a helicopter flies overhead; the fear and uncertainty evident in his voice, and for a few moments you wonder… do They? But ultimately, no. There’s nothing there. Some split branches, a deflated balloon (funnily enough that will be important later), and a story after the fact that is one of the least credible of the entire series. An alleged interaction with a couple in a house nearby and a local cop, neither of which is documented other than by Tyler’s own account. There’s something sexy about Amy and Tyler’s claims; about the possibility of some secret government agency following a paranormal investigator into the mountains. And while Amy’s e-mail and Tyler’s episode are certainly exciting and distracting, they ultimately lead to… nothing. Aside from one seemingly inconsequential detail, most of Tyler’s documented experience leads to little in the way of conclusive evidence.

Tyler witnesses a helicopter on his trip to the mountains (2x04).

Just as Amy’s e-mail reads as a red herring, so too does much of Tyler’s experience on the mountain. There’s a lot distracting about it, but so far as the investigation at large is concerned, it’s one minor detail (the balloon) that ends up being really important to the investigation at large. Much in the same way uncomfortably large segments of our population have taken to conspiracy the last few years, these outlandish theories are ultimately unhelpful get out of jail free cards. They might titillate us in the moment (which is why they might be a fun premise for a TV show, as an example), but they’re generally used as an excuse to think uncritically and to avoid the discomfort that comes with accepting an increasing number of unknowns, and understanding that our reality does not often reflect the common conventions that our Western, Eurocentric stories have led us to believe.

This was part of the reason why I was surprised when, to my abundant regret, Season 2 touched very briefly on the Hero’s Journey (Ask me about my Master’s thesis!) — Joseph Campbell’s theory of what many have come to believe is the perfect foundational narrative. I’m here to tell you that the Hero’s Journey has had its fun, but the jig is up. I found it amusing that the filmmakers started harping on it, because up until that point I had been entirely pleased with Hellier as something that acted antithetically to a predictable narrative and seemed to be perfectly content with doing so. One of the reasons I’ve grown tired of this narrative methodology is that it seems to have shaped certain expectations for our own lives — it minimizes the complexities we often confront and tricks us into believing that we’re following some predictable or recognizable path that has, quite frankly, benefited certain individuals/experiences over others. The chaotic, up-and-down nature of the investigation is more representative of how life tends to go rather than how it might play out in a traditional Hero’s Journey-style narrative. The investigators (and at this point, the audience) would all seem to be on a journey — that much is certain. The precise nature of that journey and where it might lead is less so (and thank goodness for that).