Like it or not, Team OBI commits 100% to its paranormal investigations
(UPDATED 12-20-2016: Team OBI is now available on Amazon VOD.)
There’s an early moment in a new documentary short about the Old Baraboo Inn where Allison Jornlin laments the conflict of interest the producers of Ghost Hunters must face. Popular basic cable programs set expectations with their spirit-seeking detectives, so when the results don’t meet the audience demand for scares, fakery and exaggeration are bound to turn up.
Say what you will about “paranormal investigators” (As an example, I just threw quotes around that), but the Milwaukee Ghosts founder certainly knows about the drawbacks of her pseudo-scientific industry, a glimpse of which is seen in Team OBI. The tidy short-form project follows around the titular team of the Sauk County landmark, now as famed for its alleged hauntings as it was for its reputation as a late 19th-century brothel. It begins with B.C. Farr. The owner responsible for the tavern’s 2002 resurrection after a fire effectively shut down the establishment in 1988, Farr heads up Team OBI, short for “Old Baraboo Inn” obviously. Citing a number of ghost mediums and psychics who have visited the building, Farr estimates as many as 30 spirits regularly haunt the place, including several cowboys, a gangster, and most recently, a man who died of a heart attack on the inn’s dance floor in 1979.
The history is objectively fascinating, but some of the details in Team OBI may be tough not to scoff at. A theory that the jukebox is a “portal” for spiritual energy is a hard pill to swallow, even when a medium is backing it up. Director Ben Wydeven has a tough challenge on his hands, trying to show the invisible “forces” that may or may not turn people away from the inn’s admittedly creepy basement.
But he does commit. One lights-out trip to the aforementioned basement finds a medium pressing her hands to the ground and recalling decades-old executions. With Farr standing by and confirming her blind read of the building’s spiritual activity, it’s a chilling moment, and adjacent to the team’s fancy meters and “spirit boxes” it makes for an affecting reinforcement that less is always more.
Wydeven stumbled into his film after being approached by the inn’s ownership for a separate freelance project, and the documentary only grew from there. “I saw the place and realized I needed to do a documentary,” Wydeven told me via Facebook. While Farr granted him access to parts of the inn traditionally cut off from the public, he still sees himself as an observer. “They consider me part of the team I think. But I think of myself as an outsider invited to document their investigations.”
After premiering last month at the inn’s annual paranormal open house, Team OBI will get an encore screening this Sat, Nov 5 at the Old Baraboo Inn at 7:00p alongside the latest entry in Wydeven’s fictional short film series The Raven James Chronicles. The fourth entry in the series, Mourning in the Cemetery, explores the responsibility of its eponymous medium (Daniel Harris) through a new character (Josh Paffel) racked with guilt over the death of his father. As a wise-cracking, chain-smoking paternal spirit, Croak’s performance adds some welcome levity to the series. There’s less atmosphere here than in previous entries, but the technical craft keeps improving with an ominous, pounding score and a standout tracking shot into the west side’s Forest Hill Cemetery.
- Mourning in the Cemetery will premiere within a chronological presentation of The Raven James Chronicles on Sat, Nov 5 at the Old Baraboo Inn (135 Walnut St.) at 7:00p. You can also catch an encore presentation of Team OBI. You can find more information on the Facebook event page.