Two genres mesh together in a uniquely grounded way for chilling new show Out There: Crimes of the Paranormal. The Hulu series digs into eight true crime cases containing elements of the paranormal world. The deep dive into these chilling stories is told through first-hand accounts from those who worked on the cases and family members of the deceased.
Many of these cases have already made headlines, but have never been explored in this depth. Among those investigated are lizard people possibly motivating a Nashville bomber, a six-year-old’s disappearance in the Smoky Mountains after being snatched by an ape-like beast, and the body of a Jersey teen found near the site of rumored witch activity.
The project comes from Duplass Brothers Productions and Number 18, the same creative team behind Sasquatch. Here executive producer Joshua Rofé and producer Mark Duplass (The Morning Show) preview what’s to come and how it may make you think twice about what you believe as myth or truth.
(Courtesy of Disney)
What was the process like of deciding what cases you wanted to explore?
Joshua Rofé: There were so many stories and cases we looked at. We wanted to make sure they can be first and foremost grounded in a certain amount of humanity. That was the bar we set for ourselves. Can we tell just human stories minus a genre element if you will and have it feel like a real documentary? If the answer was yes, then we moved over to another category, which was teh genre element of it. The paranormal, the cryptic. Is this satisfying if we set a high bar on that front also? Every story went through these two filters. Often we would find ourselves settling on a story and a lot of them falling by the wayside. Eventually, we got to these eight. It was a great team working for months and months and really just going through that process asking ourselves the same unpleasant questions over and over because we knew we were constantly going to be dismissing stories that might have something really compelling one way or another.
Mark Duplass: We were fortunate that with Sasquatch made we had a similar team before this. That tackled the human element and genre element together. It was similar here in terms of what we were chasing.
(Courtesy of Disney)
Are there any of these stories that went in a different direction than you were expecting?
Mark Duplass: They all were in some way, but what was fascinating for me who is not a lifelong conspiracy theorist. Although I did come with this with such a fascination. It’s that honoring someone’s truth and where they’re at that is so critical for a show like this. When someone sets a bomb off and harms another human being because they believe they were called to do it. That is their truth. Approaching them and being able to honor that truth for what it is was kind of the most critical element to getting these stories right. It’s delicate and sensitive. Having directors who were tied to these communities so they could tell these stories with authority. Our showrunner Allie [Alexandra Orton] just researched this thing for so long. That was really one of the most important parts.
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What do you think this show does for the families of the victims like the murder of Navajo woman Sarah Saginston for example?
Joshua Rofé: It’s tough to answer that question, but what we hope is for the first time in a really long time the truth will be presented. Which is that Sarah and her family deserve so much better at every single turn. To follow the horrific tragedy with injustice is so painful. I hope what we’re able to do is put on display what went wrong and how. You never know how someone is going to react and what they’re going to get out of it or not. I believe we put the truth forward, and the truth is they never received justice in any way. And quite frankly, that is unacceptable.
Out There: Crimes of the Paranormal, series premiere, September 24, Hulu
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