Zoren: ‘Spooky Kisses Haunts’ a documentary series about fright sites

Boo!

Beverly Perry, known more by her television persona, Spooky Kisses, hears that hundreds of times each year, as she and her husband, photographer Rich Perry, travel America, with frequent stops in Pennsylvania, to film haunted houses, fright sites, and other venues of horror, for their Amazon documentary series, “Spooky Kisses Haunts.”

For now, Rich Perry says, almost apologetically, the two seasons Rich and Spooky have shot are available on Amazon via pay-per view. In December, they will land on free-access screaming — make that “streaming” — platforms such as Hulu.

Meanwhile, this is the season for Rich and Spooky to go visiting the barns, farms, estates, houses, and back rooms outfitted to scare the wits out of Halloween visitors. Rich reports that Pennsylvania alone has 207 such attractions: “That’s why we spend so much time there.”

This week, they were on a multi-acre site in West Virginia that goes from a grand hunting lodge to a haunting extravaganza each October.

“For many of these sights, it’s a five-week period in which they attract thousands of visitors and work hard to frighten them thoroughly,” Rich says. “Some of these places employ 200 actors and go to great expense on machinery, costumes, makeup, and theatrical effects to create horror.”

In an episode shot at the Fright Farms in western Pennsylvania, one of the actors told Bev Perry, as Spooky, the site should sell pants at the exit because there are incidents when a visitor can’t stay in the pants he or she is wearing.

Among the sites the Perrys have documents is the notorious Pennhurst Hospital in Chester County’s Spring City, just across the Schuylkill River from Montgomery County.

“Fright sites arise in various ways,” the Perrys say. “Pennhurst is a case of a corporate concern taking deteriorating real estate with a reputation for cruel events and making into a major seasonal attraction that helps to finance Pennhurst’s historical status as a place when terrible things happened.”

The hospital, primarily a state-run dumping ground for disabled children, was closed in 1987 after exposes that chronicled the dreadful conditions there.

The Perrys came by “Spooky Kisses Haunts” by accident.

Rich, a television producer, photographer, and editor by background, cannot resist shooting footage everywhere he goes. Even if It’s via his telephone.

He and Beverly, recently married, were aware of the horror attractions that were springing up, but they didn’t consider making television documentaries about them.

One day, as civilians, they visited a small haunted house in Salem, Mass., one open to the public for Halloween.

Rich began shooting the site. The owner encouraged him. He edited his footage, with Bev, as Spooky, providing narrative, and a hobby became a production company.

“I graduated in equipment from a smartphone to a shoulder-held camera to state-of-the-art camera and editing tools,” Rich says.

Spooky Kisses (Beverly) is the star of the pieces. She goes through each house and reports her screams and reactions, which are not acted but the result of troopers out to make your hair stand on end.

After being barraged by ax-wielders, chain saw carriers, and all kinds of sinister masked creatures, Bev conducts interviews that delve into horror and why people enjoy being scared.

She then takes you behind the scenes to show how the shocks are achieved.

“I am the actress-comedienne-reporter on camera, having all the reactions to whatever is thrown at me while Rich calmly records my panic and the documentary portions in which we go into the process of scaring and the expense fright sites go to so they can attract visitors,” Bev says.

The Perrys point out many of the sites donate to charities after Halloween. They mention figures up to $58,000.

Bev and Rich have a great story of their own. They were widowed four months apart.

Bev was a bridesmaid at Rich’s first wedding. His late wife was a bridesmaid at hers.

“Before we dated or considered a relationship of our own, we were each other’s comfort,” they say. “One of us was in New Hampshire, the other in Massachusetts. Our chats turns into dates and into love. Now we’re on the road together documenting how people scare and get scared.”

Phillies telecast schedule

Now it’s five more wins!

One, occurring, I hope, Monday or Tuesday at Citizens Bank Park, is currently the most crucial. It will determine whether the Philadelphia Phillies advance to their second consecutive World Series.

If they do, it will be the second time they’ve played in back-to-back Fall Classics, the first being earlier this century in 2008 and 2009.

Monday’s game, a rematch of Aaron Nola on the mound for the Phillies and Merrill Kelly pitching for the Arizona Diamondbacks, is set for 5 p.m. on TBS with Brian Anderson, Jeff Francoeur and Ron Darling announcing.

Scott Franzke, Larry Andersen, Tom McCarthy and Kevin Stocker call the game on WIP (94.1 FM).

Tuesday game, which would be a nail biter if it’s necessary, would be played at 8 p.m. on TBS.

The Phillies lead the Diamondbacks 3-2 in a best-of-seven National League Championship Series.

They may have clinched a World Series berth by now except for some predictably dreadful relief pitching.

The American League contenders, the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers, were also at 3-2, advantage Houston, when this column was written.

The World Series, a possible rematch between the Phillies and Astros, begins Friday on Fox (Channel 29).

Subsequent games are set for Saturday, next Monday through Wednesday, and Nov. 3 and 4, if necessary. The MLB World Champion for 2023 to be known by Nov. 4 at the latest.

Joe Davis, John Smoltz, Ken Rosenthal and Tom Verducci will be Fox’s broadcast team. Franzke and company will handle local radio broadcasts on WIP if the Phillies contend.

No times or locations have been provided for the Series games. They are about to be determined, depending most on whether matches have to swing east to accommodate the Phillies and our time zone.

If the Phillies reunite with the Astros, our guys will have homefield advantage, meaning Games 1 and 2 and, if necessary, 6 and 7, take place at the Bank.

If they duel with the Rangers, Texas has homefield advantage.

This is based on the Phillies winning the regular-season series against the Astros while losing it to the Rangers, each of which they faced once in April.

Either American League teams scores homefield against the Diamondbacks based on their overall season record.

The Phillies, Astros and Rangers all finished with 90-72 tallies, making their individual series the decider.

The Diamondbacks had 84 wins, putting them at the bottom of the homefield totem pole.

Philly mayoral town hall is Monday

Thank goodness Channel 6 is carrying a Mayoral Town Hall between candidates Charelle Parker (D) and David Oh (R) at 7 Monday night.

For one thing, it will prove to me there is such a person as David Oh. The Philadelphia mayoral race has been so exciting, so fraught with broad activity and harrowing suspense, I wouldn’t know one was afoot except for it being listed for Nov. 7 on my personal calendar.

I am one of those people who will only vote in person at a legitimate polling place, having some faith in mail-in ballots but none in off-site voting.

I may even turn from the Phillies game on Channel 29 to catch some of it.

Sharrie Williams, anchor of Channel 6’s “Action News” at 5 p.m. and of Channel 17’s “Action News” broadcast at 10 p.m., is host of the program.

Notice the program is not being called a debate, but a Town Hall.

Oh and Parker will not face each other in an exchange of stances and ideas.

Rather, Williams will conduct an individual interview with each of them, after which a 10-minute question-and-answer session will take place with a pre-selected audience consisting of potential voters, supporters, and local dignitaries.

That format makes it more enticing to watch after all. Luckily, I am set up to watch two shows at once.

However dull the mayoral election season has been to date, Channel 6 is to be congratulated for continuing its record of public service in providing a look at the candidates and giving voters a chance to gauge differences between the contenders and segments of either campaign that might speak to their concerns.

And to be fair, I have heard interviews with Oh on Dom Giordano’s noon-to-3 p.m. radio program on WPHT (1210 AM). I will be talking with Dom at 1:45 on Friday afternoon.

Marvelous memories of Somers and Laurie

Although I laugh at newsfeed headlines that announce the death of an “iconic” or “beloved” or “celebrated” actor whose career is barely a blip on a Hollywood fame, let alone affection, chart, I was moved by two passings in the last week, those of Suzanne Somers and Piper Laurie, women who deserve such adjectives.

Somers and Laurie had vastly different careers, but each made her mark, Somers in populist fare that catapulted her to the cover pages of fan magazines, Laurie in a series of detailed, elegant performances that span the “Playhouse 90s” and “Studio One” of the ’50’s to an Emmy-nominated role in “Twin Peaks” and guest appearances as late as 2018 (“MacGyver”).

I was lucky enough to meet both women.

Somers was a great surprise. She knew who she was and how to choose material to showcase her talent, looking at times to push her personal envelope. She impressed me with her intelligence and candor.

I was and am not a fan of “Three’s Company.”

While I admired the skill of the late John Ritter, who I also met, and thought Somers and Joyce DeWitt — yes, I met her, too — handled their roles well, the show was too silly for me.

Besides, Jack, Chrissy and Janet’s apartment was too ugly for me to bare. The late ’70’s, in general, was an era of shlock!

That said, Somers, who died at age 76, did a fine job making Chrissy one of the most popular characters on television of her time.

Piper Laurie was a charmer.

Her performances opposite Paul Newman in “The Hustler” (1961) and with Sissy Spacek in “Carrie” (1976) rank as two of the finest in movie history.

Her conversation when I met her to talk about a television movie she had done, “The Bunker,” for which she received an Emmy nomination, was wide-ranging, full of insight about acting, how she established her career, and who she was off-screen.

I was impressed with her sincerity and integrity.

That time with Piper Laurie, who died at age 91, is one of the more memorable of a 50-year career that included meeting actors from all eras.

Thank you, Suzanne, thank you, Piper, for your work, your ability to sustain careers, and your humor.