A costume shop packed with masks, props, mannequins, dark aisles, and decades of history is almost purpose-built for a paranormal investigation, and Hollywood Toys and Costumes provides an unusually atmospheric setting. Employee accounts of whispers, motion-triggered lights, displaced merchandise, footsteps, and an alleged push on the staircase establish the location’s reputation before the investigation begins. Those stories are engaging background, but they remain personal accounts rather than independently established evidence of paranormal activity.
Kelsey Davies brings a distinctly mediumistic approach alongside Ryan Bergara’s believer perspective and Shane Madej’s skepticism, creating a useful contrast in personalities and methods. Davies reports seeing a tall shadow figure and sensing a boy named Jacob, possible connections to Maine and appendicitis, and later a woman named Helen associated with a car accident. She appropriately acknowledges that her impressions may be wrong, which is important because none of these specific identities or histories is independently confirmed during the investigation. The claimed mechanics of spirits, vibrations, consciousness, and psychic perception are likewise presented as beliefs rather than demonstrated facts.
The group’s chemistry is one of the production’s biggest assets. Madej’s relentless skepticism and jokes prevent the investigation from becoming oppressively self-serious, while Bergara is willing to entertain unusual events without automatically declaring them supernatural. Even Davies occasionally considers ordinary explanations, as when noises could originate outside or equipment might be responding to environmental conditions. At times, however, the comedy stretches scenes that are already loosely structured, and promotional interruptions for candles, merchandise, appearances, and related content disrupt the nighttime atmosphere.
The equipment-heavy investigation produces plenty of apparent responses but much less that can be interpreted confidently. Spirit boxes, REM pods, motion sensors, cat balls, the Seer, an Onvoyce device, and the DR60 recorder generate words, sounds, lights, and temperature indications that the participants repeatedly connect to their questions. Responses such as “up,” “help,” “10,” and apparent names become exciting within the moment, but fragmented radio audio and devices selecting words or reacting to environmental inputs leave considerable interpretive freedom. The strongest demonstration of that problem comes when the separated teams compare results and discover that their hoped-for matching names and numbers largely do not match.
Splitting the investigation between floors is nevertheless a smart experiment because it creates at least the possibility of independent corroboration. Davies and Drew describe the upstairs area as darker and more chaotic, developing a narrative around Helen and an angry male presence, while the downstairs investigation emphasizes the more playful supposed child energy. Yet the eventual comparison yields only limited thematic similarities, such as references to anger, rather than the striking independent agreement that would have made the experiment substantially more persuasive. The production deserves credit for leaving that lack of correlation in rather than manufacturing a cleaner result.
The mysterious screaming-like sound captured by the DR60 provides the night’s best unresolved moment. Crucially, the investigators recognize the recorder’s poor reputation and place a modern Sony recorder and static camera nearby, giving them potential comparison sources rather than relying entirely on the old device. The sound is genuinely puzzling to the participants, including Madej, but puzzling is not equivalent to paranormal: without the comparison recordings being fully analyzed and presented here, equipment malfunction, recording artifacts, environmental noise, or another ordinary source cannot be eliminated. Davies ultimately goes further than the evidence supports when she treats the sound and the group’s impressions as additional proof of an angry entity.
That evidentiary gap also weakens the broader conclusion that the building absorbs or hosts the darker energy associated with Hollywood’s history. The idea provides an evocative ending, especially against the contrasting image of playful spirits supposedly attracted to a beloved costume store, but the investigation does not establish a causal connection between Hollywood’s tragedies and events inside the building. As paranormal entertainment, though, the combination of an inherently creepy location, conflicting investigative personalities, unexplained noises, experiments, and frequent humor keeps the lengthy overnight visit lively even when its supernatural conclusions remain unverified.
Pros
- Hollywood Toys and Costumes provides an exceptionally atmospheric setting with employee stories and varied spaces that naturally support an overnight investigation.
- Davies, Bergara, and Madej bring contrasting paranormal perspectives and entertaining chemistry without maintaining the same interpretation of every event.
- The separated investigations create a meaningful attempt to look for independently matching information, and the disappointing lack of strong matches is openly shown.
- The DR60 sequence is the most intriguing unresolved incident, particularly because other recording equipment was positioned nearby for potential comparison.
- Davies explicitly acknowledges uncertainty in her psychic impressions and occasionally considers ordinary explanations for apparent activity.
Cons
- Specific claims involving Jacob, Helen, their histories, and an angry male entity receive little or no independent verification.
- Spirit-box fragments, generated words, sensor reactions, and subjective impressions are often assembled into narratives more confidently than the evidence warrants.
- The separated teams produce few meaningful correlations despite that being one of the investigation’s most potentially useful tests.
- The DR60 screaming sound remains unexplained rather than demonstrated as paranormal, yet it is later treated as supporting proof of an angry entity.
- Frequent jokes and promotional segments sometimes interrupt the investigation’s momentum and atmosphere.
- The final theory connecting the store’s activity to Hollywood’s wider history of tragedy and broken dreams is evocative but speculative.
Strong personalities, a wonderfully eerie location, and one genuinely strange audio recording make this an entertaining paranormal investigation, while the decision to compare separated teams adds a welcome experimental element. Its supernatural case is considerably weaker than its atmosphere, however, because the identities, psychic impressions, equipment responses, and final Hollywood-wide theory remain largely unverified. The result works best as spirited ghost-hunting entertainment built around intriguing uncertainties rather than convincing evidence of what caused them.
