Kindred Spirits’ Hosts Amy Bruni And Adam Berry Talk Season 3 In An Interview

 

 
 
Ahead of its third season premiere on January 24th, I had the opportunity to talk with Amy Bruni and Adam Berry, hosts of the paranormal series “Kindred Spirits.”
Not only did they tell me what viewers can expect this season, but also a little about their process, what drives them, and what sets them apart from other investigators.
 
Horror Fuel: “What is the main goal of “Kindred Spirits?”
 
Amy Bruni: “For us, it’s always to make resolutions be it to families or people that we are helping or for ghosts themselves. We like to always have an ending. We don’t leave until we provided some sort of solution to the problem or figure out who is there and why they are there and given recommendations on how to handle it. The main reason we started the show after we were on “Ghost Hunters” for several years, we had always confirmed that yeap, this place was haunted, but then we would leave. We wanted to put the extra work in to figure out why a place was haunted.
 
 

 
 
Adam Berry: “We wanted to tell a complete story, showing as much as we can of how we get to a solution.
 
Horror Fuel: “I’m glad that you go the extra mile and actually help. So many shows don’t.”
 
Amy Bruni: “I think “Kindred Spirits” was born when we had to leave Waverly Place years ago during an investigation. We had just started to communicate with these entities and we had to leave them. When that happened, we felt such immense guilt because we were leaving them hanging. We return to Wavery this season. That was a big part of why.”
 
Adam Berry: “It’s a big part of why we wanted to go back, that and other reasons. Obviously, that’s a big location for us. And we went because our friend Jessie needed help. We know him and his family very, very well. They’ve put a lot of time in a place that we’ve been to multiple times. When something more aggressive started happening there we dropped everything. We knew we had to help him.”
 
 

 
 
Horror Fuel: “It’s great that you have that dedication. I’ve read things about that place. It’s scary. Speaking of helping people, I know there must be a horde of people asking for your help. How do you choose your cases?”
 
Amy Bruni: “That’s what’s interesting. I think we ended up with more strong, aggressive type hauntings. That’s because we pick who needs the most help. We were not filming for almost a year and had some downtime, but that whole time cases kept pouring in and we had to go through them all and basically pick the ones we thought that needed the most help, that were the most frantic. It’s a process. First, we get the emails and the ones that we think sound like they need us the most and we send those to the production team. They vet them and interview them. Then it comes back to us for final approval, so it is a process. That’s how it happens.”
 
Adam Berry: “It’s like a paranormal “Sophie’s choice.” You have to pick someone. It’s hard, really.”
 
 
Horror Fuel: “I’m sure that it is tough to pick.”
 
 
Horror Fuel: “I watched the premiere last night. I really enjoyed it and found it very interesting. I’m glad that we get to see your process. And that we get to see not only the investigation but the entire story.”
 
Adam Berry: “That’s good to hear. We are too.”
 
 
Horror Fuel: “Season three premieres on the twenty-fourth. What can fans expect this season?”
 
 
Adam Berry: “The cases are more intense, especially the family cases. Episode two, I think, is one of the best family cases that we’ve ever done on any season of “Kindred Spirits.” The bigger case we have a connection to as investigators.”
 
Amy Bruni: “I think this season that you also see us really thinking outside the box. We do experiments. I don’t know if you will see it a lot in the first half of the season, but you will in the second half. Sometimes you’re there and you ask yourself how you can get a reaction or an answer, so we just started trying different things. We got some really crazy results. I think they can look forward to that for sure.”
 
Adam Berry: “Also, more equipment. We use everything in our arsenal. We use equipment in different ways. Sometimes, we strip away all the equipment and just go old school, using techniques that were first used a hundred years ago. We always try to get on their level, especially when it’s not from this century. I think we were able to do that a lot this season.”
 
 
Horror Fuel: “In the upcoming premiere you use a tool I find very interesting, the smart teddy bear. I don’t believe that I’ve seen that before.”
 
Adam Berry: “That is a “Boo Buddy.”
 
 
Horror Fuel: “I don’t know if it was because of the situation with the child spirits, but I found it very eerie.”
 
 
Amy Bruni: “When “Boo Buddy” first came out a few years ago, some investigators mocked the idea,  but I totally understood. It doesn’t look threatening, it’s cute. If you are dealing with children, why go in with like a boring EFM detector? Present them with something one would want to play with, something they want to interact with. I know it works because my daughter steals it all the time [laughter]. It totally makes sense to us. Any time we are dealing with the ghosts of children we bust out “Boo Buddy.”
 
 
Horror Fuel: “That makes a lot of sense. Do you come across the ghosts of children often?”
 
 
Adam Berry: “I think it just depends. Sometimes they are on the property and sometimes because Amy’s a mom, they’ll sneak in from elsewhere. They are drawn there because they want that motherly love and comfort. You never really know until you get into the investigation.”
 
 
Amy Bruni: “The thing about the ghosts of kids is that unfortunately, is that in the 1800s, early 1900s, the mortality rate of children was really high. We are in a lot of these older locations that have probably seen the deaths of children on several occasions. And they do kind of pop in during investigations even when we are not looking for them specifically.”
 
 
Horror Fuel: “That’s such a sad thought, children stuck here.
I have to ask, what on God’s green earth drives you two to walk down dark hallways, knowing there is something dark or evil there waiting for you?”
 
 
Adam Berry: “We have to go to where the danger is. There are different levels of danger. You’ve got to put yourself in the position to figure out what it is. We believe in being strong in ourselves and not worrying about attachments and all that hocus pocus. I feel like we do what we can to get the answers. If you’ve got to go down a dark hallway, you’ve got to go down a dark hallway. We have no choice. We want the answers.”
 
 
Amy Bruni: “Plus, in our world, we don’t even really like the idea of demons, per se, but we do believe in the idea of dark or negative type hauntings. That can either be the entity of a person who was very angry in life or a person in life who is acting out, or we believe in the idea of thought forms coming together or things that we create with negative emotions. When we view them like that we know exactly how to handle them. We might get startled here and there and we might get a little nervous here and there, for the most part, it’s just about going in with a sound mind and keeping positivity in your heart. Those kinds of things can affect you if you let it.”
 
 

 
 
Horror Fuel: “I’ll just say this, you two are a lot braver than I am.”
 
 
Amy Bruni: “[laughter] that’s why they call us in. That’s why when Jessie called us, we’ve known him for years, we know something bad was going on in the nursing home. He’s a very level-headed person. When we got that call we were like, ‘This is great. Perfect timing.”‘
 
 
Horror Fuel: “It’s great you two could help him in the premiere.
What has been the scariest thing you have experienced this season?”
 
 
Adam Berry: “I think I get terrified by things that are manipulative or unknown. If you don’t know what you are dealing with, that’s really upsetting. When you want to find out answers and things are messing with you, it can be hard to sift through what’s real and what’s not. You’ll see that a little in episode one.”
 
 
Amy Bruni: “For me, my scariest moment as an investigator absolutely happened this season during filming. I won’t say what episode it was, but there was a point this season where I saw straight on a man appear in front of me and disappear. I saw what he was wearing. A few minutes later something violently grabbed my shoulder. It was a series of events that just felt like this thing was after me. When you see something straight on like that, it’s just so undeniable. I covered my eyes with my hands. I just didn’t want to see it again. I was so frightened. He did not look happy. I made Adam lead me out of there so I wouldn’t have to look anymore. That, to this day, is the most terrifying thing that’s happened to me on an investigation.”
 
 
Adam Berry: “I think what made it more frightening was that I saw the tail end of it, so it wasn’t like she made it up.”
 
 
Amy Bruni: “That was confirmation for me. He didn’t see it straight on like I did, but he saw it out of the corner of his eye. He was pointing right to the spot. It was the whole sequence of events that led up to it, but I just didn’t want to see it again. It freaks me out so badly. I don’t think he was going to hurt me, but he was definitely trying to send us a message and I heard it loud and clear. Message received.”
 
 
Horror Fuel: “I can imagine that would be terrifying. I’ll say it once again, you are braver than I am.
When did you have your first experience with the paranormal?”
 
 
Adam Berry: “I was a kid. Growing up in Alabama I lived in a house where there was a ghost dog. It sounds timid, but when you are a child, it’s terrifying. You could hear the dog scratching on the door, hear it walk across the room.”
 
 
Amy Bruni: “For me, I lived in a haunted house when I was a kid. There were a lot of things that happened, but one thing I remember the most was seeing an apparition outside the window of my kitchen of a man standing there, but there was no way for anyone to stand there because it was raised up on the second floor. We found out later on that there had been a wraparound porch there at one point. So he was standing where someone could have at one point.”
 
 
Horror Fuel: “Wow, so you two have been dealing with the paranormal for quite some time. What advice would you give someone who is having problems with spirits?”
 
 
Amy Bruni: “The first thing I would say is if they will put a human aspect to it, start thinking about it as a person instead of something spooky and ghostly, it changes, you react differently. If they think of it as someone instead of being something trying to spook them and ask questions, do some research, if they try to figure out who it is and why they are there, it suddenly becomes something a lot less scary. That’s really the first step, realizing that it’s probably not something they should be afraid of.”
 
 
Adam Berry: “Ask what is it. Is it a pipe? Is it the wind? Try not to over exaggerate what is happening around you so that you don’t try to freak yourself out. I think that’s the thing to overcome.”
 
 
Horror Fuel: “That’s good advice.
What would you like to say to non-believers?”
 
 
Amy Bruni: “It’s not really important to us to convince other people, to be honest. We know what we know. When we first started investigating, it was a big deal to us to collect evidence so that we could prove to the world that ghosts exist. We’ve collected that evidence time and time again and they still don’t believe us, so that’s on them. We’re happy to let them keep on not believing until they have their own experience and come calling us [laughter].”
 
 
Adam Berry: “I always tell people that they will believe it when they see it. If it happens to you you’ll know it. Sometimes I feel like people have experiences because it’s meant for them and for some people don’t have one because it’s not meant for them.”
 
 
Horror Fuel: “That’s a great way to look at it.”
 
 
Be sure to tune in for season three of “Kindred Spirits” on the Travel Channel on January 24, 2019, at 10/9c. Follow Amy and Adam on Facebook or visit the series’ site for more on “Kindred Spirits.”