Vera and Kendall Whelpton are no strangers to the supernatural. Kendall has worked behind the scenes on series such as Ghost Hunters, Ghost Brothers, and Destination Truth, and Vera was a cast member of Ghost Hunters Academy. The filmmakers, who married after meeting on the Ghost Hunters Academy set, have documented several paranormal occurrences and locations together. The Haunting Lodge follows their most recent journey.
We spoke with the Whelptons about their adventures in the Georgia lodge and the fascinating history they and their team uncovered. The documentary will be available On Demand on October 17th. Stay tuned for our review, coming later this week.
Horror Geek Life: This isn’t your first time making a documentary of this nature. And, of course, you’ve worked on Ghost Hunters. Do you ever worry about not delivering what you want when making this type of film? Because, to some extent, you have no control over it.
Kendall Whelpton: You’re absolutely right. That’s kind of a big thing in the pre-production of these films. We’ll look at a lot of locations and their stories. And, usually, we gravitate to the ones with a unique or interesting story with multiple claims or some activity, witnesses, or even evidence. Sometimes, they already have evidence.
Our style is found footage. So, if it’s a location with a lot of activity that has already been documented, we’ll gravitate towards that. Going in, you got to kind of think to yourself, well, there might not be anything that happens at all. We’ll just go and treat it like a location scout and just see what’s going on here. And that’s how we did it with the Haunting Lodge here.
Horror Geek Life: The area the film focuses on is well documented by you and your team, and the history is fascinating. What goes into researching these properties that you’re interested in?
Vera Whelpton: That one was one of the most difficult projects we have ever done. Because, number one, we didn’t have anything to start with. It was a location that had never been investigated before. We didn’t have any knowledge of the history of the property. We had to start from scratch. Even the owner knew very little about what happened previously there.
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The main guy we talked to is a local historian. And he’s the one who laid the foundation. And then, our job is to connect the dots and play detective after that. Trying to figure out how it’s related to the paranormal activity. Or is it even related? But this one was heavy. The history was heavy. We knew we were going to have to really dig in deep. That town has so much history. I had no idea.
Horror Geek Life: Another person involved is psychic and medium Jill Morris. Vera, there’s a moment where you’re all in the car, and there are things she’s picking up on. Your facial expressions show total shock. What is it like being in person while hearing these details?
Vera: It’s terrifying. It’s so scary. And it’s so hard because you have to stay focused and neutral to the story. Also, we didn’t tell her anything. So she’s literally hitting on points that only Kendall and I know. At this point, we invited another camera guy friend of ours to arrive almost at the same time as Jill did. And he didn’t know anything either. So he kept looking at me like, you’re reacting… why? Because I was truly freaked out. That woman freaks me out. It’s impossible to know some of the stuff. I don’t even know if we made it that clear how much she didn’t know. But she trusts us; we’ve worked with her before. She knows that we’re not going to put her in danger. So she’s like, fine, I’ll hop on the plane and meet you.
All the things she was saying, and I just control the fear because it’s like, what are we doing here? Am I in danger? Are you putting me in danger? That’s another layer of working with the husband.
Horror Geek Life: How did you meet and discover your mutual interest in the paranormal?
Vera: I don’t know if you’re familiar with the TV show Ghost Hunters Academy that happened in 2010. I was part of the cast, and then he was working on the show. And that’s how we met.
Kendall: I was her cameraman.
Vera: So we weren’t even supposed to help each other. But you can’t help that.
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Vera: We were obviously interested in the paranormal before we met, for years and years, even as a little girl.
Kendall: And I think our childhood brings it.
Vera: Yeah, my parents used to have experiences in a haunted house, and then you (Kendall) had experiences and lived in one. So yeah. We met, and it’s just one of the things that we have in common.
Horror Geek Life: I know you both have a lot of paranormal experiences. How did Haunting Lodge expand on that?
Kendall: I’ve been to over 500 locations, maybe hitting 600. I stopped counting. But it’s a different story when you go and stay in these places. Working on TV shows, you’re there for a certain amount of time. And for us, we really had full access to the lodge, and we stayed there for over two weeks. It’s a different experience.
We were actually advised by other paranormal professionals not to do that. They advise against staying in paranormal locations. You don’t need to, you don’t have to, but we felt like we needed to. And there was nowhere else to stay. But to answer your question, the things that had happened at the lodge, I’ve never seen interaction so intelligent. There’s a type of intelligent interaction between something there and us that kept going, and I’ve never seen that type of interaction with us.
Horror Geek Life: Does it ever keep you up at night? Not being able to explain exactly what you’re experiencing?
Kendall: Yes. It’s a wild ride. What we do is such a unique situation.
Vera: We love it so much. There were many times that we were like, that’s it. We can’t anymore. We question things sometimes, but then you gotta stay focused and remember why you are doing this.
We scouted a lot of locations that were fun and still an experience, but we didn’t have anything. We didn’t have any evidence or documentary. We had a lot we had to let go, but the ones that we’re like, okay, what’s going on? We started getting evidence. It was like, okay, we have a story here. Then we go home and, yes, we stay up at night thinking about it.
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Kendall: And back to your other question earlier, when we go into these places, if there isn’t paranormal activity, but there’s a good story, the whole documentary shifts, and we have that ability to shift our focus from maybe an evidence-based type doc to maybe a more informational type situation. We’re really able to get creative, and things happen very fast.
In this film, we take you along for the ride. So that’s what we’re literally doing is holding on by the seat of our pants, trying to document this whole thing. We don’t go in with any prenotions or ideas of, oh, it’s going to be this and that. Cause, I mean, we always get our butts handed to us anytime we think that we’re going to be in charge of what’s going on.
Horror Geek Life: The individuals you interviewed seemed like salt-of-the-earth people. Rural, hardworking, and grounded. How do you get people to talk about their experiences when many are likely to be hesitant?
Vera: We’ve been rejected many times because they either have very strong beliefs or they’ll be like, we don’t talk about that stuff. Or they can’t talk about it because of their job. But when people truly experience something abnormal, supernatural, or paranormal, I find that they really do want to talk about it. They need to talk about it. They have this need to be like, this happened to me. Somebody tell me what that was. What happened?
Kendall: We like to think of us as being supportive of that process. We’re a safe space for people to talk about these things. Cause you know, we’ve experienced so much, we’ve seen too much. It’s embedded in us.
Vera: I think nowadays it’s a little easier because there are so many TV shows out there, and people actually feel comfortable talking about it more. This is a really small town, but they were open to talking about it because they trusted the owner of that location. They all know each other, and they know why so and so is doing this. Then, with these people, we can trust them. We can talk to them. I think they were also more comfortable talking to us.
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Horror Geek Life: You mentioned scouting other areas. Are there any other locations that you feel compelled to cover and document?
Vera: Yeah, good question. We get calls quite often. I wish we had so much time. We just recently got called for something overseas, and we don’t know yet.
Kendall: It’s hard because we have to choose what we’re going to dedicate our lives to for the next six months. I mean, when we do these documentaries, we give everything. And I’m saying six months, but this last one took three years. Boots on the ground and in the lodge, it was three years.
Vera: But we did two films before that, The Sleepless Unrest and The House in Between 2.
Kendall: This one was just so wild that we were trying to grasp how to tell the story. And it was very hard, especially because of the personal experiences there.
Stayed at the lodge three nights ago. With my friend heard a lot of weird sounds didn’t know nothing about the movie till after I woke up in the morning. The owner of the property told us about the movie Next Day heard footsteps my door knob was turning at night. Not much sleep