Living with the Dead (CBS 2002)
Written by John Pielmeier
Directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal
With Ted Danson, Mary Steenburger, Diane Ladd, Queen Latifah, Jack Palance
Reviewed by Lynda Dale MacLean

Living with the Dead is a real life account of medium James Van Praagh who from the time of his childhood could communicate with the dead. The first part of the story exposes you to the spiritual and supernatural world that surrounded, confused, and scared Van Praagh as a child. In the second, very disturbing, part of the story Ted Danson's Van Praagh assists in the investigation of the brutal deaths of 7 children, murdered by a serial killer believed to be still at large.

Van Praagh's was an embattled and spiritually upsetting life. Seeing dead people, communicating with them, being teased as a child, not being understood by his father, having his mom go through her own battle with her encounters were bad enough. But he has also been programmed to believe that the devil is inside him and he must fight to keep his influence at bay. As an adult whose own childhood has been traumatic, his involvement with the children's deaths is all the more difficult. Van Praagh must battle to come to terms with his gift and find the true killer of these children.

The performances in Living with the Dead were exceptional--strong, sensitive and gripping. Especially the children's performances. They were brilliant and terrifying to watch. This story is layered with so much emotion.... It still eats at me.

As I watched, my thoughts were scrambled with so many possible endings. It was such an intensely powerful example of how we can misinterpret or take the obvious for granted. Living with the Dead had an explosively horrific yet incredibly moving ending. Gut-wrenchingly power, it made me both shiver and cry.

Living with the Dead is an amazingly wonderful, spiritual, heartfelt, emotionally charged, chilling, painfully tragic story. This story had such an impact on me. I could feel it rivet through me. Don't miss it, it will alter your views on life after death forever.