Eli Roth Explores 'Stalker' Apparitions in New Discovery+ Series 'A Ghost Ruined My Life' (Exclusive)

By Stephen Andrew

Director Eli Roth is well known for giving life to some of the most brutal horror movies of the past two decades, such as The Green Inferno and the Hostel franchise. Lately, however, he's turned his vision toward documentary projects and in his most recent the filmmaker explores what life is like for people who are plagued by "stalker" apparitions. Titled A Ghost Ruined My Life, the new Discovery+ series, part of the streaming service's "Ghostober" line-up, features real-life accounts from people who found themselves tormented by malicious unseen forces. It also utilizes reenactments to help convey just what kind of hell they suffered.

"I was really interested in kind of documentary horror, or scary documentary," Roth told PopCulture.com in a recent exclusive interview. "I started thinking about stalkers and what if you had a stalker that was a ghost? And what if you were at dinner with someone, and they started knocking the candles over? What would that be like if you couldn't get rid of your ex, and your ex was a ghost? And I thought, 'Does this happen?'" Soon, Roth and his team "started looking into" stories of real-life hauntings and they "realized that not only does it happen, it's so unbelievably common."

Roth shared that, during his research for A Ghost Ruined My Life, he came across many situations where "an entity latches onto someone, and it ruins their life." Referring to the event as "stalking," he said, felt right become much of these encounters have "relationship connotations" to them. "It's just this thing you have no connection to you, randomly latches onto you for whatever reason, and it does destroy your life."

For most people who have these supernatural experiences, Roth says that "nobody believes" them. "Everyone you tell, 100% of the time says, 'You're crazy.' There's no one you can turn to," he explained. "You start losing sleep. Things go bad at work. Often they lose their job or quit their jobs. Their relationships fall apart. The relationships with their children turn sour." In many cases, Roth says they found that "the entity will often target the child and make friends with the child and turn the child against the parent. I mean, these things want to cause chaos in your life. The goal is to ruin your life."

Getting the testimonials for A Ghost Ruined My Life was one thing, but next came working out how to better depict the stories so that audiences would best understand what the subjects of each episode really experienced. "I wanted to tell their stories, tell their stories in a cinematic way," he said. "And we have some amazing filmmakers that came on to tell their stories."

Finally, Roth also wanted to use the series to show viewers to see what the documentary film crews encounter when they take on projects like this because oftentimes that aspect is left out. "I want to know what happens to the crew," Roth said. "I always watch these ghost hunting shows, thinking, 'What's the camera person thinking? Are they safe from this?" So I wanted the crew to be a part of [it]." The first two episodes of A Ghost Ruined My Life are now streaming on Discovery+.

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