Sun down, monsters up.
A+E is spinning off its History channel series MonsterQuest with a new YouTube show titled MonsterQuest: Origins, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively. Hosted by occultist Sapphire Sandalo, the six-episode short-form digital series will premiere new episodes beginning Tuesday, Jan. 27 on History’s YouTube channel (and on History’s own dot-com).
MonsterQuest: Origins will tackle the “real histories behind the nation’s most chilling cryptid legends,” per A+E Digital. The initial episode’s focus is on the Rougarou of the Louisiana Bayou. “In the shadowed bayous of Louisiana’s Tickfaw State Park, the legend of the Rougarou blurs the line between folklore and fear, as ancient curses, Cajun identity, and the wilderness itself converge to ask whether the monster is a beast of myth or a warning meant to be remembered,” the logline reads.
MonsterQuest: Origins next heads to Voyageurs National Park for the Wendigo, and after that to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey to find the Jersey Devil — my local monster for whom the NHL’s New Jersey Devil’s are named. Subsequent episodes/monsters include La Llorona (the Rio Grande), Dark Watchers (Big Sur) and Boojum (Smoky Mountains National Park).
Sandalo is a popular podcaster and “paranormal historian” — if you believe in that sort of thing (and job title). She is the creator of web series Stories With Sapphire and podcast Something Scary, and serves as an expert on Paranormal Caught On Camera and Paranormal Night Shift. Sandalo co-hosts The Ghost Town Terror.
The OG MonsterQuest airs Friday nights at 10/9c on History. Each hour-long episode features chilling eyewitness accounts of everyday people and their run-ins with what they believe to be monsters. Usually it’s like a raccoon or something.
Ted Butler serves as executive producer of MonsterQuest: Origins. Jason Buhrmester is head of creative and editorial for A+E Digital.
Watch a scene from the debut episode of MonsterQuest: Origins, “The Rougarou.”
