13 Nights of Hallowe'en: Night #10 The St. Francisville Experiment

The selection of these thirteen movies has been
intentional and deliberate. This is not because they are all out there choices, or outré, or favourites, or even due to being special. They are films worth recommendation, and maybe to a degree a few of them are here because they get a bad rep. “The St. Francisville Experiment” requires some defending. It was saddled right away as a rip-off of “The Blair Witch Project” because of the ill-conceived title. “The St. Francisville Experiment” is about paranormal investigators like on “Ghost Hunters” or “Most Haunted”, which pay their dues back to “Sightings” in the early, early 90s. Even “Sightings” could owe back to “Poltergeist” with its engaging paranormal researchers for example. This is a movie about such researchers.

“The St. Francisville Experiment” is a non-comedic mockumentary, plain and simple. The documentary is an exploration of an infamously haunted mansion in St. Francisville, Louisiana. St. Francisville is, in all actuality, home of The Myrtles Plantation, one of America’s most haunted homes. Google it and see. There is some MST3K-worthy atrociously bad dialogue in this movie, but given some online conversations not necessarily unrealistically bad. The pace is a little slow for a movie, but it seems good for a documentary. Similar can be said about the minimal special effects and the plot. After all is said and done, when “The St. Francisville Experiment” gets rolling it is a pretty good horror pseudo-documentary. A little review reading even digs up people creeped out by it.

Mood: impressionable.
Music: Halloween by Aqua off of Aquarius.

13 Nights of Hallowe'en: Night #5 The Messengers

Tonight we have a movie that isn’t going to immediately
find comparison to something else based on just the title or a trailer. The movie is “The Messengers” directed by the Pang brothers. Oxide and Danny Pang are Hong Kong film creators responsible for the original “The Eye” and two sequels--a new one is schedules under someone else. Despite that, this movie does not appear to be a remake of any Hong Kong or other Asian film for that matter. This is immediately a good thing since that particular kind of remake is generally not more than just an alternate version, and subbed versions of the original are the preference amongst the English-speaking fans of the original films. This is also a good thing because it means it is the first run at the movie’s concept.

“The Messengers” is a haunted house story. The first thing anyone needs to know is in the lengthy movie tagline itself, “There is evidence to suggest that children are highly susceptible to paranormal phenomena. They see what adults cannot. ...” This idea is a common parapsychological tenet, though it does get a little lost in the movie, causing unnecessary confusion among some viewers as evinced by their comments about the film. The Solomon siblings are aware that their new house is haunted, but of course for their parents to understand this fact things will have to get pretty wild and crazy. One of the working titles for the film was “Scarecrow”, which explains some things. The crows are indicative of more than meets eye to anyone who knows what a psychopomp is.

Mood: relieved.
Music: Haunted by Evanescence of of Fallen.

13 Nights of Hallowe'en: Night #4 The Exorcism of Emily Rose

The theme of this year’s thirteen nights seems to be comparison.
The second word in the title of tonight’s movie is all that anyone needs to start making comparisons. Tonight the movie choice is “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”. This movie is anything but an “Exorcist” rip. The movie’s creators bill the film as a supernatural court drama. They take the idea a bit too far in the extras claiming it as the first. While the focus may be tighter on the court scenes, it’s certainly not the first time the supernatural has affected the courts in movies. Sam Raimi’s “The Gift” is a prime example. Even going back to “Amityville Horror II: The Possession” we have possession on trial. Still, it was a good idea and gave the film an excellent grounding upon which to build its supernatural ideas.

“The Exorcism of Emily Rose” is something of a joy to watch. The story is one divided into two timelines. In the past is the actual story of Emily Rose, a college student suffering with a demonic possession. Here is meat of the horror for the film. It is told through flashbacks in the current timeline of the film. Father Moore was the priest tasked with Emily’s exorcism and after her death is charged with negligent homicide. Emily’s ordeal is definitely not a rehash of previous possession. Some bits at the start bear some resemblance to some haunting stories in parts, but this is not uncommon in the initial stages of possession cases. The entire story is based on a true story for what that is worth, but the message of Emily’s story is definitely worth something.

Mood: content.
Music: Haunted by Poe off of Haunted.

13 Nights of Hallowe'en: Night #1 fear dot com

Hello, and welcome to the first of the thirteen nights of Hallowe’en.
What we do with these thirteen nights is we watch a horror movie or other kind of movie fitting to the festive spirit of All Hallows Eve. The full list of this years movies is available at WraithStop™. Tonight is the first night running to Hallowe’en, which is the thirteenth night. Come back to this blog every day for a heads up about that night’s movie.

Tonight’s movie is “fear dot com”. Today there is the sense among some people that movie A is nothing but a rip-off of movie B. It becomes ridiculous when it reaches anyone in a mask is a Jason Voorhees, even the much older Phantom of the Opera. “fear dot com” has the unfortunate distinction of being compared to “The Ring”. Some event is the trigger for your death hours later is a pretty simplistic plot. This is why the comparison is made, but the how and why makes a difference, never mind the hugely different path in dealing with it. How many movies for instance share the plot that there is a killer who has to be dealt with? They’re infinite, but there are a lot of extremely different movies come out of it. That plot covers everything from Agatha Christie to the latest slasher.

“fear dot com” is one of those movies that just oozes with a particular mood. The mood comes out through everything in the movie from the colour palette, to the architecture of the sets and locations, to the music, to the plot and the casting. The basic back of the box synopsis tells us, people are logging onto a site and then dying forty-eight hours later. The movie’s de facto web browser is very distinctive and it speaks loudly about the world of the movie. It ties in with the other visuals to paint a different kind of world than the one in which we live. There are a lot of interesting touches like this throughout the movie that help the feeling that permeates the film. Likewise there are other events that add to the plot as well as giving the setting its own sense of being, separate from the plot.

Mood: anxious.
Music: This House Is Haunted by Alice Cooper off of The Eyes of Alice Cooper.

Anatomy of a Horror Setting #18: Not Alone

Another factor in the creation of a psychic setting lies beyond the confrontations of psychic versus normal person and psychic versus psychic. It's almost cheating to neglect this facet. Without it, a key psychic ability if not a whole type of psychic character is forfeit. What is it? In two words, spirit world. The power? In one word, Mediumship. There is less to be considered with respect to the ability of the Medium than there is to be defined for a setting's spirit world. It starts with even asking if there is a spirit world, and more importantly are spirits allowed to roam about and interact with the non-psychic living. There need not be spirits to have ghosts and hauntings. There need only be phenomena with a scientific basis even if they are thus far not understood phenomena.

As far as hauntings and ghosts go the reasoning behind them can be anything from echoes of the past, to lingering personalised energies, to spirits, to entities that are not human derived. Moving past the assumption that the cause of a haunting is intelligent there are a few questions to be asked. Does the ghost recall everything that it knew in life, or the life of the person it is emulating? Even if it is an emulation it may not be for a nefarious purpose per se. It could be the only way in which the being or entity can interact with the physical world. The emulation of a previous--or even currently living--person could be unintentional or forced upon it. This is not to say that the purpose of impersonating some other being cannot be intentional and malicious.

The next question is does the ghost know a lot of other things? It need not be psychic to know enough to seem to actually be psychic in different fashions. This is of course dependent on a few factors, notably speed of movement. Another factor is the ghostly community, if such a thing exists. Also, while a spirit isn't limited by the time constraints of the living such as jobs and relationships it may be limited by energy constraints. That so, it may still have lots of time to investigate what it needs to know to impart to others. It may aid a loved one, a stranger--especially helping to solve its murder--or a medium or other psychic. Then there is the consideration of ghosts with abilities similar to that of psychics. Only some ghosts may have such insights or it could be all of them.

Mood: creepy.
Music: Tier by Rammstein and I Got A Line On You by Kim Mitchell.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #14: A Terrifying Example of Complexity and Control

The following is an exercise in pulling together the last two articles of this series along with a smattering of ideas from the rest of the series in one sprawling, spiralling example of horror. It all begins with an average man named Doug. Doug lives an ordinary life. He works a nine to five job while his wife Cynthia works from home and watches their children Melissa and Jake. One night Doug brings home a friend from work, Aaron. Aaron is quiet, polite, and unassuming. Doug and Aaron spend most of their time in the basement where Doug has a small shop set up in which to tinker around with things. Everybody likes Aaron--he's the perfect guest. Within a week Aaron is there every night. Within two weeks he almost never leaves.

Aaron is a powerful and amoral psychic. The first night that the children are out of the house--at a cousin's birthday party--he uses his hypnotic suggestion to convince Doug to stay in the basement. Then he goes to Cynthia in the illusory guise of Doug and tells her Aaron has left and they have some alone time. Going forward Aaron replaces Doug in the night with Cynthia a few times before his next move. He replaces Doug--who merrily works on things in the basement--with all of the family, in his disguise. This part of the first stage of his plan culminates in Aaron convincing the wife and children that he is Doug and Doug is Aaron. The real Doug continues to go to work unaware that anything is wrong. To cover himself and his treachery Aaron begins a new stage in his plan.

Aaron cajoles, convinces, and controls Cynthia to break off contact with her friends and family and has the kids pulled out of the public school system. He alienates Doug's family, and Doug's reclusion except for work pushes his friends away. Then the next-door neighbour mysteriously commits suicide. The house won't sell--stories come out about it being haunted. The house whose lot backs onto the haunted house becomes empty next. Next another neighbour is sent to jail for hiring out, via an intermediary, the murder of another neighbour. Aaron has taken over Doug's entire private life and has no further interference because of the buffer of vacant unsellable homes completely encircling his. Aaron has his own little kingdom, and the kicker is Doug never knew Aaron before that first night.

Mood: sprightly.
Music: Rock & Roll Saviors by Twisted Sister and Never Say Never by Twisted Sister.

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13 Nights of Halloween: Night #12: The Gravedancers

Tonight, as promised, I have another movie from After Dark Films
and their 8 Films to Die For that was a part of the annual independent horror film festival Horrorfest in 2006. The movie is "The Gravedancers" and apparently it is the one (of the eight) with stars in it you may have heard of, starting with Dominic Purcell who can be seen currently in "Prison Break" on TV. Up next is Clare Kramer who you Buffy fans will recognise as Glory/Glorificus from season five. Then we have Josie Maran who was in "Van Helsing". Also, Tchéky Karyo, who played the parapsychologist, is a respected and popular actor in French movies.

When I was seeing the commercials for the 8 Films to Die For there were short bits with one or more pale monstrous looking people--not seen together, don't want to give the wrong impression--that immediately grabbed my attention and made me say I have to see the movie that those flashes of scenes are from, have to. Well when I ordered a pair of the eight movies, and I popped the first one in, I found that movie, and its "The Gravedancers". I was not disappointed, those figures are awesome and this movie rocks. I expected something of a different kind of haunting story than what I got, but the actual difference more than made up for it. Enjoy!

Mood: thrilled.
Music: Halloween by Aqua.

13 Nights of Halloween: Night #5: Ghost Ship

Tonight's movie is from those grisly horror-meisters at Dark Castle Entertainment. You've probably heard of them, and of this movie. If you haven't, well boy are you in for a treat. The movie is called "Ghost Ship". Despite rumours it is not a remake of any single film though it may bear some resemblance in spots to similar themed movies and may be an amalgam of classic story types. These guys and gals at Dark Castle know how to rock a horror movie and you can bet money as soon as I see that they're involved in a film it is going on my wish list without so much as a single review or moment's thought to check it out first.

This movie has to have one of the best beginnings of a horror movie ever. It makes me drool just to think about it. K.N.B. EFX Group does an absolutely stupendous job as always on practical special effects. It's hard to believe I never really noticed that group's name on movies until only recently. They're a staple of the horror industry going back years and years. The company has their name on 149 movies in the IMDB for special effects. They range from today back to 1973. Of course they are not the only reason to see this movie. It's always good to see Gabriel Byrne in a movie, and Julianna Margulies was just excellent.

Mood: chillaxin.
Music: Meet the Creeper by Rob Zombie.

The Ghosts and Me

I don’t think that I've blogged about this before specifically. I believe in ghostly phenomena. Thusly I believe in apparitions. I don't mind the word ghost. I do draw the line at spirits though. I don't believe that people get to wander around after death. It's not that I'm unreligious and don't believe in the soul. I just don't think that you get the chance to fix your life after it's over. It's against my personal religion within my regular religion. I think you're up the creek if you haven't done the things you needed to do. Likewise I don't think the matter of your death matters either. There's only one judgement. If someone is killed that judgement will come when the killer is likewise dead.

Maybe I have touched on this overall subject before. Certainly I coloured my blog about the fear of ghosts with my opinions. I certainly made reference to what I believe back when I talked about investigators of hauntings. Of course what I said there dealt also with more grounded "mythology" of hauntings. For example, going to a cemetery looking for ghosts is almost pointlessly stupid. Everyone in the cemetery is supposed to be laid to rest. They're not to be hanging around. It goes against the grain. It flies in the face of ghost logic. Go look for an accident scene or a crime scene or a hospital. Though of course for safety I advise against hanging around abandoned hospitals.

Over at Artzone I have a new picture in my gallery. It is a ghost, inexplicably enough given what I've said above, in a cemetery. The title of the piece is "I Don't Belong Here". The title has two meanings. If you don't know anything about the whys and wherefores of the picture then the title can be what the ghost is thinking. He doesn't believe he should be a ghost, he believes he should still be alive. Knowing what you know after reading this blog reveals the second meaning of the title. Ghosts don't belong in cemeteries. There can however be a reason for a ghost in a cemetery. Those reasons include murders committed in the cemetery and improper/illegal burials.

Mood: relaxed.
Music: Soul Intruders by Bruce Dickinson and Are We Waiting by Green Day.

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Things That Go "Boo!" In the Night

It always comes back to the ghosts doesn't it? The only thing maybe more prevalent is next blog's topic, but let's not get into that now. As to our haunting staples they just have so much to offer. There is the instant creep factor. The stereotypical ambience surrounding them is always delightful even when it's full-on cliché—well maybe. However, what sets them apart is the sheer breadth of ways in which they can be put to use.

First and most obviously a ghost can be the focus of the story. They can be on the side of the protagonist or they can be the antagonists directly. There are those rare cases where they are the protagonist, but that is most often a secret that is revealed during the climax or somewhere in the dénouement. Other times rather than a direct involvement they can still exert huge influence on the story when they take on the role of narrator.

Ghosts can play a part as a secondary element to a story. This role can be as a distraction, as misleaders, or as a plot twist. The best twist is often of a similar vein to the role of a ghost as protagonist. Some key character just turns out to be dead. The mood and setting of the story have to be right or it comes off as silly. However, when done correctly, the big reveal can be anywhere from satisfying to downright powerful.

Putting ghosts to use as a purely mood enhancing thing is perhaps the most exciting use of them from the standpoint of having great familiarity with them, or other overexposure to those types of stories. The mood is not the only thing affected in such cases—and they are few and far between, but out there nonetheless—but also it sets certain conventions (rules) in the readers' minds, and carries other advantages of similarly definitional types.

Mood: fatigued.
Music: Loco by Coal Chamber and Twist My Sister by Murderdolls.

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Feeding Off Of and Sustaining Each Other

For a number of years I have been thinking about doing a haunted house novel. I have done a couple stories with ghosts in them, a couple of haunted items, and in a similar but disconnected vein, a possessed house. What I find to be a real challenge is on deciding what kind of ghosts to use, what traditional haunting phenomena, and other related things. There is more than one approach to writing ghosts. There are different kinds of ghosts around the world, each with their own particular beliefs and superstitions floating around them. Then there are other divergent explanations to work with as well.

One can certainly delineate the meaning of hauntings into two categories, the supernatural, and the scientific. The supernatural explanations run from noisy, mostly mindless spirits, to apparitions seeking to complete some earth task or unmask their killers, to ghost who don’t know they actually died. The scientific explanations run from the overspill of mental energies to cause physical phenomena, to echoes of the past somehow imprinted on locations, to factors impacting on the human brain to cause false impressions and hallucinations.

Even without looking at the why’s and how’s science can still help out tremendously in explaining the phenomena involved in a haunting. There is the ever-popular cold spot theory that associates ghosts, even ones unseen, with a sudden drop in temperature in the area they “physically” occupy. There are the Electro-Magnetic readings which can either be evidence of the ghost, or evidence that it is the mind of the witness being effected, depending on what kind of readings are gathered and where. There is also audio-visual evidence, though much of it remains controversial, and the most compelling of this sort of evidence is elusive and hard to collect.

This is a mere brushing of the topic, but it gives a good impression of the breadth of factors to consider in just a couple of lines of thought on the matter. This is without taking a look at the story factors that will determine what phenomena, explanations and other details of the haunting will best fit the given story being worked on. Looking at things from the writing perspective, the rest of the story outside of the haunting itself should affect the haunting details the writer will use, and the details used in turn will affect the rest of the story, making for a relationship best described as symbiotic.

Mood: level.
Music: Good Mourning/Black Friday by Megadeth and These Colours Don't Run by Iron Maiden.

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