HAPPY SEPTEMBER

Thanks Gerridae.

KEYHOLE

A professor was working late one wintry night when a sudden storm came, dropping over a foot of snow on the ground in record time. The professor, seeing that he had been essentially snowed into the building, readied himself to spend the night.

He alerted the university's security guard that due to the weather he was going to be spending the night. The security guard nodded, but then warned him of the things  he might experience during the night, such as knocking and footsteps, as well as the ghostly figure of a girl who is sometimes spotted roaming the halls late at night.

The professor found the security guard's claims dubious at best, but eager to get back to work, merely said he would keep an eye out.

After several more hours of grading papers, the professor saw that it was approaching three a.m. and decided it was time to turn in for the night. He stretched out on a couch in his office and had just fallen asleep when he was woken up by the sound of someone knocking at his door. The professor, remembering the security guard's warnings, became frightened and tried to ignore the sounds. 

As he tried to go back to sleep, the knocking came again. Wondering if maybe it was the security guard himself, he got up. To make sure it was the guard before opening, he peaked through the keyhole of the door. All he saw was the color red, and assuming that a person wearing that color was standing in the hallway, he opened the door.

No one was there.

He closed the door and went back to bed, tossing and turning for the remainder of the night.

When morning came, the professor located the security guard and told him of his strange experience, and how he had peered through the keyhole and saw a close-up of red - what he had assumed was someone's clothing. The security guard merely nodded, not surprised by the professor's description. The guard went on to explain that the spirit said to haunt the university was of a young girl - a former student - who had been ritualistically killed several years earlier. 

Her eyes had been carved out of her skull, leaving behind red, bloody holes.

ONE SCARY NIGHT...

THE HANDS RESIST HIM

In March of 2000, the below painting, officially titled "The Hands Resist Him," was sold on eBay with the description "The Haunted Painting." 

The original auction description (edited for clarity) is below:

When we received this painting, we thought it was really good art.  A "picker" had found it abandoned behind an old brewery. At the time we wondered a little why a seemingly perfectly fine painting would be discarded like that. (Today we don't !!! ) One morning, our four-and-a-half-year-old daughter claimed that the children in the picture were fighting and coming into the room during the night. Now, I don't believe in UFOs, or Elvis being alive, but my husband was alarmed. To my amusement, he set up a motion-triggered camera. After three nights, there were pictures. The last two pictures shown are from that 'stakeout'.

After seeing the boy seemingly exiting the painting under threat, we decided: the painting has to go.

[Wikipedia also states: "Included with the listing were a series of photographs that were said to be evidence of an incident in which the female doll character threatened the male character with a gun that she was holding, causing him to attempt to leave the painting."]

The original ad continues:

Please judge for yourself. Before you do, please read the following warning and disclaimer. 

WARNING: 


Do not bid on this painting if you are susceptible to stress-related disease, faint of heart, or are unfamiliar with supernatural events. By bidding on this painting, you agree to release the owners of all liability in relation to the sale or any events happening after the sale that might be [attributed] to this painting. This painting may or may not possess supernatural powers that could impact or change your life. However, by bidding, you agree to exclusively bid on the value of the artwork, with disregard to the last two photos featured in this auction, and hold the owners harmless in regards to them and their impact - expressed, or implied.

Now that we got this out of the way, one question to you eBayers: we want our house to be blessed after the painting is gone; does anybody know who is qualified to do that?

The size of the painting is 24 by 36 inches, so it is rather large. As I have had several questions, here the following answers.

• There was no odor left behind in the room.
• There were no voices, or the smell of gunpowder; no [footprints] or strange fluids on the wall.
• To deter questions in this direction, there are no ghosts in this world - no supernatural powers - this is just a painting, and [mostly] these things have an explanation; in this case, [it was] probably a fluke light effect.

I encourage you to bid on the artwork, and consider the last two photographs as pure entertainment; please do not take them into consideration when bidding.

As we think it is a good idea to bless any house, we still welcome input into that procedure.

 

 

After the posting of the auction, which attracted thousands of visitors, many people who saw the painting began to experience strange auditory/aural hallucinations and bouts of hypochondria...or genuine hauntings:

• One claimed to have heard a demonic voice speaking directly to them - a voice they claimed was quite similar to one used for the possessed Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist. They also claimed to have felt a blast of hot air in their face.
• Another reported that the mere site of the painting caused them to fall instantly ill and even went as far as burning white sage to cleanse their house.
• Yet another person claimed to have suffered "blackout/mind control experiences."
• One person claimed that when they attempted to print their own pictures of the painting, their printer malfunctioned, as if refusing to print the image of the painting. 

The painting's artist, Bill Stoneham, explains the inspiration and origin of the painting:

"When I painted the Hands Resist Him in 1972, I used an old photo of myself at age five in a Chicago apartment. The hands are the 'other lives.' The glass door, that thin veil between waking and dreaming. The girl/doll is the imagined companion, or guide through this realm.

Both the owner of the Gallery where 'Hands' was displayed and the Los Angeles Times art critic who reviewed my show were dead within a year of the show.

I'm sure it was coincidence, but some of what I paint resonates in other people, opening the inner door, or basement. By the way, I still have no idea what happened to the character actor who bought the painting at the show (editor note: it was John Marley*, who died in 1984), or how it ended up abandoned in a building, though I could speculate." 

* The unfortunate movie producer from The Godfather who denied Johnny Fontane a part in his movie and got a horse head in his bed for his troubles.

Prints of "The Hands Resist Him" are available on Bill's official site.

Feeling brave?

DUDE, BRO! GHOSTS!

Possessions. Voodoo. Ghost sex.

It's all in a day's work for the hosts of Ghost Adventures, a highly entertaining ghost hunting show enigmatically featured on the Travel Channel.

While I am immensely interested in the paranormal, I consider myself a skeptic. I've never seen a ghost, nor ever personally encountered any strong evidence that would convince me of their existence. I have listened to several EVPs captured by someone very close I absolutely trust, and the voices caught on them certainly made me raise an eyebrow. But at the same time...that's not enough. Still, I remain open-minded to the possibility. To so assuredly proclaim that ghosts don't exist reeks of arrogance to me, because really, how do you know? Science unearths discoveries every day that sometimes contradict earlier findings. It's the nature of the thing. Who is to say what doesn't exist today will become otherwise tomorrow? But that's best saved for another debate between folks far more brained than I.

Ghost Adventures is a ghost hunting show like no other. It is not hosted by a drab old British man, or a couple of plumbers. It is hosted by three of the most entertaining frat guys you have ever met.

Your main host is Zak Bagans. His impetuous dynamism and intensity would almost be contagious if it weren't almost constantly teetering on absurdity. He religiously performs over the top monologues and speaks with HALTING. TONES. RIGHT. AT. YOU. Regularly dressed in paint-splatter crest t-shirts and black jeans, and with his hair seemingly its own living entity, one gets the feeling that his penchant for ghost hunting just about overshadows his penchant for male modeling. I once asked a fellow paranormal enthusiast what they thought of Ghost Adventures. They replied, "It's decent - but that main guy is kind of a tool." That's a pretty accurate summation of Zak Bagans, what with his macho-ism and bulging tattooed biceps. While an official label for Zak would be metro-sexual, I prefer the term Baganism. He truly is in a class by himself.

Zak Bagans.
Leader. Macho. Moe.

 
Next in the line-up is Nick Groff, certainly the least dynamic of the hosts, but probably the  bravest. He's usually the one getting locked into morgue drawers and sitting in rooms by himself. He is the Dean Martin of the duo, playing the straight man against Zak's Jerry Lewis. He comes across as fairly level-headed and not nearly as brutish as Zak. He is like a tabletop diner jukebox, or Vice-President Biden. He's just kind of there.

Nick Groff.
Zak's Number Two. Straight Man. Larry.

Last, but certainly not least, we have Aaron Goodwin. This lovable goofball is the heart of the show. He takes the most abuse and does whatever he is ordered to do, like sit in rooms by himself and ask taunting questions he really doesn't want to ask, or crawl under antique death wagons as Zak and Nick watch him on their monitors and snicker. If the Ghost Adventures crew were The Three Stooges, Aaron would be Curly. He has a charisma that goes beyond playing third fiddle on a reality television show. As tremendously entertaining as he is on the show, you just know the man is ten times as such off camera. He is definitely a guy with whom you wish you were friends. He also makes the best scared face in existence.

Aaron Goodwin.
Whipping Boy. Lovable. Curly.

The three men make for enormous entertainment - and the show is both intentionally and unintentionally funny. When each of them encounters something unexplainable, they are sure to shout, "Dude!", "Man!", or "Bro!" In one specific episode, Nick feels a cold burst pass through him, and he holds up his hands in surrender and shouts, "Whoa, dude!" It comes so close to bordering on self-parody that you have to wonder how aware the Ghost Adventure guys are of their own legacy.

While most of the intentional humor comes from Aaron, Zak manages to climb out from under his haze of self-serious theatre-delivery dialogue and make an occasional joke. Especially entertaining is when he demands a spirit to produce a sign of its presence, and when it does, he shrieks and hops out of the room in terror.

Because the investigations are shot entirely in full dark, there are many scenes of our hosts literally poking each other in the eye, walking into doors, stepping in puddles, and bonking their heads against something. They really, truly are The Three Stooges. But the real humor comes when the investigation begins...

The episodes are structured much like any other ghost hunting show: first, the story of the location; second, the eyewitness accounts; third, the plan; and then fourth, the investigation - your bread and butter of the episodes. This allows for Zak to practice his technique of literally pissing off the ghosts so that they will perform for him. And while this is essentially him wandering around empty rooms and demanding the entities make their presence known, the commands he delivers are often improvised (which at least lends credence to the notion that this show is definitely not scripted, and if it is, the guys are terrible at remembering their lines). They all literally stumble through phrases that are meant to incite a response from whatever entities may be around them, but instead, their output sounds awkward and instantly amusing. In the Scotland Edinburgh Vaults episode, a place in which the entities allegedly target pregnant women, Nick wanders around with his digital recorder and stutters, "Is it true... that you hate... pregnant... woman?" In the Ohio Reformatory episode, Aaron sits in the middle of the prison showers where one prisoner was once "gang-raped" to death. In an effort to reach out to the dead prisoner's spirit, Aaron states, "I'm sorry about how you were killed. That was a lousy thing for them to done." He then goes on to add, "No one should die naked."

The best line-flubs come from Zak, because he speaks with immense authority. He reaches Will Ferrell levels of unearned arrogance with some of the broken phrases he spits out. I wish I had an example for you, but they are just too numerous; however, there is one quirk of Zak's about which I can be specific, and one I find tremendously entertaining: his habit of going off on mini-tirades after having just witnessed something spooky, but then screaming at his counterparts to shut up the minute they open their mouths.

ZAK: Did you hear that? Did you hear that? I just heard something down that hallway! I swear, dudes, I heard it! I heard it!
AARON: I heard--
ZAK: SHUT UP SSHHH SHUT THE FUCK UP!!

It's something that never fails to bring me joy.

OMG!

Nine times out of ten (like any other ghost hunting show), the evidence the guys enthusiastically collect is not terribly interesting and is very inkblot-ish in nature. They'll record an EVP that they translate to be "I hate you" but in reality sounds like "...feh..." And while interviewees will describe eerie sightings of full-body entities in historical dress floating down hallways and beckoning to them; phantom dogs and children; the smell of nonexistent foods or perfumes; and the sounds of ghostly flute music or entire country songs, the evidence the guys collect with their arsenal of cameras never manage to reach these impressive levels. At most they capture garbled audio, wisps of something passing in front of the camera, or lights way off in the distance. They also show their arms to the camera so we can see their goosebumps or hair standing on end, something they attribute to the presence of spirits (but can also happen when your favorite song comes on the radio, or during Bill Pullman's riveting Independence Day monologue). Yes, in terms of evidence, the guys have never really caught something that is both entirely unexplainable and knock-your-socks-off insane (the thrown brick from their original documentary notwithstanding - I find that extremely suspicious).

But then in a complete 180, the guys will make some pretty outrageous claims: that they used the services of a witch to call forth a succubus (incubus? succubus? incubus?); that each of them have received scratches from angry spirits; that they used a voodoo priestess named Bloody Mary to call for spirits of slaves long dead; that both Zak and Nick were "possessed" at certain points during season two (the latter making what a friend has termed "the angry Facebook photo face").

And this is where I have issues with the show. As I stated earlier, I do not believe in ghosts, but I do believe their existence is a possibility. I want to watch a show like Ghost Adventures, or any of the other shows, and think, "This could be real." When the guys claim possession, or that voodoo and witchcraft calls forth spirits or demons at their own whim, or that ghosts of cowboys and prostitutes are fucking in an unseen netherworld - sorry guys, you've lost me.That's when the show strays into bullshit territory.

All of this makes me sound like I am picking on the guys - especially Zak - and the show itself, but that's really not my intention. I heart all three of these fellows, and I hope they never stop doing what they do. Their show has brought me immense entertainment - whether intentional or not - and I would never change a single thing about their investigations. Exaggerated - or even downright fake - the show is too entertaining to dismiss.

The show has many fans (1.7 million on Facebook), and they range from the casual, to the dedicated, to the fucking horrifying. Despite the subject matter of the show - ghosts, bloody murders, institutional abuse, child death - there is still one thing truly scarier than all of that put together, but yet still directly associated with Zak Bagans himself:

Fan fiction.

Yes, because of Zak's rippling muscles and shellacked hair, he has become a god amongst the Twilight teen crowd. Girls (and most assuredly some boys) dream of Zak holding them tightly in the night and protecting them from ghosts, all the while pointing directly into their faces and shouting that the kissing about to go down will be the MOST. EXTREME. KISSING. EVER.

GET. READY. FOR. MY. HUG.

This little bit, stolen from an online journal entitled "Zak Bagans - In the Flesh" gives me an extra dose of the willies:

“OOOHHHH ZAK…. OOOO YEA…. OOOO BABE, HARDER” i screamed.

“uuuuhhhhh” zak grunted as we both came.

an hour later we were cleaned up and sitting on the beach together.

“are you happy” zak asked.

“of course, more than ever” i smiled.

“me too babe” he said kissing me.

i apologize for how short the story is. i just got my daughter a puppy, and its been a lot of work, please forgive me, i promise you all i will post tomorrow and it will be a full chapter.

Dude...

I take great solace in the fact that somewhere out there, our three beloved frat brothers are wandering around an abandoned silo with flashlights, demanding in authoritative voices that the hiding ghost materialize in front of them...so when it does, they can shriek in the night and run for safety - tripping, falling, and saying, "why I oughta...."

Enter the world of Ghost Adventures. Your life will be all the better for it.

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REVIEW: EVIL THINGS

As of 2011, remakes are out, and found footage is in. And that's fine with me.

Found footage movies are my jam. 

As previously stated, there are over 30 found footage movies currently in various stages of production. Thanks to recent heavy hitters like Paranormal Activity and The Last Exorcism, movie studios both major and minor have learned that found footage movies cost very little money to finance, but yield great potential for easy profit. And if filmmakers know what they're doing, they can make the gimmick effective.

Does Dominic Perez, writer/director of Evil Things, know what he is doing?

Basically. (Minor spoilers follow.)

The movie begins and we meet our cast: a group of twenty-somethings on their way to a remote house to celebrate Miriam's birthday. Along the way they run afoul of a strange dark-colored van with tinted windows which seems to have randomly chosen the kids to harass. They routinely "escape" the tyranny of the van, only to periodically cross paths with it later.

Soon the kids make it to the house for some teen hijinks, pop culture references, and fun times had out in the snowy woods. However, the fun soon stops when they hear odd noises out in the woods - and this on top of the fact that they have somehow become turned around and found themselves lost. They eventually find their way home, relieved to be out of harm's way.

Until the phone begins to incessantly ring, and the knocks at the door ring out, and the mysterious package a la Lost Highway ends up on the front porch...

PROS

The director has assembled a talented group of actors - almost unheard of when dealing with a young cast and a low budget. The actors are fresh-faced (with a dash of acne), and look like realistic, average kids. They all share a believable rapport on screen and for the most part seem to genuinely enjoy each other's company.

The natural progression of the story allows for the sight of the van to become threatening, but without beating you over the head. Its presence is subtle and tastefully done, and the movie doesn't try to cheat by giving the vehicle a purposely garish appearance. The van itself is quite bland and nondescript - the type of vehicle that could follow you for miles and you would be none the wiser...

The set dressing at the kids' house is actually quite clever, if you noticed one minor detail: throughout the entire house, no curtains or shades adorn the windows - of which there are many. The kids cross from room to room with blackness just beyond the many windows. Later on in the film, when shit hits the fan, this detail truly helps to add unease to the mix. The kids literally have nowhere to go without being easily visible from outside the house - they are like fish stuck in a tank, parading themselves around for their attacker who sits outside in the idling van. (See also: CONS.)

"Cassy's" impression of "Leo's" Brooklyn-accented mother kinda made me fall in love with her a little bit. I was literally grinning from ear-to-ear during this scene. Just sayin'.

The movie definitely gets points for exploring a seldom utilized sub-genre: the slasher film. Nine times out of ten today, when a found footage movie is announced, it is about ghosts, or zombies, or aliens, or other not-quite-so realistic villains. Besides for The Last Horror Movie, Man Bites Dog, and the dreadful The Last Broadcast, it's simply an under-explored sub-genre, and I'm glad Perez chose it for his film.

The scene where "Mark" follows the chirping of his WalkieTalkie into another room was very well executed. I'll leave it at that.

CONS

Much like Jamie Kennedy explains in Scream - in the iconic scene that perfectly summed up the point of that movie - there are certain rules one must abide by to successfully create a found footage movie:

1.) Do not add music to your found footage movie. This is only acceptable in situations where your movie contains both the "found" footage and sit-down interviews reflecting on it (see: Lake Mungo, The Tunnel ). Otherwise, this is a cheap trick, and alludes to the notion that the filmmaker does not have enough faith in his movie to be scary without it. Yes, you can hire a composer to write you the most unnerving film score in history, but there will always be one thing scarier than creepy violins or a sustained piano key: complete silence. (Note: To be fair, this may or may not be a point of contention where Evil Things is concerned, as we find out at the end of the film that the footage we have been watching has been "prepared" for us by our unseen antagonist.)

2.) When your camera operator is also a member of the cast, his presence has to feel organic. He cannot feel like a cameraman - he must feel like a character undergoing the same conflicts as his fellow cast members. (SPOILER: During the scene where the kids discover that the videotape left on their porch actually contained footage - shot by their stalker - of the house's exterior, interior, and even of the kids sleeping, what could have been the most effective scene in the movie was ruined by the cameraman making sure to capture the horrified reactions of the cast. Put yourself in that situation: you are trapped in a house in the middle of nowhere, and you are seeing footage of YOU sleeping, taken by someone who intends to do you harm. Do you stare, transfixed at the television, your camera slightly off kilter, or do you focus more on your friends' reactions, being sure to cut from face to face to face?)

3.) Do not choreograph the camerawork in conjunction with the script. A character's dialogue should be impulsive and natural. There were far too many scenes in the film in which the camera whipped over to a focus on a specific character well before they started talking, as if the camera operator were anticipating this speaking part. If the gimmick behind found footage is for your events to feel as realistic as possible, filmmakers must take this into account.

Despite the fact that the movie's running time was barely 80 minutes, there are too many padding scenes. The drive to the house takes too long, and even the most monotonous scenes - such as the kids sitting around eating dinner and barely speaking - needed not be included (nor would ever realistically be filmed by our camera operator/character). It's always better to have a shorter and tighter film (example: [REC], with a running time of 78 minutes and not an ounce of fat in the film).

The kids tend to overreact to certain events in the film, as if already aware they are in a horror film. By the van's second appearance, the kids show genuine fear, whereas in reality, most people would pass it off as a minor annoyance. Same goes for when they become lost in the woods - panic seems to set in  bit too prematurely.

Earlier I mentioned the lack of curtains, and yes, it was effective in increasing the tension during the film's finale. But, on the flip-side...who doesn't hang curtains or shades in their windows, especially in a house which was clearly otherwise cared for by its owners? Sure, it's a minor quibble, but one line of dialogue would have made this a bit more palatable: "Sorry none of the windows have curtains - we just finished painting." Or, you know...something else.

The climax of the film felt rushed, which was a shame, given the amount of action taking place. I was hoping the film would build to unbearable levels of tension, but instead the movie seemed to go out with more of a whimper than a bang. (And the last shot inside the house owes quite a bit to the finale of The Silence of the Lambs .)

The end of the film introduces an interesting revelation - the unseen, van-driving stalker sets his sights on a new set of kids: a film crew wandering around Central Park. What is it about the presence of the camera that attracts our unseen antagonist? We've learned he likes to shoot his own raw footage, but what is Perez insinuating by showing us the stalker's attraction to video? That's a question you'll be wondering about as the credits roll.

Despite the cons, Evil Things was still a fun ride, with genuine moments of suspense and shock, and it was an admirable film debut by writer/director Perez. I look forward to seeing what he'll bring us in the future.

GRADE: B-

MEMENTO MORI: PART II

DEATH, to the dead for evermore
A King, a God, the last, the best of friends -
Whene'er this mortal journey ends
Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door;
Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shore
Where neither piping bird nor peeping dawn
Disturbs the eternal sleep,
But in the stillness far withdrawn
Our dreamless rest for evermore we keep. 
- Robert Louis Stevenson