Horror’s Creepiest Homes

Horror’s Creepiest Homes – test your knowledge

Ok, folks! Let’s test your horror knowledge. Below are pics of horror film’s most infamous homes. Without looking at the answer key below it, how many of the homes/movies can you guess.

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Part I – we’ll start off with some easy ones to get your mind in gear…

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 
9. 
10. 

Ok, folks. Give yourself 5 pts for each correct answer. How many of you got #4? That was a hard one…

Take a deep breath… Are you ready for Part II? Go!

 

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Part II – Some of these are going to be difficult, but you will probably recognize them all…

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 
9. 
10. 

Once again, give yourself 5 pts for each correct answer.

 

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Bonus:
Add 2 points for each of the homes below that you guess correctly:

1. 
2. 
3. 

 

Super Bonus:
Name 3 of the 5 films this England Mansion (below) was used in and add 5 bonus points! The actual place is Oakley Court in Berkshire England

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Part I answers:

1)The Woman in Black – 2012 – Eel Marsh House, 2)Psycho – 1960 – the Bate’s Home, 3)The The Munsters – 1313 Mockingbird Lane, 4)Black Christmas – 1976, 5)Nightmare on Elm Street – 1984 – 1428 Elm Street, 6)Halloween – 1978, 7)The Amityville Horror – 1979, 8)Legend of Hell House – 1973, 9)The Haunting – 1963, 10)Crimson Peak – 2015

Part II answers:

1)Salem’s Lot – 1979, 2)Burnt Offerings – 1976, 3)Don’t be Afraid of the Dark – 1973, 4)The Changeling – 1980, 5)House on Haunted Hill – 1959, 6)The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – 2003, 7)Poltergeist – 1982, 8)The Conjuring – 2013, 9)Beetlejuice – 1988, 10)The House that Dripped Blood – 1971

Bonus answers:

13 Ghosts – 1960, House – 1986, The Others – 2001

Super Bonus answers:

Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), The Brides of Dracula (1960), Nightmare (1963), The Plague of the Zombies (1966), And Now the Screaming Starts (1973)

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Score:

Below 50 – You’re a horror novice. You should go and find yourself a good romantic comedy on Netflix to watch because you sure ain’t no horror fan!

50 – 75 – Not bad! You have obviously watched and enjoyed many horror flicks in your lifetime and retain some memory of creepy places in these movies. Your awareness will probably serve you well in real life. If you were to come across a home like any of these, you would know to stay away.

75 – 90 – You are a horror buff with a keen eye and good memory. You would probably want to live in a home that resembled some of these, just so you could frighten the neighbors and scare your friends.

90 and above – You are obsessed with horror and I think it’s probably at an unhealthy point by now. You should go find yourself a good romantic comedy to get your mind out of this psychotic state of horror obsession you’re in!

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An additional look at some of the lovely homes. Are you in the market for a new home?

The Stone Tape (1972) – movie review

***Top Television Horror Movies of the 1970’s***

The Stone Tape (1972)

Written by Nigel Kneale
Directed by Peter Sasdy

Starring
Michael Bryant
Jane Asher
Michael Bates
Iain Cuthbertson

The US weren’t the only ones producing TV horror films for network consideration. The Stone Tape was aired on the BBC in 1972. It was written by Nigel Kneale, famous for his Quatermass films combining scientific explanation and conjecture to paranormal events. He always has an intelligent concept in his scripts that is fully realized with the right filmmakers.

A research team for a company working on a new recording method for computer electronics moves into an estate turned lab, only to find that their workers will not enter one of the rooms. Only hours into opening the new lab base for RYAN Electronics, the data technician, Jill, hears a woman scream in the empty room, then footsteps run past her or perhaps thru her. They find evidence of a residual haunting and work to capture its nature while discovering the building’s ancient stone walls have some importance toward the haunting. They comes to theorize that the haunt is caused by the room itself, that the stone walls were somehow imprinted with this woman’s screams, tragedy, and image. It’s a slow burn film but interesting for those who like a bit of mystery and investigation.

The story is a mystery to be unraveled and sets up a frightening twist in the end. The effects are decent enough for an older film but most of the story is relayed through the dialogue, sound effects and character reactions. It’s probably not for everyone because the horror is cerebral; the thought of what has transpired and resulted is chilling, not the image seen on the screen. However, it’s a terrific tale of psychological terror.

Fun Facts:

One of the first films to demonstrate the possibility of a residual haunting and how the hypothesis would work.

One of the actors in the bar scene uses the word “duppies.” In Carribean Folklore, a “Duppy” is a malevolent ghost or spirit.

 

The Quiet Ones (2014) – movie review

The Quiet Ones (2014)

I like the analytical approach toward parapsychology taken by the main character in this film. Dr. Coupland contends that all ghostly activity is the byproduct of living people with strong telekinetic powers. Paranormal activity is not from the great beyond but created in the subconscious of a person and manifested upon the physical world. He intends to prove his theory with experimentation and documentation of his prime test subject, Jane. He ‘rescued’ her from the barbaric grip of the mental healthcare industry. The doctor and a small team of students hole-up in an abandoned countryside home, away from the prying eyes of Oxford’s administrators. With scientific monitoring equipment, they will prove Dr. Coupland’s theory.

With the ‘set-up’ of the camera-man documenting the event, you may get the impression that this is a found footage film. It’s not. Director, John Pogue, limited the 1^st person/camera POV to a few well-placed scenes that add to the creepiness of the film. Most of the film is portrayed in traditional style.

The film is an intellectual tug-o-war that successfully has the viewer taking sides on the professor’s theory, then flipping opinion back and forth as events escalate. This is mostly atmospheric horror following a cycle of building creepy tension then releasing it. It’s effective in that aspect. The team spend the day discussing the case but when night falls and the team members sit up alone (in shifts) watching Jane’s behavior on monitors, the atmosphere tenses up considerably. Jane speaks of a malevolent presence named ‘Evey’ and her intensions to do bad things. Coupland argues that ‘Evey’ is just a part of Jane’s subconscious and they will be able to extract that negative energy to cure Jane of her ailment.

There are some good plot twists as creepy Jane (played by Olivia Cooke) manipulates the characters with her words and turns them against each other. I wouldn’t consider this film a ‘classic’ but it’s a good watch on a quiet night, for eerie malevolent tension and some good jump scares. It’s original in concept and doesn’t contain the usual Hollywood clichés; I appreciate that. This is a Hammer film Production. Hammer have been releasing a steady stream of interesting films since their re-launch. It is loosely based on a real event known as the Philip Experiment, conducted in Toronto in 1972.

Creepy little film that was well-acted and original in concept, worth a watch.

I give it 3.9 outta’ 5, on the creepy, dark-haired, goth-girl scale of paranormal psycho-haunt films.

 

The Amityville Horror House, Today…

So, I was driving thru this South Shore community, Long Island NY, and came upon a familiar looking house.

Gone are the curved attic windows. Not so scary anymore.

 

Had to take a quick couple of pics while on the move. The loitering ticket for sight-seeing is like $1,000.

The home was up for sale recently for 1.5 million.

 

 

The Apparition (2012) – movie review

The Apparition (2012)

How did I miss this release? The box alludes to a modern ghost tale with fast-paced digi-fx, good scares and thrills. It starts out well enough; footage of a 1973 parapsychology experiment – a séance in order to prove the existence of the spirit world. Then we move to ‘today’, the same experiment with sophisticated equipment to capture proof of the existence ghosts – but this time something goes wrong. Something goes wrong with this movie, too! Ben (who was involved with the latest experiment) and Kelly move into a new home – wait a second… they already had a reason for ghosts to be haunting them, why would they use the tired cliché of moving into a new house as the starting point of this haunt? But that’s not the only cliché in this wholly unoriginal movie. We have black growths on the walls, ala, Pulse, we have open doors in the middle of the night, ala, Grave Dancers, we have plants dying within hours of being brought into the home – as in every haunted house flick since Burnt Offerings, we have dead-gray hands coming out of nowhere to grab Kelly – as in The Grudge, we have an angry ghost coming out of a washing machine – once again like Pulse, and, we have the ‘scary’ crawl to investigate under the crawlspace of the house. There doesn’t seem to be one original concept, visual, or new idea in this whole film. Add to that, all these scenes are filmed in a way that lacks any build of suspense, chills or tension. I can only think that the film maker was out of his genre in making this film and knows little about horror movies. Maybe he thought if he just copied what every other movie had done it would make for a good flick. He thought wrong. On top of that, there was no chemistry between Ben and Kelly that would make me feel like they were a couple – the dialogue was bland and uninteresting. I think I’ve hit upon the two words that describe this movie, bland and uninteresting. It’s a bunch of bland scenes done far better in the films they were lifted from. (Also copied in an uninteresting way: moving furniture from The Exorcist, melding people with walls from The Philadelphia Experiment, sleeping in a tent from The Sixth Sense.) Stay away from the Apparition.