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.

 

Ghostly Shadow in Long Island Mansion – caught on video!

While touring a Long Island, NY Mansion, me and my wife took some photos and video. When we watched the video at home, we saw this strange shadow movement. The shadow seems to hover over the bed and float across it. We also heard a child’s voice that seems like it’s right in the room with us.

Rigor Mortis (2014) – Movie Review

Rigor Mortis (2014)

(Hong Kong)
directed by Juno Mak, 
produced by Takashi Shimizu

Chin Siu-ho, Anthony Chan, Billy Lau and Richard Ng, Chung Fat

With such a generic title, I wasn’t expecting too much from this film, but I guess something about the cover art and the 4-star rating on Netflix made me hold it in my queue for many months. I had no idea it would become one of my favorite horror films of the year. It is an Asian horror film, subtitled, and steeped in Asian beliefs and traditions about the dead. Traditions such as leaving food outside your door for your deceased relatives and knowledge about jiangshi would help understanding the film but I’d say most viewers can catch on quick enough.

A young actor, Chin, takes up residence in a low-grade housing complex after his wife and child are torn away through divorce. He feels great guilt and remorse for not spending time with his family while pursuing the selfish accomplishments of his career. In the first few minutes of the film he attempts suicide by hanging and is barely saved by the buildings insightful superintendent. However, being so close to death has awakened the dark side of the spirit world to his senses. The apartment complex is populated by a multitude of spirits who have not moved on and evil entities with bad intent. Chin is thrust into the role of defending the building and it’s inhabitants, especially a young mother, Yang Feng, and her albino son, from these entities while coming to terms with his own misgivings in life.

The film is visually stunning, high action, but evenly balanced with creepy atmosphere and thoughtful introspection. It’s populated with interesting characters and intriguing aspects of love, hate, jealousy, guilt and revenge, while never getting preachy or overzealous on moral stances. It shows that people just do what they do because they are human and are bound by human emotions. While I don’t think it would be a favorite for all horror fans, it connected with me on an intellectual and emotional level. You would have to enjoy and be partial to paranormal horror. If you like, The Sixth Sense, The Eye, Dark Waters, mixed with some spiritual Matrix-like fight scenes, I think you will find the film quite good.

High energy spiritual battle film worth a viewing for those who like the supernatural.

I give it 4.0 ghastly ghouls out of 5 on the scale of morbidly chilling fiends in the dark.

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A jiangshi, also known as a Chinese “hopping” vampire or zombie, (more like a ghostly ghoul to us) is a type of reanimated corpse in Chinese legends and folklore. A certain kind of rice is used in battling this demonic entity.

Mama (2013) – movie review

Mama (2013)
Directed by Andres Muschietti

No spoilers J

Mama starts with an investment banker on a suicide mission. He kidnaps his two daughters and brings them to the country, with intentions of completing the removal of himself and family from the dismal existence of bankruptcy, jail, and utter failure. When reaching their destination, my first thoughts were, oh no, it’s the cabin from Evil Dead. The older child can sense a presence in the cabin and is reluctant to enter but is reassured by her father. Something goes wrong with the father’s plan and the two young girls, Victoria and Lilly, are left to fend for themselves, or are they?

We are then introduced to the brother of the investment banker, Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), and his punk rocker girlfriend, Annabel. Five years have past, but Lucas has not given up the search for the two girls. By a stroke of luck the children are found. After some lawyer grappling with a surviving aunt from the mother’s side of the family, Lucas is awarded custody of his nieces. The two wild children go to live with Lucas and Annabel. Naturally, the presence from the cabin has come with them.

An interesting tale unfolds with a strong back-story containing its own plot twists as it is revealed through the investigation by the girl’s psychiatrist, Dr. Dreyfuss. The two young ladies play wonderfully convincing parts and I was fully engaged with their plight. The punk rocker girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain), is left with much of the duty in bringing these girls back to reality and she makes the biggest transformation in character, from non-caring punk rocker to surrogate mother of the children. However, there is another entity that claims ownership of these girls and is not going to let them be taken away so easily.

The spirit is creepy as hell – too tall, with fingers that are too long. Her long hair rises, waves, and flutters, as if by its own will. Mama is a twisted, malformed, contortionist, with a hideous face and wicked eyes, determined to keep these two children with her. The spirit’s warped sense of right and wrong makes her dangerous to all who stand in her way.

At its core, Mama is a classic ghost story, so some of the plot-points and outcomes are predictable. But that doesn’t make it any less creepy or enjoyable to fans of supernatural horror. In the last fifteen minutes, the story twists into a sudden overwhelming sadness, and no matter what the outcome, you will feel bad for all the parties involved. So, when leaving the theater, I was more melancholy  rather than fearful, which to some, could ruin the overall effect of the film. Muschietti shows his love for Guillermo del Toro films with this aspect, but I can’t help thinking it may have been better to leave the audience in a fearful state instead. Despite some drawbacks, I would still recommend it to fans of supernatural horror and ghost stories.
 

The Last Exorcism – (2010) – movie review

The Last Exorcism – (2010) – movie review
The Last Exorcism is a mock-documentary about a popular evangelist preacher, ‘Cotton’ Marcus, who is part showman, part spiritual cheerleader. He brings a reporter and cameraman into his world to show them the inner workings and daily activities of a bible-belt preacher. He admits to the reporter that although he has spent many years preaching and doing exorcisms, he does not believe in demons, ghosts or other worldly entities. A personal crisis with his own son coincides with a tragic event in Texas where a young boy was killed during an exorcism event. This event was the epiphany that made Cotton Marcus want to reveal himself as a showman, as well as, all the other self-proclaimed preachers doing exorcisms in the south. Cotton hopes to expose the falseness of exorcisms so that people will understand that they should not put their children at risk in the hands of preachers over medical professionals. Cotton invites the news crew on an exorcism, picked randomly from a stack of letters requesting spiritual intervention on behalf of loved ones. They travel to the Sweetzer farm in the Deep South to perform this exorcism charade upon a teenage girl. The film then twists and turns leading the viewer to constantly change opinions about the possessed girl as the pendulum swings both ways, in favor for an actual possession, or just a psychologically disturbed teen.

The film is impressively filmed and directed by Daniel Stamm and the lead actor, Patrick Fabian (Cotton Marcus), is charismatic and entertaining. Likewise, Ashley Bell delivered a convincing performance as Nell, the possessed teen. In most exorcism films, it is all about the last 20 minutes but this one has creepy scenes and chills that held my interest throughout. In fact, the exorcism starts about halfway through the film. The Last Exorcism has a bizarre ending like no other exorcism movie. While some viewers did not like the surprise ending, I did like it. It took a familiar film genre and entwined a new aspect into it. There have been many exorcism films made in the last 10-12 years. I like this one better than most of the glossy, slick production films of the same genre that have been released.

  

The Dangers of using a Ouija Board – fact or fiction – part III

 

Ouija Board – fact or fiction – part III
The Dangers of using a Ouija Board

The biggest danger posed while using the Ouija Board is using it alone. I believe the reason for this is the following: when using it with others, there is always one or two people that are skeptics and that somehow decreases the power of the entity you have contacted, or at least keeps it in check. When using the board alone you become fully trusting of the spirit. Wanting to keep the communication open, you offer yourself, your energy and your belief, totally.

Often, the entity will start out nice and cordial. It may tell you things about its life, how it died and other details that may give you some excitement. Then, it may turn in an instant, become nasty, spiteful, and even begin to use profanity in its language. This is when it has become dangerous. You can never tell for sure if some dark entity has taken over the portal and is pretending to be the first spirit you had contacted or if the dark entity had been the only spirit you had communicated with all along and had gained your trust deceitfully for the very purpose of breaking you down.

After the spirit has gained your trust, it may start to offer suggestions for dealing with your own life and situations. It will give you opinions about your loved ones. Sometimes it will tell you that your family, husband, or wife doesn’t really love you. It will make up lies, telling you your spouse is cheating on you, and your family or business partners are trying to deceive you. The entity will say you were adopted or your father was not really your father, etc, anything that will create misery, conflict, hatred, or discord. It may use vulgarity and tell you vulgar things about yourself or family. This is a demonic entity and it will literally try to destroy your life by attacking your psychological well-being.

Getting rid of a board is not always as easy as it sounds. You will be surprised at the board’s tenacity for reappearing in your home, or being replaced by another board. One time I had discarded my Ouija Board by burying it deep within a trash bag with a bunch of other trash piled on top of it. I watched as the garbage men hauled it away. Case closed, job well done. Two days later a neighbor had left a bag for us, as she often did because we had two young children, with some hand-me-down clothes and games. Within the stack of five or six games we found, you guessed it, another Ouija Board. It had been a different board but we have to assume the same entity would be communicating through it. I did not use it. I did not want to find out.

Even after you have successfully dispatched, discarded, or destroyed a board, the entity that you had communicated with may still be present in your home and in your life. You may have opened a doorway, a portal from the spirit world that will not be closed simply because you have discarded the board. Many different entities can pass in and out through this portal. This portal may be in a physical place such as a basement or backyard or it may be associated with you and follow you to new locations if you were to move or vacation. At this point you may have to seek professional help to close the doorway. It will be important to protect yourself with prayer and good spirituality.

  
Anything more than casual or occasional use of a Ouija Board will strengthen this doorway and make it more difficult to close.

The traditional Ouija Board is not the only danger associated with contacting the other side. Doing things like, spreading flour on the floor to see if there are any footprints or markings in the morning and/or using a recording device to ask spirits to come forth are both rituals of communication. Having a séance or trying your hand at remote writing can also have negative outcomes. When it comes to these daring little games always remember, it is not a game.

 

To read part I and part II of this article, click on the ‘Strange but True’ category in the right hand column.

related articles:
The Dangers of using a Ouija Board – part I
The Dangers of using a Ouija Board – part II

Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood – Algernon Blackwood – book review

Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood – Algernon Blackwood
Dover Publications
Selected and introduced by E.F. Bleiber

These collected tales by Algernon Blackwood are not all traditional ghost stories but are supernatural in a larger sense. I had been familiar with his more famous tales in this collection, The Windego and The Willows which portray elemental powers – where natural geographies possess a conscious malevolent will. In The Glamour of the Snow, we find that same elemental will as swirling flakes materialize into a beautiful maiden and lure a man further from the safety and warmth of his mountain holiday hotel. In Secret Worship, a phantom boarding school in the German Alps calls to its alumni in order to continue its secret ceremonies of dark powers.

While the British author is famous for these weird tales and expanding the field of horror to encompass more (along with his contemporaries, Lovecraft, Machen), it is the traditional ghost stories in this book that intrigue me the most. My favorite, The Listener, is a tense ghost story that builds suspense in small steps and never lets up. A writer, seeking the seclusion of a quiet boarding house, finds no sanctity as he is slowly tormented and pushed to the edge of sanity by a malicious entity. The Empty House dares a young man and his aging aunt to stay the night and see the truth, in this epitome of the haunted house tale. The story increases intensity with every paragraph. I would highly recommend both of these tales to anyone who wants to read a good ghost story, write a ghost story, or just wants a chilling yarn to keep them awake at night.

Blackwood does not feel the need to explain the supernatural happenings in his fiction. He only presents them in the stories as fact and for the reader to accept that these things exist. Noting the impact of these stories as I read them, I shudder to think what his readers felt like when these tales were first published in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. I imagine that many readers fostered little sleep and kept lanterns burning through the night. Don’t be misled by my analogy, these stories are timeless and will have the same impact today, for those who dare open the pages of this book.

Ouija Board – fact or fiction – part II

Ouija Board – fact or fiction – part II
How and why the Ouija Board works

The Ouija board itself has no power. If it did, planchettes would be moving by themselves in the boxes on store shelves where they are sold. Also, toy stores across the nation would resemble Halloween haunted house attractions as ghosts and spirits spread from the confines of their little boxes and out into the aisles.

The success of a Ouija board reading is wholly dependent upon the psychic abilities, spirituality and openness of the individuals using it. Whether the individuals themselves know they have abilities does not matter. Even a skeptic with a strong intuitive nature may get a good reading.

In using the board, it is the ritual of setting up the game, setting the right mood in the room, and clearing your mind for the purpose of communications with the spirit world, that makes it possible. It is your intention that acts as a beacon to draw spirits toward the board, not the board itself.

The contents of a Ouija board consist of a board with the “Yes’ or ‘No’ response choices printed upon it and a movable piece called a ‘planchette’. The planchette is shaped somewhat like a heart, a rounded bottom and a pointed top. The pointed top will aim at answers or letters to communicate with the players. Some planchettes have an open or glass circle in them so the letters will appear in the circle. The players place their fingers upon the movable piece and ask questions. In a successful reading, the spirits will work through the energy of the ’players’ and point the planchette to words or letters, in order to answer questions. Most have a full alphabet printed on the board for more detailed questions/answers. Some have ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’ and numbers, 0 thru 9, printed upon them also.

 

Boards range from the basic Parker Brothers game sold at toy stores to elaborate wooden boards with fine wood-carved planchetes. However, anything can be used as a makeshift Ouija Board. A piece of cardboard box with the words ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ scribbled upon it, and another piece of cardboard cut into planchette shape can be used with the same results. It can be an effective communication tool because of what I had previously mentioned; it is your intention to communicate that draws the spirits forward.

When you use the Ouija Board repeatedly, you will begin to contact one specific entity, over and over. This is the dominant entity of the board. This entity is attracted to you for some reason and will tell you details about their life and answer questions freely. One word of warning: never use a Ouija Board alone. It can be dangerous. Also, anything more than casual or occasional use, even with others, is not recommended.

 

In part 3 of this article I will get into the dangers of using a Ouija Board.

Ouija boards & Witchboards – fact or fiction – part I

 

 Ouija Boards – fact or fiction

I recently purchased the movie Witchboard on DVD. It is a ghost/possession movie from 1986 starring, Tawny Kitaen. While the film is decent, though not as good as I had remembered, there was a very interesting element to this DVD; it came with a mini Witch Board insert-sleeve. The glossy cardboard sleeve has the traditional Ouija Board markings and design. Perforated edges can be removed, to make it dimensionally proportioned. One end contains a pop-out planchette to use with the board.

On the opposite side of this Ouija Board is the traditional film info; scene listings, credits, running time, etc. I have no intention of using this novelty. I will not pop-out the planchette or break-off its ends for aesthetic reasons. It is promotional items like this, which become collectible.

 

There is another reason why I do not pop-out that planchette, lay it upon the board and ask questions of the mystical world beyond. I do not need the movie Witchboard, Paranormal Activity, or The Exorcist to tell me of the potential dangers. I had learned a long time ago that these boards, although some are even manufactured by Hasbro, are not ‘games’ at all. I’ve had experiences with Ouija Boards, myself.

Sure, some of the things that have occurred could be rationalized as overactive imagination or subconscious knowledge coming to the surface of conscious thought. However, there are always a few things that leave a big fat question-mark, long after the Ouija Board is gone. Of those reading this, half of you are scoffing and half of you know exactly what I am talking about. Many people have had experiences with these ‘games’ and none of the experiences have a happy finale. In the end, it is always, “I have to get rid of this damn thing!”

 

A recurring aspect of Ouija Board phenomenon is the fact that, a board, once attached to a person that uses it, is not so easy to get rid of. It usually takes several attempts to dispose of the game. Somehow, the board always seems to fall out of the garbage pail, and not taken away by the garbage men. It is then returned to the house by another family member or neighbor, who doesn’t even know your original intention was to get rid of the accursed board to begin with. So, it winds up back in your home at the oddest time, sitting there on the kitchen table or bedroom desk, as your jaw goes slack and eyes go wide with terror.

At a later date I will relay a couple of past experiences.

For now, I would like you to indulge me with an experiment. Make sure the room is quiet. Shut off any music and the TV in the background. Make sure you do this at a time when no one will disturb you. Now, look at the computer keyboard you type on. It resembles a Witch board, doesn’t it? The only things missing are Yes/No and Goodbye. What I want you to do is open up a simple word-processing program. ‘Word’ is too complicated. Open up notepad. Click on the white page and set your cursor so it is ready to type. Do not type anything. Looking at the keyboard, place your fingers on the plastic area directly under the keys of the keyboard. Try to get all five fingers touching the plastic. Now, I want you to clear your mind of all thoughts. All worries, appointments, wants and needs, aspirations – clear them all out. Gone. Take a few deep breaths. Relax. Wait a few more moments in meditation.

Now, ask the all important question, “Is anybody out there?”

For the third night in a row, without any clicks of the keys, the word ‘hello’ has appeared on my screen.

Side note: I would suggest shutting down your computer at night, before bed. Another note, the word count in this blog came to 666 words,  strange.
Sleep well, my friends.