Festival Of Fear: Day 28: True Story Tuesday: The Haunting In Connecticut

The 2009 film The Haunting in Connecticut is one of those that boasts the famous tagline of, “based on a true story”. But how true is the story? And who are the world-renowned paranormal investigators that made this tale famous?

The Haunting in Connecticut was based on the story of the Snedeker family, who moved to Southington in 1986 in order to get treatment for their eldest son, Phillip, who had cancer. Desperate to find a home, they unknowingly moved into a former funeral home.

The Snedeker home in CT

The mother, Carmen, was left alone to take care of the house and the kids since her husband had to remain at his job, hours away. She was busy and reluctant to believe her children’s (three boys and a girl) claims of supernatural activity. It started with Phillip hearing voices calling his name at night, and then seeing apparitions in his room, which was located in the basement beside the embalming room. His brother, Brad, who also shared his room would see them on occasion as well. While Phillip most commonly saw a man, he once awakened Brad to point out four cloaked men standing in the corner of their room. After a thorough search by their mother, the house was found empty.

Carmen was becoming suspicious by the crucifixes (which were hung above every doorway in the house) disappearing one by one. Eventually she began seeing apparitions in the house, as well, such as a girl with long black hair and a man in a pinstripe suit with white hair and white eyes.

Scene from The Haunting in Connecticut

Phillip began to noticeably change, and became withdrawn, moody, and violent. He would spend hours in his room—which became the embalming room after he moved himself into it—scribbling in a notebook that was later discovered to have pages of dark thoughts, drawings, and poems of a devious and disturbed nature. When his mother questioned him on how he could have written some of the material, since he was apparently dyslexic, he claimed “the man” helped him do it. Phillip began cutting bizarre, occult-like symbols into his arm, which was apparently also the instruction of unseen entities.

It wasn’t until after an older female cousin, Tammy, moved in, that things truly escalated. Once close with Phillip, she was now frightened of him and would find him staring at her from around corners. Tammy was pestered at night by unseen entities which were pulling at the covers and her clothes. Believing it was Phillip (and some accounts say it was Phillip), Carmen had her son committed and treated for schizophrenia.

~from the TV show Paranormal Witness

However, activity did not cease in his absence; on the contrary it intensified. Tammy was still attacked at night, and could even see disembodied hands running under her nightgown. Tammy, Carmen, and even father Al claimed to be sexually assaulted by the demons they believed inhabited the house. It was after repeated incidents that they called in renowned psychic and demonologist, Ed and Lorraine Warren.

After staying in the house for several weeks and experiencing all that the family did, the Warrens decided to perform an exorcism, which apparently brought an end to the horror. Phillip was released from the institution and the family moved out of the home. Phillip’s cancer took his life at age 24. Since their haunting, the family—particularly Carmen and youngest son AJ—have gone on to tell their story in many different forms, and perhaps many different versions, too.

They got attention with the book In a Dark Place, written by Ray Garton. Carmen and her family have relayed their story on episodes of A Haunting and Paranormal Witness; she now considers herself a spiritual advisor and plans on writing another book.

Although the Snedeker account is terrifying and gripping, many also believe that it is fake. Tenants who occupied the house before and after the famous family have had no reports of supernatural activity, nor has the landlady, who also claims that the Snedekers were aware of the former use of their home. More concerning is the fact that the author of their supposed biography, Ray Garton, doesn’t believe the story to be true. He was hired by the Warrens to interview the family and pen the tale, but was bothered when the family’s accounts were inconsistent and contradictory. When Garton expressed this issue to Fred Warren, he assured Garton that the family was “crazy” and to use what he could and make up the rest, but to be sure to make it scary. So that’s exactly what Garton did.

How much of the Snedeker’s story do you believe? Were they in it for the profit or were they truly tormented by inhuman spirits? Does The Haunting in Connecticut deserve their controversial tagline?

Festival Of Fear: Day 21: True Story Tuesday: Sin Eaters

Do you believe in judgment after death? While superstition still exists today, there used to be a time when it would define the way people carry out rituals, such as the death of a loved one.

In 19th century England and Scotland there existed a very strange occupation. After the death of a loved one, relatives could hire a “sin-eater” to come and cleanse the soul of the recently departed. To do so, the sin-eater would be given a small meal, consisting of bread and a glass of wine or ale; the body would be laid out and the wine would have to be literally handed over the corpse (or coffin) and the bread waved over the deceased person, or even placed on their chest. It was believed that in doing this that the sins of the dead were absorbed into the food and drink. After saying a quick prayer, which traditionally went something like this, “I give easement and rest now to thee, dear man. Come not down the lanes or in our meadows. And for they peace I pawn my own soul. Amen.” It was also believed that if a person died suddenly their soul would be left behind to wander the physical plane—or, in other words, haunt the houses and countryside. Hiring a sin-eater would guarantee that the departed soul leaves in peace, and carries over to the other side. After reciting the speech, the sin-eater would consume the bread and wine, and it was believed that in doing so they took on the sins of the dead, therefore absolving them.

Unfortunately, little is known about sin-eaters as far as specifics in location and time period. The tradition is thought to have taken place through the 18th and 19th century in England and Scotland. The poor and hungry were usually the ones who would volunteer for the act, as it came with a meal and a little money. However, it did make them an outcast from society and ostracized from the church. Sin-eaters would be treated as if diseased or unclean, and were only called upon at the time of a person’s death.

The last known sin-eater, Richard Munslow, died in 1906 and was buried in Ratlinghope, England.

The strange and macabre tradition of sin-eating has had little recognition in popular culture, but one episode of Night Gallery showcases the funeral rite and the terrible psychology that can come along with it. The episode, called, “The Sins of Our Fathers”, stars Barbara Steele as a grieving wife, desperate to find a sin-eater to send her husband’s soul to heaven. The 2003 film, The Order, stars Heath Ledger as a priest researching the ghastly ritual.

A favorite artist of mine from Herefordshire, England works under the name Sin Eater; you can see some of his gorgeous artwork here.

For some, hiring a sin-eater was a way to find peace after the death of a loved one, for others it was a source of disgust and repulsion. Either way, the tradition did not survive to see the 21st century, and so it remains in history a strange and fascinating ritual.

Festival Of Fear: Day 14: True Story Tuesday: The Philip Experiment

~ by Marie Robinson

Everyone has given thought to life after death, or the possible lack thereof. Some people believe they know what comes after, and everyone’s got their own opinion, but we still have no indisputable evidence of the afterlife.

John Pogue’s 2014 film, The Quiet Ones, deals with such subject matter, and stars Jared Harris as Joseph Coupland, an Oxford professor determined to disprove the existence of ghosts. Brian (Sam Claflin) is a cameraman hired on to film Professor Coupland and his group of students as they perform experiments on a disturbed girl (Olivia Cooke) who seems to cause supernatural phenomena.

The Quiet Ones

While Jane believes she is haunted by a spirit named Evey, the professor and his group believe that she has rather created the entity through her unhealthy state of mind; therefore, to produce better results in their nighttime “séances”, they torment her during the day playing loud, obnoxious rock music in her room. Sure enough, night after night, objects move by themselves, and strange noises such as banging and loud footsteps can be heard, along with other increasingly disturbing phenomena.

Drawing of "Philip"

Without giving too much away, let’s just say the Professor’s theory is put to the test as the “haunting” intensifies. While The Quiet Ones is purely fiction, it was inspired by an actual study, called The Philip Experiment.

The Philip Experiment took in place in the early 1970’s in Toronto. Dr. George Owen of the Toronto Society for Psychical Research put together a group of 8 whose goal was to create a ghost.
 They collectively invented the ghost’s name, Philip Aylesford, and his history. Philip Aylesford was an English aristocrat from the 17th century, dwelling in Diddington Manor in Cambridgeshire (a real place). Married to a cold, cruel woman, Philip began to have an affair with a gypsy girl. When his wife discovered him she accused the girl of witchcraft and had her burned at the stake. Devastated by the loss of his love, Philip threw himself from the top of his manor house and ended his own life at the age of 30.

Having a complete knowledge of their imaginary ghost was important to make him “real”. The group would sit around a card table with their hands laid out flat before them, as they would have done in a traditional séance. They would call out to Philip and ask him questions, which he would respond to through knocks on the table. While Philip never actually appeared or manifested, he would shake the table and sometimes make it rise from the ground.

Another film (a terrible one, I might add) that draws inspiration from this study is The Apparition (2012), in which a group of students try to create a ghost by studying a photo of a deceased person.

It is a common belief among parapsychologists that a person’s emotions and psychological state can create supernatural activity; for example, it is thought by some that adolescent girls going through puberty are able to create poltergeists through psychic energy. In Buddhism a Tulpa is a being or energy-spirit created solely by thought. The human mind is a strange and powerful thing.

What do you believe?

Festival Of Fear: Day 7: True Story Tuesday ~ The Bell Witch

 ~by Marie Robinson

You’ve heard a hundred movies boast the tagline, “based on a true story”, or, “inspired by real events.” And with a horror film, especially one with supernatural elements, it’s almost impossible not to scoff and say, “Yeah, right.” Although it’s easy to dismiss such a notion, perhaps there is a small part of you that wonders, “Is it really possible?”

Well, that is precisely what True Story Tuesday is about, finding the truth behind the tall tales and the fact from the fiction. So, welcome back, my friends, to another helping.

One such film to claim depictions of true events was the 2005 film, An American Haunting, directed by Courtney Soloman. Although the film takes place in two time periods, it is set predominately in early 19th century and tells the tale of the Bell family. The father, John Bell (Donald Sutherland) is accused of stealing a local woman’s—and alleged witch—land. When he is given no real punishment the ‘witch’, Kate Batts (Gaye Brown), threatens to curse the Bell daughter. The family soon falls victim to supernatural forces, which torment the daughter, Betsy Bell (Rachel Hurd-Wood), both physically and mentally.

sketching of the Bell cabin

As is the case with most films, the word ‘true’ is used casually; in this case An American Haunting was based on the legend of the Bell Witch of Adams, Tennessee. While the film kept the names and general details of the story the same, some things do differ. The Bells were a respected farming family in Tennessee, but their trouble began in 1817 when strange events began to occur in their home. The most popular version begins with John Bell finding a strange animal—half-dog, half-rabbit—outside their home. He tries to shoot it to death, but is unsuccessful when the beast runs off into the woods. Later that night the family is startled by something scratching and beating at the door, but upon investigation there is no one to be found.

Rachel Hurd-Wood as Betsy Bell

After that the household is terrorized by an invisible entity on a daily basis, which such phenomena as scratching sounds, things being knocked over and tossed about seemingly on their own, and family members being pinched and slapped; John and daughter Betsy suffered the worst. Embarrassed and confused, the Bell family kept the haunting to themselves for an entire year before confiding in a neighboring couple. Word soon spread of the disturbing activity and people were coming around from all over to witness the haunting firsthand; it was even rumored that Andrew Jackson visited the Bell house!

By this time the entity had found a voice and would sing hymns, quote the Bible, and even carry on intelligent conversation with people. According to the story, once when asked who or what it was, the disembodied voice claimed to be a witch sent by a local woman named Kate Batts. From then on people would refer to the spirit as, “The Bell Witch”. The haunting finally came to an end when John died after he was apparently poisoned.

In 1894 author Martin Van Buran Ingram released An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch, which details all accounts of the Bell Witch haunting. Ingram claimed to have based the book off of a diary written by one of the Bell sons, Richard, who was around six-years-old at the time but allegedly did not pen his diary until adulthood; however, no evidence of the journal exists, and the only person to have seen it is the author, making many believe that he invented the entire story since he had no real sources.

There are still some who continue to believe the Bell Witch legend, and there is a farm in Adams that is dedicated to it. There have also been several other films inspired by the tale, including Bell Witch Haunting (2004), and Bell Witch: The Movie (2007).

While it is an interesting story, and even inspired a decent film, one can hardly go around claiming the story to be true. In this case, the infamous tagline was misleading and disappointing and probably would have turned out better if it would have just been presented as fiction.

True Story Tuesday: RE-ANIMATOR And The Problem With Not Staying Dead

 ~by Marie Robinson

In 1921, H.P. Lovecraft wrote a serialized short story called “Herbert West—Reanimator” for a magazine called Home Brew. It concerns two medical students, our narrator and his peer Herbert West who has a fascination with life after death. His goal is to reanimate a human body and receive a conscious reaction, and hopefully some recount of the places in between life and death.

Although Lovecraft hated this particular piece of his, and did it only because he was paid decently, it went on to inspire one of the most beloved cult classic films of all time, Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator. Gordon takes liberties with the text and gives a gory, crass, romping good time.

Lovecraft was inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and wrote “Herbert West—Reanimator” as a parody. I, however, was inspired to look into some real-life stories of reanimation and some other fun indirect connections to this story that are based in fact.

They say fact is stranger than fiction, and with this notion, we welcome you to True Story Tuesday.

Dr. Sergei Brukhonenko—Reanimator 
In Stalin-era Russia there was a Soviet scientist named Sergei Brukhonenko who was famously an open-heart surgeon and more infamously a reanimator. He received much controversy over a 1940 film called Experiments in the Revival of Organisms; this introduces Brukhonenko’s device - the autojektor - a heart and lung machine used to maintain life. The film showcases experiments Brukhonenko performed on various parts of a dog, such as a heart, which can be seen beating on its own, suspended by tubes and cables. The most disturbing part, and weirdly enough pretty much a scene right out of Re-Animator, is when they show a dog’s decapitated head kept alive by the autojektor. It is up to you to decide if the scene is fake or not, but I think we can all agree that it is downright creepy.



When the Dead Come Back
What is more horrifying than a loved one dying? How about them coming back to life! This happens surprisingly often in countries where bodies aren’t embalmed and advanced medical technology isn’t accessible. Sometimes people are just mistaken as dead; other times are a bit stranger. South Africa is one of those places where lack of modern medicine equipment often makes it hard to test that someone is clinically dead; one man in Zimbabwe was lying in a coffin at his funeral when one of the attendees filing past noticed his leg twitching. Thankfully the man came to before they could seal him up forever—--an ambulance was called and he was saved. Another South African man suffered an asthma attack and his distraught family members immediately thought he had died, so they called and made funeral arrangements. The poor man eventually woke up—in a morgue freezer surrounded by corpses. When he started screaming the present morticians thought it was a ghost and ran out of the building. A group returned later and released the man.

 One burial custom of a Chinese village is that the deceased rest in a coffin within their home a few days before they are eventually buried. This is what was done for a 95-year-old woman who was found unconscious and believed dead. When her neighbor went to check on her coffin, she found the lid pried open and the woman gone. She was found in her kitchen, cooking, since she woke up from a very long sleep and wanted something to eat.
  An unlucky Venezuelan man woke up in the middle of his own autopsy due to the pain of the medical examiners cutting open his face. They thought it was odd when their scalpel drew fresh blood, and even odder when their corpse awoke; they immediately stitched him up and he returned home to his wife.
  This last story is the most heartbreaking as well as the most unsettling: a Brazilian boy was lying in his coffin as his family prepared for his funeral to begin. Suddenly, the child sits up in the coffin and kindly asks his father for a glass of water because he is thirsty. Everyone began screaming, but a moment later the little boy lay back down, and died.

Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis portray the devilish duo...

Exhumation for a Profit
In Lovecraft’s story, the narrator and Dr. Herbert West’s goal is to obtain a body as fresh as possible. Dead bodies are hard to come by—no questions asked, that is—so the two take up robbing graves of their bodies.
This was actually a repulsive trend in the early 1800s, as legal supply for human cadavers was low, and surgeons and medical students demand high. Some took to body snatching, but two Irish men named Burke and Hare’s methods were a little grimmer.
 It started when a neighbor of theirs died of natural causes; they brought the body to a Dr. Knox at Edinburg University, who paid them handsomely for their prize. Tired of just waiting for people to die, the duo took to murdering people and giving the bodies to Knox, who took them and placed payment in the men’s hands. Burke and Hare killed over 10 people within ten months. Their usual method was getting the victim supremely drunk and then suffocating them, but some died more cruelly, such as a mute twelve-year-old who had his back broken over Hare’s knee. The two were eventually caught when a body was found stashed under Burke’s bed.
I’m sure they would have made a fortune off of Dr. Herbert West…

Reanimation in Modern Science
The Lazarus Phenomena is when a person automatically regains resuscitation after CPR has been administered, and failed. The most common cases of this phenomenon are in people who have suffered a cardiac arrest, which isn’t too surprising, considering it is the leading cause of death in America. CPR is usually applied for an average of 15 minutes (although it varies on who is performing) before “calling it”—the longer it takes to revive after the heart has stopped beating, the less likely there will be brain damage due to lack of oxygen flowing to the brain. In cases of the Lazarus Phenomena (named as such after Biblical figure Lazarus who laid dead for four days before being resurrected by Jesus), victims of heart failure come back to life after being verbally declared dead of their bodies own accord. However, a new experimental method in resuscitation could increase the success rate of CPR.

In Australia they have upgraded from using good old-fashioned elbow grease to perform CPR and started using a device called an Auto-Pulse, which is a portable machine that consists of a band that wraps around the persons chest and gives regular chest compressions that keep the heart beating. Pairing this up with an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), which is an artificial heart and lung machine that keep these vital organs working while doctors can diagnose the cause of heart failure and treat it. In this particular hospital in Australia three patients have been revived after being dead after up to an hour. Similar efforts in Japan have revived people who had been dead for hours.
The reason our Dr. Herbert West wanted extremely fresh specimens is because of the possible brain damage that is possible when oxygen is cut off from the brain. Even though resuscitation is becoming more advanced, brain damage is still a risk of being revived after being clinically dead. Let’s just hope you don’t end up like one of the Re-Animator’s subjects.

Take care, everybody, and keep your eyes peeled for more True Story Tuesdays!