Name : Mia Rahayu
NPM : 1223088
Class : A.4.3
The Conjuring and its
True Story
James
Wan’s latest foray into the haunted house genre leads him straight into The
Conjuring which is “based on a true story” about the Perron family who were
terrorized by demonic entities in which ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren
were called upon to investigate. We see this very often — especially with
horror films — because adding the tag “based on a true” story to your credits
instantly grabs everyone’s attention. And it should. Many movies are based on
some truth and when it comes to something that looks as terrifying as Wan’s The
Conjuring then we want to dig deeper into the events which inspired
it.
I
just recently dug up the true story about The Possession which was produced by Sam Raimi about the famous dibbuk box
that held a malicious ancient spirit inside that did horrible things to each of
its owners. That story was much easier to track down the “true” events because
it was a much more popular haunting. The Harrisville haunting, the basis of The
Conjuring, was a bit more difficult as not many people know about it yet.
Hopefully this will give you guys an idea as to what the true story behind The
Conjuring really is.
What
you’re about to read is all entirely from the accounts of Andrea Perron. Like
any story such as this, there’s a ton of skepticism because it’s one of those
things that we may never know to be true or not. Read on, and take from it what
you will, whether you believe in these things or not it’s a fascinating story
regardless and one that I hope you guys will find interesting.
It
had been a very long time before Andrea Perron told her account of what
happened to her and the rest of the family in the quiet town of Harrisville,
Rhode Island. She kept it all bottled up for three decades until finally
releasing her first published work, marking the first book in a three-part
series which tells the story of her family’s true experiences while living in a
farmhouse riddled with spirits in the lonely Rhode Island countryside.
Although
this particular haunting is very well-documented and considered to be one of
the most significant hauntings in history, it is still very foreign to many
people. The Warrens considered it their “most intense, compelling, disturbing
and significant investigation”.
Roger
and Carolyn Perron finally purchased their dream home in the winter months of
1970. Little did they know that this house was going to be full of nightmares.
As many people would, they were excited to be living in a home full of history
and were looking forward to raising their five daughters there. What they
didn’t know was that this house was full of agony and death. Two former
residents hung themselves — one from the rafters of the barn.
The
home was built on beautiful land with plenty of room for five growing children
to play. However, once they moved in the spirits began to make their presence
known.
Perron
says, “My mom just wanted a place in the country to raise her kids”.
“It
is an extraordinary place. We started seeing spirits as soon as we moved into
the house. Most of them were completely benign and some of them didn’t even
seem to notice we were there, but eight generations lived and died in that
house prior to our arrival and some of them never left.”
At
first many of them appeared to be harmless, like the ghost that smelled of
flowers and fruit, the one who would kiss the children goodnight in their beds
every night, or the spirit that constantly picked up a broom to sweep the
kitchen floor. Everything you would expect from a haunted house seemed to have
been happening to the family as well, like things moving on their own and doors
slamming shut, or quiet whispers heard throughout the night. Probably the most
frightening thing was the sound of something that had the habit of slamming
itself into the front door of the house in the middle of the night, waking
everyone up. There were obviously some very disturbed spirits among the family.
“We
had one my sister called ‘Manny’. He was a sympathetic soul. We think he was
actually Johnny Arnold, who committed suicide in the eaves of the house in the
1800s,” Perron said. “He would appear in the house and watch over us. He always
appeared in the same place, in the front hallway between the dining room and
the kitchen. The apparition would always lean up against the door and would
wear a crooked smile like he was amused by the children. As soon as we saw him
and made eye contact he was gone.”
What
is very interesting is that each member of the family actually saw these
spirits wandering throughout the home. They weren’t the only ones though,
because those who’ve lived in the house prior to and since the Perron family
saw them as well. “Everyone who has lived in the house that we know of has
experienced some type of supernatural phenomena,” Perron said. “Some have left
screaming and running for their lives. The man who moved in to begin
restoration on the house when we sold it left screaming, without his car,
without his tools, without his clothing. He never went back to the house and
consequently the people who owned it, the adjacent landowners, moved in only
briefly and it sat vacant for years.”
Her
descriptions of the numerous entities are vivid. Perron recalls their features
(or lack thereof) as especially haunting. At times, the spirits would appear
opaque, seemingly solid, and other times they were translucent or in the form
of mist and fog-like haze. She also claims the spirits actually communicated
with the members of the family but it wasn’t through speaking out loud. She
describes their discourse as being “telepathic in nature”.
Perron
said. “When they would appear it was as if all time stopped. My sister Cindy
described it like being “in the bubble”. The air is suddenly compressed and we
were unable to move or speak, prohibited from doing anything except listening
to what the spirit was trying to tell us.”
James
Wan’s The Conjuring is a motion picture based on the haunting
which occurred in the Perron home and persists to this day. It is a story told
from the perspective of Ed & Lorraine Warren, the paranormal researchers
who conducted an investigation of their farmhouse in the early 1970′s. The
screenplay is based on their case files as well as information that Ms. Perron
provided to the producers. The Warrens did an investigation of the
supernatural activity at the house while the family lived there in an attempt
to intervene on their behalf. During a séance that goes terribly wrong, they
awaken and call forth a horrendous presence, one that Mrs. Warren believed to
be Bathsheba, described as a “God-forsaken soul”.
Bathsheba wanted
control over Perron’s mother, Carolyn, and was hell-bent and determined to
drive her from the house, terrorizing her because the spirit apparently
perceived herself as the rightful mistress of the house. She saw Carolyn as
competition. She lusted after Roger and coveted the five children, routinely
acting out and making her intentions obvious to all of the mortals in the
house.Bathsheba frightened Carolyn straight to her bones, tormenting her with
fire, a mother’s greatest fear. The spirit would approach her in the night and
is described as having a gruesome, misshapen face and a broken neck. This thing
was like looking at something straight out of your worst nightmare.
According
to legend and local folklore, Bathsheba was suspected of being a practicing
witch and was accused of sacrificing an infant child as an offering to the
devil. More than two dozen mysterious and tragic deaths occurred on the
property. Although she was absolved of any wrongdoing in a courtroom, the court
of public opinion was not so kind. Bathsheba lived a miserable life and died an
old woman in 1885 from a bizarre form of paralysis which the physician who
examined the corpse found stunning and utterly inexplicable.
Early
accounts of Bathsheba’s life before becoming this tortured soul are said that
she was a young and beautiful woman when an infant mysteriously died in her
care. When the baby was discovered, the mortal wound was presumably caused by a
needle which was impaled at the base of its skull, which caused it to have
convulsions and die. Bathsheba denied these charges and ultimately walked free
due to insufficient evidence. Although Bathsheba may have walked free, these
accusations never left her as they haunted her for life. Perhaps this is why
Bathsheba wanted Perron’s mother out of the home and away from the children so
badly.
“What
she put my mother through, no human being should ever have to endure,” Perron
claims. “She appeared to several of us, but I never saw her. I saw many of
the spirits, but I never saw her except in a telepathic dream state. When she
would appear to my mother, I would see the encounter in a dream state at the
same time it was occurring, though I was rendered immobile and helpless to
offer any assistance while she was appearing to torment my mother.”
Perron’s
description of Bathsheba is where things really start getting creepy because
she describes the sprit’s face as having almost no real features. Instead, it
looked like a lifeless beehive with vermin crawling all over it. “Its head was
leaning off to one side. It was round and gray, resembling a desiccated
hornet’s nest. I couldn’t see anything underneath it… no eyes or mouth…it
looked like the cobwebs hanging in the corners of the cellar.” This, as
described by her mother.
Despite
having Ed and Lorraine Warren attempt to dispel the evil spirits they ended up
doing more harm then good and were never successful in ridding the house of its
horror. The family stayed in the home for ten years before finally leaving —
but the horrible things that happened within those walls stayed with them
forever.
Perron
always knew there would be skeptics and I don’t blame her. Her story isn’t the
only one that has been subject to criticism over whether it is true or not,
which explains why she waited 30 years to tell the world what really happened
in that farmhouse. Obviously there is so much more to this story than what I’ve
covered here and quite honestly, I have only scratched the surface. This
article is only meant to give you an idea as to where the story for James Wan’s
The Conjuring came from and to hopefully give you some insight as to
what really happened. What I’ve written here is really all I know on the events
so if you want to learn more I strongly urge you to read Perron’s book, House
of Darkness House of Light: The True Story, because it gives a very
in-depth and detailed look into this story.
So
what do you guys think? Do you believe her story and that evil spirits like
Bathsheba really do exist? Have you ever had an experience like this yourself?
Personally, I’ve never experienced any sort of paranormal happenings but that
doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t believe in ghosts or tortured spirits. It’s
one of those things that’s truely hard to believe until you’ve experienced it
yourself. I’d love to hear your stories and thoughts on this so please leave
them below. Also, I thought you guys would dig this — it’s a photo of
Lorraine Warren, one of the major inspirations behind the film, taken on April
30th, 2013.
Name : Anita Nola
NPM : 1223086
Class : A.4.3
The Quiet Ones and its
True Story
Hammer
Films’ upcoming supernatural chiller The Quiet Ones is yet another
horror film that prides itself on being inspired by “true events”.
The John Pogue-directed haunter recently found a spot on my “Most
Anticipated” list so I decided to do a little digging to find out just what the
film’s inspiration was. Now this one is a stretch, guys. The movie bases itself
off of a little experiment that a group of scientists conducted back in the
70′s where they set out to create a ghost of their very own. Now that’s quite
the twist on your typical ghost story isn’t it? We all know someone who claims
to have experienced a supernatural event, or maybe even you yourself have have
seen a ghost. But do ghosts actually exist, or is it something that our very
mind manifests? Can we actually be the ones creating the ghost? That’s the
question they set out to answer, and what they found turned out to be quite
shocking. This is the true story that inspired The Quiet Ones.
In
the 1970′s there was a group of Canadian parapsychologists who aimed to
conduct an experiment that would create a ghost. In doing so it would prove
their theory that those unexplained bumps in the night are actually products of
the human mind. World-renown poltergeist expert Dr. Alan Robert George
Owen created the group known as TSPR (Toronto Society for Psychical Research)
consisting of eight people—Dr. Owen’s wife, an industrial designer, an
accountant, a housewife, a bookkeeper and a sociology student. A psychologist named
Dr. Joel Whitton also attended many of the experiments as an observer. Was this
small group of people going to change the way we looked at the supernatural?
The
experiments (which became known as the Philip Experiment) began in 1972 where
their first task was to create a fictional historical character. Essentially
what they did was pull “facts” out of thin air to attach to the life of this
fictional character that they were creating. In doing so, they wrote
a biography of this made up person, who they named Philip Aylesford.
In his biography they stated that he was a 17th century English noble who was
married to a beautiful, yet cold and unfriendly wife named Dorothea. One day,
he ran into a beautiful gypsy girl named Margo who he almost instantly fell in
love with. Uh, oh. Needlessly to say, Philip and Margo became secret lovers.
But as most secrets go, it didn’t last forever because his wife, Dorothea,
found out about Margo and accused her of witchcraft. Because Philip was much
too worried about his reputation, he didn’t protest the idea of Margo being a
witch, resulting in her being burned at the stake. Ouch. He then later was
stricken with remorse, in which the only way he could deal with it was to fight
in the battle of Diddington. One morning he was found dead on the battlefield,
and Philip Aylesford was no more.
The
Owen group didn’t stop at a simple biography, however, as one of the members
even sketched a portrait of their newly created man. So what was the point of
going through all the trouble of giving their fictional character a biography
and even a picture? The reason was so that the group could be completely
immersed in the non-existence of Philip. Strange, I know, but it sort of makes
sense in a weird scientist kind of way. With step one now complete, it was
time to move onto the next phase of their experiment. Contact!
Now
they needed to contact Philip, but would they? They started their “sittings” in
September of 1972 where they would discuss Philip’s life, trying to visualize
him in as much detail as possible. These sittings went on for nearly a year
with absolutely no results other than the occasional feeling of a presence in
the room. At this point though, things weren’t looking good for TSPR’s
experiment.
Going
many months with no contact from Philip, they decided to approach it a bit
differently. They began recreating the classic spiritualist séance—dimming the
room’s lights and sitting around a table with pictures and objects from the
time period that Philip would have lived in. It basically looked like every
haunted house movie we’ve ever seen with a bunch of people sitting around a
table in the dark, ready to awaken the spirit world. And it worked! This
technique soon produced the exact results they were looking for. Philip had finally
made contact, manifesting himself to the group.
One
night, the group got their very first message from Philip in the form of a very
clear knock on the table. They began asking him questions in which he would
answer with one knock meaning “yes” and two meaning “no”. How did they know it
was Philip? They asked him! They would ask him questions that came directly
from the biography that they had created, and he answered them consistently but
was unable to provide them with any additional information about his life
beyond what they made up. That being said, Philip was able to give historically
accurate information about not only real events from his time period, but the
people who lived during it as well.
As
the sessions went on, a range of unexplainable phenomena started
occurring. Philip began to take on a personality of his very own. He started to
show strong views on many subjects made by his hesitant knocks on the table. He
even began moving the table, sliding it from one side to the other despite the
fact that the table itself was sitting on thick carpet. They even reported that
the table “danced” on one leg. When the group would ask Philip to dim the
lights down, he would without hesitation. He could even cover the group in a
blanket of cold air that would blow across the table in a chilling breeze. One
thing the group noticed was that the table would feel electric to the touch
when Philip was present. It was as if Philip, in a way, became the table
itself. The group even said that he would cause the table to move quite a bit,
even trapping people in the corner of the room with it.
The
very climax of this experiment came before a live audience of 50 people which
was filmed as part of a documentary. Philip wasn’t one to be shy so he
performed in front of them without any issues. Other than getting him to knock
on the table in front of the audience, he was able to make the lights flicker
and even made the entire table levitate. The table rose just an inch off the
ground where everyone witnessed it, even the film crew who were actually
filming! But get this, because Philip had been toying with the lights, it
actually prevented the cameras from capturing the amazing feat on film. How
convenient is that?
The
Philip Experiment far reached the expectations that the group had originally
hoped for, but it was never actually able to meet their original goal—to
actually see Philip materialize into a spirit.
So
what did we actually learn from this whole thing? Some say that it proves that
ghost do not exist, that they are simply created by our minds. Or maybe the
group did actually contact the world of spirits and an entity just used this
opportunity to “act” as Philip. So if this spirit wasn’t Philip, who could it
have been? See, I told you this one was out there!
Over
the years, since the experiment was conducted, it became quite obvious that the
whole thing was simply just a hoax. The documentary is actually up on YouTube (you can watch it here) and it’s quite apparent that it was just an elaborate set
up. Even still, it’s quite an interesting little tale, and it’s easy to see
why Hammer wanted to make a movie inspired by these events. The film
itself is very loosely based on this story as all they essentially did was take
the simple idea of creating a ghost and ran with it in an entirely different
direction. So there you have it, the “true” story behind The Quiet Ones.
For
those of you who do believe in ghosts, do you buy the idea that they are just
something that is created by our minds? Sound off in the comments below!
The
Quiet Ones is directed by John Pogue from
a screenplay by Craig Rosenberg and Oren Moverman and John Pogue. It stars
Jared Harris, Sam Claflin, Erin Richards, Rory Fleck-Byrne and Olivia Cooke.
Look to get haunted by The Quiet Ones on April 25th!
NPM : 12 23 091
Class : A.4.3
The summary of horror movie
Mama
Very few horror movies would last past the second act if the characters in these films were actually fans of horror movies. Some time after the first occurrence of Scary Old Timey Music Wafting Through the Vents, after Creepy Bugs Fluttering Inside the House and certainly by the time of the "Accidental" Fall That Sidelines a Key Character — well, that's when any red-blooded, movie-going individual would run out the front door and never look back. To the credit of director Andy Muschietti, his co-writing team and a first-rate cast, "Mama" succeeds in scaring the wits out of us and leaving some lingering, deeply creepy images, despite indulging in many of the aforementioned cliches — and about a half-dozen more. (Executive produced by horror master Guillermo del Toro, "Mama" is a feature-length expansion of a three-minute short that Muschietti made with his sister Barbara.)
In addition to at least three or four jump-in-your-seat stingers, we get some of the most creatively chilling nightmare sequences in recent memory. A stylized dream (which is really a transferred memory) set in the 19th century, in which we see a crazed young woman creating bloody terror before leaping off a cliff with her newborn, all of it shown from the madwoman's point of view? That's a lot more innovative than anything we're likely to see in yet another film about a plodding behemoth in a mask chasing after dumb teenagers through the woods.
The girls are kept in isolation for a few months as Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash) records their every move while ostensibly helping with their assimilation. Given that Victoria keeps making cryptic references to an unseen "Mama" and Lilly sleeps under the bed, gnaws on fruit, twigs and the occasional bug, and screams whenever anyone tries to touch her, the girls hardly seem ready for ice cream, pajamas and bedtime stories, but Jeffrey is determined to give them a normal life. So Jeffrey and his rocker-chick lover, Annabel (Jessica Chastain in a black wig and a tattoo sleeve), take the girls to their new rent-free home, provided by the ever-lurking Dr. Dreyfuss, who wants only to keep studying the little ones.
Let the chills and spills begin. As Dr. Dreyfuss investigates some long-ago murders at a facility just a few miles from the site of that house in the forest, Jeffrey is sidelined by an "accident," leaving the reluctant Annabel in charge of the girls, who are still a long way from being invited to anyone's play group. (Not that we ever see a hint of even one neighbor on the block. Does no one hear all the shaking, rattling and rolling going on in that house where the rocker chick lives with those scary little girls?)
For the longest time we don't see much of the ghostly Mama, who apparently has been alternately caring for and terrorizing the girls all these years and has made the trip with them to suburbia. She flashes by the screen, or we see just the top of her head as she zips about the house. Once we do see her, yipes. Thanks to a combination of CGI and a performance by the extremely thin, extremely tall Spanish actor Javier Botet, this is one frightful Mama. The real mother in the story is Annabel, who slowly sheds her tough-talking, who-gives-a-bleep exterior as her nurturing instincts take over. It's worlds away from Chastain's Oscar-nominated turn in "Zero Dark Thirty" and further proof she's one of the finest actors of her generation.
Some elements of "Mama," including the dream sequences, are reminiscent of Japanese horror films. There's also some dark and wicked humor, as when Lilly plays and giggles with an offscreen Mama while Annabel goes about household chores, oblivious to the insanity occurring just around the corner. Coster-Waldau is solid in what turns out to be a supporting role, and Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nelisse are terrific as the little girls.
Movies like "Mama" are thrill rides. We go to be scared and then laugh, scared and then laugh, scared and then shocked. Of course, there's almost always a little plot left over for a sequel.
It's a ride I'd take again.
