What the hell is going on with so many shows about ghosts and the paranormal lately? There are literally twenty shows that have some sort of investigative or first-person account of ghosts and hauntings right now in production. Actually, I bet I am low-balling that number. For the most part, I am pretty happy about these programs because, who doesn’t like a spooky tale this time of the year? There is nothing I like more than to get settled on the couch with a glass of brew, turn on a show that is mostly in night vision and learn about the history of an old inn or dilapidated hospital. To me, they are almost like history programs and the pay off of ghostly evidence is just a bonus. But of all these shows, there is only one that truly creeps me out. My Ghost Story.
You had me at "Warning".
Recently I have learned that the Bio Channel is not Lifetime. Honestly, I assumed Lifetime, WE, Bravo and the Bio Channel were all the same. Just since this past September did I learn that the Bio Channel is the deliverer of all things down right scary and it is because of the show My Ghost Story. Right away this program separates itself from the ridiculously dressed Ed Hardy figure, Zak Bagans of Ghost Adventures and the painfully boring Ghost Hunters, with words that will make me miss my mouth when playing a game of Cheez-it catch like “disturbing”. And you know what? A few of these episodes are a little disturbing.
I think what separates this show from all other types of paranormal shows are the real photographs and videos. I mean, take it for what it is. Any of this could be fake but after watching a few of these episodes I am hard pressed to believe that every one is a hoax.
The show has the real people telling you their experiences without actors or drawn out reenactments. There is no narrator or host but rather a simple text explaining who these people are and after their story, what the present situation is. More than not, their situation never gets better. I know this is selfish, but I like it better that way. Such a dick I am! The whole show has creepy ambiance that one can’t help but look over one’s shoulder, try not to peer at the dark windows and keep a close ear for any noises from upstairs. I am not going to lie, this show has been in my mind when the dog has to pee at 2am.
So, with so many paranormal shows out there, why is this the one that makes me want to sleep with rosary beads? I think it is a combination of the first-person accounts with the witnesses and tangible evidence. The tales, whether true or not, are just unnerving. It seems that all the “ghost chaser” shows like Ghost Adventures and Ghost Hunters, there is too much emphasis on the crew and the spooky feeling is completely lost. Lately, these shows are ether tear jerkingly boring or laughably idiotic. My Ghost Story may not make you a believer but I promise you, next time you are in a basement alone,you’ll want to stay away from the mirrors!
If you want to watch this, and I suggest you do, it airs pretty often on the Biography channel. Actually, this coming Saturday a whole new season starts. But if you can’t wait and want to know what I am talking about, there are full episodes on YouTube.
I love you YouTube. I like pina coladas and getting drunk in the rain. I am not into yoga and I have half a brain. Please marry me.
BONUS!
Here is another review from the Dundee Seasonal Pack. This time I try the porter and chat about my favorite horror selection for Halloween. Please excuse the babbling.
Man, when it comes to horror movies, the Italians really know how to do it. Sure they can bake a good Marsala and some say that their culture and wine are worth looking into but for me, I tip my hat to their wacky way of scaring the pants off me. Seriously, one time it took me an hour to find my pants after a three hour “My Ghost Story” feature on the Bio Channel. Anyway, Italian horror is well known for graphic gore and suggestive scenes but in a certain three-part movie, starring the late, great Boris Karloff, they go for a more psychological sting that leaves the viewer wanting to crawl behind the couch in the 1969 classic, Black Sabbath. Although this feature has three different stories, there is always the one that stands out and this cream of the crop is “Drop of Water.” Let me explain.
After the title screen we are met by the great face of horror, Boris Karloff, doing his Alfred Hitchcock style of hosting. The one thng I never knew about this guy until watching him speak close up is his “Ralphy from The Christmas Story” lisp. Interesting. So, Boris gives an absolute dynamite intro as if he is addressing you as an individual by saying such fantastically cheesy lines and warnings like “Vampires…Is that one of them sitting behind you now?” I love that. Wait…is there one behind me? Nope.
So after a fun few minutes we jump to the first of the series and the only one that I am reviewing today because it is the best and so are you. Ha! See what I did there? Let me introduce to you an amazing tale and an Italian Bada-Bing of scary, Drop Of Water.
The story begins with a single woman sitting in a small apartment which is strangely illuminated by different colored and ever-changing sign from a really cool oval window. This is pretty important because the whole movie is different shades of blues, reds and yellows that does give an uneasy feel much like other Italian horrors (Suspiria). She mills around from what appears to be an exhaustive day of work doing the usual: smoking and drinking. This “zen time of a blond Italian chick” is interrupted by a phone call and we see a slightly over-acting part and oddly dubbed-over voice but get the message that she is being put out by some sort of an emergency. Time to swig a shot and put out the ol’ sigerrta; duty calls.
We then jump scene to an old woman cleaning up broken pieces of something on the floor from what appears to be signs of a struggle. She is obviously very edgy with a constant look of worry. Looking around the room I can see why. Again, the colors in this film are amazing and every area is a different shade of red, purple, blue…anything that is unnatural. Soon there is a knock at the door and her look goes from one of worry to that of “well it’s about fucking time.” I thought it was Time Warner cable from that look.
Nope, not the cable company. It is the put-out woman from the apartment and here is when we find out that she is a nurse and one of her duties is to dress recently diseased, er, deceased people and get them ready for a funeral. But listening to the old caretaker, this is a special case and she is in a hurry to get the hell out of there. The nurse seems to be a little brash and not at all concerned with the old woman’s story about her former employer’s death. She warned the nurse not to touch anything or she would suffer a terrible curse and have the same face…fate as her. Did I mention the dead woman we are about to meet was a medium? Yeah, she was chatting with spirits before she was abruptly killed and made into a hideous thing. I think that holds some sort of merit. So, the nurse is in no mood for ghost stories or warnings from beyond. She wants to dress the corpse and go back to boozing and smoking. Then she looks at the task at hand.
Yup! That’s normal. Nothing wrong with that at all. I have to say if I pulled the curtain back and saw that thing staring back at me I would have just sat Indian-style and cried. (Is that okay to say? I feel like Indian-style is no longer a P.C. saying) Matter of fact, I believed the great Final Girl said the same thing. But no, the nurse just sort of gazed at this…thing with a look of, “Well, that is gross,” and didn’t even bat an eye.
I, myself, would have made a look similair to this:
The nurse looks away from the grotesque and huge evil-faced dead medium and spies something a bit more attractive. Her eyes go right to a huge sapphire ring that oddly has a fly that likes it too and is buzzing around, mostly on the ring itself. The warnings of the old caretaker go out the window and we all know that this dead chick isn’t going underground with that ring on. She leaves the room to get the burial dress and a few shots with the old woman and that’s when she learns more about the curse and the how dead took her. Having just seen that awful face of the dead medium, the nurse is still reluctant to think it is anything more than just a heart attack and scoffs at the caretaker’s warning of ghosts and evil and curses and Beiber and imminent death. The nurse just wants to get the task of changing the dead woman’s clothes over with, snag the ring and go home quickly. And truth be told, I would be the same way. Except I wouldn’t take the ring after witnessing all that. I am a better-safe-than-sorry sort of guy. I also believe in things that go bump in the night. And Sasquatch.
deleted lesbian kiss scene
While working to strip the dead medium’s clothes and dress her for the funeral the nurse is tormented by the ring and plots to take it but has to distract the caretaker to she asks for stockings and shoes while she works the ring off the rigor-mortised finger. That is when I noticed something even more unsettling. There are a fuck-load of creepy dolls all over the house. Take a look!
UGH! See?Really? In the drawers too?
So, with the caretaker distracted, the nurse manages to pry the ring off the finger of the dead woman but when it comes loose she loses it on the floor and searches frantically to find it. This is when we, the audience, can tell that this nurse has just sealed her fate. And also a good jump scare. I can’t imagine being in the theater in 1969 watching this when the options for a Friday night feature was this or Beach Blanket Bingo. Anyway, while on the floor this happens:
Hmmm...where did that ring go to?Shit! Pants! Shit in my pants!
Yeah, the supposed dead woman’s arm falls on the nurses head causing everyone to shriek. The nurse jumps, spilling a glass of water that causes an echoing drip onto a metal pan. This is an ominous sign of things to come. The nurse finds the ring, stuffs it down her shirt and composes herself right before the old woman comes in with the last required items. She sees the noticeable change in the nurse’s demeanor and asks what she saw. Of course the nurse denies anything unusual but her stride definitely quickens and the two are now in a hurry to leave. She puts the shoes on the corpse and does the terrible task of touching that face to close the medium’s eyes. But when the nurse turns around one more time before they both leave she is greeted with this:
Hello. I am terribly terrifying. How are you?Could be doing better thanks
Seeing how the dead woman’s eyes refuse to shut is a sign to leave and they both hurry out the door. What could possibly happen now? The medium died in a weird way while communicating with the dead, there are maniacal dolls everywhere, the caretaker warned of a curse, THE FUCKING FACE OF THE DEAD WOMAN, the fly that refuses to leave the ring, and the eyes will not shut so I am not a betting man but I will go with the nurse having a rough night. That’s just me.
The next scene we are back at the nurse’s ever-color-changing apartment (Shocker.). She is sitting at the table smoking and drinking and gazing at her recently acquired ring after, what most would say, an odd night. But soon things start to happen and it becomes apparent that perhaps taking this ring wasn’t the greatest idea this nurse has ever had. It starts with that darn fly landing on her finger and she freaks out as if an African blue hornet was in the house. After her flailing around eveything goes quiet except a constant drip of water. In a heighten sense of paranoia the nurse cautiously and slowly searches out the drip and stops it only to hear another from an adjacent room. Strange? Absolutely.
Happy thoughts. Wish I had a TV.
But soon the drips turn more menacing and slowly sounds of shallow wailing and scary noises begin. Is she going insane? Has the curse come to claim her too? Does she know that she left the teapot on the stove? All these questions are racing through not only her mind but ours too. The tension builds to a roaring climax and just when you think it couldn’t get anymore more intense she wakes up and it’s all a dream.
Just kidding. No, she opens up the door to her room and finds this:
7 Minute Abs
Horrified at the sight that her old friend dropped into visit her, she freaks out, runs, trips over the carpet and lands hard. I would have done the same. Well, no, I would have done what Final Girl said and “squat in a corner and cried.” This scene is the worst part for me because it has everything that could make for a perfect nightmare. Not only is the dead woman back but she is really not quite dead. She slowly sits up defining what my definition of scary is. Maybe it isn’t to some but it is to me.
So, the nurse composes herself, so to speak, and goes back to the kitchen now that the dead woman is in her room, cries from beyond fill the apartment, the lights mysteriously turned off. But it turns out that her friend also has the ability to appear in her rocking chair holding a cat. A cat that doesn’t mind being pet by a dead woman apparently.
For my next trick, I will magically put Indian food in your underwear!
The old woman disappears in front of the nurses eyes leaving a rocking chair rocking solo. At this point I think I would give the ring back but the nurse is too frantic to think of such simplicities and meets the pestering spirit…ghost…demon…thing one last time and she begs for mercy. The dead woman floats towards her and raises her arms slowly causing the nurse to involuntarily bring her own hands to her throat. In a move right out of the playbook to Full Metal Jacket, she chokes herself. To death.
Well, the next day the police and forensic investigators are there piecing together a plausible explanation for why the nurse is dead and choking herself. The landlord is there explaining that this isn’t the first time she has found a dead tenant and she went by the book on reporting it right away. As the investigator tries to pry her hands away from her thoat he states that the look on her face is that of one being scared to death. He also notices the ring missing and her finger is bruised in such a way it looks as if had been torn off. The landlord’s eyes open wide as we soon see that she was tempted the same way the nurse was and took the ring. Uh Oh…
Ring? What's a ring?
And that is how we end the story. Now that I have described one of the more fun and disturbing stories I have seen I can’t help but noticing some similarities between this movie and the later-made Japanese film Rigu. I know that is a jump but look, it has the same basic plot of a cursed item that is passed from person to person and there isn’t really a way to repent. And not to mention the fact that they both have RINGS! Well, who knows? I have never heard the link between the two and as far as I know the director and writer for The Ring made no reference to getting inspiration from this film so perhaps I just make the link myself. Regardless, this is a fun story and the visuals will make a 12 year old go to therapy. I love the cinematography more than I love watching someone breaking their hip in a Jazzersize class (because I really love that). Above all, Boris Karloff and an Italian trio of terror will go down as next to Godliness and for that I say thank you for reading this and if you want to watch this masterpiece of horror, check it out on Youtube. It’s there.
OH! Expect a full article on the Myer’s House at the end on September. I talked with the owner and he is a super cool guy and invited me back around mid September. Just a follow up.
I remember a time when a trip to the video rental store was a Friday night must that determined what I would be up to for that night and possibly Saturday night too. The whole process took almost an hour to decide what two hours I would sacrifice my youth on because in a store with nearly ten thousand movies, there was a high probability that you could end up with a doozie. That probably explains why Iron Eagle was rented close to two hundred times. And Muppets Take Manhattan. And National Geographic documentary on Sharks. Anyway, I had a very particular genre of movies that didn’t leave much room for anything new and looking back, my parents must have really dreaded Friday nights in the living room. Who can possibly take that many volumes of Gallagher stand-up without going a little mad? But all that changed one fateful night in 1991 when I slipped the surly bonds of Blockbuster’s normal selection to touch the face of horror and forever alter my Friday nights…and sleeping habits. This video was True Hollywood Ghost Stories and it terrified me. And perhaps it took hold psychologically because even today in my Youtube search, when I found this on a whim, because everything is on Youtube, I had this overwhelming need to look behind me.
I am not sure why I rented this particular video. My idea of a scary movie back then was Harry and the Henderson’s so it’s a wonder how this ended up in the family VCR. Looking at the cheesy late-eighties graphics, there isn’t much to be too disturbed about but that is where this film takes a turn for the unsettling and really takes on the same creepiness as the popular show, Unsolved Mysteries, with that amazing Robert Stack voice. The cool part about this film is it has a documentary feel to it and it is composed mostly of clips of old to recent horror movies. The kicker, and reason it made my blood run cold, was how it explained the supposed real ghost cases that the movies were based on and behind the scene disturbances while making them. Now imagine, if you will, a young boy who had never seen a horror movie, getting all the scariest scenes grouped together and then learning about how they may be true. Yeah. There was a spike in the utility bill that month from the hall light being left on at night.
Meet the host, John Carradine. He wastes little time in the introduction to shift from zero to one hundred when he begins with how the film, and the scariest thing I have ever seen, The Exorcist not only had evil happenings on the set but was based on a real event. I had never even heard of this movie until I rented Real Hollywood Ghost Stories so when I first laid eyes on that grotesque appearance and raspy voice of the possessed Regan, I think I just sat on the floor and cried. I’m not kidding, I was a little pussy as a youth. During little league baseball I once dove for cover from a pitch that ended up being a strike. So, seeing the most terrifying movie ever made and learning how it was true all in the time span of ten minutes, I shorted out. And this video rental only got worse from there.
The beginning of The Exorcist part was the author, William Peter Blatty and he described what his inspiration for writing the book that later became a movie many believed actually had the devil imprinted in the film itself. He said he witnessed a phone picking up off the receiver itself and come down onto the table. I am the believer that chairs, dishes, phones, shoes, anything that doesn’t live and moves on their own is so much scarier than a creature jumping out at you. So as a very impressionable kid hearing this account had me captivated. Especially when it was followed by this face:
Even as I type this I hate looking at that picture. It had such a profound effect on my as a child and it was many years later that I finally summoned the courage to rent it during a high school sleep over. But this introduction to The Exorcist was enough for me at the time. Especially learning it was all based on true events, people died working on the film, it caused audiences to go crazy and not to mention the fact that I was looking at something beyond my comprehension to what I deemed scary. It’s like growing up training ponies and then someone puts you on a bull at a rodeo. I could have used a gradual transition to horror.
The next story was of a real haunting of a house in Hollywood owned by an affluent couple, the Sommer’s and it was so bad they ended up selling and becoming a world-wide media spectacle after their story was published in Life magazine. Even the photographer was a skeptic couldn’t explain why or how his film kept having shadowy figured in motion from frame to frame. I loved the story but of course, as a kid I took it all very seriously and every bump was a ghost and every settling noise was a poltergeist. This didn’t help much, especially when they tied in the story of Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hopper’s, Poltergeist, and how much like The Exorcist, people died from this film and the set even burned down. Great. I don’t think this would have been quite as impacting if it didn’t have detailed accounts from Life magazine and NBC reporters that witness all these events. Even though I was an impressionable kid, I knew the difference between loons and credible people. Especially the next “true” Hollywood account about a woman who was assaulted by what was to be believed to be an entity. Hence the title The Entity.
This didn’t go over well either because learning how the local university recorded and documented this story and it became a constant in the world of parapsychology, even studied at the prestigious Duke University, I did not like learning about rape-ghosts. Nope. It’s as if this video kept trying to out-do itself! Each movie and real case scenario was a segway to the next bone-chilling tale. Like how The Entity was a great shift to the world renown Amittyville Horror. And of course, I got a taste of it by only seeing the most frightening scenes.
Much like the Poltergeist scene, a rocking chair doing what it does best by itself is about as scary to me as it gets. Especially when a kid is interacting with it and when an adult comes interrupts everything goes quiet. That is until the adult goes tot the window only to be met with glowing eyes and pig grunts. From then on I did my best not to look outside at night which proved to be tough because I had an atrium in the center of my bedroom.
Well, this fateful video rental kept up the creeps and went into the legends of Hollywood and their ghostly encounters like Houdini and the original Superman who committed suicide. It’s odd that both the original and the motion picture Superman was named Reeves. Is that a well-known fact? Maybe it is. Anyway, the scares peter down a bit but it is still a pretty good watch, even for today’s standard. They leave the viewer with a really cheesy music montage of a pretty corny song and truth be told, it’s absolutely perfect. It even manages to leave you with the warning not to take for granted you are ever alone in the dark. I took that warning to heart and kept the lights on almost through middle school.
You can watch the whole series on YouTube and I’ll start you off with the first part. Enjoy this as much as I still do. Sometimes it’s nice to look back and still get the same impression from when you were so very impressionable. Sleep tight!
Last night I finally pulled my head out of the books and reintroduced myself with the outside world. Not as scary as I built it up to be. Actually, seeing people going about doing their Friday night thing was a welcomed change to what sick people do any given night of the week. Man, hospitals are growing old . Anywho, I decided to go grab dinner and see a movie. But not just some random movie like the bullshit that was thrust on us this summer but a very much anticipated independently made film that has been on my “must see” list ever since it was introduced to a film fest in 2007. I know you have heard the hype about this too. Paranormal Activity.
I don’t think I will go too far into the movie about how it came to be a nation wide blockbuster but I will say what I walked away with. This film finally accomplished what most horror movies fail to do; genuinely creep me out. I don’t believe I have had that happen to me in the theater in some time. I mean, horror directors like Zombie and Eli Roth do a great job of disturbing me through gore and violence, but they couldn’t even dream of creeping me out. They make movies for brain-dead teenagers. Paranormal Activity is a totally different bag of Swedish fish. There is thought, creativity, no CGI, brilliant acting, and a building tension that will literally have your muscles twitching from squeezing the armrest.
As much as I loved this film it is not the scariest that I have seen. But probably the most creepy. Yes, it is a Blair Witch type genre movie and there are times when you actually believe this is not a mockumetory but the real home video. And that is the acting. If it was not for the two amazing actors, this film would fail. And in a world full of empty-headed movie viewers that have to see the monster rather that using imagination, it is a real risk to put the film in the hands of two people.
Speaking of creepy, I want to share scenes from movies that give me the creeps so you can judge where I am coming from.
The Ring:
I know that I am probably dumbing this blog down by claiming the movie The Ring to be one of the creepiest that I have seen but…I guess I am dumb. The movie as a whole was not very scary but this scene took me from expecting a “teen horror pop film” to a chill so deep I almost threw my VCR out that very night. I suppose it was because I knew nothing of it before I saw it in the theaters.
Jaws:
This is a scary movie. Quite possibly the scariest that I have ever seen and it hits all points of fear: scared of the unknown, being eaten alive, alien enviroment, dark places, and of course the helplessness. The particular scene that got me the worst was when Alex Kittner was attacked and everyone just stood there in a panic on the beach. The only view we had of the shark was the massive rollover of the dorsal and pectoral fin giving us a pretty good idea how large this fish was. Fucking enormous. I can still hear that poor kid coughing underwater as he was pulled down and devoured.
The Haunted(1991):
This made for TV movie has a definite WE or Lifetime feel to it but when I saw it at 12 years old back in the nineties, I think my bedroom lights were on for the rest of the year. Now almost 20 years later I can still see why. It has a genuine creepiness through simple bumps and whispers. When you take a normal family in a suburb that experience unexplainable events that progress to evil acts in the safety of their own home, you just can’t help but think of that in bed at midnight.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose:
Again, not a very scary film but the creeps are all over this. I don’t know if she was possessed or not but the scene of her contorted on the floor staring at her boyfriend as he slept made my feet go cold. There is nothing more disturbing than having someone stare at you in your most vulnerable state.
Learn from my mistakes! The night I saw this with my ex-girlfriend we went to bed and she was pretty riled up from the film. A few hours later I woke up to use the restroom and came back to bed. For some reason it seemed like a good idea to “act out” the same scene when Emily was contorted and lying on the floor, staring right at her. I coughed a few times to wake her and when she came to and realized I wasn’t beside her she looked around the room and called for me. She sat up and looked right at me being a total asshole on the floor and holy shit! She freaked out. There was screaming and tears. I didn’t think it was that scary. Makes you wonder why we didn’t last, huh?
So to recap, go see Paranormal Activity. But remember, the fear doesn’t come in the theater quite like it does at 2am from the safety of your own bed. Man, now that is brilliant film making.
Ok, let me throw out a disclaimer before you read this. I am normal and I put science and reasoning before all oddities and paranormal conclusions. BUT, it is fun to think the things that go bump in the night might actually be spooky. So, read this with a level of skepticism, as I only believe what I see. I just find it fascinating.
Have you ever watched the show Ghost Hunters on the SciFi channel? I love this show and it’s not because of the scare factor. Really, it’s neat to watch blue collar folks take a hobby to an epic scale and then get thrust into celebrity status by doing what they love. Jason and Grant, the founders of TAPS (The Atlantic paranormal Society) and plumbers for Roto-Rooter, travel around the country with a few other members “debunking” claims of paranormal happenings. Sometimes they are able to do so but at times they can not. There is nothing cooler than watching their evidence of paranormal anomalies. Check this out from the St. Augustine Lighthouse. INSANE!
Yikes! I have been to that lighthouse and I can attest to the fact there is no way to fake this video. Unless of course everyone is in on the hoax. But that isn’t likely. I like to live in a world of blind naivate’ so let me believe in that.
The next video is also from a Sci-Fi show called Ghost Adventures. Now this chilled me to the bone. I like to think that I am an even keeled person and all that is on TV should be looked at through an eye of skepticism but what these guys film had me believing. I don’t know what’s going on in these south western ghost towns but jumpin’ Jesus it was frightening. Mainly because you can hear the sheer terror in their voices that you know is legit. I have been in real life situations where I have heard grown men scream in a way that I have never heard in any movie by any actor. I heard them scream that way in the documentary and that alone frightened me very badly.
You can’t believe everything people tell you and I understand that. I don’t understand why people would make up stories though. Personally I would be embarrassed if I was dealing with a problem of no specific origin. I mean, who would you turn to and what would people think? It’s not like you can walk into a church and fill canteens full of holy water. Plus, the people who dabble in the occult and paranormal, for the most part, can be eccentric at best.
The next couple of videos is from a British documentary and I must say it is creep as hell. You be the judge but I can’t say that it is hooky. The dude being choked in the beginning looked kind of funny but the ninth minute of the first video was just cool. I’m sorry, but that looked as ghostly as anything I have ever seen. And the pictures at the beginning of the second one just gives me the heebs. I’m glad I am writing this at night, alone on a mountain in a rainstorm. I think I just saw Scuzzlebutt.
Sorry about that last part. I hope you didn’t spill something on yourself. Fuckin’ eh, I did.
So if you are asking yourself, “why is this dude writing about such a ridiculous thing”, I will answer, “because I want to assmaster!” Just kidding. But seriously, I have had an experience and it has had me thinking for sometime. But most of all, it has been comforting. Do you think that is crazy? So here is my story.
I have been to Savannah, GA no less that one thousand times. Shit, I used to live there when I was in the Army. But it has only been the past few years that I have taken interest in the history of the old city. And it is a dark and macabre past. Did you know that most of the city is one giant grave yard? They just buried people where ever back in the day. Only the rich were given Christian burial privileges. So Savannah is known to be the most haunted city in America and it was there that I became a believer.
It happened here at The Pirate House. I knew about this place and the fact real pirates used to drink here as well as the ghost sightings but as many times as I had been there before, no luck. Only a fat bill and over priced beer. I dragged my poor ex-girlfriend there every time we visited and she had to put up with my dumb questions about peoples’ experiences.
But last year I went on business and I was able to pop over there at 10pm for a quick few Ghost Ales (excellent). They close at 11pm so I was the lone person at the long bar. I kept my dumb questions to myself because the bartender was busy closing down and didn’t seem like the chatty type. I couldn’t blame her. So, I half payed attention to the game on the flat screen at the opposite end of the bar and flipped through my Blackberry.
Then I heard someone running down the steps, very fast and loud, just out of view where the TV was. The figure stopped smack infront of the screen. I didn’t look right at him but kept flipping through old messages on my phone, quite aware that this rude figure made a better door than a window. Finally I put my phone down, picked up my beer and looked to see who was blocking the view and there was no one there.
I felt like I was floating. Finally, I have touched the ethereal plain. I can’t remember if I was holding my beer or I put it down but just as I was about to close my open jaw the bartender kick the double doors open from the kitchen, holding a glass rack. I about jumped out of my skin. She saw my face and just ginned.
“You saw something, huh?” Her candor towards the matter was about as shocking as the experience itself. I told her what happened and she smiled and nodded the whole time. When I told her about the loud noise of running down the stairs she stopped me and asked me to follow her to the end of the bar. I did so and when I turned the corner every hair stood on end.
There were no stairs at all. It was just a wall and an old wine barrel with a model ship on top. She explained that before the kitchen expanded there used to be a staircase to the upstairs but that had been removed years ago. I think she felt that I needed another drink so she and I went to another bar and proceeded to get drunk. I needed that.
The more I thought about my experience the more comforting it felt. Maybe there is something beyond death? I am hard pressed to believe that when we die there are pearly gates and a list but maybe we do go on? The thought that is disturbing is whatever came down the stairs, stopped for a good five minutes and I don’t think it was looking at the TV. It was looking at me. Goooood God that is creepy!
Do you think I’m crazy? Have you had any experiences?
So, with so many paranormal shows out there, why is this the one that makes me want to sleep with rosary beads? I think it is a combination of the first-person accounts with the witnesses and tangible evidence. The tales, whether true or not, are just unnerving. It seems that all the “ghost chaser” shows like Ghost Adventures and Ghost Hunters, there is too much emphasis on the crew and the spooky feeling is completely lost. Lately, these shows are ether tear jerkingly boring or laughably idiotic. My Ghost Story may not make you a believer but I promise you, next time you are in a basement alone,you’ll want to stay away from the mirrors!
Casserole of Disaster 