Ghost Movies

December 8, 2008

The Ring

Filed under: 2000's Ghosts — Tags: — Casper @ 3:47 am
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The Ring is a 2002 American remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film of the same name (also known as Ringu). Both movies are based on the novel of the same name by Kôji Suzuki. Directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Naomi Watts and Martin Henderson, The Ring was a financial success.

Plot

The film focuses on a mysterious cursed videotape which contains a seemingly random series of disturbing, grainy, black and white images. After watching the tape, the viewer receives a phone call in which a voice condemns the viewer to death in exactly seven days.

As the film opens, two teenage girls Katie Embry (Amber Tamblyn) and Rebecca ‘Becca’ Kotler (Rachael Bella) discuss the supposedly cursed tape. Katie reveals that, seven days before, she went to a cabin at Shelter Mountain Inn with friends, where she viewed the video tape. After a series of strange occurrences, involving a television in the house turning itself on, Katie is mysteriously killed while Becca watches, causing her to be institutionalized in a mental hospital.

Katie’s aunt, Rachel (Naomi Watts), is a journalist living in Seattle. At Katie’s funeral, Rachel’s sister asks her to investigate her daughter’s death. Her investigation leads her to the cabin where Katie watched the tape. She finds and watches the tape, the phone rings and a girl says “seven days.” The next day she calls her ex-boyfriend and her precocious son Aidan and his father, Noah, to see the video. He asks her to make a copy for further investigation. Aidan watches the tape a couple of days later.

After viewing the tape, Rachel experiences nightmares, nose bleeds, and surreal situations (when she pauses a section of the tape in which a fly runs across the screen, she plucks it from the monitor). Rachel investigates the images on the tape, leading her to Anna Morgan (a woman seen in the tape) who lived on Moesko Island with her husband Richard and daughter. A tragedy befell the Morgan ranch, in which the horses they raised seemed to go mad and kill themselves, presumably causing Anna to become depressed and commit suicide. Rachel goes to the Morgan house and finds Richard who refuses to talk about the video or his daughter. A local doctor tells Rachel that Anna could not carry a baby to term and adopted a child named Samara Morgan (Daveigh Chase). Anna soon complained of visions that only happened when Samara was around, so both were sent to a mental institute. Noah goes to the institute, finds Anna’s file and discovers that a video is missing. Rachel returns to the Morgan house, views the missing video and is confronted by Richard, who states the girl was evil. Following an intense scene, he then electrocutes himself in the bathtub, sending Rachel running out of the house screaming.

Noah arrives and with Rachel, goes to the barn to discover a room where Samara was kept by her father. Behind the wallpaper they discover an image of a tree seen on the tape, and near the cabin. At the cabin, they discover a well underneath the floor, in which Rachel finds the body of Samara, experiencing a vision of how her mother dropped her into it. Rachel notifies the authorities, and Samara is given a proper burial.

Rachel informs Aidan that they will no longer be troubled by Samara. However, Aidan is horrified, telling his mother she had freed her body, and that Samara never sleeps. In his apartment, Noah’s TV turns on, revealing an image in which Samara crawls from the well, walks toward the screen and crawls out of the set into the room. Samara stares directly at him, causing his death from fright — which Rachel discovers after racing to his apartment. Upon returning to her apartment, Rachel destroys and burns the original tape screaming, “What do you want from me!?” She soon notices the tape marked “COPY” underneath the couch. Worried that Aidan will also die, Rachel realizes the only way to escape is to copy the tape and show it to someone else, continuing the cycle. The movie ends with Rachel helping Aidan to copy the tape and put it in a public library.

Poltergeist III

Filed under: 1980's Ghosts — Tags: — Casper @ 3:44 am
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Poltergeist III is a 1988 horror film. It is the third and final film of the Poltergeist film series, and the second sequel to Poltergeist. It was directed by Gary Sherman but Michael Grais and Mark Victor didn’t appear to write the screenplay, and was released on June 10, 1988.

Heather O’Rourke and Zelda Rubinstein were the only original cast members to return. However, the former died before production had finished.

Plot

Between the second and third films, the Freeling family has sent Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) to live with her Aunt Pat (Nancy Allen) (whom Carol Anne insists on calling Trish, a common nickname for Patricia; this is important later in the film as a way of identifying an impostor Carol Anne) and Uncle Bruce Gardner (Tom Skerritt). Along with Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle), Bruce’s daughter from a previous marriage, they live in the luxury skyscraper of which Bruce is the manager. Pat is the sister of Diane, Carol Anne’s mother. Carol Anne has been told she is in Chicago temporarily to attend a unique school for gifted children with emotional problems (though Pat thinks it’s because Steve and Diane just wanted Carol Anne out of their house). Pat seems to have no idea about the events of the first two films, just noting that Steven was involved in a bad land deal.

At school that day, we find that Carol Anne has been made by her teacher/psychiatrist, Dr. Seaton (Richard Fire), to discuss her experiences from the first and second movies for a number of months, and this has had the effect of bringing Kane back from the limbo he was sent to in the second film. Dr. Seaton, having never experienced the supernatural, believes that Carol Anne is simply a manipulative child who has created something of a mass psychosis within her family, falsely making them believe they were attacked by ghosts. Kane (Nathan Davis) makes his presence known by draining the high rise of heat, and taking possession of the character’s reflections in mirrors, causing the reflections to act independently of their counterparts in the real world.

When Carol Anne is left alone that night, Kane attempts to use the mirrors in her room to capture her, but she escapes with Tangina’s help. Also during this period, Tangina (Zelda Rubinstein) also realizes that Kane is back, and travels cross country to protect Carol Anne. Donna and her boyfriend, Scott, see a frightened Carol Anne running through the high rise’s parking lot, and move to rescue her. However, before they can, all three are taken to the Other Side by Kane. By this point, Tangina and Dr. Seaton, are both on the scene, along with Trish and Bruce. Dr. Seaton believes that Carol Anne has simply staged the entire thing, while Tangina tries to get her back. Scott is seemingly released from the Other Side through a pool in the high rise, and Donna reappears after Tangina is taken by Kane disguised as Carol Anne. Scott is left at his home with his parents. No one seems to notice at this point that the symbols on Donna’s clothing are all reversed from what they were before she was taken. As Dr. Seaton attempts to calm Donna, Bruce sees Carol Anne’s reflection in the mirror and chases it while Pat follows. Dr. Seaton is not far behind, and he believes he sees Carol Anne in the elevator. This turns out to be a trap though when Donna appears behind him and pushes him into the empty elevator shaft. It is revealed at this point that Donna did not actually come back, but rather the person who came back was an evil undead reflection of Donna who then vanishes back into the mirror, with an evil reflection of Scott at her side. Pat and Bruce try to find Carol Anne, but Bruce is captured and eventually Pat is forced to prove her love for Carol Anne in a final face off with Kane.

The ending is somewhat unclear, but Tangina manages to convince Kane to go into the Light with her, and Donna, Bruce and Carol Anne are returned to Pat. Scott’s fate is never revealed, whereas we can assume he may be still trapped on the Other Side. The final shot of the film does make clear that Kane was not defeated; we see a long shot of the building, and then lightning hits it. We then hear Kane’s laugh.

Poltergeist II: The Other Side

Filed under: 1980's Ghosts — Tags: — Casper @ 3:42 am
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Poltergeist II: The Other Side is a 1986 horror film sequel to Poltergeist. It features the return of the family seen in Poltergeist who have to once again fend off a spirit that is intent on harming their daughter, Carol-Anne.

Plot

This sequel explains in much greater detail why Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) was targeted in the first film. As it turns out, the Freelings’ house in the first movie was built over a massive underground cavern that was the final resting place of a utopian cult that died there in the early 1800s. This cavern was below the graveyard that wasn’t relocated in the first film. The cult was led by Reverend Henry Kane (Julian Beck), a power hungry zealot anxious to control the souls of his followers in both life and death.

Kane told his followers that the end of the world was coming, and they dutifully followed him into the cavern. However, the day he predicted it would all end came and went, but he never let his “flock” out of the cavern, and eventually, they all died. Since his death, Kane became the Beast, which absorbed the spirits of its followers.

The second film begins one year after the events of the first film, with the discovery of this cave by a ground crew, and its existence is revealed to Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein), the psychic from the first film that “cleaned” the house that is now missing. She also tells Taylor (Will Sampson), an American Indian shaman whose connection to Kane is hinted at but never fully explained (when Kane comes to the Freelings’ home and tries turning Steve against Taylor, Steve (Craig T. Nelson) acknowledges that Taylor is there by name, and Kane quietly laughs and says “So that’s what he calls himself now”). After investigating the cave for himself, Taylor realizes Kane has located Carol Anne and goes to defend her.

The Freeling family have relocated to Phoenix, Arizona and now live in a house with Diane’s (JoBeth Williams) mom, Jessica “Gramma Jess” Wilson (Geraldine Fitzgerald). Having lost his real estate license, Steve is reduced to selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door while filing repeated insurance claims to cover the missing home. Grandma Jess is highly clairvoyant, and reveals that Diane and Carol Anne are too. Luckily, Grandma Jess is powerful, and it is her life force that protects the family from Kane and the other spirits, as long as she remains alive.

Eventually, Grandma Jess dies from natural causes, but not before telling Diane one last time that she’ll always “be there if you need me.” With Grandma Jess out of the way, Kane now has a clear path to get to Carol Anne. Taylor shows up just as Kane begins his first assault on the home. Unable to get in through the television as the family has removed all television sets from the home, Kane’s minions are forced to find another way in, this time through Carol Anne’s toy phone. The attack fails, and the family gets out of the house fast. Taylor introduces himself and convinces them that running would be a waste of time since Kane would only find them again, and they return to the house, which Taylor has made safe for the time being.

Kane himself shows up at the home one day and demands to be let in, but Steve stands up to him with Carol Anne’s help and refuses. Taylor congratulates him for resisting Kane, and then takes Steve out to the desert and gives him the power of smoke, an Indian spirit that can repel Kane. Tangina Barrons shows up at the house and helps Diane to understand the history of Kane and how he became the Beast that is now stalking the family. Taylor warns the family that Kane is extremely clever, and will try to tear them apart.

One night, Steve lets his guard down and gets drunk, swallowing a tequila worm that is possessed by Kane. Kane temporarily possesses him and harasses his family. He attacks and tries to rape Diane, who cries out that she loves him. Kane cannot stand this display of love, and Steven vomits up the worm possessed by Kane, which grows into a huge monster. In this form Kane attacks Steve, who uses the smoke spirit to send him away. The Beast (Noble Craig) then decides on another assault, and this time, the family decides to confront the Beast on his own turf, the Other Side.

The Freelings return to Cuesta Verde, their neighborhood from the first movie, and upon entering the cavern below their former home, Kane immediately pulls Diane and Carol Anne over in to the Other Side, and Steve and Robbie (Oliver Robins) jump in after them through a fire Taylor has started.

In the Other Side, Diane, Steve and Robbie unite together but Kane grabs Carol Anne. Taylor gets a charmed Indian lance into Steve’s hands, and Steve assaults the Beast/Kane with it. In the process, Carol Anne nearly crosses over into the afterlife, but Grandma Jess’s spirit appears and returns her to the family, keeping her earlier promise to always be there for the family. The Freelings then return safely to this side, and thank Taylor and Tangina.

Poltergeist

Filed under: 1980's Ghosts — Tags: — Casper @ 3:39 am
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Poltergeist is the first and most successful Poltergeist film, released on June 4, 1982 and nominated for three Oscars. The film was directed by Tobe Hooper and was co-produced, and co-written by Steven Spielberg along with Michael Grais and Mark Victor, his first major success as a producer. The plot revolves around the haunting of a suburban family home that is suspected to be the work of poltergeists.

The film is often referred to as cursed because of the murder of Dominique Dunne and early death of Heather O’Rourke, as well as the fact that actress JoBeth Williams has pointed out in television interviews that she was actually told that the skeletons used in the well-known swimming pool scene in the first Poltergeist film were real. This has been the focus of an E! True Hollywood Story on the Poltergeist Curse.

Plot

A group of seemingly benign ghosts begin communicating with five-year-old Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O’Rourke) in her parents’ suburban California home via static on the television. Eventually they use the TV as their path into the house itself.

First, there are a few signs that the ghosts have arrived: Carol Anne carries on a seemingly one-sided conversation with a TV set that’s turned on but has no signal; soon thereafter her pet bird dies; an earthquake occurs that only the Freelings feel; Carol Anne announces, “They’re here.” The next morning, glasses break at breakfast, forks bend by themselves, and when the mother, Diane (JoBeth Williams), asks Carol Anne, “What did you mean? Who’s here?” she answers, “The TV people.” At first the ghosts play harmless tricks and amuse the mother, including moving and stacking the kitchen table chairs. Of course, Diane must convince Steven (Craig T. Nelson) that night by showing him. He then announces that “Nobody goes into the kitchen until I know what’s going on.”

During a terrible thunderstorm, a gnarled tree comes to life and grabs Robbie (Oliver Robins), Carol Anne’s brother, through a window. However, this is merely a distraction used by the ghosts to get Carol Anne’s parents to leave her alone. Like a wind tunnel, they take Carol Anne through her bedroom closet into their dimension. Robbie is rescued, and the family believes that a tornado caused the trouble, until they realize that they can’t find Carol Anne. They search the entire house including the new swimming pool until Robbie hears Carol Anne through the T.V.

Steven reluctantly calls on a group of parapsychologists from UC Irvine: Dr. Lesh (Beatrice Straight), Ryan (Richard Lawson), and Marty (Martin Casella), who are awestruck by the manifestations they witness. With the parapsychologists present, the Freelings show them things they’ve never before seen. They open the door to the children’s room to reveal toys and other objects flying around by themselves and disembodied laughing voices reverberating throughout the room. Previously, one of the parapsychologists described a Matchbox car taking seven hours to move seven feet, calling it “[F]antastic. Of course, this would never register on the naked eye.” After they see the Freelings’ house, they are all humbled.

Over coffee (and a coffee urn that moves by itself), the parapsychologists explain to the Freelings the difference between a poltergeist and a haunting. They determine that indeed, it is a poltergeist they are experiencing.

It turns out that the spirits have left this life but have not gone into the “Light.” They are stuck in between dimensions, watching their loved ones grow up, but feeling alone. Carol Anne—born in the house and only 5 years old—gives off her own life force that is as bright as the Light. It distracts and confuses the spirits, who think Carol Anne is their salvation. Hence, they take her. (A different explanation was given in the second film).

What is also in the other dimension is a malevolent spirit, what the parapsychologists call “The Beast”. It likes that the spirits are confused and lost, and uses Carol Anne as a distraction so they cannot move on into the Light. After the group witnesses several paranormal episodes where they hear Carol Anne talking to Diane through the TV, see spirits, and hear the pounding footsteps of the spirit—which subsequently injures Marty—the parapsychologists leave, admitting they need more help. Carol Anne’s elder sister Dana (Dominique Dunne), shaken and overwhelmed, leaves to stay with friends. The Freelings also send Robbie to his grandmother’s house for his safety.

When the parapsychologists return, they bring a spiritual medium, Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein), who informs Diane that her daughter is “alive and in this house.” She also explains the malevolent spirit in the house to Diane, saying “it lies to her and tells her things only a child can understand. To her, it simply is another child. To us, it is the Beast.”

They realize the entrance to the other dimension is through the children’s bedroom closet. By tying a rope around a live person who can enter, and presumably exit the other side, with enough time to grab Carol Anne, they could bring her back. Diane is the only choice to go. What happens next is a terrifying sequence where Diane gets Carol Anne and Tangina coaxes the agonized spirits away from Carol Anne to the real Light (during this, Steve panics and pulls on the rope, causing the Beast to appear right in front of him). Diane falls through the living room ceiling clutching Carol Anne and bearing new streaks of grey hair, presumably from fright; both Diane and Carol Anne are also covered in ectoplasm. After both are revived in the downstairs bathtub, Tangina pronounces that “this house is clean.”

Unfortunately, though the spirits have seemingly moved on, the Beast hasn’t, and wants revenge. On their final night in the house, when they are almost packed up and ready to go, the Beast returns to reclaim what he believes is his: Carol Anne. This time, the Beast does his own dirty work and comes after Carol Anne personally.

While Robbie and Carol Anne are getting ready for bed, Robbie’s clown doll comes to life and pulls him under the bed. Diane, in the other room hears her son’s screaming voice and tries to investigate but is pulled against the wall and ceiling by an unknown force. Robbie manages to defeat the clown doll but a strange, mouth-like portal appears in Carol Anne’s closet and attempts to suck the children in.

Diane tries to get to her son and daughter but runs into the Beast himself, in the form of a snarling, skeletal demon. He blocks Carol Anne’s and Robbie’s door and lunges at her, causing her to fall down the stairs. Diane runs to the backyard to seek help from her next-door neighbors, but slips into the new pool which is now infested by skeletons. Her neighbors hear the commotion and arrive to help Diane out of the pool, but they refuse to enter the house with its windows now blazing with ghostly energy, so Diane runs back into the house alone to get Robbie and Carol Anne.

Through skill and luck, the Freelings finally escape the house, but not before the anger of the Beast reveals the reason for the spirits being there in the first place—coffins and bodies begin exploding out of the ground throughout the neighborhood. When the neighborhood was first built the real estate developer Steven worked for moved a cemetery that was on the location, but in reality in order to save money they moved the cemetery headstones but left the bodies, building houses right on top of them. As the Freelings flee down the street in their car, the Beast is so angry that the house implodes into the other dimension as stunned neighbors (including Steven’s boss) look on. The movie ends as the family checks into a Holiday Inn for the night. Not wishing to tempt fate, Steven pushes the television set outside their room.

The Others

Filed under: 2000's Ghosts — Tags: — Casper @ 3:37 am
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The Others is a 2001 psychological horror film by the Spanish/Chilean director Alejandro Amenábar, starring Nicole Kidman, and in part based on Henry James’ classic, The Turn of the Screw. In the United States, it was rated PG-13 for thematic elements and frightening moments and runs around 100 minutes.

It won eight Goya Awards including awards for Best Film and Best Director. This was the first Spanish film ever to receive the Best Film Award at the Goyas (Spain’s national film awards) with not a single word of Spanish spoken in it.

Plot

Zaid is a dik The scene is set on the island of Jersey, in the immediate aftermath of World War II . Grace Stewart is a Christian mother, who lives with her two small children in a remote country house. The children, Anne and Nicholas, have a strange disease called photosensitivity (a special feature on the DVD indicates the disease is xeroderma pigmentosum), so their lives are structured around a series of complex rules designed to protect them from inadvertent exposure to sunlight.

The new arrival of three servants at the house (an aging nanny and servant named Mrs. Bertha Mills, an elderly gardener named Mr. Edmund Tuttle, and a young mute girl named Lydia) coincides with a number of odd events, and Grace begins to fear that they are not alone. Anne draws pictures of four people — a man, a woman, a boy called Victor and a scary old woman whom she says she has seen in the house. A piano is heard from inside a locked room when no one is inside. Every time Grace enters and exits the room the door closes, but while she tries to figure out why, the door slams on her face knocking her to the floor. Grace tries hunting down the “intruders” with a shotgun but cannot find them. She scolds her daughter for nonsense about ghosts until she hears them herself. Eventually convincing herself that something unholy is in the house, she runs out in the fog to get the local priest to bless the house. Meanwhile, the servants, led by Mrs. Mills, are clearly up to something of their own. The gardener buries three gravestones under autumn leaves, and Mrs. Mills listens faithfully to Anne’s allegations against her mother.

Out in the forest, Grace loses herself in the heavy fog, but miraculously discovers her husband Charles, who she thought had been killed in the war and brings him back to the house. Charles is distant during the one day he spends in the house, and Mrs. Mills is heard telling Mr. Tuttle “I do not think he knows where he is.” Grace later sees the old woman from Anne’s drawing dressed up like her daughter. Grace says “You are not my daughter!” and attacks her. However, she finds that she has actually attacked her daughter instead. Anne refuses to be near her mother after this event, while Anne swears she saw the old woman. Mrs. Mills tells Anne that she too has seen the people but they cannot yet tell the mother because Grace will not accept what she is not ready for. Charles is stunned when Anne tells him the things her mother did to her. Charles says he must leave for the front and disappears again. After Charles leaves, Anne continues to see things, including Victor’s whole family and the old woman. Grace breaks down to Mrs. Mills, who claims that “sometimes the world of the dead gets mixed up with the world of the living”. The two women also find and examine a ‘book of the dead,’ which shows mourning portraits taken in the 19th century of recently deceased corpses.

One morning, Grace wakes to the children’s screams: all of the curtains in the house have disappeared, as Anne had said they might earlier in the movie. When the servants refuse to help look for them, Grace realizes that they are somehow involved. Hiding the children from the light, she banishes the servants from the house.

That night, Anne and Nicholas sneak out of the house to find their father, and stumble across the hidden graves. They find that the graves belong to the servants. At the same time, Grace goes to the servants’ quarters and finds a photograph from the book of the dead and is horrified to see that it is of the three servants. The servants appear and give chase to the children, who make it back into the house just as Grace emerges to hold off the servants with a shotgun. The children run upstairs where they hide, but are found by the strange old woman. Downstairs, the servants continue talking to Grace, telling her that they have to learn to live together. She begins to understand what they mean. Upstairs, Anne and Nicholas discover the old woman is acting as a medium in a séance with Victor’s parents. It is then that they learn the awful truth: the old woman is not the one who is a ghost; the ghosts are Anne, Nicholas and their mother. Grace loses her temper and supernaturally attacks the visitors. This sequence is quickly intercut with scenes from both Grace’s viewpoint and the family’s. For example, when Grace is shown shaking the table in anger, it appears in the next shot that the table is shaking on its own.

The truth is finally clear to Grace and the audience: She breaks down with the children and remembers what happened just before the arrival of their new servants; yearning for the company of her missing husband and increasingly frustrated by her children, she went insane, smothered them both with a pillow and then, realizing what she had done, shot herself. When she awoke, she assumed that God had granted her family a miracle. Grace and the children realize that Charles is also dead, but he was not aware of this fact. Mrs. Mills appears and informs Grace that they will learn to get along, and sometimes they won’t even notice the living people who inhabit their house. Outside, Victor’s family — less than happy with their haunted house — pack up and move out. From the window, Grace and her children watch as they drive away. Despite her earlier loathing of the house, referring to it as a prison, Grace ends the film with the line; “No one can make us leave this house.” and disappears with her children in her arms.

The Other Side of the Tracks

Filed under: 2000's Ghosts — Tags: — Casper @ 3:34 am
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The Other Side of the Tracks is a 2008 independent romantic fantasy film by Argentine-born writer-director A.D. Calvo, starring Brendan Fehr, Chad Lindberg, and Tania Raymonde.

Plot

Ten years after a tragic train accident killed his girlfriend, Josh finds himself haunted by disturbing visions from somewhere between the world of the living and the dead—haunting memories that keep him from moving on. His buddy, back in town for their high school reunion, tries to wake Josh from his painful past, but a mysterious young waitress offers a seductive alternative.

The Orphanage

Filed under: 2000's Ghosts — Tags: — Casper @ 3:31 am
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The Orphanage is a 2007 Spanish-language horror film and the debut feature of Spanish filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona. The film stars Belén Rueda as Laura, Fernando Cayo as Carlos, her husband, and Roger Príncep as their adopted son Simón. The plot revolves around Laura, who returns to her childhood home, an orphanage. Laura plans to turn the house into a home for disabled children, but the parents reach a problem when they realize Simón believes he has a masked friend named Tomás whom he will run away with. After an argument with Laura, Simón goes missing.

The film’s script was written by Sergio G. Sánchez in 1996 and brought to the attention of Bayona in 2004. Bayona had his long-time friend and director Guillermo del Toro help produce the film to double its budget and filming time. Bayona wanted the film to capture the feel of 1970s Spanish cinema, and cast Geraldine Chaplin and Belén Rueda, who were later praised for their roles in the film.

The film opened at the Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2007, and had great critical and audience reaction in its native Spain, winning seven Goya awards. On its North American release, The Orphanage received positive acclaim from English speaking critics noting the film as well directed and acted, and the lack of cheap scares. New Line Cinema bought the rights to the film to produce an American remake.

Plot

Laura (Belén Rueda) and her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) return to an orphanage where she had lived as a child. Their adopted son Simón is HIV-positive, but is unaware of both his adoption and his illness. Laura takes Simón to visit a cave near the beach, and he claims he meets a new imaginary friend there. At home, Simón draws a picture of his friend named Tomás (Oscar Casas) who wears a sack mask. A social worker named Benigna (Montserrat Carulla) appears one day and reveals to Laura that she has Simón’s old adoption file. Laura becomes angry with her intrusion and sends her away. That night, Laura finds Benigna hiding in their garden shed but Benigna escapes. Carlos and Laura phone the police who reveal there is no social worker registered as Benigna. Later, Simón tells Laura about a type of scavenger hunt game that Tomás has created which begins when someone’s treasured possession is taken and replaced with another object which provides a clue as to the whereabouts of the next clue object, and so on, eventually leading them to the location of their treasured possession. At the end they get a wish if they manage to recover their treasured possession. What is hidden during the game is replaced with Simón’s adoption file. Simón angrily reveals that his new friends told him that Laura is not his real mother and that he is going to die.

Later, at a children’s party at the Orphanage, Laura tells Simón to come and join them but he demands that he show her where Tomás’ secret “little house” that Simón goes to is situated. An argument ensues, and Laura leaves Simón upstairs. Carlos takes the children to the beach, and tells Laura to get Simón. Laura looks in the bathroom, only to be confronted by the boy in a sack mask with the name “Tomás” embroidered onto his shirt. When Laura tries to remove his mask, Tomás traps her in the bathroom. Laura escapes and frantically searches for Simón. She runs to a nearby cave by the sea and breaks her leg only to see a vague figure of a boy standing in the cave. At a medical center, the police psychologist Pilar (Mabel Rivera) talks to the parents, suggesting that Benigna may have abducted Simón. That night at home, a bedridden Laura hears unexplained banging and pounding in the walls.

Months later while driving, the couple spot Benigna pushing a baby carriage, when she is suddenly hit and killed by a speeding ambulance. Laura checks the carriage finding a doll with a sack mask resembling Tomás. Police search Benigna’s home finding films and photographs that reveal Benigna had worked at the orphanage long ago. Pilar shows Laura an old photo with her five childhood friends, including a young Benigna (Carol Suárez). Benigna had a deformed son named Tomás, whom she kept hidden and gave him a sack mask to cover his face. They learn how the five children played a trick on Tomás at the cave by stealing his mask from him. Tomás refused to leave the cave without his mask and drowned there.

Laura gets assistance from a medium named Aurora (Geraldine Chaplin) for clues to her son’s disappearance. After surveying the orphanage, the medium explains that Laura can see the dead as she is close to death herself, and suggests that the reason Simón saw ghosts was his illness. Laura later plays the scavenger hunt game, which ends with a doorknob being found, as well as five sacks full of partially-cremated human bones in the garden shed. The police conclude Benigna exacted revenge on the children for Tomás’ death. Carlos and Laura argue about leaving the orphanage but Laura insists that she needs two days alone there before joining him.

Laura takes some sedatives to become close to death. Ghost children appear and lead her to a hidden door in a storage closet that the old doorknob opens. It leads her to Tomas’ basement room where she finds Simón alive and hugs him in a blanket. The ghosts vanish while Laura finds that the blanket is empty and behind her the body of a deceased Simón lies wearing Tomás’ sack mask. She then realizes that Simón had been trapped down there by accident when some poles fell in front of the door, and the banging she had heard previously was Simón trying to escape, then falling to his death. Laura carries Simón’s body upstairs and swallows all her medication, begging to be with Simón again. Laura’s scavenger hunt wish is granted and the ghosts of the six dead children appear. Simón comes to life in Laura’s arms, and wishes Laura to stay and take care of them all forever. Alone, Carlos walks over a gravestone for both Laura and Simón. Carlos returns to the empty old bedroom finding a medallion he gave Laura. Carlos turns to the bedroom door which opens as Carlos slowly smiles.

Nomads

Filed under: 1980's Ghosts — Tags: — Casper @ 3:30 am
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Nomads is a 1986 horror film which was written and directed by John McTiernan and stars Pierce Brosnan.

The story involves a French anthropologist who is an expert on nomads. He stumbles across a group of urban nomads who turn out to be more than he expected. It was a sleeper hit, becoming better known after its release.

Plot

The Beginning

The movie begins with the violent and painful death of its protagonist, French sociologist Jean-Charles Pommier (Pierce Brosnan). The moment he dies in the Emergency Room of a Los Angeles city hospital the physician treating him, Dr. Eileen Flax (Lesley-Anne Down), becomes possessed with his memories.

Dr. Flax relives every moment of Pommier’s life until the moment of his death.

Pommier’s Story

After travelling abroad and studying the spiritual beliefs and religious practices of primitive peoples, Pommier finally settles down with his patient wife Niki (Anna Maria Monticelli) in Los Angeles to teach at UCLA.

His home in the suburbs is vandalized one night by a gang of street punks who travel about in a black van. They are very interested in his house and he finds that they have built a macabre shrine in his garage to a murderer who recently killed two girls who lived in the house. He then starts to study them because they are an urban nomad culture that is strikingly similar to the ones he has studied.

He begins to observe them, following them around and covertly taking their pictures. He develops the pictures and is puzzled to find that they don’t show up in them.

Then he begins to realize that they are actually the Einwetok, demonic Inuit trickster spirits that take human form, commit acts of violence and mischief, and who are attracted to places of violence and death. Now that they are aware of him, they plan to claim his soul to keep their existence a secret.

Nang Nak

Filed under: 1990's Ghosts — Tags: — Casper @ 3:26 am
Movies Online

Nang Nak is a romantic tragedy and horror film directed by Nonzee Nimibutr in 1999 through Buddy Film and Video Production Co. in Thailand. It features the life of a devoted ghost wife and the unsuspecting husband. Particularly poignant in the film is the devotion of the wife to her husband. A particularly impressive and eerie scene is where the husband (Mak) sees his wife extend her arm all the way to the ground from the elevated hut.

Plot

In rural village in Thailand, Mak (Winai Kraibutr) is sent to fight in a war and leaves his pregnant wife, Nak (Intira Jaroenpura). Mak is injured, and barely survives. He returns home to his doting wife and child, or so he thinks. Mysterious events occur around the village.

A friend visits and sees Mak living together with Nak. The villagers, knowing that Nak died in childbirth several months previously, realize what is happening, that Mak is spellbound by Nak’s ghost. People who attempt to tell Mak, or who know too much, are killed by Nak’s ghost, who becomes more aggressive due to her inability to accept her early death and her desperate desire to stay with her husband.

Toward the end, Mak discovers what is happening, and shocked, flees to the local temple. The villagers attempt several solutions, including burning down the house and in the end summon a ghost exorciser to destroy her forehead (this would destroy her soul as well as the ghost).

The country’s most respected Buddhist monk (in the film Somdej To) arrives in the final moments, takes charge and in a tearful farewell Nak repents, leaving her husband to live his life. Somdejto has the centre of her forehead cut out and made a girdle brooch. He wore it till his last day. The epilogue states that it later became in possession of His Royal Highness Prince Chumbhorn Ketudomsak. Then, handed down to many others, nondetected. Until now nobody knows where the item is.

December 7, 2008

The Legend of Hell House

Filed under: 1970's Ghosts — Tags: — Casper @ 11:22 am
Movies Online

The Legend of Hell House is a 1973 horror film by Academy Pictures. It was directed by John Hough and stars Roddy McDowall, Gayle Hunnicutt, and Pamela Franklin. The screenplay was written by Richard Matheson based on his own novel Hell House.

Plot

Physicist Lionel Barrett is enlisted by an eccentric millionaire, Mr Deutsch, to make an investigation into “survival after death” in “the one place where it has yet to be refuted”. This is the Belasco House: the “Mount Everest of haunted houses,” originally owned by the notorious “Roaring Giant” Emeric Belasco, a six-foot-five perverted millionaire and supposed murderer, who disappeared following a massacre at his home. The house is believed to be haunted by numerous spirits; the victims of Belasco’s twisted desires.

Accompanying Barrett are his wife, Ann, as well as two mediums: a mental medium and Spiritualist minister, Florence Tanner, and a physical medium, Ben Fischer, who is also the sole survivor of an earlier investigation. The rationalist Barrett is rudely skeptical of Tanner’s Christian faith and spiritual beliefs, asserting that there is nothing but unfocused electromagnetic energy in the house. Barrett brings a machine he has developed, which he believes will rid the house of any paranormal presence or force.

Though not a physical medium, Tanner begins to manifest physical phenomena inside the house. When, after a quarrel with Tanner, Barrett is attacked by an invisible force, he suspects that Tanner may be harnessing the house’s energy against him. Meanwhile Fischer remains aloof, with his mind closed to the house’s influence, and is only there to collect the generous pay offered him to return.

Ann Barrett is subjected to erotic visions late at night, which seem linked to her lackluster sex life. She goes downstairs and, in a seeming trance, disrobes and demands sex from Fischer. He instead strikes her, snapping her out of the trance, and she returns to herself, horrified and ashamed. Her husband arrives a moment later, and is bitterly resentful.

Tanner, convinced that one of the “surviving personalities” is Belasco’s tormented son Daniel, finds a human skeleton, chained up behind a wall. Believing it to be Daniel’s, Tanner and Fischer bury the bones outside the house, and Tanner conducts a funeral. Despite this, Daniel’s personality continues to haunt Tanner; she is violently scratched by a possessed cat and Barrett, seeing the scratches, suspects that Tanner may be mutilating herself. In an attempt to put the supposed Daniel to rest, Tanner gives herself to the entity sexually, and later appears to be possessed herself, temporarily.

Barrett’s machine is assembled. Tanner attempts to destroy it, thinking that it will harm the spirits in the house, but is prevented. She enters the chapel, the unholy heart of the house, in an attempt to warn the spirits, and is crushed by a falling crucifix. (In her dying moments, she leaves a clue written in her own blood, to the true source of the haunting, which she now knows.) Barrett meanwhile activates his machine, which seems to be effective. Finally opening up his psychic abilities as he wanders the house, Fischer declares the place “completely clear!” in astonishment. However, soon afterwards, violent psychic activity resumes and Barrett is killed.

Fischer decides to finally confront the house, with Ann accompanying him despite her misgivings. In the chapel, a confrontation ensues: Fischer deduces that Belasco is the sole entity haunting the house, masquerading as many. He taunts Belasco, declaring him a “son of a whore”, and that he was no “roaring giant”, but likely a “funny little dried-up bastard” who fooled everyone about his alleged height. Even as objects begin to hurl themselves at Fischer, he continues to stand up to the entity, until all becomes still, and a portion of the chapel wall shatters, revealing a hidden door.

Going inside, Fischer and Ann discover a lead-lined room, containing Belasco’s preserved body seated in a chair. Pulling out a pocketknife, Fischer rips open Belasco’s trouser leg, discovering his final secret: a pair of prosthetic legs. Fischer and Ann realize Belasco had had his own stunted legs amputated, and used the prosthetics in a grotesque attempt to appear imposing. Belasco had built the room specially, in the event of his death, to preserve his spirit, afraid of what may happen otherwise.

With the room now open, Fischer activates Barrett’s machine a second time, and he and Ann leave the house, expressing hopes that Barrett and Tanner will guide Belasco to the afterlife without fear.

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