My Haunted House: The Whispering and Ethel

I watched my first episode of My Haunted House a few weeks ago, so I was excited to watch another one...not just because my first My Haunted House recap is already one of my most popular blog posts, but because Corby Sullivan, who directed my play 'Til Death Do Us Part in Hollywood a few months ago, was in the new episode that aired last Saturday night.  My Haunted House airs on the Lifetime Movie Network, and this episode is called " The Whispering and Ethel."

In 1984, a little girl named Jen was hanging out in her father's junkyard in the dark (great parenting, Dad!) when she heard voices and told her father that "there's a man over there."  He didn't believe her and said she needed to stop telling stories (jerk).  Jen was pretty smart, so she left town as soon as she graduated from high school.  Sixteen years later, Jen's mother died, so she came back home to help out her father and her 17-year-old sister in March 2010; she began hearing voices again almost immediately.  Her father needed someone to work nights at the junkyard, so Jen agreed to help, even though she was terrified of the place; he told her to write down the make and model of each car and which parts were salvageable (seems like it would be way easier to do this in the daytime instead of leaving your daughter alone in the dark in a creepy junkyard).  Jen saw someone walking through the junkyard, and when she was only a few feet away from him, he said "What happened?" and disappeared.  Back at the house, Samantha was trying to sneak into the house through the basement so her dad wouldn't know that she had snuck out earlier, but when she got to the door, it was locked.  Jen heard Samantha banging on the door, and when she opened it, she saw the man from the junkyard standing behind Samantha (that would be my cue to be like, "Bye! You guys are on your own.").  A few days later, Jen met with her Aunt Karen and told her what had been going on, and Karen informed her that Jen's mother and grandmother heard the "voices of people who had passed on."  Jen went  back to work at the junkyard the next night and heard banging coming from the trunk of one of the cars; she opened the trunk and found dried blood, and when she closed it, a man in the backseat yelled and scared the shit out of her.  Jen ran to find her father and told him that she found blood in one of the trunks, and he responded, "I thought you outgrew all that.  There's blood everywhere...it's a junkyard." (This guy is such a dick...get him, Junkyard Ghost!)  He refused to leave, but when Jen asked him to come home in an hour, he promised he would; at 4 a.m., he still wasn't home.  Jen started hearing so many voices that she could barely stand it, and when she finally yelled at them to go away, the voices stopped; she realized that she had the power to choose which voices to listen to.  Jen decided to leave, and when she said goodbye to her father, she told him, "Mom says she's sorry for making you sell the boat."  Jen now works as a psychic-medium.

Nick used to work for an insurance company, but he quit to try to make it as a musician.  On August 6, 2006, he went to look at a house, and Ethel the landlady seemed leery of the fact that he didn't have a job until he said that he could pay the whole year's rent up front.  He asked her what the rent was, and Ethel asked how much he could pay, so they agreed to $750.  There were two bedrooms, but Ethel told him that the one that was full of boxes was off-limits and "nobody goes in that room."  You can tell just by looking at her that Ethel is a little off...or to be more accurate, BATSHIT INSANE!  Nick moved in two days later and started writing music on the piano that came with the house; he noticed that one of the keys was vibrating, so he opened the piano, and when he was trying to reach a crumpled up piece of paper in the piano, the lights started flickering and then went out completely.  His cell phone rang, and when he went to answer it, the top part of the piano fell and broke the stick that had been holding it open.  The phone call was from Ashley, a woman he was dating, and when she came over, Nick held the piano open while she retrieved the piece of paper.  Nick felt something's hands on him, and he when he checked it out, he found scratches on his side. Nick and Ashley sat outside and read the note, which said, "Play until my fingers bleed: that was her rule.  It is too much to take any longer.  I'm sorry."  Someone named Charlie wrote the note, and Nick wondered if Ethel was the "her" in question.  They decided to go back inside, but Ashley insisted they leave the note outside because of "bad vibes."  Later that night, they heard a noise, so Nick went downstairs to investigate; the piano started playing on its own (Get out of the house!), and Nick found blood smeared on the keys.  Nick told Ashley everything was fine because he didn't want to be alone in the house and was afraid she would leave.  The next morning, Ashley found scratches on her face and acted like Nick had something to do with it.  (This girl must sleep like the dead...how do you not wake up when something is gouging your face all night?)  A few nights later, Nick came home after a show to find his front door open, even though he locked it before he left.  He walked in (I wouldn't have done that...a murderer could be in there.  Or something scarier...like Ethel.) and thought that maybe Ethel had been in there and started working on his computer like it's not weird to come home to your door wide open.  Later he heard a noise, and a sheet of paper slid underneath his bedroom door; he was about to call the cops, but then he saw that the sheet of paper was the suicide note he'd left on the roof.  Nick opened the door (WHY?!) and saw that the off-limits room was open, and all of the boxes were no longer there.  He heard the piano playing furiously and found sheet music with things like "You suck" and "You will never be as good as them" written on it.  Ethel came from out of nowhere and yelled, "You should be practicing!" before disappearing. (Mind your business, Ethel.)  When Nick went downstairs the next morning, Ethel was there with a plumber, staring at a scarf that Ashley had left there.  Ashley met with Nick that night and told him that something serious was going on in the house, and Nick said that Charlie probably killed himself there.  Ashley wondered whether Ethel might be causing all of the weirdness and said that a poltergeist can be caused by someone who's still alive.  She mentioned "a negative manifestation of energy," and scary Ethel showed up and called her a whore, then made Ashley levitate. (Not cool, Ethel.)  Nick got the hell out of there the next day and went to stay on a friend's couch; he hoped that getting out of the house would free him from the strange things that had been going on, so he was surprised to wake up one day with scratches on his chest.  Strange things kept happening for seven months and then stopped all of a sudden; Nick found out that Ethel had died.  The house was sold after Ethel's death, and the new owners have not experienced any paranormal activity.

This episode of My Haunted House was really creepy, and I had to look over my shoulder once or twice to make sure there weren't any ghosts sneaking up on me. ; )  I can't wait to watch more episodes!

My rating: 10/10

http://www.mylifetime.com/movies/my-haunted-house