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



      

My Haunted House: The Sorority Sister and the Secret Room

I was scrolling through the Directv guide not too long ago and saw a listing for a show on the Lifetime Movie Network (though the series originally aired on Bio) called My Haunted House.  I'd never watched it, but it sounded like something I would like, so I recorded the episode "The Sorority Sister and the Secret Room."  In college, Jill joined a sorority that was desperate for pledges and offering free room and board; during spring break in March 2010, the other sorority girls left town, but they told Jill that she had to stay and watch the house.  Her first night alone in the house, Jill heard creaking and heavy footsteps, but didn't see anyone when she left her room to check, so she went back to sleep.  The next night, Jill found muddy hand prints all over the walls of the sorority house when she returned from the library and thought she heard someone crying.  She kept hearing noises that night and thought it was a nearby frat party, but soon realized that the sound was actually coming from inside the house; she went to investigate and heard crying coming from upstairs.  Before she could locate who (or what) was making the sound, the phone rang; when she was talking, she looked up and saw a creepy female figure in the mirror, standing behind her.  When she turned around, nothing was there; Jill ran out of the house, and a campus security officer happened to be driving by, so he checked the house and told Jill that he didn't find anyone there and that sometimes big, old houses can be scary.  Jill went back inside (WHY?!) and went to sleep.  Two days later, Jill was watching a movie and left to go to the kitchen for a few minutes; when she returned, she found an old photograph lying on the floor that hadn't been there a few minutes earlier.  She looked at the photo and realized that one of the girls in the picture was the girl she had seen in the mirror, so she decided to get the hell out of there...but that was easier said than done.  Jill packed a bag and tried to leave through the front door, but the lock turned by itself and wouldn't budge when she tried to unlock the door.  The phone rang, and when she answered, Jill heard a voice say "Help me."  Jill decided to check out the attic and see if that's where the crying she'd heard earlier had been coming from, and a box flew off the shelf and almost hit her; when she bent down to open it, she heard a voice whisper "Please don't be afraid."  She looked up to see the girl from the mirror and thought that there was something in the box that the spirit wanted her to see, so she began looking through the photographs she found in it; the pictures were of the girl being hazed by sorority sisters.  Jill searched online for information about a 1987 hazing death and found out about Donna James, a 19-year-old student who was found dead in a field; her death was blamed on alcohol poisoning.  Jill is convinced that Donna's death was caused by hazing and that the sorority covered it up.  Jill decided not to join the sorority, which was a good idea since living with those bitchy sorority sisters sounds even worse than living with a ghost.  

In June 2002, Hayley and Elliott got engaged, and he surprised her with a furnished house he had bought at an auction.  A few weeks after they moved in, Elliott's 9-year-old daughter came to spend a month with them; Jenny wasn't crazy about the fact that her dad was getting remarried, so Hayley was a little nervous to spend two days alone with the girl when Elliott had to leave town for a work emergency.  Hayley was upstairs one day and saw Jenny standing downstairs, weirdly staring at her; the door to the guest bedroom opened by itself, and when Hayley looked downstairs again, Jenny was gone.  Hayley checked the bedroom to make sure a window hadn't been left open; when she turned to leave, the mirror reflected a pair of child's feet behind the curtain, but when she looked at the curtains, the feet weren't there.  She found a a tiny pink bow on the floor, and then Jenny asked Hayley to play hide-and-seek with her.  Hayley noticed that the basement door was open, so she looked for Jenny there, but instead she found a young blonde girl who quickly disappeared, and she later found Jenny hiding upstairs.  The next night, Hayley awoke to sounds coming from underneath her bed; she looked down to see a creepy doll lying on the floor before it was yanked underneath the bed.  She was sure that Jenny must be hiding under the bed, but didn't want to stick her head down there, so she tried looking under the bed with a mirror; as she was doing this, she heard the door creak open and then saw it slam shut.  Hayley checked Jenny's room, but she wasn't there, so she went to the basement and saw Jenny "just standing there, mumbling to the wall."  Hayley kept calling her name, but Jenny didn't respond, so she approached Jenny, who seemed confused after she snapped out of her trance.  Jenny said she didn't remember anything, except that "the wall was talking to her."   One night later, Hayley and Jenny were playing Go Fish when the lights when out; Hayley left Jenny alone to go check the circuit breaker in the basement.  After she got the lights back on, she saw the pink ribbon she'd found earlier lying on the stairs; a hand shot out and grabbed the ribbon, and Hayley screamed.  She told Jenny she had seen a rat, so she wouldn't scare her; she said good night to Jenny and was disturbed when Jenny replied "Goodbye" instead of "Good night."  Hayley later heard Jenny's door open  and tracked her to the basement; Jenny was talking to someone, and when Hayley approached her, she pointed at the wall.  They heard crying coming from the other side of the wall, so Hayley used a sledgehammer to make a hole in the wall and told Jenny to go upstairs.  Hayley saw the blonde girl, but she disappeared; Hayley made a bigger hole in the wall and discovered that there was a hidden room with a bed, a desk, a mirror, and the doll that Hayley had seen in her room.  Hayley called the police, and they took the doll and the sheets from the bed, but said that the evidence was too old for them to be able to find out who had lived in that room.  Hayley thinks that the blonde girl was held there and "wanted someone to know what happened to her."  Jenny later told Hayley that she had also seen the girl and that she has no recollection of playing hide-and-seek or sleepwalking down to the basement.

This show was pretty good and almost as creepy as When Ghosts Attack.  I'll definitely be watching more episodes.

My rating: 8/10

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

My Ghost Story: Caught on Camera-Disturbing the Peace

My Ghost Story: Caught on Camera airs on the Lifetime Movie Network.  I recently watched the episode “Disturbing the Peace,” which aired in March 2013 and tells five true paranormal stories.

-“Lavinia’s Lair”: Pamela Nance and Ashley Field decide to visit the Old City Jail in Charleston, SC because they’re curious about the paranormal, and there have been many claims of paranormal activity there.  Lavinia Fisher was America’s first female serial killer, and she is said to haunt the jail.  When Pamela and Ashley arrive at the jail, they begin taking pictures; Pamela sees a black shadow coming from the ceiling in one of her pictures, and Ashley sees a green face in one of hers.  They go to the floor where Lavinia was held, and the EVP captures a voice saying “I bribed ‘em.”  The women take more photos, some of them showing orbs and “light anomalies.”  At one point, Ashley asks if there is anyone there who wants to say something, and Pamela hears footsteps running toward Ashley, then Ashley goes flying “through the air at least four or five feet,” landing on top of Pamela.  When they listen to the EVP recording, they hear a man’s voice say “That shook ‘em.”  I live in Charleston, but I’ve never been to the Old City Jail because it sounds really creepy; Pamela and Ashley’s story makes me confident that avoiding the jail is a good decision.

-“Dark n’ Donuts”: Steffani Dauch says that twenty-two years ago, she was sleeping when a voice woke her up by screaming  “Hey, you, wake up!”  She felt like she should go check on her baby, and when she went in his room, he wasn’t breathing, so she gave him CPR and saved him.  Steffani has seen an apparition of a little boy, and now she’s a paranormal investigator.  The owner of the House of Donuts in Sandusky, Ohio hires Steffani to investigate paranormal activity (growling sounds, employees being hit) that has happened there, and her son Codey comes along.  In the basement, something throws a screw at Steffani.  Codey sees some orbs moving through the air on the video feed.  In the kitchen, Steffani asks, “Can you tell us what you died from?”  On the EVP recording, they clearly hear a woman’s voice say “lung cancer,” so they think it is the wife of the former owner since they know she had emphysema.  Codey’s cousin Dylan and friend Brock show up and accompany him to the basement, and Codey asks Dylan to light a cigarette, assuming that the spirit won’t like that since she died of lung cancer; when Dylan lights the cigarette, something leaves a huge scratch on his arm.  In the kitchen, Steffani hears a noise, so she takes a picture and sees a shadowy figure in the shot.  Steffani believes that the House of Donuts is haunted by the former owners and “some dark force.”

-“Disturbing the Peace”: Paul Ollivierre and his wife Johanne Lebouef are paranormal investigators in Montreal, Canada.  A peace officer asks them for help, saying that he feels a presence in his house and doors open by themselves, so Paul and Johanne pay him a visit.  Paul feels like something is watching him as soon as he enters the house, and Johanne feels a “negativity in the air.”  The officer has told Paul and Johanne that every night around 2 or 3 a.m., the basement door slams; when it happens this time, Johanne approaches the door and feels it vibrating, then it opens by itself, and Paul hears a voice telling him to go downstairs.  As they walk down the stairs, Paul feels like he is being choked.  Johanne takes a picture in the basement, which turns out to be full of orbs.  They do an EVP session and hear a voice on the recording saying “I think that’s yours.”  When they watch the videos that they have recorded, they see a chair move on its own, a door opening with no one there, and something throw a shoe at the homeowner’s dog.  Paul performs a “spiritual cleaning” and tells the spirit to leave; the spirit doesn’t listen, so Paul traps it in his hands and removes it from the house (I was not aware that it was possible to trap spirits in your hands and physically throw them out…).

-“Freshly Squeezed Terror” (love the title): Mary Ann McKeon believes that her home in Brooklyn, New York is haunted by her late husband; he always said that he would die when he was fifty years old, and he was right.  Since his death, Mary Ann often feels like she is being watched, sees shadows, and smells smoke.  Sometimes she is woken up by her bed shaking.  After Stephanie McKeon, one of Mary Ann’s daughters, sees the cap on the orange juice open and close by itself while she’s eating breakfast, she decides to do a paranormal investigation with her boyfriend.  They start an EVP session in Mary Ann’s bedroom, and Stephanie’s boyfriend sees an orb; in another room, they see orbs “flying out of [Mary Ann’s] hands into the air” while filming with night vision cameras.  Mary Ann goes to a psychic, who tells her that the spirit doesn’t like the changes she has made to the house, and that’s when Mary Ann knows that her husband is haunting the house since he smoked, drank orange juice with breakfast, and always tried to talk her out of making home improvements.

-“Spirit Inn-festation”: Terri Brown owns the Farmer’s Hope Inn in Manheim, Pennsylvania.  One night she hears a chair drag across the dining room floor downstairs when she is the only person there.  Psychic Jamie Woods decides to check out the inn and sees a spirit as soon as she enters.  Terri and Jamie go to the dining room, and Jamie says that she sees “a woman running through here with a man chasing her,” which is also what Terri’s server has described seeing; Terri calls the server in, and both Jamie and the server say that the woman is wearing a blue dress.  Terri calls in a team of paranormal investigators, and they see a shadowy figure in one of the rooms.  The team does an EVP session in the bar area; they leave a flashlight on the bar and tell the spirit to “feel free to play with that device,” then the flashlight turns on.  Next they set up a camera and catch the male and female spirit running through the dining room.

I really liked this show, and I wish I had more than one episode still on my DVR since there are no episodes scheduled right now.  All of the stories were interesting, and I’m glad they’re someone else’s ghost stories instead of mine!

My rating: 8.5/10

http://www.mylifetime.com/movies/my-ghost-story-caught-on-camera