The Exorcism of Annalise Michelle (The Exorcism of Emily Rose movie review)

 

Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

The Exorcism of Emily Rose was already added to my list of ‘watch later’ on Netflix, but I hadn't gotten around to seeing it until this course. Before starting the movie, I saw that it was based on a true story, so I looked into it. Normally with found footage movies, like Paranormal Activity, they say ‘based on a true story’, but aren’t actually. This one is. I found an in-depth article about the real Emily Rose, a girl named Annalise Michelle. I can't explain a lot of the parallels as eloquently as the article, but there were a few nice details I did notice in the movie after reading about the real case.

I appreciated the reference of the ‘123456’ praying up and down on her knees, because apparently that was a thing that Annalise Michelle did. For context, they say her cause of death was malnutrition because she starved herself (fasting) and spent all of her time on her knees praying. But here we get differences in the movie versus the actual case. The main modification is the verdicts of the case. In the movie, we get a very satisfying ending, ‘guilty but free’, whereas in real life everyone involved went to jail. But it’s based on a true story, not a documentary.

The best thing about this movie is that it leaves the audience with a question of what ‘truly happened’ to Emily Rose. Or does it? We see some very solid arguments and visual recreations of a scientific versus a paranormal case. No outright demons are shown, but the persuasion factor is there because of the point-of-view of the movie. It focuses on the mind of the defense attorney as she begins to believe the priest’s claims. A nice choice for the big screen, but in the real case there was no competition, the medical side won. In media, the idea of religious views as a defense works and made the doctors seem horrible (ex: forced sedation), but in real life science is more rational than the supernatural. We have separation of state and church.

Now for the movie to stand on it own. The pacing was excellent in how the evidence was presented, which is high praise because pacing is really easy to mess up. I loved the recurring images and parallels between the defense attorney, the priest, and Emily Rose, like the hallways, 3 am, smelling smoke, and the doors moving on their own. Speaking of the defense, the dialog from both attorneys was excellent and the acting in this movie was great. It may not have been a super scary ghost tale, but a lot of scenes left me unnerved and uncomfortable. Examples of this (and good acting) are when Emily Rose is having her muscles contract, when her voice changes, and her crazy eye movements. The whole spook factor to this movie can go to the acting and not so much to things like setting or music.

Overall: I would watch this movie again with friends, but probably not by myself since I already know what happens.

 

The Very, Very, Very Long Shining (The Shining book review)

The Shining by Stephen King

15 hours and 50 minutes for this audiobook. Almost 16 hours of Stephen King. Most other audiobooks for this course have been approximately 7-9 hours long. Now, this audiobook was enjoyable, but goodness it was longwinded.

I love that in the book we get more in depth with the characters of Danny and his Shining and Jack and his addiction. Getting to hear about Jack’s temper with breaking Danny’s arm and beating up his student were very interesting and overlooked in the movie. Not just hearing about Tony, but seeing the visions he shows Danny is something I greatly enjoy. But the book still isn’t perfect.

It feels like King is paid by the word. While I like the book better than the movie, there are definitely scenes that could be cut from the novel with little to no impact on the plot. I felt myself tuning out of the book in some places because the descriptions went on and on. I feel like the scene with the bees was a great way to show the Overlook Hotel as its own character, but it also was repetitive and long. The scene at the doctor was good for telling the parents not to worry about their son, but it lasted ages longer than needed. Wendy constantly thought about her issues with her mother. Now, I’ve only seen the movie once, but I got halfway through the book and feel like I still haven’t come across much that was seen in the movie outside of Dick Hallorann telling Danny about the shining (which by the way, that scene with them in the car is done so well in the book).

Speaking of differences between the movie and book, the hedges were amazing. I thought it was done well in both the movie and the book even though they were done differently. Danny cleverly stepping in his dads footprints in the snow in the movie was clever. But the hedge animals supposedly moving when he wasn’t looking at them was even better. Danny didn’t want to go play at the park, so Jack did instead, and then the hedges move. This was the one scene I didn’t mind King going into in-depth detail about, telling us about the dog hedge being a shepherd that could be trained to be vicious. These were details I enjoyed learning more about, leaving me questioning if the house had moved them or if he was hallucinating.

The movie is about Jack. The book is about Jack and Danny. Neither is about Wendy, the classic passive and whiny female in older books. She has a redemption arc in the end with the pantry, but overall she was a disappointment as the female representation. She wasn’t the main character, and was barely a side character. She was more there for her interactions with the other two.

The whole book is a not-subtle allegory for addiction. I knew that going in and wasn’t excited for it because so many ghost stories are allegories for some form of mental illness. But I did really enjoy this book. I’d never really read King before, but I would be open to read another of his books after this one. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pleasant.

Overall: the book was better than the movie.

Real Skeletons, Really Entertaining (Poltergeist movie review)

 

Poltergeist (1982)

Honestly, for a ghost movie, Poltergeist didn't really scare me. It leaned more heavily into the thriller category. I had forgotten, but this movie was meant to be in the horror genre as well, but I didn’t remember until the scene where Ryan pulled his face off in the mirror and chunks fell into the sink. What makes this movie scary was all of the things happening off set, like using real skeletons without telling the actors, lots of near death/actual death of actors, exorcisms on the sequels set, etc. This movie felt like a good comparison to The Amityville Horror in its multiple haunting tropes. We get lots of elements that feel like parodies of ghosts paired with stoned parents being super emotional.

Earlier in the movie I was cruising along and enjoying the moving chair, the talking TV, the tree monster, and the dog barking at the burn in the wall. I even enjoyed the idea that Carol Anne got pulled into the vortex and can only talk to her family through the TV. The vortex being in her closet was a little predictable, but I enjoyed it. But after the point when her parents called in the 'experts', that's when the movie started losing my interest. I know it's an old movie, but it became too over-the-top for me. I still can't believe that after everything the fictional family went through, they stayed another night in the house before heading to the hotel.

The special effects were very unconvincing, but given that the movie was made in 1982 that was to be expected. Now I'm a sucker for cheesy special effects, and my favorite movie is The Princess Bride (which has a man in a rat suit as a R.O.U.S- rats of unusual size). Because of that comparison, I found the special effects of the poltergeist face and tentacles very funny. Despite looking fake, I enjoyed them. Even the medium cleansing the house was fairly humorous. The fact that the old lady's face contrasted so much with her childlike voice was amazing.

But is this a poltergeist movie? The name suggests so, but does the movie? A poltergeist is defined as: a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed, and they are purportedly capable of pinching, biting, hitting, and tripping people. We do get biting and objects being throw around, including the chairs moving and the children’s bedroom literally having everything float around in the air. So by the definition above, it is a poltergeist. But then again, we have multiple ghosts in the house, and the image we get from inside the closet seems more demonic than ghostly. When I think of poltergeists, my mind always goes to Peeves from Harry Potter, where I think of mischievous more than murderous. So in my mind, this movie was more a demonic force with other spirits than a poltergeist in itself.

Overall: the movie was hysterical, but maybe don’t show it to kids.

A Grave Way To Begin (Grave's End book review)

 

Grave's End: A True Ghost Story by Elaine Mercado

Despite being a short book, reading Grave’s End by Elaine Mercado felt like it lasted forever. I was hoping we’d get to action ¼ of the way through the book, or get to a climax by ½ way through (I read an e-book version and didn’t look at my progress very often). But every time I saw the chapter number was a disappointment. Not because the book was horrible, but because the book was boring.

The plot is a lot of the mom (and kids) being haunted by the paranormal, the mom repeating she wants to leave and is scared, her husband invalidating her, and then they cycle through those events again. She never leaves, just complains. She goes through phases of believing and doubting herself. I know this book is supposed to be based on a true story, so it makes sense that the plot is slow and long like it would be in real life. The author is the main character we follow, so it’s written like a autobiography. It makes sense she doesn’t leave her house because most people can’t just up and leave, especially with family. It follows the pattern of mental illness and questioning in how her mind is a broken record. But it was just so slow for a novel.

Then I finally hit the halfway point in the book. This is when everything changed from a story retelling to a novel. Finally we get a moving plot. Before the Halloween scene, the plot felt like it was stagnant, not moving forward. After her boss, lover, brother, and brother girlfriend validate her, the intensity of the ghosts pick up and with it so does the plot. We get increased ghost activity and the addiction of the ghost hunter and medium. There is finally a sense that everything is no longer a flat wishy-washy line of recurrence, that now there is a light at the end of the tunnel. This is when I started enjoying the story and reading it like a fiend. Before then, it was nice seeing a realistic interpretation of a ghost story told from both the kids as believers, the mom as questioning, and the dad in denial. But after the halfway point I finally felt like I could read the rest of the book in one sitting. But it says something if 80% of the way into thr book the official medium still isn't here.

The moving action makes the rest of this better. But, if I were to compare Grave’s End to other books I’ve read from earlier classes, it would not stand up. This book gets better the farther in you get, but as a whole it is not as entertaining for me as a book about Russian myths. Maybe ghost stories and haunting aren’t for me. This is certainly much better than ghosts sexually assaulting ladies, but that isn’t hard to accomplish. I suppose I’m just finding out that I enjoy books that move externally rather than analyze internally for the majority of the pages.

Overall: Could be worse, but could definitely be better.

Amityville Ooze From Multiple Origins (The Amityville Horror book review)

 

The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

‘Based on a True Story’: this book has it, Paranormal Activity did, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose does. However, only Emily Rose is actually based on a true story, and even that is a story adaptation and not a documentary. So, is The Amityville Horror actually a true tale? Honestly, that’s not what I care about. What matters is if this is a good haunting story or not, and the answer is about as (un)clear as the truth of the original tale.

One thing that was really nice about this book was that it didn’t shy away from the visceral bodily reactions characters had to the ghosts. Instead of only focusing on the mental toll the haunting took on the family, we also get the dad having horrifying diarrhea that’s exacerbated by holy water, and we get the priest who blessed the demonic house with open, bleeding, pussy sores on his hands. Now, I’m not normally a fan physical attacks in ghost books, but the constant return to the dad having to run to the bathroom was hilarious. It was probably meant more so to lean into the gross-out factor of some horror (and make for a better movie), but it served instead for some humor with your horror. I normally watch the movies for class with friends, but this is the first audiobook I’ve streamed. Let me tell you, for days now they have been making jokes that this is the best example of ‘ghost diarrhea’ in a book they’ve ever read. Also, it’s the only example of it. But the book did it’s job being memorable because days later they are still talking about it, so there’s something to be said for that.

But then the story becomes overwhelming with too many horror tropes. I was enjoying the ghosts and cold and sleepwalking possession, but then the author threw in a secret demonic worship lair, a pig man, and hoofprints in the snow, green ooze from the walls, and that’s when they lost me. Up until then, the book was very over the top, but kept me reading with an enjoyable ghost story. But as soon as they started throwing in demonic possession and saying the land was haunted even before the house, it became too much of a menagerie of different haunting tropes. Is this a traumatized spirit, a demon, a haunted house, or something else?

It’s plausible the book is a true retelling, but it’s also possible it was a ploy for publicity. If people can overlook so many horror tropes then they are gullible thinking this book is true. But I say that as a writer, not as a historian or a lawyer. But a lot of readers and viewers like the idea of story based on reality because it makes it more scary and plays on humans’ fear of the unknown. Humans fear the unknown but are also curious about it, so movies or books that give them that sense of something beyond their realm of possibility and control is enticing.

Overall: I would read another book rather than reread this, but it’s good to know where the phrase ‘the walls oozed green slime’ comes from.

I Watched The Others With Others (The Others movie review)

 

The Others (2001)

I streamed The Others with a bunch of my international friends. Even before watching it, two out of six of us had seen it already and highly recommended it (I had never seen it). After it ended, the rest of us were raving too. 

At the beginning, it became pretty clear quickly that there was some kind of haunting. Specific word choices foreshadowed to the ending of the family being ghosts, like the housekeeping family alluding to tuberculosis, the children talking (or avoiding talking) about the day their mom went mad, or the girl describing Victor's family 'viewing' the house. Yet, the all of these were done subtly enough to suspend belief until closer to the end of the film.

The point-of-view of the main character not realizing she was dead was great. It shows stages of grief and how she got caught in denial. Yet later she says she thought God had given her a second chance with her children, so she knew all along and so did the children. The movie kept you thinking throughout it, unsure of the source of the haunting events and who if anyone were really the ghosts.

This point-of-view a very strange way to show a movie since most hauntings are told from the perspective of the living humans. Plus, ghosts are generally seen as the ominous and destructive ones, like poltergeists. Leaning on the common destructive trope helps suspend belief for the viewer, especially when things like Victor opening the curtains occur. We assume he is trying to haunt the children and kill them because of their photosensitivity, but in actuality it is the children and mom that are the ghosts closing and locking doors on the living.

Despite adoring this movie, I thought the plot line with the father was pretty unnecessary. He died on the battlefield and should have stayed there since traumatic deaths generally don’t naturally pass on, they haunt where they were killed. But the father came to say goodbye to his family as if he could move on easily once he did that. Honestly, all that added nothing to the plot either. The only purpose he served was to get the mother back to the house from the fog, but she could have just gotten lost and kept ending up at the house until she gave up.

That being said, I had no other qualms with the movie. It kept me entertained through and through. It even kept my fiancé entertained, and he can be very picky with movies, especially with pacing. If you thought my review of Paranormal Activity was scathing, you should have heard his. But The Others he thoroughly enjoyed, much to my surprise given the older movie setting and vibe. The only issue my entourage had was confusion about whether the kids were actually photosensitive while alive or not.

Other feedback from my crew was: An interesting take on a trope and a very original idea. Instead of the house being haunted, they were the ones doing the haunting, but without realizing it. For once, the audience gets a haunted house movie that isn’t scary!

Overall: I would watch this again despite knowing the ending. It seems like the type of movie that you’d notice new little things each time you watch it again.

It Was A Dream To Read This Nightmare (Nightmare House book review)

Nightmare House by Douglas Clegg

If my fiancé hadn’t come home from work, I would have finished this book in one sitting. It is a very quick read. I was ¾ of the way through and already recommending it to my friends. Finally, a book about a haunted house that I enjoyed!

This book is what it means for a haunted house to be its own character and have its own personality. The house was built to be a puzzle, a maze, with occult practices in mind during its creation. Looking into the book as a series, “the Harrow series consists of several books set in or around the haunted estate in the Hudson Valley. Each Harrow story can be read out-of-order because the main continuing character is the dark mansion itself or those people who have or will touch it,” (Amazon). This is so accurate and makes me want to request the rest of the series from the library. In fact, I normally buy the books I like best from each of my terms and this one just might make the cut.

Point-of-view can make or break a book. This story was told from two different perspectives, thought technically the same character: Esteban/Ethan Gravesend as a young man first entering Harrow House and him as an old man looking back on his childhood and manhood. The duality furthered the story’s depth. There was a lot of duality and binaries. The perspective of Ethan, the personalities of Matilda, the morals of Pocket. All of them had good and bad sides, but one always outweighed the other in the end.

Now, if you asked me what the beginning of this book was about, I wouldn’t remember much to say except character introductions up until the tower. But that is fine with me because I was never bored. I enjoyed meeting all the interesting personalities and learning about Ethan’s grandfather until we hit the wonderful twist of family secrets literally hidden in the woodwork. And my goodness, the twist of Matilda being buried alive and then hidden in the walls of the house. I was screaming in the best way possible when finding her body came to light. The twist about her being Ethan’s mother was also fabulous.

This book has perfect examples of good twists in horror throughout it. Nobody is who they seem.  The whole books works really well to keep you unsure of what is morally right. That was something I really appreciated about it, especially in a ghost story which can so often push for the ghost as malicious.

My only complaint with the book really was the end with Maggie. Ethan can’t save her, and despite not knowing her very well, he is convinced they were meant to be together. Therefore, he takes care of Alf and lets him basically take over control of Harrow. This was not a great ending for me, but I did like that Ethan refused to go into the house again.

Overall: I would read this book again and recommend it to friends.

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Books I've Read In 2020

The Chowder That Left Me Hungry, And Not For More (Ghost Story book review)

Ghost Story by Peter Straub

Let it be known that if I was writing an academic essay on Ghost Story by Peter Straub, I would have a very differing opinion of this book. During undergrad when I was in honors for literature, a thesis on this book would be easy. The structure of the novel is very intentional. From the current descriptions of the Chowder Society’s minds, to the morbid stories they tell during meetings, to the background about Donald Wanderley and his lover, every bit of this book is a puzzle piece of individual ghost stories. While at the beginning they may appear a bit disjointed, slowly but surely they all connect. 

The Chowder Society tell tales of young boys killed, talk of their nightmares of each other’s ghosts, hear voices before they die. The reader gets tales of how a member, Edward Wanderley, was scared to death a year prior, and we get the backstory of his nephew who was engaged to someone who not only talked to a ghost, but seemed to have never existed at all herself based on the ‘truths’ she told. The structure of the chapters puts the reader in a sense of unease, unsure what is true or not, but always telling a version of a ghost story no matter the character’s point-of-view.

From a non-academic standpoint, I hated the structure. I’m glad that these posts are more like opinion articles from a newspaper rather than literary essays because this book did not work for me. I called it disjointed before and I stand by that, both in structure and characters.

There were too many characters. We have multiple members of The Chowder Society, all their wives,  kids, other townspeople, and more. Then we learn that some of the long list of characters we’ve heard of and tried to keep track of are now all the same person. Eva Galli is also Alma Mobley, Ann-Veronica-Moore, Anna Mostyn, and Amy Monkton. Greggory Bate is also Greg Benton and Greggorio. Fenny Bate is the small boy beckoning everyone to come outside and play. So after taking extensive notes to keep track of everyone, it’s all for naught. 

Up until the middle of the book, I assumed everything happening was created by the minds of The Chowder Society from untreated trauma, but near the middle-end of the book, confirmation is given on supernatural entities being behind it all. We get a ghost in Fenny Bate, and another in Lewis’s dead wife. We get a werewolf in Greg Benton. We get multiple women with the initials A.M.. Then we learn that Eva Galli is a shapeshifter. Let’s not forget the slaughtered sheep who died to a  vampire (which before the scarf discovery, I assumed was a Chupacabra). So are the characters shapeshifters, vampires, werewolves, or something else? The answer is left unclear, Straub explaining it off as some greater being that can speak in and mess with the minds of humans. Great for a monster book, not as great for a ghost story. The book left much to be desired. 

Overall: Too consistently confusing for 567 pages. 

Also, here is a link to someone else’s review that I enjoyed.

Now That's One Hell of a House (Hell House book review)

 

Hell House by Richard Matheson

Now this book is what I wanted out of a haunted house story. The house itself seems to have its own personality, Belasco being the one controlling all of it, like a puppet master in the wings.

Hell House did a wonderful job in keeping the reader unsure whether to trust Florence or Lionel, mediums or scientists. Back and forth we went, seeing the evidence validated from both sides until the very last scene. I’ll admit, I did think the book was over after Lionel’s machine finished, but then Benjamin said exactly what I was thinking, that ending like that was too easy. Chapter to chapter, I never knew exactly what was the truth or not about the ghosts, Belasco, Daniel, Florence’s power, or anything else in the house. I love that.

The prompt for this week talked about masculine takes on haunted house books, specifically using the term ‘testosterone-driven’. This book was not that to me. Perhaps Belasco himself was sex-crazed and lusty over the women in the book, even possessing them into doing sexual acts, but the other men were uninterested. Sex, not testosterone specifically. That being said, the lines where they women were possessed and saying vulgar sexual things to one another really turned me away from this book. I am asexual, like Alexis, but I find myself often sex-repulsed by such blatantly lewd things. The bruises around her nipples and even they gay wandering eyes didn’t bother me, but the vulgar speech was what got to me despite being integral to the haunting.

That being said, Matheson does have a style. It reminds me of Clive Barker. We previously read Rawhead Rex for the Monsters course, and the same kind of imagery was found in that story. I titled that blog post ‘Raw-Head Sex, Urine, Menstrual Blood, and Other Forgettable Fluids’. Matheson seems to have a clear focus on body mutilation and sex when it comes to Hell House. That subgenre is not my cup of tea (and I love most tea). But whereas a short story such as Rawhead Rex didn’t hook me in, Hell House caught my attention and held it, so I was able to get past the vulgarity to get to the next plot point. A few times I did chuckle from how absurd it was. The vulgarity was the only thing I didn’t like about this book. Everything else was lovely.

The ending for this book was both a hit and miss for me. Finding out Belasco was a self-hating, self-mutilating man with leg extensions was disappointing. Degrading him into submission was also very unsatisfying. But learning that his dead body was hidden behind the chapel in a lead room, and he had dehydrated himself to death with a pitcher of water a few feet away? Now that is what I was looking for.

But Hell House really hit all the notes I wanted that The Haunting of Hill House didn’t. We get more of the paranormal. We still get parallels between science and the supernatural. We get inside the heads of the characters analyzing phenomena around them without being dragged down by lengthy internal monologues.

Overall: I enjoyed reading this book, but probably wouldn’t watch a movie adaptation of it.