Haunted House books.....

[StephenKingman]

As a huge fan of horror, i think the haunted house genre has been sadly wiped out in recent times, with the possible exception of Paranormal Activity, which injected a modern spin into the classic scenario. The greatest haunted house movie remains The Haunting by Robert Wise in 1963, based on Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House. Its the oldest cliche in the book ( a group of misfits move into a big old house with an ominous past to search for evidence of the paranormal) and yet it simply works on all levels, thanks to superb audio and acting.

 

The movie terrified viewers by unleashing their own imaginations upon them as their minds conjured up images from the ever-teasing events unfolding before their eyes as Something hideous pounded on the bedroom door and banged up and down the corridors with horrifying regularity and purpose, but its an entity that Wise chooses not to ultimately reveal, unlike the impatient and tactless movies these days who pull the curtain away within the first 10 minutes and evaporate any sense of tension.

 

Im aware of the 'Haunting' series on Discovery Science, which documents true-life cases of hauntings, many of which involve a house, but the genre needs a shot in the arm badly. Any members of the forum read a

great haunted house book or even have a true life experience? My only experience of a haunted house was when a mate of mine and me broke into an old abandoned hotel/house called Loftus Hall in Wexford. It was bright daylight but by blood ran cold as we went through the place room by room, i felt watched at all times and just wanted out of there. i will never return. The house has been haunted for centuries ever since the Devil himself called in one stormy night in the 1700s. What happened was so horrific i cant even tell it (Google it) but lets just say it involved a pair of hooves, a pack of cards and a flaming roof.....

 

Here is a picture of Loftus Hall.........

 

[Rawr]

Interesting thread. Beware of a long post and if you don't believe in the paranormal, maybe you will find something to read or laugh at

 

I will start by saying Jackson's novel is one of the best ever put down on paper in the genre, the opening alone blows me away each time.

 

That is an interesting account. I believe very strongly in the spiritual world and the presence of entities (once human and some never having been) which are not of our own 'dimension' for want of a better word. I research a lot in the area and wonder about the existence and implications and meaning of that part of life daily.

 

When I was a young child, me and my sister were visited several times (nightly I believe for a period) by my grandfather who had passed on a few years before and never had much of a chance to see us. He would open the cupboards above our beds a lot and my sister would talk to him for hours. I think I was too young to hold much of a conversation, but I would feel happy all the same. As children, we often see things without shackles which society binds to us.

 

I have lived in a haunted pub for a couple of years where the atmosphere was very odd and unstable for me personally. At the time, I had no idea it was haunted, it was only around five years ago when I actually asked my parents if there was anything strange about the place and it turned out that an old mill worker had perished in a fire on the property, as it used to be a mill. There was a building site surrounding the pub all the time I lived there, but being a kid and all, I thought nothing of the land's prior usage.

 

I think the poor woman was an active spirit and not embedded in the fabric of the building (what would be deemed a 'residual haunting'). Some of my toys, especially the cars, used to vanish inexplicably from mine and my brother's bedroom or the living room when no one had touched them overnight, once a yellow car turned up in a beer barrel in the basement There were various other items too like tv remotes appearing downstairs, the dogs bowl moving from one place to the other when the pub was empty, ashtrays moving to tables, things like that. Just subtle, but I think Mrs Timperly was letting us know she was about. The function room was FREEZING 24/7 and we never got an explanation from our parents for that. Me and my bro would play football with balloons in there every Sunday and I would definitely feel like I was being watched over when he went down to get a drink. It was a strange feeling, but not one of malice, but maybe sadness and lonely compassion.

 

I don't know, the area seemed extremely depressed and negative I always recall in these past few years, obviously as a child you don't really think about such things in depth, but I see that very clearly. I had a lot of nightmares there, every night more or less and there were places I didn't want to go in the pub (which was very small anyhow). I have always been sensitive to picking up on vibes and atmospheres, and I feel I picked up on her sadness a lot. The building stands derelict and abandoned to this day, it is very unfortunate.

 

My dad has seen two ghosts, now he is not remotely in tune or interested in strange aspects of life, but when I hear him recount the two occasions he has, then I know he's telling the truth. So many people have seen things and experienced weird events, sure, a lot of them can be passed off as tricks of the mind, reflections, smoke, distant lights etc etc but equally, a lot of them cannot. I believe we see more than we think even when we don't realize, but this fast-paced world fills so many with blindness that they do not understand or believe when this happens.

 

The world is a deep layered thing which holds many secrets and questions, a lot even beyond our comprehension.

Edited March 24, 2010 by Rawr

[StephenKingman]

Great reply, Rawr. I would absolutely believe your accounts of supernatural. Now i am and can be a very cynical and skeptical person and certainly i think a good 98% of hauntings are reported by attention seekers or mentally ill people. And many more have perfectly rational explanations. But there are a few cases where i believe negative energy can reside and absorb some of its environment and you have spirits and eternal energy inhabiting the same area and a lot of these disturbances are caused by these restless souls who cant move on and many houses have terrible histories, a few of which are bound to remain with the area....

[Rawr]

Oh definitely, I feel that the paranormal side of life has always been there and will continue to for as long as people believe or ignore it, there are so many tales and experiences that cannot be explained by anything that we understand today. Someday they may be discovered but that, in my opinion, will only open the rabbit hole further, which is fascinating to think. There will always be things which humans cannot comprehend nor put a definition next to, which is cool. People forget how small we are in the face of existence.

[StephenKingman]

Oh definitely, I feel that the paranormal side of life has always been there and will continue to for as long as people believe or ignore it, there are so many tales and experiences that cannot be explained by anything that we understand today. Someday they may be discovered but that, in my opinion, will only open the rabbit hole further, which is fascinating to think. There will always be things which humans cannot comprehend nor put a definition next to, which is cool. People forget how small we are in the face of existence.

 

Yes, science has an answer to everything and to be fair, in a huge amount of cases, they have effectively answered a lot of mysteries that were previously attributed to the supernatural. But there are eternal mysteries to life that nobody has definitive answers for, including many hauntings in houses, hotels etc.

[Johnny Carson Whit]

I don't really believe in ghosts and such things in the traditional sense.

But I do believe that the human mind can act in ways that we dont really understand resulting in such incidences.

 

I can recount three particular incidences; the first is that when I think (not always) of my now deceased grandmother on my mothers side, I swear the room fills with the scent of her perfume, which you would think would freak me out but it doesn't it has the opposite effect. That could rationally be explained I suppose as the imagination and mind working overtime.

 

Secondly, quite a few years ago a few hours after finding out his mother passed away, my father went for a lay down.

He is the least religious, unimaginative person you could ever meet, as he was laying on his side he felt the mattress lower as if someone came to sit down, there was absolutely nobody anywhere near the room, to this day he will swear blind that was his mother.

That could be explained imo quite easily as a dream, even though he will swear blind he was wide awake.

 

Thirdly, quite a few years ago again whilst I still lived with my parents, an older sibling of mine lost a young child, which obviously had a major impact on the family.

For years later in the house we still lived in when we found out, we would be sitting around watching TV for example, and a picture in a silver frame of this deceased relative would literally spring off the top of the TV as if someone had thrown it and it would land quite a few feet away; this happened continually for years until my parents sold the house. Explain that?

 

Feel like I should be sitting here with a torch under my chin.

 

And thanks for bringing The Haunting of Hill House to my attention, yet another addition to my list!

Edited March 28, 2010 by Johnny Carson Whit

[StephenKingman]

Feel like I should be sitting here with a torch under my chin.

 

And thanks for bringing The Haunting of Hill House to my attention, yet another addition to my list!

 

Ha no problem its a fantastic book and in my opinion the best Haunted House book ever written, and the film does it great justice. Just avoid the 1999 remake by director Jan de Bont and starring Owen Wilson and Liam Neeson like the plague, its a disaster of excessive CGI effects and a poor script.

[~Andrea~]

I am reading The Seance by John Harwood at the moment and I have to say it is absolutely brilliant. I think JH is a good old fashioned ghost story writer. It's not your average cliched haunted house story so I'm not sure it fits the bill exactly, but it definitely has a spooky old house, a haunted wood, seances and visitations and lots of other mysteries besides.

 

I LOVE ghost stories. I agree - there aren't enough haunted house books around at the moment. Which is perhaps why I find myself in the current process of writing one

 

Rawr - it's late and I only had time/energy to skim read your post, but it all sounds fascinating so I will give it my full attention tomorrow.

 

I am open-minded when it comes to ghosts. I definitely believe in the afterlife, and in a spiritual realm, but whether spirits can communicate with the living I have no idea. I wouldn't be surprised either way I suppose.

[Rawr]

I like to go on about such musings sometimes so it is very excessive but I hope there is some points of interest for people to think about

[StephenKingman]

I LOVE ghost stories. I agree - there aren't enough haunted house books around at the moment. Which is perhaps why I find myself in the current process of writing one

 

Hey, the best of luck with that, there needs to be more haunted house books out there and i hope you do well with your venture.

 

 

I like to go on about such musings sometimes so it is very excessive but I hope there is some points of interest for people to think about

 

Hang on, let me get some coffee to read your incredibly looooong post-kidding! I found your experiences very interesting and i am also very open minded about the afterlife and the supernatural. You have to sift through 99.99% of the lies, secret agendas and hoaxes to see some genuine evidence of the paranormal but some events are very hard to explain away.

 

Haunted house books are historically very tricky to write-you want to draw in the reader with a tale about a big old house (or even hotel or small cottage) but you need to avoid the cliche of the rattling chains or screams in the night and you also need to be careful about revealing too much; some images are best left to the imagination. It takes great skill but the few authors who have managed to nail the haunted house tale are imo King for The Shining and Shirley Jackson for The Haunting. There may be other hidden gems around that i have yet to read though!

[StephenKingman]

I LOVE ghost stories. I agree - there aren't enough haunted house books around at the moment. Which is perhaps why I find myself in the current process of writing one

 

Hey, the best of luck with that, there needs to be more haunted house books out there and i hope you do well with your venture.

 

 

@ Rawr

 

Hang on, let me get some coffee to read your incredibly looooong post-kidding! I found your experiences very interesting and i am also very open minded about the afterlife and the supernatural. You have to sift through 99.99% of the lies, secret agendas and hoaxes to see some genuine evidence of the paranormal but some events are very hard to explain away.

 

Haunted house books are historically very tricky to write-you want to draw in the reader with a tale about a big old house (or even hotel or small cottage) but you need to avoid the cliche of the rattling chains or screams in the night and you also need to be careful about revealing too much; some images are best left to the imagination. It takes great skill but the few authors who have managed to nail the haunted house tale are imo King for The Shining and Shirley Jackson for The Haunting. There may be other hidden gems around that i have yet to read though!

[~Andrea~]

Hey, the best of luck with that, there needs to be more haunted house books out there and i hope you do well with your venture.

 

Thank you

 

Rawr - very interesting post. You've had some intriguing experiences there.