A few of my favorite images of ghosts caught on camera from The Whaley House Museum Ghost Encounters web page.
Category: ghost
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Horror Cinema: Ox-Head Village
Japanese horror movie Ox-Head Village is a good, spooky ghost story. The narrative begins seemingly impersonal, as if the supernatural events could be happening to anyone investigating a certain abandoned building, but it unravels into a personal story about one character’s journey of discovery into her past and identity.
Image from ghoulsmagazine.com I really enjoyed some of the scare-effects. My favorite was when a character would see an omen in a reflection. When it happened, there was no doubt the person was going to die.
Ox-Head Village was a good contribution to J-horror and ghost stories!
Shimizu, Takashi. Ox-Head Village, 2022.
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Horror Cinema: Haunting of the Queen Mary
I watched a trailer for Haunting of the Queen Mary with my Dad, and although he was not interested in seeing a horror movie, he was keen to note that my grandfather rode the Queen Mary during World War Two. The boat is now docked and is a museum that he had visited.
On my own time, I watched the movie, looking forward to seeing if my historical connection to the ship would come up in the story. It didn’t.
I can’t say that I disliked the movie, but I found it unnecessarily weird in parts, and it told multiple narratives that made it frantic at times. In addition to the ghosts and the spirit of the ship, which could have been done more fully, like including a storyline about being a naval ship, there were storylines about a boy’s soul getting stolen and the parents getting caught up in a chase from a murderer overnight on the ship. The jump from the paranormal to fantasy and murder was odd.
Aside from the movie’s issue with its mix of genres, it did do a good job of moving back and forth from a historical narrative to the ghosts in the modern narrative, and I would recommend it for that portion of the film. I would also recommend it for its beautiful historical sets.
Shore, Gary. Haunting of the Queen Mary, Vertigo Films, 2023.
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Horror Cinema: Our House
Ghost stories are my favorite, and I was excited to discover Our House, a full-on supernatural, ghost-story movie. While I love ghost stories, a good one is difficult to find, and I was impressed by this one. The incorporation of the ghosts into the narrative was natural and sympathetic at first, and their slow growth into sinister forces was suspenseful and interesting. A solid take on a ghost story and a good movie!
Scott Burns, Anthony. Our House, IFC Midnight / Elevation Pictures, 2018.
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Ghastly Appearance of a Headless Woman
Many popular Victorian newspapers regularly printed reports of spectral sightings and ghostly visitations, and one British publication that did this with particular gusto was the Illustrated Police News.
In January 1898, it was reported that a mysterious figure with
“the ghastly appearance of a headless woman” was haunting an isolated crossroad outside of Buckingham. The phantom was first witnessed by a well-known local farmer and his companion who had the misfortune of encountering the wraith while driving his “horse and trap.” “The night was well advanced and dark,” when suddenly the farmer saw standing a few yards in front of him a black object near a weather beaten hand-post at the corner of the cross-roads. He called out as the figure was blocking his path but there was no answer and the figure remained motionless.As he got closer, he noticed the other worldly appearance of the woman and his horse began to “tremble like a leaf.” In shock, he called out again, “What do you do there? Move on, please.” Again, he was met with no response. The horse panicked and backed into a ditch, forcing the farmer’s companion to jump down to seize the reigns. Suddenly, “the queer visitant disappeared,” but, as the pair got back in the trap to flee, the “black sombre figure” appeared again “in the same motionless position as before.”
“Their situation was now getting positively serious. The farmer whose presence of mind had stood him in good stead, now finding his nerve on the point of giving way, asked the apparition in the name of God to speak. Then it was that the spectra slowly drifted away, and appeared to float through the thick set bordered hedge.”
Numerous others later claimed to witness the ghost and the reporter commented that it was “not a little surprising that the spot referred to has been less frequented of late.”
Read other Victorian reports of ghosts at Ghosts of the Past: Historic News Reports of Victorian Hauntings
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Spooky Scary Ghost Videos!
A good collection of scary videos of ghost activity.
