How sad is it that I’m one of the last generations that new what the cards are for in the opening sequence?  I remembered the toys for this movie and I remembered the Stay Puft marshmallow man.   It was therefore, not only a pleasant end to the course, but a wonderful refresher.  Yep, I’m hoping the rumors are true that they’re getting back for a third one just because the first is so funny.

Let’s see, what makes this a ghost story?  I’ll try to recount as many as I can.

• Moving objects
• Mist creature
• Ectoplasmic
• Exploding eggs
• Demonic voices
• Demons in the fridge
• Creepy guy going after the girl
• “Psychic” medium
• Possession

So much fun.  Oh, thank you for assigning this at the end of the course.  I needed some Bill Murray to liven it up from Lovely Bones and Ghost Story.

I’m actually pleased to read this again and outside of the Christmas holiday.  Of course the lessons within the story are just as present and effective now as ever.  But it was fun to analyze this for the Ghost story aspect.

My favorite element of the ghost story in A Christmas Carol is that no only do we have the spirits of past, present, and future, but Scrooge becomes a ghost to haunt those other times.  It’s the best of ghost stories and Lovely Bones mashed together.

Including this story in with the required readings just drives home one of Scott’s points from the beginning of the class.  We were asked to talk about what makes a ghost story for us and most of us fell into the trap of saying it had to be scary.  A Christmas Carol is not scary to the reader.  At least not thriller scary.  You could argue that it is morally frightening for Scrooge and the reader because that’s the point.  But being afraid because a ghost is haunting you? No, that wasn’t the point of the book.  But it is a great end to the course of readings.  Ghost stories are another facet of genre fiction that can be used to teach a moral.  That’s how I would write ghost stories.

The assigned post for this week is to blog about a real haunted house.  Yep, had to research this one.  I’ve never spent the time “researching” haunted houses before.  Most of what I found aren’t real haunted houses.  Instead they were haunted house attractions for Halloween.

While not a house, there is one location out here in Utah I’ve heard about.  It’s a haunted hospital.  The hospital is in Tooele (pronounced To-will-ah), Utah and is now used for ghost hunts, tours, and they also have a fright tour.  Here’s a picture of the hospital.

I only knew about this place because a lady I new at my last job went on a ghost hunt.  Sadly their group didn’t see anything when she went.

As you might expect, as a hospital there are many spirits that have apparently found their eternal residence there.  In looking this up I’ve learned that the hospital featured in Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel.  And it apparently was used to film The Stand by Steven King.  Huh, how about them apples?

It has the (to someone like me) seemingly common mists, orbs, EVP recordings.  However, there is one part of this place that sounds really interesting to me.  A portal.  Yep, there is a spiritual portal where apparently they dead want to go to thinking it is the way to heaven.  The story goes that a spirit by the name of Maria guards the portal to keep others from crossing it.  Mighty helpful lady.

But there’s also a dark entity there believed to be the spirit of Wes, a former patient who passed away there.  He apparently doesn’t want to cross over.

I picked this place for the post for two reasons:

1) It’s local and probably not as well known by my classmates (you never know)

2) I can see the idea that a hospital would have many instances of paranormal activity and could provide for quite a story for someone living and sensitive to such activity.  I also think it’s interesting that while so many people do not like the feel of hospitals that there would be spirits that hang around it.  That could be interpreted in different ways depending on what you want to happen in a story.  With the plethora of instances in the hospital, it would be interesting to write a story about someone who (unlike most of the visitors) does not use technology in any way to communicate with the spirits.  Personally that’s a hangup I have with ghost stories.

Let me know if you have heard of this place or have or will visit it.  I’d like to read actual accounts.

If I could get away with a one line response to the movie for class I’d say: Some things you just shouldn’t mess with. The recent attacks in Boston and attempts to poison political officials should remind us all that there is enough negative and evil stuff in the world that why does anyone need to invite more of that into their life.

I think that one of the qualities of ghost stories that is so effective is the unknown. Most of the time you aren’t going to see anything. Whereas monsters and killers you have a higher chance of actually seeing them. Both types of stories can use the surprise jump out at your ploy. But ghost stories don’t have to show you what it was and still scare you.

I’ve posted before what I don’t like about ghost stories. I really have a hard time accepting that departed people will come back to haunt and scare us. As a religious guy, I just think that our loved ones move on to other things. They may come see births and weddings, but I expect that they’ll be busy most of the time. As for the evil people who lived here? I hope in swift eternal judgment and punishment.

Having said that, this is what worked for me in the Paranormal Activity movie. I like that the psychic came and said there are spirits and then there are demons. Again, as a religious guy, I believe that Satan has his followers that, due to their rebellion, are unable to have bodies so they prey on those that would either welcome their presence or play around with stuff they shouldn’t. There are stories in the bible about people being possessed by evil spirits. I don’t believe that those spirits are deceased beings, rather they are those beings who never came to earth and are now trying to deceive mankind.

I don’t believe that they are just waiting around haunting places. I don’t think that’s how it works. I think they’re waiting for those that engage in negativity and play around with dark things that no one should play around. If someone opens themselves to that influence they yes, I can see how they’d be possessed or have weird stuff happen to them.

Other than the concept of the story, the rest of it I didn’t like. Like I said, why invite more of that into your life. If you haven’t seen these movies I don’t think you’re missing anything.

While the program is in writing fiction, this book was non-fiction. I don’t have a problem with that because it showed how fiction mirrors life. There is something interesting that I have been noticing in the stories we’ve read for this course. It is the presence of anger and contention.

The first book of the semester was The Haunting of Hill House. While there wasn’t a whole lot of anger between each other, it was still present. The main character leaves her sister’s place under less that amiable circumstances and while at Hill House is filled with jealousy. Those aren’t good feelings and did lead to contention.

The second book was Hell House and there is all sorts of ill feelings towards each other and their methods of working. So again, anger and contention.

Next was Ghost Story. Grudges, arguments, resentment, etc were there as well.

Then, the Shining. Jack has anger issues.

The Lovely Bones. This is a different type of story from the previous. It’s a story from the dead watching their family.

The Others. Definitely resentment, anger, and contention in that one.

Amityville Horror. The first thing I noticed was how the father acts immediately after getting into the house. He’s angry and snapping at everyone and refusing to help settle the house.

So by the time we get to Grave’s End, I’m not at all surprised when she admits they are having problems with the marriage. In the stories listed above (with the exception of Lovely Bones) they all have differences in what happens in ghost story part of it, but they also all have anger and contention. Having not been a horror reader before this program, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you anything about horror other than it’s meant to scare you so you can’t sleep. But I find it interesting that in both actual and fictional accounts, the people involved are not the happiest of people going into the story nor do they “play well with others.” If I had to make a list of aspects required in a horror story involving the paranormal or ghosts, I’d have to list anger and contention at the top of the list.

I often find myself going back and forth between belief and skepticism whenever I hear stories of hauntings. I believe that everyone has a spirit and that we do pass on after these life. And I do believe that there are devils and demons or at the very least angry spirits who can’t accept their fate. But something I’ve never understood, is if there really are spirits, good and bad, why would they care about us? Okay, so I can kind of see why previous owners of the house would be attached to their home and not like someone else there. But I don’t see how or why powerful demons would go after individuals living in a house. Wouldn’t they have something more important to be doing? I know, those of you who have read my work in progress might be ready to scratch their heads at what I’m saying. But I’m working through that.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t some serious scary moments in this book. But because it’s a “true story” it read too much like a deposition than a story. The majority of the book, to me, felt like someone just relaying the events without having me experience them with the characters. Others may not have felt that way. But it did feel that way to me. The wording in the book is a great example of filter words with how often we see “George could feel” instead of “George felt.” That’s a big problem I always have to go back through in my own work and something I still miss often. I did try to keep an open mind which is why many of the events did freak me out when I imagined myself in their situation. But too often I was pulled out of the story so that I wasn’t experiencing it with them.

That said, let me repeat that the events they experience would be incredibly scary and would be an interesting study for parapsychologist and others. I can even see how it would spur such a following in film. Yeah, pretty sure I wouldn’t like my little girl talking to a devil pig. That’s just messed up.