Session 9 and Creepy Insane Asylums

I recently watched the horror film Session 9, which has been around for about 10 years. I was surprised I never heard of it before. Either you’ll think it is brilliant or you’ll hate it for being a slow film. Personally, I thought it was a very interesting film. It’s not about gore or cheap thrills – it’s more atmospheric. What makes the film is the location – the former Danvers State Hospital, aka the Danvers Lunatic Asylum or the Danvers State Insane Asylum. Session 9 was filmed in the decrepit and abandoned Danvers prior to most of it being torn down in 2005 to make way for luxury apartments (you can see the new Danvers here). With top-notch cinematography showcasing the disturbing, peeling walls of Danvers, Session 9 isn’t about the characters so much as the mental hospital being the main character.

After watching Session 9, I was curious about the location and found out that prior to being torn down in 2005, the abandoned Danvers was known for being a hot bed of paranormal activity. According to one person commenting on IMDB, “Back when it was active, the site was well known for more violent activity such as shoving, scratch marks, etc.”

While Danvers is mostly gone now, the cemetery and the creepy tunnels under the property still exist. Would you live in a building situated on top of a former insane asylum?

How about living in a former insane asylum? “The Village at Grand Traverse Commons” is a fancy name for an apartment complex built in another old lunatic asylum – but this time they kept the old buildings and renovated them. Take a look at the before and after photos here.

Fast Company has a slideshow of former asylums that now house “sane” residents – it’s worth a look.

Ghosts Having Sex?

Do you see two ghosts having sex in this photo? I’m not sure if I do, but the woman whose granddaughter took this photo thinks so. Read more here.

The Mysterious Ouija Board or Witchboard

I’m not a fan of Ouija boards – but I had bad experiences with them in high school. They really spook me! However, there’s a really great website that serves as an online museum of sorts for Ouija boards, or the generic term, “witchboard.” Point your browser to Witchboard World to view the antique witchboard gallery and learn more about the history of the witchboard and planchette. The website author also hand-crafts high-end witchboards and offers them for sale on the site.

Dawn of the Dead Remake – Free on Hulu

Halloween is coming up – a good time to watch scary movies! Hulu has the remake of Dawn of the Dead available online for free. It’s a fairly decent horror flick, if you don’t mind a lot of blood and gore. The basic plot is that a bunch of flesh-eating zombies take over the planet…and a small group of people try to stay alive in a shopping mall.

I always find movies like these interesting just to see how the people react – but there is inevitably the series of stupid decisions that ends up causing people to die in flicks like these. Worrying about saving a dog when a mob of zombies is downstairs (and they don’t even eat dog)? – silly. You also have to wonder why the government wouldn’t just nuke the zombie-infected area in question. But then, we wouldn’t have a movie, would we now?

This movie is rated R for language, violence and some brief nudity.

Angels Caught on Film

Here are two fascinating pictures of “angels” caught on camera. The first is a modern photo taken in St. Peter’s Basilica. While I will agree with commenters on the accompanying story that this is likely just a trick of the light, it’s still a neat picture:

The second is an eerie photograph from the World War I era. The photograph accompanied some letters in an old trunk found in England. As the story goes:

The G.I. who signed himself as “Doug” in a letter to Doidge, told how his unit had been training in Woodchester Park, in Gloucestershire in the spring of 1944. He described how a pontoon bridge a cross a lake collapsed under the weight of armoured vehicles killing more than twenty soldiers.

Doug wrote that in the eve of the disaster, he and a friend named Chuck had seen an Angel hover above where the men would later drown. He wrote: “The whole thing took on the shape of what I can only describe as an Angel. I could see what looked like a long white robe. It had no feet and there were shapes like wings behind its shoulders.”

You can learn more about this story and about angels in general at this link.

Orb Representing Departed Dad?

Thanks to the reader who sent in this picture with the following note:

My father passed away in May 2008 and this was taken in his living room Dec. 28, 2008. His favorite spot was on this couch reading, watching television and napping for the past few years. One of the two women in the picture is his favorite daughter. There are 3 other pictures taken that day with orbs that look much more like the ones on the web sites. In this picture there is also an orb on the couch but very faint and 2 or three on the bottom of the black blouse the woman is wearing.(they are also very faint) I have not seen anything like this before and just wonder if it is unusual. No other pictures I have ever taken before or since
show the orbs that showed up that day.

I think what makes this orb distinctive is its brightness and luminosity. I have to wonder whether a mere speck of dust would “glow” like that.

Cemetery Tour Orbs

Thanks for sharing these photos, Sonny…

I was on a historical cemetery tour, when I saw a ground crypt (with a slotted window) so like any good hunter, jammed my camera in and shot a few pics. Mostly out of curiosity. It wasn’t til a few weeks later I noticed them. The hundreds of dust spots and floaters I’ve seen was getting me down. These are the first orbs I’ve seen, where they cast light on the wall !! You will see a bricked over door with a circular window above. I shot from the opposing window. The date is right, but the time was about noon-ish. The pic. may not come, for it’s a hair over 1MB. If so enjoy. Sonny.

This second photo is Sonny testing out rain drops to see if they look like orbs:

The Haunted Husband

Can a bad husband be blamed on ghosts in the bedroom? Consider the following submission:

Hi.

Note no orb in my room with white bedspread.

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Nikki Catsouras Orbs

Nikki Catsouras was a teenager who flipped her Porsche after driving 100 mph on Halloween night. Her crash was so bad, her head was split in half. Graphic photos of her mangled corpse appeared on the Internet after her death, and her family is suing.

While my heart goes out to her family, I feel they are missing an opportunity to educate young drivers on the dangers of speeding. One look at Nikki’s corpse is probably enough to make many eager teens slow down.

What I found interesting is when I took a look at her most graphic photo, I noticed a few orbs on the bottom of the picture. There are two, directly underneath the mangled car. The spirit of Nikki? An angel of death?

You can view the photo online here – I won’t post it up here directly, as it is very graphic. I warn you – it is beyond what you could possibly imagine. Not even multiple watchings of the television series Bones can prepare you for this.