I doubted that paranormal activity existed for a very long time until I experienced my own real taste of it, but more on that in a moment. Many movies have been released lately that are depicting this genre. One of them is The Conjuring, which since it’s release a bunch of weeks ago, has made a ton of money and built a lot of hype surrounding it. I finally decided to go see it because of this. As it began, words were placed on the screen that said the movie was based upon the true case files of the Warren’s, who were a paranormal investigative team that accumulated over 10,000-plus haunting cases dating as far back as 1952.
While the movie did its best to scare me, which at times it did, I began to wonder as it ended just how much of it was factual. After doing a little research on the internet to find out more details on the actual case file for which the movie was based upon, I found some serious discrepancies. So as not to ruin anyone else’s experience from watching this movie as it was entertaining, let me just say that Hollywood took a considerable amount of leeway in making the film. What really happened to the Perron family at their farmhouse in 1971 was noticeably different as compared to what the family experienced throughout the movie.
In doing this research, I also discovered other horror movies that were based upon factual events had similar exaggerations in their films. Some of those included The Devil Inside, The Haunting In Connecticut, Amityville Horror, and The Exorcist to name just a few.
Hollywood has done a great job today making scary movies even scarier, especially for those based upon true events. And while I’m not denying that those events didn’t happen, it’s the way they are being portrayed that has me appreciating what I’m seeing as pure art and and not reality.
Are there things that go bump in the night? Are there ghosts? Are their malevolent spirits? My belief is that the answers to each of those questions is yes. But that’s only because I’ve had my own paranormal experience, that changed my doubting mind.
I once owned a bed and breakfast named the Island Manor House that was operating in a home built around 1848. The home held much history from it’s conception and often guests would report seeing various ghostly apparitions. Two of those included a little girl who always seemed ready to play or a woman in an old nurse’s uniform that checked in on guests in their rooms in the middle of the night. After doing some research into these events, the other owner and I learned the original family who owned the home had a girl who died at a young age. In addition, we found out that part of the home was once used as a Civil War hospital for soldiers who were wounded. Even with hearing similar stories over time from random guests, I never saw any of what they had reported and remained skeptical. But one morning, I noticed something odd that began to change my view surrounding all of it.
In the center of the B&B, there was a common room that I called the Game Room. It had a fireplace, a chest of games, and a table that had a built in chess set on top of it that I had purchased for the room when I had moved in. Every night when turning in, after all the guests had already done so, I always moved the chess pieces back to their starting positions for a new game. But on this one morning, I noticed a single pawn had taken it’s opening move while the rest of the pieces were as I had left them the night before. I moved it back and went on with my day thinking nothing of it. Morning after morning as guests checked in and out, this continued to happen. I thought my business partner was just playing a joke on me, but when I asked, he had no idea what I was talking about. A number of weeks continued with this single pawn moving forward and it really began to bug me until I finally decided to take the matter a little further on one specific morning. When I emerged that day, every single guest in the house was in the dining room having breakfast, and the other owner was cooking. I spoke into the empty air and said “if there is a ghost in this house, show me in a more direct way that you are real…” I laughed off my insanity and went into the dining room for a minute just to check in with the other owner and say hello to all the guests. When I came back through that common room with the chess set, all of its pieces were moved around the board as if a whole game had been played. It was then that I knew and really began to believe that ghosts do exist and that there was some truth to paranormal activity.
So while I’ve come to accept that there is some truth to those questions I posed earlier, I’ve also come to understand that Hollywood takes a lot of their own liberties when making any film based upon factual events, especially those which are paranormal based. I’m sure if they were to portray my ghost story, it probably would be turned into the table levitating or the chess pieces flying around the room, neither of which happened. Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoyed watching The Conjuring. But I decided the next time I see any movie like this that states it’s content is based upon factual events, I’m going to take it with a grain of salt, sit back, relax, and be entertained by that Hollywood magic.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
