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The Blackwell Ghost: Documentary or Horror Movie with a Great Hook?

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It’s been over a month ago since I first discovered The Blackwell Ghost streaming on Amazon Prime.  Honestly, I had passed it over in the suggestions menu several times, but it was one of those late nights where I wanted one last movie and this one was only an hour or so long.

The first interesting thing about this film is that it is described as a documentary.  In fact, there was no mention of this being a horror film or even found footage in any description I could find.

Now, I’m a paranormal enthusiast and have been an investigator for years, so I was further excited as the film began and the filmmaker in voiceover talked about his experiences making zombie movies in Los Angeles and how he’d decided to try something new.

In short, he wanted to make a documentary about the paranormal, and his interest had grown from a viral video that had made the rounds on YouTube of supposed actual paranormal phenomena caught on CCTV.

Over the next hour, I watched as the amateur documentarian went on his own adventure investigating a home in Pennsylvania.  Supposedly, in the 1940s, the home was owned by James and Ruth Blackwell.

Ruth had a reputation for being a bit strange, so it was no surprise to her neighbors when she was accused of murdering seven children and disposing of their bodies down the well in the basement.

Throughout the film, he never once wavers in his assertion that what he and his wife, Terri, are experiencing is actually real.  Furthermore, he backs up those claims with alleged researched proof of the history of the home.  I have to admit, by the end of the film I wasn’t entirely sure what to believe.  What I knew for sure was that it was a hell of a movie that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Over the next few days, I watched the film five or six more times.  I showed it to local friends and recommended it to others.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, but their reactions were the same across the board–they just weren’t sure they could believe what they were watching.

And really, who could blame them?

We live in a post Paranormal Activity world.  In an era filled with technology where the line between reality and illusion seems to blur more and more every day, and while belief in the paranormal is actually growing, there’s a general certainty that we won’t find it on film.

Perhaps it was natural that my reporter’s sense kicked in at this point.  I chatted with our editor-in-chief here at iHorror and decided I needed to dig into the story of The Blackwell Ghost.

I began my search by attempting to discover who the filmmaker was.  He is not listed in the credits; however, he did include pictures of a couple of scenes from one of his zombie films.

I was able to match those scenes to a film called Disaster L.A., a low-budget zombie flick from 2014.  The name of the filmmaker there was Turner Clay, but Clay is a total ghost online.  I found no actual pictures of him and so I could not verify that the man in the film was the man who made the movie.

After hitting a virtual dead end while tracking down information on Turner Clay, I turned my search to James and Ruth Blackwell in Pennsylvania in the 1940s and immediately got a hit on the names.  However, census records show that the only James and Ruth Blackwell in Pennsylvania in the 1940s were a young African American couple.  James and Ruth in the film were not only white, but they were also a much older couple as evidenced by the picture of Ruth that the filmmaker displays in the film.

It was another dead end but I wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

I contacted Dr. Marie Hardin at Penn State University who put me in contact with Jeff Knapp at the Larry and Ellen Foster Communications Library.

Knapp spent a weekend digging into the library’s considerable resources and at the end of his research could find no mention of the murder I described in 1941 or the years surrounding it.

Furthermore, he could not find a James or Ruth Blackwell connected to a murder investigation at all in the time period. Finally, nowhere in the archives were details of Detective Jim Hooper, a name I had pulled from a newspaper article the filmmaker displays in the movie.

With this information in hand, I sent a series of emails to the filmmaker via a third party in hope that he would make some time to talk to me.  As of this writing, none of those emails have been answered.

So, here I am, several weeks on with no definitive answers to my questions.  I have, however, whittled the possibilities down in my mind.

A. The filmmaker came up with as clever a plan for marketing a horror film as I’ve seen since The Blair Witch Project way back in the 1990s.  He filled his film with just the right kind of information to draw the viewer in and foster belief in his audience.  In which case, I say “Bravo, a job well done!”

OR

B. The filmmaker actually made a documentary and in the rarest of cases caught actual evidence on camera.  For whatever reasons, to protect his own identity or the descendants of those mentioned in the film, he decided to change the names and locations of the home and its sordid history.

At this time I personally lean toward my first explanation.  As I said in the beginning, I am a paranormal investigator and have spent a large part of my life pursuing those mysteries.  In other words, to embrace the cliche, I WANT TO BELIEVE!

If you’re out there reading this, Mr. Clay, please reach out.  I’d love to discuss your movie.

In the meantime, fans of the paranormal or horror movies in general, I encourage you to check out the trailer for The Blackwell Ghost below and stream it on Amazon Prime.

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Thrills and Chills: Ranking ‘Radio Silence’ Films from Bloody Brilliant to Just Bloody

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Radio Silence Films

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, and Chad Villella are all filmmakers under the collective label called Radio Silence. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett are the primary directors under that moniker while Villella produces.

They have gained popularity over the past 13 years and their films have become known as having a certain Radio Silence “signature.” They are bloody, usually contain monsters, and have breakneck action sequences. Their recent film Abigail exemplifies that signature and is perhaps their best film yet. They are currently working on a reboot of John Carpenter’s Escape From New York.

We thought we would go through the list of projects they have directed and rank them from high to low. None of the movies and shorts on this list are bad, they all have their merits. These rankings from top to bottom are just ones we felt showcased their talents the best.

We didn’t include movies they produced but didn’t direct.

#1. Abigail

An update to the second film on this list, Abagail is the natural progression of Radio Silence’s love of lockdown horror. It follows in pretty much the same footsteps of Ready or Not, but manages to go one better — make it about vampires.

Abigail

#2. Ready or Not

This film put Radio Silence on the map. While not as successful at the box office as some of their other films, Ready or Not proved that the team could step outside their limited anthology space and create a fun, thrilling, and bloody adventure-length film.

Ready or Not

#3. Scream (2022)

While Scream will always be a polarizing franchise, this prequel, sequel, reboot — however you want to label it showed just how much Radio Silence knew the source material. It wasn’t lazy or cash-grabby, just a good time with legendary characters we love and new ones who grew on us.

Scream (2022)

#4 Southbound (The Way Out)

Radio Silence tosses their found footage modus operandi for this anthology film. Responsible for the bookend stories, they create a terrifying world in their segment titled The Way Out, which involves strange floating beings and some sort of time loop. It’s kind of the first time we see their work without a shaky cam. If we were to rank this entire film, it would remain at this position on the list.

Southbound

#5. V/H/S (10/31/98)

The film that started it all for Radio Silence. Or should we say the segment that started it all. Even though this isn’t feature-length what they managed to do with the time they had was very good. Their chapter was titled 10/31/98, a found-footage short involving a group of friends who crash what they think is a staged exorcism only to learn not to assume things on Halloween night.

V/H/S

#6. Scream VI

Cranking up the action, moving to the big city and letting Ghostface use a shotgun, Scream VI turned the franchise on its head. Like their first one, this film played with canon and managed to win over a lot of fans in its direction, but alienated others for coloring too far outside the lines of Wes Craven’s beloved series. If any sequel was showing how the trope was going stale it was Scream VI, but it managed to squeeze some fresh blood out of this nearly three-decade mainstay.

Scream VI

#7. Devil’s Due

Fairly underrated, this, Radio Silence’s first feature-length film, is a sampler of things they took from V/H/S. It was filmed in an omnipresent found footage style, showcasing a form of possession, and features clueless men. Since this was their first bonafide major studio job it’s a wonderful touchstone to see how far they have come with their storytelling.

Devil’s Due

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The Original ‘Beetlejuice’ Sequel Had an Interesting Location

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beetlejuice in Hawaii Movie

Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s sequels to hit movies weren’t as linear as they are today. It was more like “let’s re-do the situation but in a different location.” Remember Speed 2, or National Lampoon’s European Vacation? Even Aliens, as good as it is, follows a lot of the plot points of the original; people stuck on a ship, an android, a little girl in peril instead of a cat. So it makes sense that one of the most popular supernatural comedies of all time, Beetlejuice would follow the same pattern.

In 1991 Tim Burton was interested in doing a sequel to his 1988 original, it was called Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian:

“The Deetz family moves to Hawaii to develop a resort. Construction begins, and it’s quickly discovered that the hotel will be sitting on top of an ancient burial ground. Beetlejuice comes in to save the day.”

Burton liked the script but wanted some re-writes so he asked then-hot screenwriter Daniel Waters who had just got done contributing to Heathers. He passed on the opportunity so producer David Geffen offered it to Troop Beverly Hills scribe Pamela Norris to no avail.

Eventually, Warner Bros. asked Kevin Smith to punch up Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian, he scoffed at the idea, saying, “Didn’t we say all we needed to say in the first Beetlejuice? Must we go tropical?”

Nine years later the sequel was killed. The studio said Winona Ryder was now too old for the part and an entire re-cast needed to happen. But Burton never gave up, there were a lot of directions he wanted to take his characters, including a Disney crossover.

“We talked about lots of different things,” the director said in Entertainment Weekly. “That was early on when we were going, Beetlejuice and the Haunted MansionBeetlejuice Goes West, whatever. Lots of things came up.”

Fast-forward to 2011 when another script was pitched for a sequel. This time the writer of Burton’s Dark Shadows,  Seth Grahame-Smith was hired and he wanted to make sure the story wasn’t a cash-grabbing remake or reboot. Four years later, in 2015, a script was approved with both Ryder and Keaton saying they would return to their respective roles. In 2017 that script was revamped and then eventually shelved in 2019.

During the time the sequel script was being tossed around in Hollywood, in 2016 an artist named Alex Murillo posted what looked like one-sheets for a Beetlejuice sequel. Although they were fabricated and had no affiliation with Warner Bros. people thought they were real.

Perhaps the virality of the artwork sparked interest in a Beetlejuice sequel once again, and finally, it was confirmed in 2022 Beetlejuice 2 had a green light from a script written by Wednesday writers  Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. The star of that series Jenna Ortega signed on to the new movie with filming starting in 2023. It was also confirmed that Danny Elfman would return to do the score.

Burton and Keaton agreed that the new film titled Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice wouldn’t rely on CGI or other other forms of technology. They wanted the film to feel “handmade.” The film wrapped in November 2023.

It’s been over three decades to come up with a sequel to Beetlejuice. Hopefully, since they said aloha to Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian there has been enough time and creativity to ensure Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice will not only honor the characters, but fans of the original.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice will open theatrically on September 6.

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New ‘The Watchers’ Trailer Adds More to the Mystery

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Although the trailer is almost double its original, there is still nothing we can glean from The Watchers other than a harbinger parrot who loves to say, “Try not to die.” But what do you expect this is a Shyamalan project, Ishana Night Shyamalan to be exact.

She is the daughter of twist-ending prince director M. Night Shyamalan who also has a movie coming out this year. And just like her father, Ishana is keeping everything mysterious in her movie trailer.

“You can’t see them, but they see everything,” is the tagline for this movie.

They tell us in the synopsis: “The film follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night.”

The Watchers opens theatrically on June 7.

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