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Haunting Tales from the Historic Cuban Club in Ybor City/Tampa, Florida

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Cuban Club

Next month, on October 5, 2019, iHorror will take over the historic Cuban Club in the Ybor City district of Tampa, Florida for the first annual iHorror Film Festival. Fans can expect a full day of outstanding short horror films, a panel featuring Dan Myrick (The Blair Witch Project) and Jeffrey Reddick (Final Destination), and if they’re lucky, perhaps a ghost sighting or two.

After fire destroyed the original “El Circulo Cubano” in 1916, the four-story building that stands today was constructed housing a theater, pharamacy, cantina, ballroom, and library. In its time it has hosted everything from boxing matches to plays to a variety of musical acts including Celia Cruz and Glenn Miller.

In its century long existence, the club has earned a reputation as a venue for weddings, concerts, and other important events, and along the way has also developed a reputation as one of the most haunted buildings in Florida, possibly even in the United States.

Two specific acts of violence are most often pointed to in the building’s history as a primary cause for the paranormal activity, but they can hardly take credit for everything that has been reported there.

Suicide and Murder in the Early 20th Century

One of the earliest stories concerning the Cuban Club and its hauntings revolves around a mysterious actor who, reportedly unhappy with is career, committed suicide on the main stage of the location.

Though I wasn’t able to track down specific details about the incident, locals have come to call him Vincent and more than one has reported run-ins with his spirit.

One man reportedly met up with Vincent while out for a night of theater when he stopped to freshen up. Suddenly the actor appeared in the mirror in front of him and then walked right out of it and began to harangue the man about his failed career before asking for one good reason not to kill himself.

As I said, there aren’t a lot of details about Vincent, but for the second violent act, we have plenty.

It seems that in the 1930s, there was some upheaval about how the club was being run. In his book, Ghosts of Florida’s Gulf Coast, Alan Brown describes this scene:

“One night in 1934, during a meeting at the club, an argument broke out. Fists flew and members pummeled each other in heaps on the floor. Suddenly, several gunshots ripped through the air, and Bellarmino Vallejo lay on the floor, bleeding profusely. He had been shot in the face. By the time Bellarmino’s elderly mother arrived at the clinic where he was being treated, he was dead.”

Since then, more than one witness, including police officers, have reported sightings of a woman wailing in grief, and she is assumed to be Vallejo’s mother.

Elevators, a Drowned Boy, Elegant Women, and more!

Not every sighting or haunting in the Cuban Club can be ascribed to these two specific instances, however.

Over the years, many have witnessed the apparition of a boy bouncing a ball in the area of the cantina that used to house a swimming pool, leading many to surmise that he drowned there.

Others have reported a beautiful woman dressed in a stunning white evening gown and wearing red shoes walking up a staircase.

Pianos have reportedly played on their own and men in early twentieth century dress randomly appear in the club’s elevators. Those same elevators have been known to take on a life of their own, moving up and down between floors between the hours of 4:00 and 5:00 am.

A Beacon for Paranormal Investigators

Because of its reputation, some of the most well-known paranormal investigators in the world have traveled to Ybor City and the Cuban Club.

Notably, the Ghost Hunters TV show featuring TAPS performed an in depth investigation of the premises in season five of the popular series. During the investigation, the team employed a twist-on flashlight, asking questions of an entity with which they felt they’d made contact.

The flashlight turned on and off repeatedly answering that the entity was a boy and that he was between eight and nine years old.

Ghost Hunters are far from the only investigators who have visited the Cuban Club and filmed their findings there. Episode four of Haunted Tours from Brian and Jake Jalbert takes place at the historic location. You can view the full episode on Amazon Video.

You can reserve your spot on one of the numerous Ybor Ghost Tours which includes the Cuban Club as one of its prime locations recounting stories of the club and other reportedly haunted locations in the district.

As with any haunted location, and paranormal activity in general, there are those who believe and those who don’t, and the line is almost always clearly drawn. The Cuban Club in the Ybor City district of Tampa, Florida, however, seems to be one of those places that makes a believers out of skeptics.

Join us for the iHorror Film Festival and maybe you’ll be a believer too.

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Another Creepy Spider Movie Hits Shudder This Month

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Good spider films are a theme this year. First, we had Sting and then there was Infested. The former is still in theaters and the latter is coming to Shudder starting April 26.

Infested has been getting some good reviews. People are saying that it’s not only a great creature feature but also a social commentary on racism in France.

According to IMDb: Writer/director Sébastien Vanicek was looking for ideas around the discrimination faced by black and Arab-looking people in France, and that led him to spiders, which are rarely welcome in homes; whenever they’re spotted, they’re swatted. As everyone in the story (people and spiders) is treated like vermin by society, the title came to him naturally.

Shudder has become the gold standard for streaming horror content. Since 2016, the service has been offering fans an expansive library of genre movies. in 2017, they began to stream exclusive content.

Since then Shudder has become a powerhouse in the film festival circuit, buying distribution rights to movies, or just producing some of their own. Just like Netflix, they give a film a short theatrical run before adding it to their library exclusively for subscribers.

Late Night With the Devil is a great example. It was released theatrically on March 22 and will begin streaming on the platform starting April 19.

While not getting the same buzz as Late Night, Infested is a festival favorite and many have said if you suffer from arachnophobia, you might want to take heed before watching it.

Infested

According to the synopsis, our main character, Kalib is turning 30 and dealing with some family issues. “He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.”

The film will be available to watch on Shudder starting April 26.

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Part Concert, Part Horror Movie M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Trap’ Trailer Released

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In true Shyamalan form, he sets his film Trap inside a social situation where we aren’t sure what is going on. Hopefully, there is a twist at the end. Furthermore, we hope it’s better than the one in his divisive 2021 movie Old.

The trailer seemingly gives away a lot, but, as in the past, you can’t rely on his trailers because they are often red herrings and you are being gaslit to think a certain way. For instance, his movie Knock at the Cabin was completely different than what the trailer implied and if you hadn’t read the book on which the film is based it was still like going in blind.

The plot for Trap is being dubbed an “experience” and we aren’t quite sure what that means. If we were to guess based on the trailer, it’s a concert movie wrapped around a horror mystery. There are original songs performed by Saleka, who plays Lady Raven, a kind of Taylor Swift/Lady Gaga hybrid. They have even set up a Lady Raven website to further the illusion.

Here is the fresh trailer:

According to the synopsis, a father takes his daughter to one of Lady Raven’s jam-packed concerts, “where they realize they’re at the center of a dark and sinister event.”

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Trap stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills and Allison Pill. The film is produced by Ashwin Rajan, Marc Bienstock and M. Night Shyamalan. The executive producer is Steven Schneider.

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Woman Brings Corpse Into Bank To Sign Loan Papers

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Warning: This is a disturbing story.

You have to be pretty desperate for money to do what this Brazilian woman did at the bank to get a loan. She wheeled in a fresh corpse to endorse the contract and she seemingly thought the bank employees wouldn’t notice. They did.

This weird and disturbing story comes via ScreenGeek an entertainment digital publication. They write that a woman identified as Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes pushed a man she identified as her uncle into the bank pleading with him to sign loan papers for $3,400. 

If you’re squeamish or easily triggered, be aware that the video captured of the situation is disturbing. 

Latin America’s largest commercial network, TV Globo, reported on the crime, and according to ScreenGeek this is what Nunes says in Portuguese during the attempted transaction. 

“Uncle, are you paying attention? You must sign [the loan contract]. If you don’t sign, there’s no way, as I cannot sign on your behalf!”

She then adds: “Sign so you can spare me further headaches; I can’t bear it any longer.” 

At first we thought this might be a hoax, but according to Brazilian police, the uncle, 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga had passed away earlier that day.

 “She attempted to feign his signature for the loan. He entered the bank already deceased,” Police Chief Fábio Luiz said in an interview with TV Globo. “Our priority is to continue investigating to identify other family members and gather more information regarding this loan.”

If convicted Nunes could be facing jail time on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and desecration of a corpse.

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