THE GHOSTS OF CROWLEY HALL
2008

THE GHOSTS OF CROWLEY HALL is a spooky new ghost hunters documentary by filmmaker Daren Marc. Workers renovating an old mental hospital with a dark history uncover some old bones behind a fireplace, and weird things start to happen to the construction workers. Tools go missing, and one worker claims to have been pushed down the stairs by unseen forces. The owner calls in a ghosthunting team to investigate.
The likeable young Arron Kasady leads the team. With his lengthy locks and “Punisher” T-shirt, he looks like your neighborhood comic book geek. There’s also medium Annabel Keogh, and Katherine Copeland, an attractive American parapsychologist, the token skeptic. And, of course, a film crew. The filmmaker wisely stays in the background and lets Kasady’s large presence do most of the heavy lifting.
They bring their night-vision lenses and EMF scanners and hold a séance, disturbing the ghost of the doctor who allegedly performed horrible medical experiments on his patients, and angering him in the process.
It’s spooky, all right, and I suppose the assumption is that the viewer is expected to believe in the supernatural as much as the ghosthunters. But to play skeptic for a moment, some of it’s a hard sell. Film can’t confirm the feeling of being followed, or cold spots, and the disturbing bangs and clangs off screen can’t be verified by the viewer as ghost activity. A skeptic would say the table moving during the séance could be attributed to a sympathetic unconscious desire to believe. And several spirit knocks solicited by Kasady are inaudible to this viewer, even as he makes a big deal out of them.
But they do get some footage of a mysterious figure in the hall, when all of the crew is accounted for, if you take the film’s word for it. And centerpiece of the film happens when a door slams shut and locks on Kasady, who gets attacked by spirits. When the door opens after a bit, he is helped out, and has scratches on his face. Back home where it’s safe, he has bruises about his face and body, like he’d been beaten. Scary stuff.
If you believe that ghosts attacked him, that part of the film would be terrifying. But of course, a skeptic would say, maybe he locked the door himself and beat himself up for the betterment of the film. As Mulder used to say, I want to believe. But as Mark Twain said, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.” Now chew on that. I guess that means I take it as entertainment and don’t know if I believe or disbelieve it. All I know for sure is that you’re not getting me inside that creepy old hospital!
For a change of pace, they periodically cut to the main characters back home commenting on what happened earlier. The onsite sound and thick British accents almost warrant subtitles, at least for non-Brits. The spooky music is good, but a bit intrusive; as I was left wondering exactly what sounds were mood music and what were spirit noises. I even momentarily considered the thought that the whole thing might be a hoax, or a piss-take, as the Brits might say, but the crew seem genuinely agitated and convinced that something horrible and unique happened at Crowley Hall. I give them the benefit of the doubt.
The ending is abrupt and anti-climactic. Otherwise well-made, GHOSTS…would have benefited from a short bit of background on the principals. Who are they? What’s their reputation and talents? We don’t really have a good picture of that. In the extras there is an interview with longhaired limey Kasady (the same one twice, actually – what’s up with that?) but since most of it was already used in the film, it gives the viewer little insight. And how did their harrowing journey affect them? Is Katherine still a skeptic? What attracted Marc to the project in the first place? These worthy questions go unanswered. It’s fairly creepy and engaging, nonetheless, and worth a look, even if you don’t totally buy into the ghosthunting stuff. For more info check out the website at: http://www.crowleyhallghosts.com/.

-Hysteric Eric