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Friday, January 24th, sees the cinematic release of the horror movie The Presence, directed by Academy Award-winning American director Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s trilogy, Magic Mike, Logan Lucky). Formerly one of the best horror films to stream in 2024, the film makes its big-screen debut with much fanfare to back it up. 

Soderbergh made his name as an acclaimed movie maker, treading well-worn paths with an often avant-garde arthouse approach and often placing the human condition under the microscope.

The Presence, a horror film that takes a step from his more associated genres, offers a broad canvas on which to twist that human condition into unnerving spaces.

Keep up with US Ghost Adventures for more side-by-side comparisons of what we see on the silver screen and what is reality.

What Is The Movie The Presence About?

What better maze of emotion and imagination is there for a narrative’s human lab rats to run around in (often screaming) than that of a haunted house? In Soderbergh’s horror cut, a family moves into their new suburban home, soon becoming aware that they may not be the only occupants. Hollywood has often employed the haunted house as the cage or the cell, impressing upon the viewer that within your sanctuary, you can be most at risk. 

Confining the occupants to a claustrophobic nightmare with unknown terror lurking in both the shadows and the mind. But where did the notion of the haunted house originate? And should your abode have darkness waiting patiently in the closet, what are you to do about it? Who are you gonna call? Well, it won’t be Ghostbusters.

The Haunted House

Where better to strike fear into a viewer’s heart than where it is: Home. Nothing threatens a person’s sense of safety or comfort than messin’ with their house. The concept of the Haunted House is represented differently in cultures across the globe, but the premise remains the same; “I don’t think we’re alone…”

So embedded in the concept of fear as entertainment, the Haunted House has become a feature of the spooky holiday, with brave souls testing their mettle against unknown terror in a confined space. But where did it all come from?

The origins of the Halloween Haunted House can be traced back to 19th-century London. Marie Tussaud’s waxworks of decapitated French figures, such as King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Marat, and Robespierre, appalled and titillated the British public. 

Despite the scandal and outrage of such a gruesome display, it’s fair to say Tussaud had found an otherwise unexplored niche of entertainment. When Marie Tussaud finally set up a permanent location, the display was dubbed ‘The Chamber Of Horrors’. In testimony to people’s seemingly perverse appetite for fear and gore, the modern Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in London contains a room by the same name.

Around 1900, the Grand Guignol Theatre of Paris became infamous for its graphic on-stage depictions of dismemberment. The director of the show, Max Maurey, famously proclaimed that the success of each show was judged by the number of people who fainted in view of these theatrical horrors. 

Fast forward to England in 1915, where a fairground in the town of Liphook debuted a “Ghost House,” and you find the public desire for commercial horror beginning to feel like the ravenous beast it has become today. The concept of an enclosed space, with a litany of shocking horror within, had taken hold. 

Hollywood’s Haunted Houses

Much like the aspiring local Haunted House attraction to be found popping up as black cats and witches loom large with Halloween, Hollywood has amplified the public’s desire for horror in a way that transcends generations.

The narrative of the ghost house or haunted abode has been central to true moments in cinema. Hollywood has even managed to blend the concept into fear for all the family. Here are a few “Ghost In The Home” classics that pull you back in time and time again. 

  • Poltergeist
  • The Entity
  • Beetlejuice

Poltergeist

Exorcist Stairs
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Directed by Tobe Hooper and written by storytelling legend Steven Speilberg. Using cutting-edge special effects of the time, this 1982 horror classic still somehow feels like a family movie, albeit one that will leave your own family in therapy. 

Spielberg’s fingerprints are all over the film as he weaves the tale of the Freeling family, who live in a house that some idiot built on an old Native American burial ground. Needless to say, the spirits that inhabit the house are none too happy. So they kidnap their kid and eventually blink the entire house out of existence. Harsh.

The Entity

Ghost In Attic
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This 1982 supernatural classic, directed by Sydney J. Furie, dispenses with any such Speilberg-esque storytelling, and in truth, it would be pretty hard to find that here, particularly when you’re telling the story of a single mother who is attacked and tormented by an invisible poltergeist in her Los Angeles home. There is no ‘warm and fuzzy’ here. 

To make this vintage flick even more disturbing, there’s the fact that the film was based on the real story of Doris Bither. Bither claimed in 1974 that she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by an invisible attacker. Yikes.


Beetlejuice

A depiction of Beetlejuice
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This 1988 Tim Burton offering was as original as it was successful. The tale is about a young couple who die and return to their home as ghosts, only to have to deal with the new owners. The movie was, and remains, a fresh take on the haunted home narrative. The film deals with the dead couple’s attempts to scare and spook the new occupants into fleeing the property. 

Upon realizing that they are a little wet behind the ears when it comes to being six feet under, they employ the help of the title character, Betelguise. The demonic “bio-exorcist” with a screw loose helps them get scared and inadvertently make an ally in the new family’s quirky daughter. Awwww. 

The Herrmann House

So often, the words “based on a true story” take more than a few liberties while adding some Hollywood special sauce to the original story. In the case of the Herrmann House in Long Island, the true story of a family terrorized by a spectral menace gives even more weight to the movie it inspired, Poltergeist.

On February 3rd, 1958, James Herrmann returned home after work to his Seaford, New York home. He was met by his perplexed and nervous wife Lucille, who told James that during the day, she and their two teenage sons had heard a series of popping sounds throughout the house. 

Upon investigation, they discovered a variety of household substances opened and upside down. Even more concerning was the fact that all the bottles were warm to the touch, and a vial of holy water his wife kept had been spilled all over her dresser. 

Five days passed, and once again, the popping sound and otherworldly activity began. The family became so concerned that they called the Police, unsure what to do. 

The Police were unsurprisingly baffled. Soon after, the story leaked and became a nationwide headline. This escalation in attention merely increased the activity in the home.

Hermann became so concerned that he temporarily moved his family out of the home in the hope the activity would subside. However, upon their return, the Hermanns were terrified by the worsening poltergeist activity. 

Far heavier objects were being moved and manipulated as if this unseen force were somehow becoming angrier. Others witnessed this menacing activity as the situation became intolerable and a safety concern. 

Parapsychology and Poltergeists

Williamsburg's Public Hospital
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The news had traveled far and wide. Who better to join the investigation than the man who would later found parapsychology as a branch of psychology: Dr. Joseph B. Rhine of Duke University?  

Rhine studied the phenomenon and came to the stunning conclusion that this malevolent force was somehow activated by the family’s hormonal teenagers. By the time the chilling activity ceased on March 8th, 1958, the family had witnessed more than 70 incidents that shocked onlookers.

Haunted Houses In Film

Many times, facts can be much stranger than fiction. It is hardly any wonder that people’s morbid fascination with the horror of the haunted house has chased us through time. From the big screen to our laptops, the eternal haunted house is inescapable.


You can see The Presence in theaters on January 24th or stream it online on Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney +.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for haunted stories from around the nation, and keep reading our blog for the best-haunted history in America.

Sources:

  • https://screenrant.com/poltergeist-movie-true-story-inspirations-herrmann-house/#:~:text=Poltergeist%20Is%20Partially%20Inspired%20By%20A%20True%20Story&text=In%20the%201950s%2C%20supposed%20poltergeists,call%20a%20parapsychologist%20to%20investigate.
  • https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-B-Rhine
  • https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-haunted-house-180957008/
  • https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/entity
  • https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001752/

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