The horror genre of film has always been divided into two camps: the typical cliché horror films starring and aimed at teens and the college crowd with plenty of “Boo!” moments, and films aimed at true horror fans who can be a tough crowd to please. Hardcore horror fans are always looking for something different, something original, and something that can scare even them.
Unfortunately, even that second category of horror films created for aficionados and armchair horror filmmakers has been infiltrated lately with many of the horror clichés. Most notably, paranormal groups that go into a situation where they find much more than they bargained for, college kids playing with Ouija boards, and the dreaded “found footage” genre, the genre that just won’t die.
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Not only does The Eyes of My Mother defy those horror clichés, but it stands apart in a category very few explore, and that even fewer explore successfully. This psychological horror film, released on DVD March 7, explores the potential ripple effect of psychological trauma at a very young age, and how the impact of meeting sociopathic evil can create something even darker and more disturbing.
The story centers on a young girl who witnesses her mother’s murder by a serial killer, but instead of getting any kind of help she needs to deal with the damage done psychologically, she’s kept in isolation and the crime is never reported. In fact, without giving away too much of a spoiler, she lives with a daily reminder of the violence that took place in her family home while she sat at the kitchen table
The Eyes of My Mother generated a lot of controversy over the violence and content of the movie, but there is really very little gore shown on screen. What seems to have made many people uncomfortable enough to walk out of screenings seems to center around watching an innocent child become an adult monster.
The DVD has very few special features, with only some behind-the-scenes photos, the theatrical trailer, and an interview with the director, Nicholas Pesce. In this directorial debut from Pesce, there isn’t any director commentary on the film itself, but the DVD includes an interview and some special insight into the film, including the fact that Pesce drew the inspiration for the opening scene from a real-life memory with his mother. Fortunately, his life story diverged into a different direction from there.
While the descent into madness and murder plays an integral part of the horror of The Eyes of My Mother, the real heart of this horror story — and any good horror story — is the human emotion behind the horror. As Pesce says in the interview, this is basically a family drama, but more importantly, this is a drama showing how loneliness and despair can drive a person to madness, as much as any psychological trauma. Perhaps even more so.
Is it the murder of her mother that drives Francisca (Kika Magalhaes) to become a cold-blooded torturer and murderer? Or is it living in isolation in her black and white world, much like Dorothy before she lands in Oz?
The Eyes of My Mother was shot entirely in black and white, and for those of you who consider yourselves connoisseurs of the genre, you’ll be happy to know that this film has no Ouija boards in it. It has no stupid teens or college kids breaking into some place they’re not supposed to go to have a party. There are no paranormal groups doing fake paranormal shows only to find the real thing while filming an episode. And best of all, even though the film was shot in black and white in a sort of documentary style, there’s no damn found footage.
The Eyes of My Mother is the kind of horror film that gets under your skin, and if you’re someone who’s ever felt all alone in the world with no one left to turn to, you may find yourself almost feeling sympathetic for Francisca, who witnesses the murder of her mother, then years later struggles to let go of her deceased father, keeping his corpse around for company to combat her loneliness.
The real horror of The Eyes of My Mother is not only the horror of what humans are capable of, but the horror of being alone in a bleak world with no love or comfort.
You know when you go to those haunted attractions and they have that section that is pitch black? Yeah, that’s the part that freaks me out. I feel like I can’t breathe. Does that make me claustrophobic? Maybe, but I know movies where people go into caves or underground caverns produce just a little bit of that same feeling.
So as you can imagine, two fairly recent releases tapped into that claustrophobia, the first being As Above, So Below.
From the get-go, I hated the “heroine,” Scarlett (Perdita Weeks) and wanted to kill her throughout the movie. As some fearless seeker of the lost “Philosopher’s Stone,” she gives exactly zero fucks who she puts in jeopardy in her quest right from the first frame of the film to the last. I really hated her
They throw in some weird supernatural happenings in this one which I would normally like, but I really didn’t get it overall. Apparently they go through some gateway to hell where their greatest guilt trips come back to haunt them as their path gets smaller and smaller with cave ins behind them forcing them to keep going ahead into the unknown.
What the hell were you thinking going down there in the first place, dumbasses? I am never going down in that shit. NEVER, y’all.
I thought Catacombs was the better of the two Paris catacombs films, where Pink plays a jackass-y character who invites her sister to Paris for the sole purpose of terrorizing her and making fun of her it appears. They go to a party in the catacombs and of course mousy, bullied sister Victoria (Shannyn Sossamon) gets separated and lost.
The twist in Catacombs is there is a maniac killer down in the dark with Victoria. Why or why did you go down in that shit? There aren’t enough flashlights int he world to guarantee you’ll not get lost in the dark. Forever. That’s more than enough reason not to go without even contemplating maniacs stalking their prey.
Did I mention I am never going down in those catacombs? Hell to the no.
Paranormal Lockdown fans probably already know about the upcoming Halloween episode in the notorious Black Monk House. But what they may not expect in the upcoming two-hour special is the revelation that the series stars, including Nick Groff of Ghost Adventures/Ghosts of Shepherdstown, and Katrina Weidman of Paranormal State, will be flashing back to one of the locations they investigated in the first season of Paranormal Lockdown. In an interview on location for Paranormal Lockdown Season 2, the paranormal duo revealed what viewers can expect during the Halloween special Monday night. Suffice it to say, they are upping the ante to a whole new level.
Mild spoilers follow for the Paranormal Lockdown: Black Monk House Halloween special and one of the locations for Season 2.
For those who watched Paranormal Lockdown last season, you might remember that the Hinsdale House investigation was particularly disturbing and made quite an impact on Groff. Most fans of the show felt it was the scariest episode of their rookie season, but after viewing a press screening of the Halloween episode and chatting with Nick and Katrina, the paranormal activity and the entity or spirits from Hinsdale are just getting started. Not only will the Paranormal Lockdown: Black Monk House special feature an investigation where Groff and Weidman spend 100 hours locked down in Black Monk House — one of the most notorious locations in the world for violent poltergeist activity — but fans of the show will get to see that sometimes paranormal investigators take their work home with them, whether they want to or not.
In other words, Paranormal Lockdown fans brace yourself for some serious paranormal scares after trick-or-treating on Halloween. These ghosts (or demons?) aren’t playing.
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Groff talked about some of the phenomena happening after Hinsdale House during an interview at the equally notorious Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky. He and Weidman had just wrapped their 72 hours for a Paranormal Lockdown Season 2 episode, and Nick was going to be a guest for Waverly’s haunted attraction opening weekend. Teaser: for paranormal fans who have seen other investigations of Waverly, you get one guess on which insane location Groff sleeps at this time. That blood-stained suicide mattress in Paranormal Lockdown Season 1 is going to look pretty tame after this.
So why the Halloween special and what does Groff say Paranormal Lockdown fans can expect?
“It’s so hard to describe the special because it wasn’t just the location. There’s a huge scope of everything that’s been happening to Katrina and I since we’ve left the Hinsdale House. It starts like that, so this is probably the most personal documented thing I’ve ever done in my life… there’s no holds barred. If we are going to be an open book, and we’re going to describe things that are happening — we have stuff we that we captured in our own homes that I’ve never seen. My wife is actually terrified. She’s been with me since we were kids and we’ve had a couple things happen here and there over 20 years, but nothing like this. It’s been really, really strong and powerful. It really shook us up.”
Paranormal investigators are well-versed in taking precautions to protect themselves when they come into contact with possible negative energy or negative entities. Groff has his own way of dealing with protection, but for some reason, it didn’t seem to work after Hinsdale House.
“I never got too superstitious on things. I believe when you close that door, you close that door spiritually. But that didn’t work for me. So I did sage in my house because I was like, all right, this is getting out of control. I tried sage and it worked and it actually brought it down a little bit, but then it kicked back up… Energy is so weird at this one location in Hinsdale House. There’s something so strong there that has this power. Something was drawing me to go different places. This thing, whatever it is, it knows everything about me.”
Groff says he is still researching Hinsdale House with the owner, and they’re finding out a lot more information neither knew before the Paranormal Lockdown investigation there. It has become a bit of an obsession, by his own words. They think the energy there may be related to deaths on the property going back to Native Americans and the Puritans. From the sounds of it, there may be more Hinsdale House investigations in the future, because, despite all the problems, Groff says he would definitely return there.
As for Season 2 of Paranormal Lockdown, fans will have to wait a bit for that but with good reason. This time around there will be a longer season, and Groff and Weidman will be filming the rest of the year as they need breaks between locations. While helping humans — alive and deceased — is one of the main goals, Weidman also wants to address the bigger picture of paranormal investigations and the paranormal field in general. And like Groff, Weidman sees the future of the field going beyond “ghosts” and labeling things “good” and “bad.” That came into play during the Paranormal Lockdown investigation of Waverly Hills. This was Katrina’s first time there, and all the stories from other paranormal investigators portrayed it as one of those “bad” places, but she approached this investigation with an open mind.
Kindred Spirits, the new paranormal investigation show with Amy Bruni and Adam Berry, premieres tonight on TLC. This latest paranormal team sat down recently to talk about the big switch from investigating huge buildings with Ghost Hunters to getting personal in family homes with Kindred Spirits. In Part 3 of this three-part interview with Berry and Bruni, Amy Bruni talks about branching out to start her own ghost hunting travel tours and retreats, and this paranormal dynamic duo talk about their hopes for a second season and what that might bring to Kindred Spirits fans.
Perhaps more importantly, there is one potential twist to Kindred Spirits they hope you won’t see. (If you missed Part 1 and Part 2, click the links to catch up.)
Diana Price: So is it fair to say that even though the two of you have seen your fair share of compelling paranormal evidence on Kindred Spirits and Ghost Hunters, you keep that skeptical approach to evaluating evidence on each new case?
Amy Bruni: Absolutely, and I think that’s even more imperative when you’re dealing with families, because that’s when emotions are running high. Like Adam said, you have to be as right as you can be in looking for ghosts. We’re fully aware that nothing we can ever do or say is going to fully prove the existence of ghosts, but when you go into the house with one of these families that has had experiences for years that are just undeniable, and they’re terrified, they’re scared, they’re curious — you just have to go into it with the best of your abilities and give them answers.
DP: You know, there are a couple different kinds of paranormal investigation shows on TV right now. You have the really crazy over-the-top shows that seem to have been dominating programming recently, but on the other end of the spectrum, you have shows more like Kindred Spirits, which take a more quiet and serious approach to paranormal investigating. With so many new shows coming out like Kindred Spirits and Paranormal Lockdown, do you feel as if the trend is returning to more serious paranormal investigations?
Amy Bruni: I think there’s something to be said for both types of shows. I think that there are people who are fans of both types, and people who might gravitate to one more than the other, which totally makes sense. But I think for us and for Kindred Spirits, it kind of shows just how a paranormal investigation — like a real one — should be done. It becomes more of a case study versus just going in for one night and looking for ghosts. We investigate over and over again. We bring in experts, we research heavily, so there is so much more of a story being told… It’s almost like a mystery. I’m glad there are people out there that are interested in that aspect of the investigation and I think that’s kind of a byproduct of all the shows. People are starting to ask the bigger questions and want to know more, so I think there’s a positive to all of it. I’m thankful for the influx of paranormal programming and I’m also thankful that it’s kind of come to this moment where people are so curious about it that they want to know more.
Adam Berry: I think you hit it that the missing piece of what’s on TV now is showing the actual reality of what an entire investigation looks like. Because there are teams out there, and they know — they know they don’t just go in there for one or two nights and verify that there are ghosts, and say “Yes, there are ghosts. This is what happens and we have the same experiences. Awesome.” But it’s more than that: it’s historical research, and interviews, and land surveys, and tax records. It’s like, a thousand things that we can use while we investigate. I think people are craving to see the whole picture and the bigger picture. And that’s what Kindred Spirits gives you, really.
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DP: Aside from Kindred Spirits, what other projects do you have in the works? I know you have a paranormal side project, Amy, called Strange Escapes.
Amy Bruni: Yeah, that’s a company I started a couple of years ago because obviously I love ghosts, and I love traveling, and it turns out there’s a lot of people who like ghosts and traveling. So I started this retreat company where we plan retreats for people who are into the paranormal, going to some of the world’s most famous haunted places. We usually have, like, one every month or two for a long weekend, and they’re so much fun. We’ve met so many people out there who are totally like-minded… I bring Adam to every event because I can’t do anything without him, but it’s also kind of nice about being able to spread our message about being super-empathetic to ghosts as well as the clients, and we bring in a lot of speakers to kind of share our viewpoint on the paranormal. And it’s been really great.
Just as I was asking Amy and Adam what might be in store for another season if Kindred Spirits is renewed, a fire alarm went off in Amy’s office. Amy had to exit for a bit, but fortunately, it was a false alarm, and everything was fine. Still, in her absence, Adam came up with the new twist to another season of Kindred Spirits we hope we never have to see.
“In the next season of Kindred Spirits, Amy’s going to be in a fire, so that’s new. I’ll be going solo, looking for Amy.”
Never fear, paranormal fans, it’s all a joke. Adam Berry and the very-much-alive Amy Bruni debut Kindred Spirits tonight on TLC, but tune in early for a Ghosts of Shepherdstown special to find out how the town has been doing since the paranormal team of Nick Groff, Elizabeth Saint, and Bill Hartley investigated “the most haunted town in America.” Get your Friday Night Frights on with TLC starting tonight at 8 p.m. ET with Ghosts of Shepherdstown andA Haunting at 9 p.m., followed by the premiere episode of Kindred Spirits at 10 p.m.
Former Ghost Hunters‘ paranormal investigators Adam Berry and Amy Bruni debut their new paranormal series, Kindred Spirits, on TLC Friday, October 21. The pair sat down in an exclusive interview to chat about their new series, the trials and tribulations of a career working with the paranormal, and their friendship on and off the screen in Part 2 of this three-part interview.
In Part 1 of the interview, Bruni talked about a moment in the Kindred Spirits premiere that got very personal for her. Did Berry also make some personal connections while filming Kindred Spirits Season 1?
Adam Berry: I think the best thing about these cases is we were able to really help families that needed it. We had a lot of people that contacted us about what they thought was happening in their house, and I think that both of us individually, in different ways, connected to each case differently. And I think you can’t get past that. You can’t not have an emotional connection to who these people are. Because, basically, we became part of their family for the time that we were there. We knew everything about them, and we knew everything about the history of the house, and we were finding all of this information. So by the end, we were family members with this new family that we were helping. I think that we each connected to every single case because it’s hard not to be emotionally invested when you’re specifically helping families.
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‘Kindred Spirits’: Exclusive Interview With Former ‘Ghost Hunters’ Amy Bruni And Adam Berry On Their New Paranormal Series [Part 1]
‘Kindred Spirits’: Paranormal Investigators Amy Bruni And Adam Berry Debut New Series On TLC In October
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Diana Price: What were your favorite moments in this first season of Kindred Spirits without giving away any major spoilers?
Amy Bruni: I would say there were a lot of favorite moments. One of my favorites, though, is actually one that’s been in a preview, so I can go into it a little bit. But we were investigating a house in Connecticut and we were in the attic and we got this exact name by EVP of one of the former owners of the house. What we found when we did Kindred Spirits was that many times the person that the family suspected was haunting their house… it was not that person at all, or it was that person, but then there was something else there. So this was one of those major plot twists when we got the exact name… you can see the reaction on our faces, like “Oh my goodness!” No matter how many times you do this, it still takes you by surprise when it’s such an exact, perfect answer. That was just one of those defining moments. I think that was our third case at that point, and that was when we just knew, “Oh my goodness, this is taking us for a crazy ride.”
Adam Berry: The coolest thing for me, for both of us really — and I said it earlier — but we genuinely had no idea what we were going into. I mean, we knew of their experiences, and we had interviewed them on the phone, and we gathered as much information from our phone interviews as we could before meeting them in person, but I think in each case there ended up being multiple layers of many different things it could be, based on our research and based on our interviews. I think when we got that “a-ha moment” in each case, that kind of sealed it for us. When we said “this is what it is” or “that’s what it is” — those were extremely gratifying and moving [moments]. Because we’re investigators, we can only tell you what we think based on what we know and what kind of evidence we’re getting. So when we were able to discover what the situation was, and who was there, and why they were there, I think that was thrilling.
DP: It seems a lot of paranormal show fans are actually very skeptical of the results, and the fact that you debunk a lot of things gives shows like Kindred Spirits greater credibility than paranormal shows where everything is taken at face value without rigorously testing or questioning possible paranormal evidence. What is the scariest thing or most convincing piece of evidence you’ve run into as paranormal investigators, whether on Kindred Spirits, Ghost Hunters or during private paranormal investigations?
Amy Bruni: We love our skeptical viewers. I think I find it really interesting anytime Adam and I experience the exact same thing or we see the same thing. You know, we both see an apparition at the same time, or we both hear a voice at the same time, because there’s always that risk when it’s just you that something is going on in your head. Or you see something out of the corner of your eye, but when it’s both of us, that’s always kind of a game-changer for me. And I can’t go into that too much, but that sort of thing happened on Kindred Spirits a few times. So I think that’s the best when we have back up, and it’s even more helpful when the camera guy sees it, too.
Adam Berry: When we’re speaking to skeptics, I think when we find a bit of information that we couldn’t have possibly known and it correlates exactly with what’s happening in the house, I think that is beyond incredible. It’s like, we could not have known this information, there’s no way we would have found this information if we weren’t looking for it. This avenue took us this way, and it took us that way, and we came across this and we got it. We kept digging; we never stop digging. If we didn’t know the answer, we dug deeper, we looked harder. We are very critical about the information that we are giving families because, as Amy said before, there’s a lot riding on it. We can’t be wrong about what we feel is happening in this house because they’re relying on this information to heal. So we would never stop until we were absolutely sure that this is what we thought was going on and give them a resolution. I think those moments were amazing.
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