Haunted strip mall

Cemeteries, abandoned churches, murder houses - those are the kinds of places you think are going to be haunted. As I said to a friend when starting this blog .”There’s no such thing as a haunted strip mall.”

Well, when I’m wrong I’m really, really wrong.  

I’d never have thought anything as contemporary as a Starbucks or as practical as an Albertsons would be inhabitable by ghosts and yet both Above the Norm.com and StrangeUSA report that before a particular strip mall in Phoenix was built  the buildings on the site were thought by the locals to be haunted. Photos on Above the Norm show a sunny, bright, cream-pink-and-teal group of buildings, the essence of what we imagine the commercial southwest to look like, but the sunny brightness may belie something darker in many ways. Teens who broke  into the old buildings  at night reported, among other things,  crying and whimpering in dark hallways and three gravestones that only appeared at night time.

It’s hard  imagine ghosts in a place where skinny soy lattes and cake pops  are available….though, come to think of it, haven’t we all haunted a Starbucks from time to time? 

If you have a haunted strip mall story please send it to us at editrixmtraveler@gmail.com. Not that we wouldn’t believe you but we’d like to see the spirit who could keep us away from the clearance rack at Steinmart or Ross. 

Image of Arizona flag from Wikimedia Commons in the public domain

5 Haunted Movie Places We Love

Location, Location, Location....realtors know how much it matters and film scouts know it too. A place can be just as menacing a character in a film as the ghost itself - what would the Blair Witch have been without the woods? - so here are five of our favorites, four of which you can still visit. Safe travels!

1. The Overlook, The Shining 

     Few haunted places in film had quite the grand, menacing, human presence of The Overlook from Stephen King’s famous novel.  In real life it’s The Stanley Hotel in Colorado and the story ABC News tells is that Stephen King and his wife Tabitha checked into room 217 for a one-night stay. The supernaturally prolific author had some ghostly encounters, inspiring the blockbuster novel and film (a reedy TV movie version was filmed at the Stanley making one wonder less about ghosts and more about why people remake perfect films). Founders F.O. and Florida Stanley are said to still inhabit the hotel in a friendly way and About.com says the fourth floor, formerly the servants quarters, is the most haunted part of the building. 

Tony wants to go visit The Stanley, Mrs. Torrence. Tony wants to stay there forever. And ever. And ever. 

Photo by SGerbic on Wikimedia Commons, public domain

2. Hill House,  The Haunting (1999)

     Before you even start, I KNOW it wasn’t as good as the original with Julie Harris & Russ Tamblyn and if you really want a treat get yourself the actual book, The Haunting of Hill House  by Shirley Jackson or audiobook, read by Bernadette Dunne. 

    Whatever the faults of the remake the special effects were fab and the house was a special effect unto itself.  The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations lists three for this film, most notably the exterior of the gargantuan, psychically intimidating Hill House exterior. That’s Harlaxton Manor, Lincolnshire, now Harlaxton College, private but open for private tours. The kitchens, WGML says, were from Belvoir Castle and were also used for one of my all-time favorites, Young Sherlock Holmes (that’s two perfect films listed in one post). 

Finally WGML lists Florida as one of the locations, a note verified by IMDB, but it doesn’t say where, which is too bad, since I have a lot easier access to Florida than I do Lincolnshire. WGML does helpfully add what train to take from London to get to Belvoir Castle but not how to get a free ticket to England so you can catch that particular choo-choo. Working on that.

Photo uploaded by Merchbow on Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain (tags {{Not-PD-US-URAA}} or {{Not-PD-US-URAA|country|URAA date}

3. Practical Magic  

The faded old Victorian two-story on a hill by the New England sea - my dream house and very possibly yours, too, and it wasn’t even real! The wonderful website Hooked on Houses explores the home of the Owens women which turns out to have been an exterior-only, set in Washington State and torn down after filming was over. Their enchanting interiors, too, were filmed on an LA soundstage - even novelist Alice Hoffman was impressed.

     Sadly, then, this isn’t a haunted house you can visit, but I included it because I love both the house and the movie - on a bad day who doesn’t wish they could just live in a houseful of margarita-drinking witches? And if you haven’t read the book do yourself a favor and pick it up - Alice Hoffman’s prose are the real magic.

4. The Ennis House, Los Angeles, CA

       

The location for the original version of The House on Haunted Hill, (1959) directed by the great William Castle and starring the legendary Vincent Price. It certainly isn’t your typical spooky old wooden, two-story house but a Frank Lloyd Wright design which I can only describe as deco-Mayan and which has been the location for numerous other films -  KCNET has some pics from a few of them including Blade Runner, Black Rain and even a satirization in South Park. 

1. The Exorcist stairs, Georgetown, Washington D.C.

Never did I think a staircase would have it’s own Yelp! page, but anything having to do with The Exorcist deserves special treatment. The film, after all,  had them lining up for blocks in 1973 when it was released,  was the first horror film to be nominated for an Academy Award and remains one of the most influential films ever made. In fact, watch any film about possession or demonism - or any paranormal docu-show dealing with them - and you’ll likely find that what it’s possessed by is William Friedkin’s genius.

       The lethal staircase looks as creepy as ever and has a pretty terrific photo gallery on Yelp (click the title link) - it’s pretty staggering that a staircase can have so many moods, from downright frightening at night to goofy when people take snaps of themselves laying ‘dead’ at the bottom of it to just a staircase when there are dogs on it. Thoroughly worth a click-through and if you have a pic of yourself here send it to us! 

Not that we want to see you dead at the bottom of the stairs. You’re not on our list. 

Photo by SDC on Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

Sage advice

Yesterday my neighbor was burning sage, a new age and old world way of getting rid of of bad spirits. The scent reminded me of the last couple of times anyone I knew did house cleansings with sage and I  realized something disturbing. Within the past several years two friends of mine did house cleansings with sage…..and I never went back to either house again.

So if sage burning works does that mean I’m the evil spirit? 

Here’s a great blog post  about how to use sage: Mercado’s Life Lessons: Sacred Sage. In case you ever want to get rid of me.

Picture from a 14th century book described on Wikimedia Commons as being in the public domain.

The Whaley House, one of America's "most haunted"

Two loves, twelve years and what seems like a lifetime ago a girlfriend and I were walking in Old Town in San Diego when she casually mentioned the house we were passing was The Whaley House, dubbed by the Travel Channel as “the most haunted house in America,” and one of the country’s “most terrifying places.”

The house must have been closed by the time we passed it or surely we would have gone in - she did, after I’d left California, and reported being “creeped out” upstairs by the still silence and plastic-wrapped furniture (she’s never have survived the 1960’s. You can read about the house’s history here and why it’s thought to be haunted, but two things to note:

* Just last month a new artifact was discovered in an old book collection gifted to the house by SDSU alumnus Kit Sickels which contained a receipt for a gun signed by Thomas Whaley and dated 1853. You can see a nice big PDF scan of the document here; evidently documents dating back that far in San Diego are quite rare and this one was valued at $750.

* The house is open for regular visits on a daily basis but they also put on monthly Ghost Hunting Tours.

Stephen King fans will notice a place called The Marston House on the Whaley House website. It’s NOT the Marsten House from Salen’s Lot, which is, or was,  in Maine nor is it a haunted site so don’t go bugging them about it. 

Photo by Joe Mabel from Wikimedia Commons with permission.

HOW DO I GET THERE?: The Whaley House is only 4.2  miles from the San Diego International Airport. The Whaley House Museum is at 2476 San Diego Ave. San Diego, CA, 92110. Click here for Google Maps.

Find flights from your town to San Diego on Orbitz.

HOW MUCH?: House tours are $6 for adults, $5 for seniors, $4 for kids 3-12, kids 2 & under free. Ghost tours are $50; check their calendar is here and you can buy tickets online (recommended, since the tours are limited to 20 people and could sell out pretty easily). 

"The Haunted House and other Spooky Poems and Tales"

Last night when I was meditating in a semi-dark room a poem came to me called The Erl King about a man whisking his son home on horseback in  a wild storm while the boy talks about a phantom  King who is trying to lure him away. It was from a 45 rpm record & book called The Haunted House and other Spooky Poems and Tales that my brother and I had when we were kids (I was 5, he was 7) and which we played so often I can remember most of the narration verbatim 43 years later. 

After I was done I Googled The Haunted House and was astonished to find it on YouTube courtesy of VintageHorrorSounds. Just seeing that spectacularly 70’s cover art and some of the other titles, like The Cradle that Rocked by Itself and The Kilkenny Cats brought tears to my eyes: I was so overwhelmed I didn’t even listen to them til the next day. I wanted to savor the anticipation. 

When I did I was thrilled to find I could still recite right alongside the narrators for most of the text, so etched in my mind were the images, some scary, some funny:

It isn’t the cough

That carries you off

It’s the coffin

They carry you off in

Phrases I’d had in my head for decades but couldn’t recall the origin of fell into place  like a picture that has left a light space on a wall and is finally replaced. 

Thanks to VintageHorrorSounds for posting this incredible and influential piece of my childhood. Can’t imagine where I got this morbid sensibility….

Lizzie Borden B&B: Where you're "treated like family"

Lizzie Borden was set free / Now her home’s a B&B

If you’re not too scared to play / you could win a one-night stay

Okay, it’s not as good as the famous ‘Lizzie Borden took an axe,’ rhyme but if you join the online community at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum get access to things you wouldn’t get otherwise like video views of the rooms and The Lost Lizzie TV, video clips about various episodes in the life of Lizzie. You also get entered into a drawing to win a free night in one of the creepiest pieces of real estate in America. They never did figure out who killed Andrew and Abby Borden…but since the murders happened in 1882 you’re probably safe from the actual killer (if not whatever ghosts might be hanging around). 

Why we are telling you this we’re not sure - every one of you that enters lessens our odds of winning. But if you do sign up and win based on the information you got here we expect a finder’s fee….pictures and a description of your stay to post on TMTwill do in lieu of cash. 

And now, because you know you want it, here’s a bloody clip from the 1975 TV movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden starring Elizabeth Montgomery. (Who with a 70’s childhood didn’t thrill to watching sweet little Samantha Stevens as the terrifying Lizzie?) 

ACCESSIBILITY: Logan Airport is 54 miles from Fall River; the nearest airport is the Theodore Francise Greene Memorial State Airport, 24 miles away. 

HOW MUCH?: Prices for hotel rooms always vary but we randomly shot for two months out, which would be around July 13, 2013 and found the room rates ranged from $219.40 (for Bridget Sullivan’s room) to $274.25 (for the John V. Morse room where Abby Borden’s body was discovered. Sweet dreams.)

What else is there to do there? One is always surprised to find some people are not so morbid as we are. MT's eyebrows went rocketing skyward on discovering that the Lizzie Borden House was not the only attraction or even the most popular one in Fall River. That honor belongs to Battleship Cove, a maritime museum boasting numerous historic naval ships, a recreation of Pearl Harbor Day and even an Overnight Camping Experience where you can bunk military style and wake up to reveille.

     Google Maps puts Battleship Cove - 5 Water Street, Fall River, MA, 02721 - at a four minute drive or 15 minute walk from the Lizzie Bordon House. 

Photo: Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Post by EditrixMTraveler