THE PARANORMAL INCIDENT and THE PARANORMAL DIARIES: CLOPHILL- A DOUBLE BILL OF GRISLY HORROR FILM REVIEWS BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
THE PARANORMAL INCIDENT. (2011) DIRECTED AND CO-WRITTEN BY MATTHEW BOULTON. STARRING OLIVER RAYON, CHELSEA VINCENT, BRETT EDWARDS, DERRICK SCOTT, SABRINA VILLALOBOS, NADIA UNDERWOOD AND AMANDA BARTON.
THE PARANORMAL DIARIES: CLOPHILL. (2013) DIRECTED BY KEVIN GATES AND MICHAEL BARTLETT. STARRING CRAIG STOVIN, CRISELDA CABITAC, KEVIN GATES, MICHAEL BARTLETT, MARK JEAVONS AND ROB WHITAKER.
‘Six students venture into an abandoned asylum to prove the existence of the paranormal…
Only this footage remains…’
I wasn’t crazy about THE PARANORMAL INCIDENT, although I was vastly looking forward to it because it’s set in one of my favourite settings for a horror film, an abandoned mental asylum. It’s an American found footage film, and the sole survivor of the trip to the deserted loony bin is being blamed for the murders and murder-disappearances of his five friends.
A po-faced lady detective or FBI Agent is going through the found footage with John, the handsome sole survivor. John went into Odenbrook Asylum for the weekend with five college friends, all of whom were there to either prove or disprove the existence of the supernatural for the purposes of a college paper they’re all doing. Wish I could go to Ghostbusters College too, lol.
I already firmly believe in the existence of the paranormal, however, and I’m of such an imaginative and easily-spooked nature that I’m surprised- and kind of a bit miffed!- that a million ghosts aren’t queuing up to show themselves to me every night of the week. Well, it’s their loss, haha. I’d have been so receptive and open-minded as well, but hey, them’s the breaks.
Anyway, the really annoying sextet of eager-beaver college students do indeed spend the weekend- without official permish from any authorities, I might add- in the infamous old Odenbrook Sanitarium, empty and out-of-business since a mass suicide there sixty years ago. Clearly it wasn’t a nice place to live, as indeed most such places weren’t.
Sounds great, doesn’t it, but in reality very little happens in the old insane asylum. A couple of doors slam shut or open of their own accord, a girl’s curly hair is ruffled slightly in the night (as observed through the irritating, ever-present bloody night-vision goggles), but that’s about it.
The ending, with those agents- are they FBI guys or what?- looks like it’s going to be really cool but, as the film-makers leave even this bit unexplained, I was still none the wiser. A disappointing film all round, I’m sorry to say, despite the exciting starting premise.
The bit about the room known as ‘the Dental Suite’ was fascinating though, I’ll give them that. Very ‘MARATHON MAN,’ if you get me. Not a room I’d ever wish to enter, put it like that. I have good choppers but a terrible fear of dentists…!
‘In God’s Church, the devil built his altar.’
THE PARANORMAL DIARIES: CLOPHILL is based in and around an ancient old English country church that’s supposed to be haunted and has a history of actual supernatural happenings taking place there. St. Mary’s Church, the old ruined one as opposed to the later-built one that’s in use now, is the edifice in question.
What makes the film look like a real documentary are the interviews, interspersed throughout the film, with historians, local people and folklorists who all claim that Clophill is haunted to buggery, a site of black masses, black magic rituals and satanic orgies. Well, they didn’t mention any orgies, but you can imagine ’em, can’t you, lol.
A film crew, all playing themselves, a local paranormal investigation group and even a small security team (hiya, Gerry and Dana, y’awright?) set up shop in Clophill, outside the ruins of the old church, over the period of one summer solstice.
It sounds gorgeous, doesn’t it? It’s such a fabulous green, woody area as well, I absolutely love the rustic setting. An old English country churchyard, especially a ruined one, can’t be beaten for the old gothic atmosphere.
Not much happens in these real-life-action bits, just a load of typical night-vision shots of peoples’ eyes glinting like demons. I’m so bored of the greenish night-vision bits of horror films. They all have ’em. It’s like a bloody plague, so it is.
There’s talk of a demonic face which I didn’t see too clearly myself, there’s an actual sinister figure in a monkish cowl standing still and silent in the back of one shot, and then there’s footage of A, a drumming circle and B, a load of figures dressed in monks’ robes tying a naked blonde girl with very dark pubes (collar and cuffs definitely DON’T match) to a tree and painting a red cross on her naked body.
Don’t get excited now, you randy lot, that bit’s over very quickly. The police are called and they can’t find any traces of the cult activity. Boo-hoo, lol. The film crew, at least the main two ghost-hunters, a married couple called Craig and Cris, go home to find their small daughter standing in the darkened kitchen with her long dark hair all over her face, in the best traditions of every boring horror movie DVD cover ever.
They really lost me at this bit. It demeaned everything they’d been trying to achieve thus far, everything they had achieved thus far. Girls like this, in long white nighties, their faces obscured with long dark hair, are ten-a-penny now. Since the early days of films like RING and THE GRUDGE, in fact. They’re on the covers of half the DVD boxes nowadays, the pictures often bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the contents of the film inside.
For crying out loud, there’s a girl exactly like that on the cover of THE PARANORMAL INCIDENT, carrying an axe, and there’s no such person in the actual film, and no axe murderers in it whatsoever either.
What makes it worse in the case of the CLOPHILL film is that Craig says that this unexplained appearance of his daughter in the kitchen in the dead of night with her hair all over her face is proof that ‘something evil has followed them home from Clophill.’ Meh.
The best parts of the film are the stunning shots of gravestones, tangled overgrown grass and thorny bushes and the ruins of the old church itself, faintly outlined against the darkening sky.
What a place this must be to visit! During the daytime, that is. Not for all the iPhones in Apple would I set foot near there once the sun had gone down. There’s something evil there. That’s one thing the film did convince me of…
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger, poet and book-and-movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens’ fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
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