• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Fortean Documentaries

Heads up, mondo movie fans, the best of the lot is finally getting a proper release in October. The Killing of America by Leonard Schrader which takes an unforgiving look at the USA's relationship with violence was a film only available on the black market for years, but now it's getting an official release in the UK - you can even see it at selected cinemas! I saw it on a fuzzy VHS copy back in the 90s, and it was fascinating and horrible at the same time. I don't know if I'd have the stomach for it now, but I might give it a go, it was a very strong, intelligent work, if a little sensationalist in its presentation.
 
Probably my favourite of the Mondo's...
I don't know if I'd have the stomach for it now, but I might give it a go
This remastered version is the first film on at Frightfest tomorrow - but it's not exactly something you want to see at 10:50 in the morning!
 
btw I found a better source of 'Ghost Hunters'
http://www.paranormaltv.eu/ghost-hunters-uk.html
at first you get an advert in Polish and you think (oops) but actually it's fine.
Yes I'm an addict but I need to see ordinary people somewhat sheepishly recount their stories, it feels Real. (ok some of it's utter guff, talk of churches being built on ley lines and suchlike. But some people on it just seem self-effacing and very plausible)
 
Last edited:
btw I found a better source of 'Ghost Hunters'
http://www.paranormaltv.eu/ghost-hunters-uk.html
at first you get an advert in Polish and you think (oops) but actually it's fine.
Yes I'm an addict but I need to see ordinary people somewhat sheepishly recount their stories, it feels Real. (ok some of it's utter guff, talk of churches being built on ley lines and suchlike. But some people on it just seem self-effacing and very plausible)

I used to love those. I never thought I'd come across them again. Thank you, that's brilliant. They used to be on about 15 years ago, double bill on Sunday dinner time.

I can still remember most of them, including the one where the first 'sceptic' on Most Haunted popped up selling the idea of his haunted house.

Only thing is, there's the Belgian episode, which I've mentioned here before. I wonder if that one has been quietly 'lost' somewhere and is among the unavailable episodes.
 
If it's the one about the depressed town with exorcisms etc. it is one of those included on the Delta DVDs. They turn up quite often in slush piles for pennies. :)

I can't honestly remember if that was part of it. The thing that stood out, and not just in retrospect, was the way that it seemed like there was, which there really was as it turned out, something not quite right going on.
 
Ghosthunters is still my favourite documentary series on the subject, I remember first watching them when they were originally broadcast on the Discovery Civilisation Channel which has since been changed and renamed to another channel. I especially liked the episodes which featured the medium Eddie Burks (1922 - 2005) he came across as being the most genuine and sincere medium/psychic I've seen on TV. I have his 1995 book Ghosthunter: Investigating the World of Ghosts and Spirits.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/execution-victim-finds-peace-after-400-years-1504569.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Burks
 
Last edited:
This page states that Delta went on to release three more discs.

These contained 14 more episodes of the series. I have never seen any of these discs, suggesting they had a much shorter print-run than the earlier set. That leaves two episodes unaccounted for. I won't bother with the checking tonight! :)

The curious thing about the Gorton Poltergeist case - I am about to watch the video - is that all the online references I can find just lead back to the video. It seems to have been ignored at a time when other cases are done to death! :confused:
 
Last edited:
The Gorton Poltergeist Reviewed:

I almost lived in Gorton. I was tempted to put down a deposit on an apartment in the conversion of the old, listed, monastery: I fancied the idea of living in a haunted spot. This was in the early nineties and the show-flat was very nice. People told me that no one wanted to live in Gorton. In the event, I'm glad I didn't - the ambitious plan got no further than the show-flat and the company went bust.

I knew nothing of the Gorton Poltergeist, however. Maybe he was yet to arrive - the dates are vague. He seems to have been at his tricks by the mid-nineties, however.

This episode had an unpolished documentary look which gave it a certain authenticity. The thing which strikes us now is the way the estate is depicted as only middling-grim: there are shops still open, the odd tree. The only visible people are white, working-class.

They talk of their attempt to interest the clergy in their plight but succeed only in convincing a housing-officer, who seems already to have been sympathetic to the spirits. He turns up - quite comfortably - in his black polo-neck and occult? necklaces, speaking, well, rather like a housing-officer.

There is one loud and clear demand for rehousing - traditionally cited as the motivation behind council-house hauntings. It comes towards the end of the piece, as we are allowed inside the house at nightfall. The family are bedding down in the sitting-room, a situation likened to the war. All the daytime interviews were conducted on the doorstep.

There is hardly any analysis or back-story. No investigation of other forces at work in that community. The fact that similar events were reported in nearby families is treated as evidence of their truth. If there was anything more to the story than appears in the film, we have not had it yet. :confused:
 
I'm not sure if this link will work for everyone (It works in Canada anyways), but I've just watched this documentary, and I reckon it's about as Fortean as you get. It's about the Unarian Academy of Science. The Unarians are basically a cult that was led by reincarnated Atlantean rulers, Isis and Osiris, Jesus and Lucifer, along with Ming the Merciless and some characters from Star Wars.

https://tubitv.com/video/290653/children_of_the_stars

It's fascinating to see how mental people can be.
Here is a trailer to wet your whistle.
 
The only thing I saved from that night was David Lynch's early short The Grandmother with a section of George Romero's Martin.

Twenty-two years ago, eh? It tends to be the more ephemeral things we wish we had preserved.

I suppose, at the time, it seemed we might have more Weird Nights as there was a fashion for strangeness on tv.

1995 was a vintage year for classic movies, as it was the centenary of the first public film show in Paris. Things seemed to go downhill in the later nineties with the proliferation of channels. :(
 
That's the one on Kyteler isn't it? Great documentary. I made my Dad drive me to Kilkenny last time I was home so that we could visit Kyteler's Inn. It's really cool in there. Here I am waiting on my lunch:
cat.jpg


Eddie Lenihan, the lad in the documentary with the amazing hair/beard combo, is a hero of mine. Youtube him if you have the time. TG4 did another documentary just on him that's worth a watch.​
 
With Christmas getting closer and closer by the day now, I thought it was about time to post this....



 
I found two really interesting documentary videos on Youtube that were uploaded with the completely incorrect titles and not much onformtion to go regarding tracking them down to see if they're available elsewhere. Anyway I did some online detective work and discovered the correct titles and broadcast information for the twp videos. It's a two part BBC documentary on the brilliant late Maurice Grosse (1919 - 2006), and the correct title is,

BBC Two, Video Diaries, Ghostbuster - The Real Thing (2 November 1996).

I found out that on the programme's IMDb entry it lists it as having three parts to the episode, I don't know if this is correct and the two parts below are all I've managed to find so far.



There's that eerie ghost lady photo above ^^ trust the uploader to chose that screeshot for the tag cover thingy! :eek:
 
Shadow people documentary .... my mate once claimed to take a picture of one in the same room that I later saw one in in direct line of sight .. I don't believe it was a shadow person I saw because I was working ridiculously long hours at the time and was sat at the bar with a pint in front of me .. a personally fascinating experience in my case caused by over tiredness and alcohol ..

 
I ain't advocating the documentary about the documentary (yet). I'm watching Woodstock 1969; 3 days of peace and music, and it occurred to me that this is a document of what would have been scrolled down as a biblical event were it 1113BCE, 216BCE or 1749CE.
Woodstock; 3 days of peace and music.
 
An interesting enough lecture on our ancestors from Lloyd Pye .. with added correlation to Sasquatch and other hominids ..

 
Last edited:
Life, Animated is out on DVD this week, it's about an autistic boy who stopped communicating at age 3 until years later his family discovered he could be made to talk again if discussing Disney movies. The doc catches up with him in his 20s, when he is trying to be independent and the failures and benefits of understanding life through cartoons is more apparent. It's really interesting, but also really sad - any time his mum appears on screen you'll get a bit teary. As a case, scientifically and psychologically intriguing, to say the least.
 
Back
Top