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The Enfield Poltergeist

Just watched the first episode of the Apple TV docuseries. It's very good. The best treatment I've seen of the case as it doesn't appear to add stuff of it's own or summarise to skew.

They painstakingly recreate the house on a sound stage and play the contemporary audio recordings of the key participants in the house, their words lip synched by lookalike actors. It's an unusual but very effective choice. Surviving witnesses to the events provide talking heads between the reenactments.

The greatest benefit to this format is the contrast it makes with entirely theatrical and scripted reenactments we've seen before where significant moments look silly or obviously fake...or worse major incidents such as the fireplace bring pulled away from the wall are omitted to allow the "the kids did it" narrative to gain more credence than it would if such implausible feats of strength and magic are mentioned.
 
Swifty said:

Catherine Tate to star in West End play about 1970s Enfield poltergeist​

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/ukne...o?cvid=e927214ef5fb4f49b422034d0e7a46ce&ei=31
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I'm seeing this next week in Richmond. And, er, yesterday's opening night in Brighton went well... :doh:

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sherbetbizarre said:
:)I'm seeing this next week in Richmond. And, er, yesterday's opening night in Brighton went well... :doh:

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Well, that's just disappointing. Though you never really know for what reasons people are watching a play.

Obviously these people had different expectations. Hopefully it meets yours. It kind of like when a horror movie is trashed by people who do not enjoy horror movies, but if you are a horror movie buff, the movie has something that you see in it that they didn't. I use this example because I enjoy horror movies and do appreciate many different aspects of these types of movies.

I would also think that the Enfield story would be very difficult to do as a play, but maybe the playwright sees something in the story that general play goers don't appreciate. It would be a very psychological type of story and difficult to bring to a theatre production. Much of what happens is interpreted from outside watching in. At least that is where I see some of the difficulties in doing this story as a play. My opinion only, but just because a regular play goer doesn't get it, someone else might because of his/her expectations and understanding of the story.
 
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I agree.
A play is written featuring a blow-by-blow account of a bridge game.
Those in the audience get bored and slate it - the bridge players are fascinated and love it!
 
brownmane said:
Well, that's just disappointing. Though you never really know for what reasons people are watching a play.

Obviously these people had different expectations. Hopefully it meets yours. It kind of like when a horror movie is trashed by people who do not enjoy horror movies, but if you are a horror movie buff, the movie has something that you see in it that they didn't. I use this example because I enjoy horror movies and do appreciate many different aspects of these types of movies.

I would also think that the Enfield story would be very difficult to do as a play, but maybe the playwright sees something in the story that general play goers don't appreciate. It would be a very psychological type of story and difficult to bring to a theatre production. Much of what happens is interpreted from outside watching in. At least that is where I see some of the difficulties in doing this story as a play. My opinion only, but just because a regular play goer doesn't get it, someone else might because of his/her expectations and understanding of the story.
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I went to see Stephen King's 'Carrie - The Musical' sometime in the late 80's which was once ranked as the worst musical of all time. The actors from the TV show FAME were in it including Leroy who was pirouette-ing around the stage and a heartfelt song from Carrie about having her first period.

edit: holy shit .. I'm watching a video that say's we were test subjects in Feb '88 in Stratford upon Avon so we were sneak preview test subject people for this worldwide show. I'm only learning this now. It was shit.
 
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Is there a danger, perhaps - or, more accurately, a flaw - in the assumptions we're taught to have about certain types of crime or mystery? For example, there are numerous clichés in many ghost stories; simply because those clichés are effective and because we often relish them. But this may be limiting for creator and audience and is arguably stale thinking...

Sometimes, it's also classist, by mistake or design: just as we might enjoy the trappings of a Victorian ghost tale or a real-life crime story, that created atmosphere is dependent on assumptions and and personal prejudices and received knowledge; in the hands of a blasé reporter, these attitudes resist all nuance - as brownmane implied - and instead treats its audience with a kind of contempt while curiously assuming we share a smug superiority. I'm thinking not only of the way in which the real-life Enfield Poltergeist story is told to us - kitchen-sink poverty and strife, crafty fraudulence, 'woo', the Grim Seventies, the sly hints of possible immorality etc - but also the manner in which the crimes of, say, the Wests or the Yorkshire Ripper are related to an audience. The grim grubbiness of atmosphere and staging in both the reportage and the fictional treatments is a moral slant, one that has no interest in actually enlightening us.
 
Steven said:
Is there a danger, perhaps - or, more accurately, a flaw - in the assumptions we're taught to have about certain types of crime or mystery? For example, there are numerous clichés in many ghost stories; simply because those clichés are effective and because we often relish them. But this may be limiting for creator and audience and is arguably stale thinking...

Sometimes, it's also classist, by mistake or design: just as we might enjoy the trappings of a Victorian ghost tale or a real-life crime story, that created atmosphere is dependent on assumptions and and personal prejudices and received knowledge; in the hands of a blasé reporter, these attitudes resist all nuance - as brownmane implied - and instead treats its audience with a kind of contempt while curiously assuming we share a smug superiority. I'm thinking not only of the way in which the real-life Enfield Poltergeist story is told to us - kitchen-sink poverty and strife, crafty fraudulence, 'woo', the Grim Seventies, the sly hints of possible immorality etc - but also the manner in which the crimes of, say, the Wests or the Yorkshire Ripper are related to an audience. The grim grubbiness of atmosphere and staging in both the reportage and the fictional treatments is a moral slant, one that has no interest in actually enlightening us.
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I think there's always a place for recreating the 'ambience' of an era because it can help you to understand the mental processes that might have been behind so much of the action.
 
catseye said:
I think there's always a place for recreating the 'ambience' of an era because it can help you to understand the mental processes that might have been behind so much of the action.
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Absolutely.

Ironically, looking back, I appear to have brought my own 'assumptions and personal prejudices and received knowledge' to my previous post. :D
 
Don't discount a loss of content via a transfer of media.
Recreating horror on stage has always been problematic, especially concerning the original property. Start out as a stage play then take it to film, you can deal with it. You can add. I once saw a great production of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, starring (believe it or not) Matthew Kelly.
The idea of doing Carrie as a stage play is challenging technically but ... does anyone want to see it more than once, especially if they compare it to the movie.
The story of Anne Frank is a horror to me personally. Her family and herself were subject to ultimate and real horror. A stage play you might get away with, but a musical would border on Springtime For Hitler.
 
Regarding use of clichés in story making, written, filmed etc. Clichés are a shorthand way of expressing an idea of which most of the readers or viewers are familiar. It is a lazy way, if used often, of expression of an experience.

I would hazard a guess that anyone here who has a favourite writing or film genre is very familiar with the clichés of the genre. And also has an appreciation of an author or film director who takes the time and care to tell a story using a totally new way of expressing a familiar experience.
 
Well, the Enfield Haunting play wasn't too bad... What it isn't is a scare-fest. It takes place over 24 after the haunting has well established itself. The opening with Mrs Hodgson and her neighbour has them recount much of what has already gone on. The cast is simplified - only one brother, and Guy Lyon Playfair is having a night off. With only a few ghostly scenes, the play focuses on Maurice Grosse. He's portrayed as a bit doddery, but to be honest I couldn't tell if it was always intentional or the actor simply was trying to remember his lines! This is problematic when he has long stretches with him and just one other actor. Also, I agree with the first half of this criticism left of their FB page:

So disrespectful what you did to Maurice Grosse. He was a lovely man that just wanted to help the family and you spun your own seedy assumptions about him and brought his deceased daughter in to it in the most shameful exploitative way. Shame on the writer and producers.
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Seems this footage of Maurice Grosse and the witnesses is quite rare:


Still unconvinced when I see footage of the girls 'channelling' the voices, they just seem to be using their false vocal chords and doing their best to disguise it
 
Surely the use of their "false vocal chords" is an established and accepted part of the story. The argument Grosse and company made, from the doctors he consulted, was that doing so for any length of time was impossible without severe damage and discomfort, but she spoke at great length in this voice with no ill effect.
 
Having read extensively about the Enfield case, I do think something unexplained was going on there, possibly augmented by trickery when the poltergeist did not perform to expectation. It is easy to pull apart different aspects of the case, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
 
Even Grosse accepted that at times the girls were playing tricks but when interviewed as adults they don't seem to own up to this.
gattino said:
Surely the use of their "false vocal chords" is an established and accepted part of the story. The argument Grosse and company made, from the doctors he consulted, was that doing so for any length of time was impossible without severe damage and discomfort, but she spoke at great length in this voice with no ill effect.
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Do we have any footage of her actually speaking at great length as was claimed? Yes, we have tapes but tapes can be stopped and started and there is no actual roof it is Janet who is involved, it could be hoaxed. The actual footage we do have of her projecting the gruff male voices seemingly on demand is unconvincing.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
Even Grosse accepted that at times the girls were playing tricks but when interviewed as adults they don't seem to own up to this.

Do we have any footage of her actually speaking at great length as was claimed? Yes, we have tapes but tapes can be stopped and started and there is no actual roof it is Janet who is involved, it could be hoaxed. The actual footage we do have of her projecting the gruff male voices seemingly on demand is unconvincing.
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When tapes are stopped and started during recording, there is "noise", either from the mechanism or the physical pressing of clunky buttons. Those old tape recorders were not subtle. (I'm talking in general, not in relation to any specific recording, just my memories of using the damned things).
 
SimonBurchell said:
Having read extensively about the Enfield case, I do think something unexplained was going on there, possibly augmented by trickery when the poltergeist did not perform to expectation. It is easy to pull apart different aspects of the case, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
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Just assuming that these things really do happen, I’ve often wondered about the pretty obvious trickery involved in some cases.

The first – most obvious – option, is that such tricks are a sort of appeal to acceptance: some of the things claimed really are happening, but they don’t happen to order, therefore the subject feels the need to provide something for the observer. There’s the sense of trying to make something more obviously real by adding fabricated reality. I think of this as the sea-dogs fallacy: that is, someone who really has had a lot of interesting things happen in their life, but who embellishes those things in the retelling in the hope that the accumulated ‘facts’ will convince the listener of the core – and actual – fact; a factor which, paradoxically, generally tends to work in the opposite direction.

The other option I’ve often wondered about is what if the obvious trickery is not outwith the core phenomenon, but an innate part of it. That is, the subjects are – as a general and intrinsic process of the phenomenon - co-opted into performing their own trickery by an external Trickster. Almost as if they were being groomed somehow. Which idea somehow adds to the creepiness of it all.
 
Spookdaddy said:
The other option I’ve often wondered about is what if the obvious trickery is not outwith the core phenomenon, but an innate part of it. That is, the subjects are – as a general and intrinsic process of the phenomenon - co-opted into performing their own trickery by an external Trickster. Almost as if they were being groomed somehow. Which idea somehow adds to the creepiness of it all.
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Shudder. That thought hadn't occurred to me, a sort of low-key possession almost. As if poltergeists weren't bad enough as it is...
 
My farther was a psychiatric nurse for years at a very big institution and he
believed in Poltergeists and ruled by the moon.
I tend to believe the same after a few years care were we had a few sectioned
residents.
:omr:
 
Spookdaddy said:
what if the obvious trickery is not outwith the core phenomenon, but an innate part of it. That is, the subjects are – as a general and intrinsic process of the phenomenon - co-opted into performing their own trickery by an external Trickster. Almost as if they were being groomed somehow. Which idea somehow adds to the creepiness of it all.
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:eek:
 
Spookdaddy said:
The other option I’ve often wondered about is what if the obvious trickery is not outwith the core phenomenon, but an innate part of it. That is, the subjects are – as a general and intrinsic process of the phenomenon - co-opted into performing their own trickery by an external Trickster.
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If true, that would likely have the desired result (from the trickster's viewpoint) of sending any investigators away...leaving the target(s) at their mercy again. Gulp.
 
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These places often had a drive that curved away through greenery so you
could not see what was going on, hence driven round the bend.
:freak:
 
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