‘The Ghosts of Crowley Hall’ is a spooky new ghost hunters documentary by filmmaker Daren Marc. Workers renovating an old mental hospital with a dark history uncover some old bones behind a fireplace, and weird things start to happen to the construction workers. Tools go missing, and one worker claims to have been pushed down the stairs by unseen forces. The owner calls in a ghosthunting team to investigate.
The likeable young Arron Kasady leads the team. With his lengthy locks and “Punisher” T-shirt, he looks like your neighborhood comic book geek. There’s also medium Annabel Keogh, and Katherine Copeland, an attractive American parapsychologist, the token skeptic. And, of course, a film crew. The filmmaker wisely stays in the background and lets Kasady’s large presence do most of the heavy lifting.
They bring their night-vision lenses and EMF scanners and hold a séance, disturbing the ghost of the doctor who allegedly performed horrible medical experiments on his patients, and angering him in the process.
It’s spooky, all right, and I suppose the assumption is that the viewer is expected to believe in the supernatural as much as the ghosthunters. But to play sceptic for a moment, some of it’s a hard sell. Film can’t confirm the feeling of being followed, or cold spots, and the disturbing bangs and clangs off screen can’t be verified by the viewer as ghost activity. A skeptic would say the table moving during the séance could be attributed to a sympathetic unconscious desire to believe. And several spirit knocks solicited by Kasady are inaudible to this viewer, even as he makes a big deal out of them.
But they do get some footage of a mysterious figure in the hall, when all of the crew is accounted for, if you take the film’s word for it. And centerpiece of the film happens when a door slams shut and locks on Kasady, who gets attacked by spirits. When the door opens after a bit, he is helped out, and has scratches on his face. Back home where it’s safe, he has bruises about his face and body, like he’d been beaten. Scary stuff.
If you believe that ghosts attacked him, that part of the film would be terrifying. But of course, a skeptic would say, maybe he locked the door himself and beat himself up for the betterment of the film. As Mulder used to say, I want to believe. But as Mark Twain said, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.” Now chew on that. I guess that means I take it as entertainment and don’t know if I believe or disbelieve it. All I know for sure is that you’re not getting me inside that creepy old hospital!
For a change of pace, they periodically cut to the main characters back home commenting on what happened earlier. The onsite sound and thick British accents almost warrant subtitles, at least for non-Brits. The spooky music is good, but a bit intrusive; as I was left wondering exactly what sounds were mood music and what were spirit noises. I even momentarily considered the thought that the whole thing might be a hoax, or a piss-take, as the Brits might say, but the crew seem genuinely agitated and convinced that something horrible and unique happened at Crowley Hall. I give them the benefit of the doubt.
The ending is abrupt and anti-climactic. Otherwise well-made, GHOSTS…would have benefited from a short bit of background on the principals. Who are they? What’s their reputation and talents? We don’t really have a good picture of that. In the extras there is an interview with longhaired limey Kasady (the same one twice, actually – what’s up with that?) but since most of it was already used in the film, it gives the viewer little insight. And how did their harrowing journey affect them? Is Katherine still a skeptic? What attracted Marc to the project in the first place? These worthy questions go unanswered. It’s fairly creepy and engaging, nonetheless, and worth a look, even if you don’t totally buy into the ghosthunting stuff.
Review by Hysteric Eric - Trash Film Orgy
'The Ghosts of Crowley Hall' chronicles the investigation of one of Britain’s most haunted halls. The investigation stared back in early 2007, when Arron Kasady began conducting tests by taking photographs. Those photographs produced strange images in certain rooms in the building. Kasady, then began to conduct a full investigation on the haunting of Crowley Hall in May of 2007. During that time, he brought a team of Ghost hunters. The team was comprised of a parapsychologist, a spiritual medium, a journalist and a film crew. They spend two nights at this place. During that time, the team conduced various experiments that were done in order to provoke paranormal activity throughout the building. But things didn’t go right for Arron Kasady and his team, as they had to abort the investigation.
Now fast-forward to August of 2007, Arron Kasady and his team of ghost hunters returned to Crowley Hall to continue where they left off in their investigations. Both attempts are the basis for this film.
I’m one of those people that usually don’t see many of these ghost shows like 'Ghost Hunters' and 'Paranormal State' because I don’t put too much stock into the existence of ghosts, until I watched this film. I was frightened at times with 'The Ghosts of Crowley Hall'. Maybe the reason I was scared during this documentary, was the fact that this event really took place.
Director Daren Marc does a very good job in documenting the failed attempts that Arron Kasady and his team had. Marc doesn’t inject himself too much into the film unless he was asked to by Kasady. The team’s frightening moments were captured very well. There were a few dead spots there and here, but it’s supposed to happen in a documented investigation like this. I liked how Marc also adds interviews before the attempts, as he gets a sense of what the main players in the investigation were going through in their minds before entering the haunted halls.
If there is one problem, I had with 'The Ghosts of Crowley Hall', it was the fact that Daren Marc didn’t tie up the film with some closing thoughts from Arron Kasady. It would've helped giving a little closure to what was happening with him and the team afterwards, but you can find more in the bonus interview with Kasady, which is located in the bonus features section.
The end result was 'The Ghosts of Crowley Hall' made me believe that ghosts really do exist. Also, I highly recommend this film particularly to fans of the paranormal series that I mentioned in the opening of my review.
- Review by FilmArcade.net
The Paranormal has always fascinated me. Whether it be as a child when it terrified me, or as an adult where it became an obsession to prove to myself that there was something after life besides just death. Have I personally ever found anything concrete…not really. Only a few what if's made it to me. Today in our world the paranormal is almost like having a second language, everyone delves in it. I have gone to countless cemeteries, abandoned buildings and mental asylums and all I ever manage to get were dust orbs, a few unexplained glowing orbs, and an incident that caused me to run like the wind out of that place, and I’ll never forget it.
Crowley Hall was built in the 19th century and served as a hospital. Then from the 1920-1930’s Dr. Leys and his wife Beatrice took over and it became a place for the criminally insane. Dr. Leys was noted as being a key figure in creating new treatments for mental illness in Northern England. Some say Dr. Leys liked to perform sadistic experiments on the more violent patients. It is stated that Leys' death was from a heart attack but insiders knew better and spoke of an operation gone wrong in which Dr. Leys ended up a victim of the patient he was treating. I guess he should have tied those restraints a tad tighter and he wouldn’t have ended up stabbed in the neck.
'The Ghosts Of Crowley Hall' is a documentary Arron Kasady and a team of other experts set out with a vengeance to make and you see their determination as well as many parts of this old historic building. When the team holds a séance things start to get interesting and are visited first by a man named Alfred and then by a spirit believed to be Leys himself. If you like shows like 'Ghost Hunters' or if you like old abandoned buildings like me this film is for you. It was a little hard to hear some of the reaction bangs but none the less it was exciting to watch. I sincerely hope they go back and see what other things they can find out about this amazing historic place!
7/10 - Review by AngryPrincess (Horror Society, Dread Central)
