Hauntis a 2019 American slasher film written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. The film stars Katie Stevens, Will Brittain, and Lauryn McClain. Set on a Halloween night, it follows a group of friends who encounter a haunted house that promises to feed on their darkest fears, unknowing that the performers have a murderous intent.
Haunt premiered at Popcorn Frights Film Festival on August 8, 2019, and subsequently had a limited release in the United States on September 13, by Momentum Pictures. The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed $2.4 million worldwide.
Now believing they are in danger, the group sends Nathan to find an exit. He encounters a man in a ghost mask, "Mitch", who agrees to help. However, Nathan drops the key to their lockbox after being frightened by Mitch. The group decide to retrace their steps and go back to the tunnel. Evan goes through first, but Mitch blocks the exit for the rest of them, causing Nathan to get trapped in the tunnel. Devil mask suddenly appears and kills Angela. Bailey flees into the tunnels and accidentally activates the trap door, dropping Nathan into the house's operation rooms. He saves Harper from Devil Mask before finding the group's phones. Evan and Mitch make it outside, but Mitch kills him with a hammer before ripping off his face.
Nathan manages to give the location of the house to Harper's abusive boyfriend, Sam, before making it out of the house. Harper enters an escape room very similar to her childhood bedroom where she witnessed her father abuse her mother. Devil Mask attacks her and she kills him. She then encounters another performer in a skull mask and kills them too, but is horrified to find that the person in the costume was Bailey, who was previously captured by the other performers. Sam arrives at the house, where he is promptly killed by the attraction's ringleader, a man in a clown mask.
Nathan goes back inside to save the others but is attacked by Mitch, while Harper is attacked by a man in a zombie mask. She defeats her attacker before helping Nathan kill Mitch. They encounter a man in a vampire mask, who explains that the performers are part of a cult that makes extreme modifications to their faces to look like real monsters, and like to rip the faces off their victims. He is shot to death by Zombie Mask. Harper and Nathan escape the house, killing Witch Mask in the process. Zombie Mask attacks them but Nathan kills him before the two escape in Sam's truck. Clown Mask proceeds to burn down the attraction. Harper and Nathan reach a hospital, where the nurse asks Harper to write her address on a release form similar to the one they were asked to sign before entering the house.
In July 2017, it was announced Scott Beck and Bryan Woods would write and direct the film. The film would be produced by Eli Roth, Todd Garner, Mark Fasano, Ankur Rungta, Vishal Rungta and executive produced by Nick Meyer, Marc Schaberg, Josie Liang, Jeremy Stein and Tobias Weymar.[2] In October 2017, Katie Stevens, Will Brittain, Lauryn McClain, Andrew Caldwell, and Shazi Raja joined the cast of the film.[3]
Haunt had its world premiere at Popcorn Frights Film Festival on August 8, 2019 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida[6] and its international premiere at FrightFest in London, England, on August 23, 2019.[7] The Los Angeles premiere for Haunt took place at the Grauman's Egyptian Theatre on September 7, 2019.[8] The film received a limited release on September 13, 2019, by Momentum Pictures.[9] Haunt later premiered on Shudder, where it was ranked the #1 most watched movie premiere of 2019.[10]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 70% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Haunt is spooked by the spirits of its obvious influences, but still packs enough thrills and chills to satisfy horror fans up for a haunted house excursion."[11] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on five critics, indicating "generally positive reviews".[12]
Unclouded Eye is your source for weekly astrological forecasts and cosmic chit chat. Hosted by Ashley Brooks and Ty Gowen. Join us as we explore the big transits for the week, analyze mystery charts, and talk about all things weird, arcane, and esoteric.
Last Season 42:00Join Haunt ME as we continue our adventures and explore the weird and unexplained! In a brand new format, the team focuses on a mysterious haunt that brings challenges, chills, and surprises. Come with the team as they leave their home state and focus on stories long past, but never forgotten.
As night falls on the park, hundreds of creatures from the underworld emerge to make your worst nightmares come true. Spine-chilling haunted houses, elaborate scare zones and horrifying haunted mazes will force you to sleep with the lights on. Spooky live shows and seasonal drinks and eats add to the fang-tastic fun.
Haunt is a collaboration with Professor Chris French (Goldsmiths College Psychology Department). We would like to thank Rob Davis (Systems Developer, Goldsmiths College) and Rosie Bunton-Stasyshyn (Research Assisant, Goldsmiths College) for their enormous contributions to the project. We would also like to thank Vic Tandy, Dr Paul Stephens and Dr Jason Braithwaite for ongoing technical advice during development and design of the experiment. The project was made possible by a Sciart Engaging Science Research and Development Award from the Wellcome Trust.
A full write-up of the findings of the experiment can be found in The "Haunt" project - an attempt to build a "haunted" room by manipulating complex electromagnetic fields and infrasound published in Cortex 45, May 2009 and available for download here. The project was also written up from the perspective of a participant by Nicola J Holt in the April 2006 issue of Paranormal Review, the Journal of the Society of Psychical Research, available for download here.
A circular featureless chamber was built inside a standard row house apartment in North London, measuring approximately 3m x 3m, and 4m high. The temperature was approximately 18 degrees celcius and the light level was about 1 lux. A purpose built infrasound cabinet and two electromagnetic coils provided varying stimuli.
Responses from participants included a "sense of presence", "chills on the spine", "uneasiness in a particular part of the room", "dizziness", "glowing ball" hallucinations, seeing flies in the chamber, auditory hallucination of somebody coughing in various parts of the chamber and sensations of mist. As expected, it appears that belief plays an important role in eliciting "haunt" sensations.
We have a feeling that something is "out there". Are our senses playing tricks on us? Or is the space that we exist in constructed by our senses? Parapsychologists have undertaken rigorous analysis of haunted spaces in order to measure empirical quantities of observable phenomena. Some do so in order to prove that there is something "otherworldly"; others do so in order to prove quite the opposite. What is not in question, however, is that people have sensations that lead them to believe that there are ethereal presences in the vicinity.
To talk about haunted spaces is to talk about two things that are explicitly psychological - the sensation of haunting, which is clearly subjective; and the sensation of space, which again depends on the perspective of the particular occupant of that space. Objective analysis of these perceptions always seems to give conflicting results. However, there are some observed spatial phenomena that tend to correlate with a haunted sensation in a space":"
Other factors also affect the perception of hauntings - the psychology of the individual; the desire to believe that something is happening (also observed when people encounter simulated intelligence systems); the social environment in which the hauntings are observed.
There are naturally questions regarding whether these phenomena arise out of existing natural and manmade constructions - power stations, draughty windows, leaking pipes. The project proposed here does not attempt to explain how the phenomena arise, or even how they give rise to haunted perceptions. Rather, the project focuses on how the psychology of human perception gives rise to the construction of space.
Until now, most studies of parapsychology have concentrated on measuring existing phenomena and subject responses. In the project proposed here, we intend to collect together the results of some of these studies and actually synthesise a "haunted" space using infrasound, temperature, humidity, air movement and electromagnetic fields that have been associated with "haunted" environments.
The design of the space itself (i.e. its "hardware" as opposed to the sound, humidity, temperature and EMF that make up its "software") was carefully designed to heighten the experience. Visually, nothing moved. However, by using varying (very low or very high) contrast of colours and light levels, and by employing other optical illusions in the space, it should be possible to provoke unsettling visual phenomena. The actual route towards and through the space was crucial to the full experience of the haunting. There was a buffer zone before entering the space in which senses are dulled (for example, moving through a dark tunnel prior to entering a light space allowed the eyes to adjust to darkness). The environment required access to good ventilation for the air control system.
The intention with this project was not to explain haunting phenomena or to debunk popular wisdom with regard to the paranormal. Rather, the intention was to demonstrate how the perceptions of space and objects in space are intricately affected by things we are not immediately conscious of. The work follows on from previous work we have undertaken to research the architecture of non-visual environments using sound, smell, electromagnetic and thermal phenomena.
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