Terror Tuesday: Ghost Leads?

Once upon a midnight dreary…while he stalked her so sincerely…there came a blasting through the window pane…scattering body parts across the leafy lane…

Ah, the modern age really has made it tough on the poor ghouls…damsels just aren’t the weak little victims they used be…

Read: Hide by Lisa Gardner. After an underground chamber filled with body parts is discovered on the grounds of a closed mental institution, State Police detective Bobby Dodge must seek the answers to a decades-old series of murders and save a young woman with multiple pasts from certain doom. The book starts a little slow but is a pretty good page turner once it kicks into gear. Like the previous book by this author, some things rely a little too much on coincidence and again with the child killing/pedophile thing, which is tough to read. Recommended with reservations for those bothered by the subject matter.

Screened: The Lovely Bones. Wish I hadn’t watched this. The subject matter, a little girl being raped and murdered by a neighbor (Stanely Tucci is more than a little creepy in the role), who is a serial killer, gave me an ill feeling to begin with (I was expecting something else, a ghost mystery), and the ending definitely fell flat, ruining any satisfaction and resolution that might have made an hour and a half of wanting to bawl worth it. Some very effective filming and scenes, but this movie just wasn’t something I was comfortable with on a personal level. If anyone has read the book, I’d be interested in knowing if it were better and how it was different.

One thing the movie did make me wonder about however, was if there are ghosts, and the owners of those ghosts died violently, why aren’t more serial killers caught through them? In recent episodes of Ghost Hunters—and I am going, for the sake of this article, with the supposition ghosts do indeed exist, though I am not convinced of that personally—they made claims of being able to question entities through the use of a flash light turning on and off or a meter blinking one or two blinks for yes and no. Since this occurred in places such as the home where Sharon Tate was murdered by the Manson family, and other spots of violent crime, why aren’t there more answers from ghosts pointing to serial killers or others who murdered them?

From an investigator’s standpoint, it would seem if I were investigating a place supposedly haunted by a murder victim whose killer remained uncaught, I would want to phrase questions in such a way as to gain leads to the killers. There are, however, no verified cases of that having happened (though many unsubstantiated claims by psychics, both fraudulent and “legitimate” exist).

And why aren’t ghosts coming back and giving clues as to where their remains might be found, so that they and their loved ones might have closure? (Again, talking verified scientifically here, not claims).

The easiest answer is: there are no such things as ghosts. But assuming we accept the existence of spirits, then we need to question the legitimacy or skill of the investigators claiming communication with these entities first. Assuming some of those investigators are legit and pass the veracity test—then one has to wonder about some mystical set of rules governing entities, as is the staple of much supernatural fiction. Are they allowed to tell us? If not, why not? Ghosts seem to be answering questions just fine on the TV shows.

Oh, and if the victims can come back and maybe help…who’s to say the serial killers—put to death by the legal system or otherwise—can’t mess with the ghost hunters and send them down blind trails? Or worse, lead them into dangerous situations?

Ok…scaring myself…gonna go take the batteries out of all my flashlights...some answers are better left as questions…

The Chloe Files: Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from http://www.bn.com/