TV Review: Spooked: The Ghosts of Waverly Hills Sanatorium by Regan C. Vacknitz

SPOOKED TRAILER
Trailer (Wide Screen)

TV Review Spooked Ghosts of Waverly Hills Sanatorium by Regan C. Vacknitz

Paranormal Investigations hosted by Keith Age: LGHS/Louisville Ghost Hunters Society

Tonight I watched the documentary on the Waverly Hill Sanatorium in Kentucky, presented by SciFi Channel. http://www.scifi.com/spooked/ . This documentary was a far cry from the boring sleep inducing documentaries watched in primary and secondary schools. The producers did a wonderful job mixing emotions, from fear and unease to sadness felt for those trapped and dying from their disease.

Waverly Hills was built to house people dying from “The White Plague” back in 1928. Over 63,000 people died in this beautifully constructed sanatorium. Horror stories, whether true or weaved from the mouths of local kids around a bonfire, have been told for over 70 years. Both children and adults a like fled from as far as 500 miles to come to this hospital for a cure. Bizarre experiments were forced upon the dying in the name of finding a cure. Upon death, prior to the cure, the bodies were in mass amounts without proper disposal. They were forced to dig a chute 500 ft down.

Spooked was beautifully produced, with a poetic entwining of old vintage photos and today’s technology used by paranormal investigators. It married the tragic history filled with disease and death to the intrigued felt by paranormal investigators world wide. You see imagery in black and white of families, bed ridden patients, and the hospital. You are pulled into the photographs by the vintage music that plays. You are also shown paranormal investigators doing their job, telling you the stories and tales of the locations they ventured into. You are shown snippets of video, Electromagnetic Field Monitor readings, and photographs from various investigation teams, as well as historical researchers.

The program started out with first hand accounts and interviews by investigators, owners, current and past employees. There were also interviews with previous residence, inpatients, of Waverly. It covered the year the sanatorium was built to current day status. As a viewer you learn the different floors, four total, and their lay outs. First floor was for registration and gift shops. Second and Third floor were for general public patients, not wealthy. Fourth floor were for the well off, however this floor also housed experimental surgeries.

The accounts of hauntings, as well as evidence shown on the program are some of the most convincing phenomenal evidence I have ever seen. From random photographs of ghostly images to Electronic Voice Phenomena, this program could make even a skeptic partially believe. It is educational and informative in both the history of the location and the key lingo used in paranormal investigations.

Most of the documentary is footage and interviews left over from the making of a movie called Death Tunnel: http://www.deathtunnel.com/ . This engrossing documentary is something worth looking into; especially if you want to learn about the specific entities that haunt Waverly Hills Sanatorium. The producers, Booth Brothers, did a wonderful fear enticing documentary. I know I am personally going to look into both purchasing the documentary, as well as the movie Death Tunnel, for my own personal collection

by Regan C. Vacknitz

Vice President
APART of Washington
http://www.apartofwa.com

http://www.theunexplained.net/waverly.htm

http://www.scifi.com

http://www.scifi.com/spooked/

http://www.spooked.org/

http://www.deathtunnel.com/

http://movie-box-review.blogspot.com/2006/05/spooked-trailer-teasers.html

http://www.myspace.com/spookedghosts

http://movie-box-review.blogspot.com/2006/06/spooked-waverly-hills-documentary-most_07.html