We are now in August and I feel like the year is just flying by. Please use this a reminder to take some time for yourself, even if it’s just 5 minutes, remember to take a breath and be kind to yourself.
I’m here to bore you with another Wicked Watch review. This time round I’ll be talking about 2018 film “The Witch in the Window”
This follows the story of a father and a son who are “flipping” a farmhouse in Vermont. Despite warnings from a local man, the pair live in the house whilst they do their work. Pretty soon, things start happening in the house, and it seems as if the pair are being haunted by the previous tenant Lydia.
Lydia was rumoured to be a witch who was responsible for the death of her husband and son. And the more they renovate the house, the stronger her spirit seems to grow. The chemistry between the actors is great and the relationship is well written and believable to watch. In terms of horror elements, there is a good sense of suspense built, but other than a couple of jump scares and one scene involving a phone call (which actually made me hold my breath) there’s not much here that makes it stand out as a great horror film.
Whilst well acted and presented, there just wasn’t enough “horror” for me. So I have to give this one 3 out of 5 skulls.
Has anyone else watched this? I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments below.
I hope this post finds you in a chunky knit sweater as Autumn (or Fall, for my American readers) settles itself around you. If I were to say the name Hellish Nell to you, would it mean anything? What if I was to tell you, she was the last person to be charged with Witchcraft in the UK? Sound interesting? Then settle back, get cosy and ignore what you think is the sound of creaking floorboards.
Victoria Helen McCrae Duncan was a Scottish medium born in 1897. She earned the nickname Hellish Nell in childhood due to her bolshie behaviour and dire prophecies. She married a man named Henry Duncan and was a mother to six children. Her husband was supportive of her supposed clarivoyancy and from the year of 1928 she progressed from clairvoyant to physical medium by offering seances.
Helen Duncan
Nell claimed that she was able to permit spirits to enter her body and materialise them as ectoplasm. And pretty soon she was holding seances on a regular basis. Arthur Conan Doyle who created Sherlock Holmes, even spoke highly of her abilities. As the years passed, people questioned her ability and in 1931 the London Spiritualist Alliance examined her method. They even conducted tests on the ectoplasm she materialised.
It was this, that proved to be the start of her undoing. They found that the ectoplasm was actually cheesecloth mixed with egg whites, that Nell would swallow and later regurgitate during the seances. Despite reports of her being a fraud, the world would soon be at war. World War II would carry an unbelievable amount of casualties and due to this, people fled to mediums to hear from their loved ones, one last time. Nell was one of them.
In November of 1941 she held a séance in Portsmouth and claimed to be visited by the spirit of a sailor who told her of the sinking of a battleship named the HMS Barham. The news of this soon made Nell a person of interest to the Navy, because the sinking of the ship wasn’t made public knowledge, only the families of the casualties had been informed. In fact, the sinking wasn’t announced publicly until late January of 1942.
Hellish Nell producing ectoplasm.
In 1944 as the pressure and casualties of the war mounted, people were desperate for an end in sight and for that to happen, the British had to be smart and keep everything top secret. Two Lieutenants attended a séance of Nell’s undercover and were shocked and disgusted by what they saw, so they reported her to the police. In late January of the same year, Nell was arrested (along with her ectoplasm) and charged under the Vagrancy Act of 1824. However the authorities regarded this a more serious crime and so charged her with Section 4 of the Witchcraft Act 1734.
Whilst not on trial for being a “witch” she was accused, and found guilty of “pretending to exercise or use human conjuration” The case had numerous defence witnesses and the trial was a media sensation at the time. Grotesque cartoons of witches on broomsticks, dotted the newspapers.
Helen Duncan during the trial
She was found guilty and sentenced to nine months in Holloway Prison. Being that the Witchcraft Act wasn’t repealed until 1951, Helen Duncan was the last known woman to be imprisoned under it’s terms.
Cheesecloth ecotplasm aside, there were people who claimed they had attended numerous seances held by Nell, and found her skills both believable and impressive. And don’t forget, she did know about the sinking of the HMS Burham despite it not being public knowledge.
By all accounts she was quite popular in prison and even held seances for her cellmates. And despite her promise on her release from prison in 1945, that she wouldn’t do them anymore, she continued to carry out seances until her death in 1956. Relatives of Helen are still ongoing in their campaign to have her posthumously pardoned of witchcraft charges.
It’s hard to know for sure if Hellish Nell was a fraud who preyed on the poor during a time of immeasurable loss? Or if she was someone who used parlour tricks to accentuate her true talents with Clairvoyancy?
It’s really interesting and kind of mind blowing to me how it was only 70 years ago that the Witchraft Act was repealed. And that a woman served prison time because of it. Was it fear of men? Or fear of something bigger?
I’d love to hear your comments on this, so please free to leave one below.
I wanted to share one of my earliest supernatural experiences with you.
When I was a little girl, I had what was called the “box room” at the front of the house. I didn’t understand if it was called this because it had a built in box with a lid you could lift up (which was useful for storing my Polly Pockets) Or if it was because it was the smallest room in the house. I never asked.
At one point my bed was against the wall directly which faced my bedroom door. Each night when I went to bed, I would close the door as I didn’t want to be able to see down the hallway to the bathroom. The reason for this was because of the lady in the black dress.
Taken from the film “The Woman in Black”
I remember as a child waking up in the middle of the night needing the toilet and holding my breath as I twisted the door handle slowly, building up the courage to leave my room. I’d speed walk down the hallway, turn the bathroom light (I realise now, this was probably at the chagrin of my parents and brother) did my business, washed my hands and flushed the toilet. Before turning the light off and running back to my room. I had to flush the toilet last and then turn off the light, because believe it or not, a flushing toilet in the dark conjured up images of some of monster coming up from the sewers and devouring me. But it was the woman I feared the most.
The first time I saw her, I woke up because my cheek felt cold. I used to feel the cold alot as a child, to the point where my mum and dad used to put space blankets on my mattress to keep the heat under the duvet, to keep me warm. I sat up and saw my door was open and at the end of the hallway was the shadow of a woman. I felt my blood turn cold and the breath catch in my throat as she walked slowly towards my room. I let out a little cry and lay down, squeezing my eyes shut and holding my breath. My room grew cold, but I was determined to keep my eyes closed, because if I did that, she would go away.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but the sunlight coming through my window told me my theory was right, closing my eyes made her leave and I was safe in the warmth of a new day. After that I was a stickler for making sure my bedroom door was always closed. But being so adorable, obviously my parents wanted to come in my room and make sure I was cuddled up and give me one last goodnight kiss on the forehead…But they wouldn’t always close my door afterwards.
I clearly recall seeing her three more times. One time she was stood closer to my door, looking into my room. She wore a long black dress and her hair was braided in a bun at the base of her neck. Her face was stern, her eyes cold. I didn’t like her. She scared me and made me want to cry.
The second time I saw her, she was stood over my bed, her eyes burning into my face and leaving nothing but a chill on my cheek. Like skeletal ghost fingers had reached out and brushed against it, turning my blood to ice. I pulled the duvet over my head and closed my eyes, whispering a silent plea to some unknown being to keep me safe. The day after I told my mum and she paled, she said she’d seen her too and also didn’t like the feeling she got from her. She reassured me I wasn’t crazy and that she believed me. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me and my tiny heart.
The third and final time I saw her, I can’t be sure that it wasn’t just my grieving and tired mind playing tricks on me. But a few days after my mum died, I was laying on the sofa (where my mum used to sleep after my dad died) and my heart was hurting. I’d lost my mum, my best friend. I hadn’t slept for days and my head was trying to wrap itself around everything. A harsh reality that felt like a bad dream, as though it was happening to someone else and not me. I now know, that was me detaching from myself as a way of dealing. But as I was lay on the sofa, my eyes half closed in the hope that it would make me fall asleep and I saw the lady in the black dress walk across the living room to the hallway where the stairs were.
I shot up and turned on all the lights, my heart racing. I convinced myself it was my tired mind. I even urged myself to go upstairs and was greeted by nothing, but empty rooms echoing with memories…The air was cold in my little box room.
I think back now and I can’t be sure, if the lady was coming to look for that scared little girl, who found protection and power in her mother. Or perhaps she was nothing but a night terror? A ghostly image from the past, conjured from the depths of my grieving mind…All I know is that seeing her made my blood run cold.
I’m hoping to share some more of my own stories and experiences like this with you more often. I’d love to hear about any spooky encounters you may have had, so comment below.
Now light a white candle to purify and cleanse the air and to protect you from any negativity you may be feeling.
☽ SpookyGee ☾ 