This Picture Was Taken By Photographer Oren Jeffries While He Was Exploring Some Un-mapped Area Of The

Movie Review: Paranormal Asylum: The Revenge of Typhoid Mary (2013)

Title: Paranormal Asylum: The Revenge of Typhoid Mary

Release Date: September 17,2013

Director: Nimrod Zalmanowitz

Run Time: 88 Minutes

Quick Hits: Two former college roommates, turned best friends, reconnect after sometime to put together a documentary about a local psychiatric hospital which is the supposed last resting place of the infamous Typhoid Mary.  

Review: Before we get into what the movie was about let's look at some facts about the actual "Typhoid Mary."  Mary Mallon (aka Typhoid Mary) was an immigrant to the United States from Northern Ireland in 1884.  Mary worked as a cook for families for the majority of her life, unfortunately wherever she would find work several members of the family would come down with typhoid fever and she would move onto the next household.  Upon her first quarantine Mary was found to be an asymptomatic carrier of the disease, which in lay man's terms means that she had the disease but never showed any sign nor did she suffer from it.  She was released from quarantine only to be brought back in permanently after she was found to be cooking again at a hospital.  It was during this second quarantine that she suffered a stroke which paralyzed her.  Mary died at the age of 69 in November 1938.

  We open with one of the main characters, Mark, heading back to New York to meet up with his former college roommate Dan to shoot a documentary that he believes can put them on the fast track to Hollywood.  Dan gives Mark more information on the hospital that they are planning on shooting in by telling about the legend that Typhoid Mary was secretly moved to.  Over the course of the next four days or so we see, through their cameras, a couple of ghostly silhouettes and some odd happenings within the hospital.  Michelle, Dan's Fiance, holds a seance to try and evoke a greater reaction from the spirits still roaming the halls and gets herself possessed by Mary herself.  Fast forward to the end we find out that the one person that seemed like she wanted to help the gang actually led them into the whole thing just to perpetuate her own youth.  

    Right from the get go you can tell that this is a low budget movie which works against itself the entire way.   I am not saying that all low budget films are bad, but this one is awful from start to finish.  As I said this movie works against itself from start to finish between the acting that is not one bit believable nor relate-able to the lighting throughout.  talking more on the lighting, it honestly looks as if the director thought it would be cool to put a gray filter for every shot.  However there are some shots where the gray filter has been taken off only to have pitch black shadows put into shots and around characters.  Getting away from the production flaws in this movie we can try and grab onto something positive in the story right? Wrong.  The back story given for Mary alone is awful, twisting what happened to her and her final days to try and make it conducive to the idea that the movie is trying, so desperately, to portray is atrocious.  One of the tags on this movie is that it is "inspired by true events," well the only true event that is shown is that Mary existed and she had typhoid.  The rest of it is a complete fabrication. Normally I could think of some reason that a movie could be watched, whether for enjoyment or a time kill, but I just have to advise against this one entirely.

Rating: 0/5

(Click on the above and below pictures to enlargen)

URBAND LEGEND: Annora Petrova

Annora Petrova was a girl who professionally ice-skated. One day she looked up her name on Google and found a creepy wikipedia page that set forth a motion of events which destroyed her life. This is what was found on her computer. 

Elkmont Region Great Smoky Mountains, Sevier County, Tennessee

Tucked away in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee lies Elkmont, formerly a pioneer Appalachian community, then a temporary logging town, and finally, a resort community. 

The first known permanent residents of what is now known as Elkmont settled here in 1840. The small community that developed was known simply as “Little River”, and, like the majority of Appalachian communities, residents developed a subsistence agriculture economy; most residents grew corn and apples, and kept bees for honey. Multiple gristmills (for grinding grain into flour) popped up along the the creek, Jakes Creek, that ran through the area. Unfortunately, only two structures from the pioneer era of Elkmont remain standing. 

In the 1880s, a Knoxville businessman by the name of John L. English began a small-scale logging project along Jakes Creek but his venture folded in 1900, likely due to a disastrous flooding of the creek in 1899. In 1901, Colonel Wilson B. Townsend purchased 86,000 acres of land along Little River and established the Little River Lumber Company. In 1926, Townsend sold most of the tract of land he purchased to the newly formed Great Smoky Mountains Park Commission, although he’d been given permission to continue logging for most of the next decade. The company ultimately ceased operations in 1939 and by then had produced 750 million board feet (1.8 million m³) of lumber.

In the logging company’s early days, Townsend allowed fishermen and hunters to use the Little River railroad to access the deep, game-rich forests of the Smokies. As the valley was stripped of most of its valuable timber, Townsend began advertising the area as a mountain getaway. In 1910, an affluent group of Knoxville gaming enthusiasts formed the Appalachian Club, built the Appalachian Clubhouse to use as a lodge, and many clubmembers began building cottages, making the club a getaway for Knoxville’s elite. Membership was difficult to obtain, so many rejected Knoxville residents purchased the Wonderland Hotel site in 1919.

Eventually, the U.S. government agreed to establish a national park in the area if the states of Tennessee and North Carolina purchased the land; this process was completed in 1926. Lifetime leases on the Wonderland Hotel and rustic cottages expired in 1992 and ownership reverted to the National Park Service. The park’s general management plan of 1982 called for all remaining structures to be removed to allow nature to reclaim the affected areas. However, in 1994, the Wonderland Hotel and many surrounding cottages were placed on the National Register of Historic Places, giving them a “special status.” 

Sadly, in 2005, the Wonderland Hotel collapsed due to a structural failure. Parts of the hotel deemed to have historical value were removed and the rest cleared, leaving only the annex and a chimney fall (pictured above). In 2009, the National Park Service announced plans to restore the Appalachian Clubhouse and many cabins in the area. The remaining structures are to be carefully documented then removed. 

[Image stills courtesy of Jordan Liles]

My appologies

Ladies and gentlemen, I know that I have been lacking in what I set out for this blog to be about. I had a few things in my life that I had to sort through and make right with myself. The good news is that I am back to bring you more things to look over your shoulder in the middle of the night and wonder if you really are home alone...

nothing bad can happen while ur under a blanket just remember that

Abandoned church.

In light of today's episode, some friendly reminders

WORKERS ARE STRONGER TOGETHER THAN APART!

SUPPORT UNIONS!

SUPPORT THE WGA STRIKES!

SUPPORT LABOUR STRIKES OF ALL KINDS!

IN UNITY THERE IS POLITICAL POWER!

Happy Friday the 13th! #DontGoAlone to see Insidious: Chapter 2 TONIGHT! http://insidiou.us/tickets