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Hell on Earth and the Haunting in Port Arthur, Australia

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In one of the biggest penal settlements in the British Empire, many thousand convicts served their time here, and some never made it out. Ever since then, Port Arthur has been one of the most haunted places in Australia.  

The Separate Prison and the historic building around, located in Port Arthur, Australia, is a place that is steeped in history and intrigue. Built in the 19th century, the prison was designed to be a place of punishment and reform for some of Australia’s most notorious criminals as well as for petty criminals and families living in Port Arthur. The prison was known for its strict regime of silence and solitary confinement, and the conditions inside were brutal. 

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Australia

However, there is more to the story of the Separate Prison than just its history. Many people believe that the prison is haunted by the ghosts of the past, and there have been countless reports of paranormal activity over the years. 

The Haunted Port: Port Arthur is a small town located on the Tasman Peninsula in Tasmania, Australia. The town is known for its beautiful natural scenery, but it is also known for its dark past. It started as a timber station in 1830, but soon transitioned to a penal colony in 1833.

The History of Port Arthur and its role in Australian history

In the 19th century, Port Arthur was home to one of the largest prisons in the world. The prison was established in 1830 and was designed to be a place of punishment and reform for convicts who had been transported to Australia from Britain.

Penal Colony: Convict labourers in Australia in the early 20th century

More than 1000 people are said to have died at Port Arthur during its 47 years as a penal settlement. After their death they were sent to the nearby Isle of the Dead where 1646 unmarked graves belong to the convicts. 

Named after Lieutenant-Governor George Arthurs, the place was known as one of the strictest  prisons in the colonies. The prison was known for its harsh conditions, and prisoners were forced to work long hours in difficult conditions. However, despite the harsh conditions, the prison was seen as a progressive institution at the time. The prison was designed to be a place of reform, and the authorities believed that prisoners could be rehabilitated through hard work and discipline.

In newer times, there is also a dark history that put Port Arthur on the map. In 1996, a gunman shot dead 35 people and injured 23. This was one of the events that changed Australia forever and gave new and strict gun control laws.

Inside the ruins of the prison: Source

The Purpose and Life of the Separate Prison

The Separate Prison was built in 1849 as part of a new approach to prison reform. The prison was designed to be a place of punishment and reform, but it was also designed to be a place of isolation and silence. The authorities believed that prisoners could be reformed through reflection and introspection, and the only way to achieve this was through solitary confinement. Sort of like a prison within the prison.

The prison was designed with this in mind, and each cell was designed to be completely isolated from the outside world. The cells were small, and prisoners were only allowed to leave for a short period each day to exercise in a small courtyard. The rest of the time, they were confined to their cells in complete silence.

Inside the Separate Prison: Source

Life as a prisoner in the Separate Prison was brutal. Prisoners were confined to their cells for up to 23 hours a day, and they were only allowed to leave for a short period each day to exercise in a small courtyard. The cells were small and cramped, and prisoners were only allowed to bring in a Bible or other religious text.

The conditions inside the prison were harsh, and prisoners were forced to live in complete silence. The only sound they heard was the sound of their own breathing, and the only light they saw was the dim light from a small window. The food was basic and unappetizing, and prisoners were forced to perform hard labor for long hours each day.

Despite the progressive intentions of the Separate Prison, the reality was much darker. The prison was known for its harsh punishments and brutal treatment of prisoners. Punishments included flogging, solitary confinement, and hard labor.

In some cases, prisoners were subjected to even more extreme forms of punishment. The “dark cell” was a punishment cell located in the basement of the prison. Prisoners were confined to this cell for up to three days, and the conditions were unbearable. The cell was completely dark, and prisoners were forced to stand in ankle-deep water for the entire time they were confined.

The Haunted History of the Separate Prison

The Separate Prison has a long and haunted history as the buildings of the penal settlement turned into ruins. Over the years, there have been countless reports of paranormal activity in the prison. Many people believe that the ghosts of the past still haunt the prison, and there have been numerous sightings of ghosts and other unexplainable phenomena.

Ghostly sightings of three young children have been captured standing in a window in Port Arthur: Source

There are the stories about the ghost of a boy that is forever waiting for his execution and that his screams can be heard in the night. 

In the cell where the prisoner William Carter hanged himself, visitors have been said to be overwhelmed by sadness, some found huddled on the bed or the floor as they cry hysterically. 

The Gothic Church and the Lady in Blue in the Accountant’s House

There have been countless reports of ghost sightings and paranormal activity around the gothic church that the convict slaved away on. A lot of blood was spilt on the ground here, like when William Riley beat Joseph Shuttleworth to death with a pickaxe. For this he was hanged. 

Port Arthur Church: Convict-built church ruins at Port Arthur convict settlement, Tasmania. It was never consecrated and several denominations shared the building. Source

Visitors have reported hearing unexplainable sounds, feeling cold spots, and even seeing apparitions of the past. But strangely, it isn’t the ghosts of the violent convicts that are mostly spotted here, but a Lady in Blue.

She is believed to be a young lady married to a Port Arthur accountant. The Accountant’s house is right next to the church. They are said to have lived in the penal colony in the 1800s and who died during childbirth and is now wandering on the grounds, searching for her child she never got to meet in life. 

Especially in the bell tower of the church she appears in front of people with her bonnet and her pale blue or gray crinoline dress, before fading away. Sometimes she is said to talk with children. 

In 2011, visitors claimed that a three year old girl jumped out of her mothers arms to “play with the nice lady who lives her.” She ran down the veranda with her arms outstretched and was picked up by someone not visible to anyone else. 

Accountant’s House and the Parsonage/source

The Haunted Parsonage and the most Haunted House in Port Arthur

The most haunted building at Port Arthur historic site is said to be The Parsonage or Reverend George Eastman’s home. 

Reverend George Eastman worked as a parson at Port Arthur for almost fifteen years. One day the weather was terrible, but a dying convict needed him. When he came back from the storm, he fell ill and died in his bed two days later. It is said that when he was lowered out of his window in his coffin, the rope broke, the coffin smashed open and his body fell out on the ground. Near where his body landed, visitors sometimes complain on the stench of rotten flesh. 

There are plenty of stories circulating of flashing lights in the dark, loud banging when and the sound of footsteps although no one is there. It is said that it is the reverend who is haunting the place and is said to be a particular aggressive ghost. Some of the more extreme experiences people claim to have is the strangling feeling as they enter the building.

Source

Just a couple of weeks after his death, the new family moved into the parsonage and the haunting started. Reverend Hayward moved to Port Arthur together with his wife and six children for a fresh start at his new posting. 

Everyone became convinced that the house was haunted except Mrs Hayward. In 1870, she wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on in her home and made a trap one night after the children had gone to sleep. 

She tied several threads zigzagging the stairs and waited hours without hearing anything. She decided to call it a night when she suddenly heard something and got her husband. Together they checked the stairs where every single piece had snapped on the stairs, but they saw nothing. They did feel hot air if someone was breathing next to them and hearing footsteps coming down the stairs. The Haywards packed up and left Port Arthur forever. 

As mentioned, it is not a new haunted place, and we have written documents back to 1893 about the strange things happening in the house. This is an article from The Clipper: 

“On one particular night, Mrs. Price was unable to sleep… Suddenly she became conscious that somebody had entered her room, and glancing towards the door beheld a human figure draped in white. Her first thought was to make a move or to speak, but it struck her that the intruder might be a burglar in disguise intent upon robbing her of her jewel-case… and that to attract attention to herself might possibly mean something serious against her life. She therefore lay motionless, but with half open eyes followed the movements of the supposed burglar.

The mysterious figure having entered the room went through the motion of striking a match upon the wall, and immediately afterwards there was the appearance of light as from a lucifer. This done it then made its way round the foot of the bed to a cot in which one of the children slept. For a moment it stood looking at the sleeping child, then turning round, glided silently out of the room and was gone.”

It’s not only old stories about the hauntings either. In recent times, although how recent is debated, two builders and their apprentice spent the night at the house. They were working long hours restoring the house and decided to just sleep there. 

One night their apprentice woke up pinned to the bed and felt like he was strangling. Both of the builders had to pull him up and when he recovered, he said he felt like there was something heavy, sitting on his chest. When he had opened his eyes, he saw a bearded man telling him to leave his house and never return. 

There is also a story of a mother, asking what her daughter was doing, seeing her talk to no one outside the house. Her daughter answered that she was talking and playing with another child. 

When the parsonage was converted to a restaurant for a while, it is said they had to close it down because of strange occurrences with flying cutlery, the light that kept going on and off and the furniture that kept moving around in front of the customers. 

The Medical Officer’s House

There is also a ghost story about a little girl seen outside the Medical Officer’s Residence. People inside have seen out the window and claim to have seen her face pressed up against the glass, looking in at them. 

There is also a story of when some contractors had sanded and varnished the floors in 2003 in the Junior Medical’s House. They locked the doors and let it dry overnight, but when they came back the next morning, they had found footprints, looking like a woman and a child by the fireplace. 

Other Ghosts Roaming Port Arthur

There is also said to be a soldier wearing red around the Tower Cottage and people have seen a head without a body, hovering in the dissection room underneath the Visiting Magistrate’s House. 

A little girl has been seen in The Commandant’s House. They think she died after falling down the stairs as she is seen laying at the bottom of the stairs in a pool of blood with her arm twisted as if broken. There are also those claiming that the rocking chair, called The Nanny’s Chair has been seen rocking on its own. 

Haunted Rocking Chair: Interior of the Commandant’s House/Source
Commandant’s House: Built in 1833 as a four room timber house before expanding. It was later used as the Carnavon Hotel. // Source

In the asylum right next to the separate prison, there have been stories of an elderly woman and a young girl. The light is flickering and there is supposedly the sound of footsteps. This building also functioned as a schoolhouse for a while. 

Port Arthur Asylum: Source

A short boat ride from Port Arthur is the Isle of the Dead, where over 1,100 people were buried—including convicts, soldiers, and settlers. The tiny island is known for its uneasy silence and ghostly apparitions and visitors have reported on spirits standing above the graves..

Source

The Haunted Legacy of the Separate Prison and Port Arthur

The Separate Prison in Port Arthur, Australia, is a place that is steeped in history and intrigue. It was designed to be a place of punishment and reform, but it was also a place of isolation and silence. The conditions inside the prison were harsh, and prisoners were subjected to brutal punishments and torture.

Despite its dark past, the Separate Prison is also a place of great historical significance. It provides us with a glimpse into the past and reminds us of the importance of prison reform and the need to treat prisoners with dignity and respect.

The haunted history of the Separate Prison is also a reminder of the power of the past. The ghosts of the past still haunt the prison to this day, and their presence serves as a reminder of the harsh conditions that prisoners were subjected to in the past. By exploring the history and hauntings of the Separate Prison, we can gain a deeper appreciation for the past and the lessons it has to teach us.

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References:

Dark Tasmania – Port Arthur Ghost Tour

Full article: Ghosts of the Anthropocene: spectral accretions at the Port Arthur historic site

Australia’s most haunted place: The story of Port Arthur and the Blue Lady.

Marimari.com : Ghosts of Port Arthur 

Port Arthur Ghost Tour 

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The Insane Ghosts Haunting the Aradale Lunatic Asylum

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Looming on top of a hill in Victoria, Australia, the former Aradale Lunatic Asylum cast long shadows for over a century. Something between a prison and a hospital, many of the patients, or inmates as they were called, never left. 

Aradale Lunatic Asylum used to be a place where the boundaries between sanity and madness were blurred. Built in the late 1800s in Ararat, a rural city in south-west Victoria, Australia, the asylum was once the largest mental institution in the southern hemisphere, housing thousands of patients over the years, although it was designed for few hundreds. 

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Australia

Perhaps to no one’s surprise, the Aradale Lunatic Asylum is now believed to be haunted and behind the walls of this imposing structure, there were stories of neglect, abuse, and tragedy that have left an indelible mark on Australia’s haunted past. 

Aradale Lunatic Asylum: Aradale was initially constructed as the Ararat Lunatic Asylum between 1864 and 1867 to a design attributed to the Public Works Department architect JJ Clark under the direction of William Wardell. The earliest buildings include the vast main building with its towers, the kitchen and dining room block, the gate lodges and extensive remnants of the encircling ha-ha wall. //Source: Wiki

Brief History of Aradale Lunatic Asylum

Aradale Lunatic Asylum was established in 1865 as a place to house the “insane” of Victoria. People had flocked to the area in the 1800s in the Gold Rush that ran out in the 1880s. The asylum was built on a sprawling 67-acre estate in Ararat, about 200 kilometers from Melbourne. The asylum was designed to be self-sufficient, with its own farm, bakery, laundry, and even a chapel over 70 different buildings. At its peak, Aradale had a population of over 1,000 patients, many of them criminally insane.

Read More: Check out more haunted asylums around the world

The Aradale Lunatic Asylum was initially created to provide care for the mentally ill, but it soon became overcrowded, and patients were subjected to inhumane treatment. As Australia was founded as a prison colony, there were a lot of inmates, and some more insane than others. Usually, the mentally ill served time in common prisons, but this place needed someplace safe to put the criminally insane as well as the lawfully ‘lunatics’. 

The Old Aradale Lunatic Asylum: circa 1900

The asylum was notorious for its use of electroconvulsive therapy and other forms of brutal “treatments” that left patients traumatized and scarred. The asylum was also known for its high death rate, with many patients dying from neglect, malnutrition, and disease.

Despite its dark history, Aradale Lunatic Asylum remained operational until 1993, when it was finally closed down due to changes in mental health care practices. In 2001, it became a campus of the Melbourne Polytechnic. 

Today, the abandoned asylum stands as a grim reminder of a bygone era, and its decaying buildings and haunting atmosphere attract visitors from around the world.

Ghost Town: The estate of Aradale Lunatic Asylum was huge, and worked almost like a little village.

Dark events and mistreatment of patients

Aradale Lunatic Asylum has a dark history of mistreatment and neglect of patients. The asylum was overcrowded, and patients were often subjected to brutal “treatments” that left them traumatized and scarred. Electroconvulsive therapy, insulin shock therapy, and lobotomies were all used as treatments for mental illness, despite their harmful effects on patients.

Insulin Shock Therapy: Insulin shock therapy is terminated by administration of glucose through a ‘gavage’ tube, in Lapinlahti Hospital, Helsinki in 1950’s

In addition to the brutal treatments, patients at Aradale Lunatic Asylum were subjected to neglect and abuse. Many patients were left to languish in their own filth, and some were even chained to their beds for days at a time. The asylum’s staff was known for their cruelty, and patients were often subjected to physical and emotional abuse.

In 1991, Health Department Victoria received an anonymous tip off regarding how badly things were at Aradale. Allegations include sexual and physical abuse, unprofessional medical procedures, unprofessional nursing practice, fraud, and theft of both inmate and Government funds and property.

They found that the average length of stay at Aradale for psychiatric patients is 23.3 years, or 54 times the acceptable WHO International Standard of 150 days.

Haunted Stories and Paranormal Activities from the Asylum

Aradale Lunatic Asylum is known for its haunted stories and paranormal activities. From its opening to closure, some say that over 13 000 people died in the asylum. Official sources claim there were about 3000. Over the years, visitors and paranormal investigators have reported strange occurrences, including unexplained noises, apparitions, and feelings of being watched. Many people believe that the asylum is haunted by the ghosts of former patients and staff.

The Ghost of Governor Fiddimont

One of the most famous ghost stories from Aradale Lunatic Asylum is a governor said to be haunting some stairs close to the Old Underground Kitchen. George Fiddimont was the last Governor of the gaol (prison) that the asylum was built around. In 1886, George was showing two ladies around the asylum after accepting a prisoner and was walking down some stairs. While walking, he fell and died of a heart attack at the foot of the stairs. 

He was only Governor for a year, but after his sudden death, it is said that he is behind the heavy footsteps of hobnailed boots you can hear on those stairs. But when they go to check who is coming down the stairs, there is no one there. 

The Curious Case of Gary Webb

As mentioned, a lot of the patients were actually inmates and considered criminally insane, but needed to serve their time in something else than a normal prison. His real name was Garry Ian Patrick David, born in 1954 in Melbourne and had a troubled childhood. His journey with Aradale Lunatic Asylum all started when he tried to rob a pizza shop in 1982 in Rye, Victoria. As he was fleeing, he shot a police officer and the owner of the shop. The police officer lived, the woman owning the pizza shop ended in a wheelchair. Gary was caught and sentenced to 14 years in prison. 

Source

He could have gotten out much earlier, but he started to write these weird letters to the media. One was titled Blueprint for Urban Warfare where he told about horrible things he would do if he ever got out like massacres, bombing buildings, poisoning water supplies and having cigarette machines dispensing fingers. People started to worry and they passed a law to keep him locked up for the rest of his life. 

His behavior became more erratic and he started to harm himself, landing him in the hospital over 70 times He self mutilated, swallowing razor blades and corrosive liquids, hammering nails into his feet and even castrated himself three times, where the third time, they were unable to attach his penis. 

After he died at 38 in 1993 after swallowing razor blades, it is believed he stayed in the asylum he never escaped from, haunting his former room at Aradale Lunatic Asylum. Those who have visited the room have heard someone screaming at them to get out as well as a push, trying to get them out the door. 

The Haunted Superintendent Office

Those walking past the room that used to be the former Superintendent at Aradale Lunatic Asylum have come back with strange tales. It’s more of a feeling and sensation than something they see or hear. 

Some believe it must be the energy of Dr. William L. Mullen who was the medical superintendent. Severely depressed, he ended his life by swallowing cyanide in 1912. He was found in his bed by his housekeeper the next morning. 

Why he did this is not known to the public. He had lost his first wife a little over a year before his death. He had remarried three weeks before his death, but still chose to end his life and is thought to haunt the asylum. 

Nurse Kerry in the Women’s Ward

It’s not just a single room or hallway said to be haunted by Nurse Kerry, but the entire ward. Guides and visitors claim to have seen a woman wearing an old fashioned nurse uniform and her heels are clicking in the halls as she is still going about her duty in her afterlife. She is seen vanishing into thin air as she passes through the thick stone walls and whispering softly to her patients as she did in life. 

Although she is said to be a helpful ghost at Aradale Lunatic Asylum, people also claim to feel a tingling sensation in their head when entering into the shock therapy room and the surgery theaters. 

Nurse Kerry is probably a name given after she started appearing as a ghost, but it is said that she used to work at the asylum in the 1800s, said to might have died of typhoid. 

The Notorious J Ward for the Criminals

Another ward thought to be haunted is the notorious J Ward where they kept the criminally insane. It used to be The County Gaol before temporarily being a place where they kept the criminally insane. The temporary solution ended up lasting for a long time. People report feeling suddenly ill and full of terror as they enter the building. There are those claiming to have been bitten or pusheed as they walk through the J Ward. 

The haunting from the ward could come from numerous people that were kept here. Some say that it is the ghosts of three prisoners who were hanged and buried on the property. Because they weren’t buried properly with graves only marked with three scratches on the prison wall, they are lingering. 

There are listed three executions on the J Ward, of Andrew Vere in 1870 who shot and killed a person, serial killer Robert Francis Burns in 1883 and Henry Morgan in 1884 who cut throat murdered 10 year old Margaret Nolan after sexually assaulting her. 

All three executed prisoners were buried within the walls of the prison in accordance with the Criminal Law and Practice Statute 1864 and are now laid to rest in Old Ararat Cemetery in marked graves. 

Aradale Lunatic Asylum – a cautionary tale

Aradale Lunatic Asylum is a cautionary tale of the mistreatment of the mentally ill and the dangers of unchecked power. One often think that this type of institutionalised tortur only happened back in the olden days, but the last damning report of the asylum was only a couple of decades ago.  

The asylum’s dark history is a reminder of the importance of treating mental illness with care and compassion, and of the need for oversight and accountability in mental health care practices. As we explore the abandoned halls of Aradale, we are reminded of the lives that were lost and the suffering that occurred within its walls. 

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References:

Aradale Mental Hospital – Wikipedia

15 Sep 1886 – SUDDEN DEATH OF THE GOVERNOR OF ARARAT GAOL. – Trove

Garry David – Wikipedia

J Ward – Wikipedia

Robert Francis Burns (1840-1883) – Find a Grave Memorial

Henry Morgan (1838-1884) – Find a Grave Memorial

21 Aug 1912 – SUICIDE OF A DOCTOR. – Trove 

suicide of a doctor – Newspapers.com™

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Cork District Mental Hospital and its Horrible History

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What former asylum doesn’t have a haunted reputation? The Cork District Mental Hospital has gone under many names, but with the same hauntingly horrible reputation where the living conditions, treatments and life of the patients still linger as a dark shadow over the place.

In the heart of County Cork, Ireland, stands a place that has long stirred both curiosity and fear—a site where the echoes of the past reverberate with chilling tales and lingering apparitions. Cork District Mental Hospital, also known by various names like Our Lady’s Hospital, Eglinton Lunatic Asylum, St. Kevin’s Hospital as well as the Irish name, Ospidéal Mhuire has cemented its status as a place where the line between the living and the spectral blurs into the realm of the unexplained.

Cork District Mental Hospital, with its tangled history and evolving identity, has become synonymous with the supernatural and is reportedly haunted according to those that visit the ominous looking building overlooking the river Lee. 

Read More: Check out all of the ghost stories from Ireland

In the days when it was known as Eglinton Lunatic Asylum, it served as a place of refuge for those grappling with the unfathomable complexities of the human mind. The halls of the asylum bore witness to countless stories of suffering and despair, as patients sought solace within its walls. As the institution evolved, so did the ghostly legends that became intertwined with its history.

The Asylum with Horrible Living Conditions

It wasn’t just a place of healing though, as the asylum grappled with the same thing a lot of other institutions did, overcrowding being a main factor. Reports done by the inspector of mental hospitals said it was a vermin-infested and dark place, the rooms were dirty and some of the patients were incarcerated after being guilty of nothing and had no reason for being locked up there. 

In the 1930s they reported there were no soap or towels for the patients, and no curtains covering the windows that were covered by plywood instead. There weren’t even toilet seats and the bathroom was dirty. 

Read More: Check out Hauntings at the Weston State Hospital or the Trans-Allegheny Asylum, Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital and Poveglia Island — The Most Haunted Place in the World as well.

The patients had to spend their own money and buy washing machines the female patients in one ward could use. In 1937, the Cork Examiner described it as a chapter of horrors and a total disgrace in terms of taking care of patients. 

The Asylum turned to Apartments

Deinstitutionalization heralded the closure of the asylum, marking the end of an era in psychiatric care when it closed its doors in 1992. Some long term blocks remained open until 2009. Even then the conditions were said to have been horrible for the day’s standard. 

The once-imposing structure was transformed into a residential area, its walls no longer holding the tormented souls of its former residents. However, tales of the supernatural lingered on, etching themselves into the collective memory of County Cork.

The Haunting of the Asylum

Even today, as modernity has taken root in the former asylum’s grounds, whispers of apparitions, disturbing sounds, and ungodly atmospheres persist. The stories of those who once sought refuge within these walls refuse to fade away, leaving behind an undeniable aura of unease.

When a devastating fire destroyed much of the building in 2017, people remembered just how dark the story of the old building comes with.  The boundaries between the past and the present blur as they traverse its now-residential streets, allowing the spectral echoes of the institution’s past to wash over them.

People have on several platforms shared their stories about the strange things they encountered when they used to work there, or visited after it was closed. Some things, sounds and sights were just unexplainable and many believe it to be haunted. 

Cork District Mental Hospital, County Cork’s haunting relic, continues to captivate and terrify in equal measure. It stands as a place where history and the supernatural coexist, where the ghosts of the past refuse to rest, and where the unexplained continues to send shivers down the spine of those who dare to explore its shadowy corridors.

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References:

Our Lady’s Hospital, Cork – Wikipedia 

History of St Kevin’s: A mental health institution that incarcerated innocent people in filthy conditions

The ghosts of Eglinton Asylum 

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High Street Ghost House in the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex

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On High Street in Hong Kong there is a haunted house with a long history of housing nurses as well as patients that are now haunting the building known as the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex 

High Street, Hong Kong, is a one way street filled with stories and culture that connects to the Bonham Road and Pok Fu Lam Road in the Sai Ying Pun district, that referred to the military camps as it used to be a place where the British stayed.

The area above High Street was assigned to Europeans only and the Chinese were excluded from living there once upon a time. The street itself used to be called Fourth Street, but since the connotation with bad luck and death in China, the street changed its name to High Street. 

Read also: Haunted Numbers

And the reputation of the street is like the reputation of its former name, haunted and cursed. So take a tour down High Street with us to experience all that this iconic destination has to offer.

As you stroll along High Street, you’ll encounter many sites and monuments of note, such as parks, schools, markets and mansions. One of the buildings is the Sai Ying Pun Complex (西營盤社區綜合大樓). 

The High Street Haunted House

There are some dark mysteries surrounding the streets of High Street in Hong Kong. The Sai Ying Pun Community complex dates back to 1892 when it was built for hosting European nurses working at the Civil Hospital until World War II.

Sai Ying Pun Community Complex

There was a lot to do, as even the bubonic plague ravaged the district in 1894 that wiped out entire streets and some of the ghost stories you hear about it today is from the unfortunate patients that didn’t make it. 

Read More: Check out all our collection of ghost stories from China

The Sai Ying Pun Community Complex was also where they reportedly executed people when the Japanese occupied China during World War II. 

After the war the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex was turned into an asylum where the building was for female patients and what most locals know the building for. It was one of its kind back then and known as the mental asylum. This closed its doors in 1961 after the opening of Castle Peak Mental Hospital, but served as a day treatment center until 1971.

Read more: Haunted Hospitals and Asylums

Since then the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex has been known for being one of the most haunted places in Hong Kong and often the building was simply called High Street Ghost House. 

High Street Ghost House

In the 70s, the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex was largely abandoned except for drug addicts from the nearby methadone clinic and teenagers coming to spray graffiti and talk about the ghosts they claimed to see there. There is not really one specific story about the building, but most dates back to its time as the mental hospital.

The ghost stories from the High Street Ghost House also bled through into the urban legends and ghost stories from the metro stations that were built underneath the area as well were stories about the ghost of the mental hospital wandered down to the underground stations.

Today the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex is a protected 9 storey building on the site with the arched verandas. There have been reports about headless ghosts roaming the corridors of the community complex and it is said it’s the spirits of the murdered victims and patients that died there. 

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References:

High Street | LANDMARK

Sai Ying Pun Community Complex – Wikipedia 

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Top Found Footage and Mockumentaries Horror Movies

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Some movies were made to make fun of overly serious documentaries, some were made under the disguise as a documentary to make the story more believable. This is a list of some of the best horror movies made in a found footage or a mockumentary style.

The rise of the found footage horror movie genre or the mockumentary style of storytelling has made it so the living legend of believing a story makes it better, especially before the time of the internet were the story wouldn’t be revealed as fake the second you did a google search and found the story behind it was fake.

The mockumentary type of telling a horror story has also made it so that production value is not the main point to make a movie successful or not, as many of the best found footage movies has been very low budget. This has also made the way of producing these movies more democratic and not necessarily having to depend on a big Hollywood studio to fund the production. This has made it so that diverse moviesand foreign countries has broken into the mainstream media on a global scale they probably wouldn’t have if the audience had expected a production of Hollywood money.

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The Blair Witch Project

To begin with the one movie that rules them all, the mothership of the mockumentary, especially the horror genre one, that made it into the mainstream box office and cinemas all around the world. The Blair Witch Project from 1999 made it big, and to this day have a lingering effect on the movies that came after as well as creating a legend of its own that to this day some people still believe.

The Blair Witch Project is thought to be the first widely released film marketed primarily by the Internet. During screenings, the filmmakers made advertising efforts to promulgate the events in the film as factual, including the distribution of flyers at festivals such as Sundance, asking viewers to come forward with any information about the “missing” students. The backstory for the film is a legend fabricated by Sánchez and Myrick which is detailed in the Curse of the Blair Witch, a mockumentary broadcast on the SciFi Channel on July 12, 1999. Sánchez and Myrick also maintain a website which adds further details to the legend.

Synopsis: It is a fictional story of three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard—who hike into the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland, in 1994 to film a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch. The three disappear, but their equipment and footage are discovered a year later.

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Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum

This South Korean movie took an already existing legend of a haunted asylum that were popular and well known and turned it into a box office success, both at home and abroad. Before the release of the film, the owner of the asylum filed a lawsuit against the film being shown in theaters, claiming that the film will have negative effects on the sale of the building. However, a Seoul court in late March 2018 ruled in favor of the film being shown.

Synopsis: The narrative centers around a horror web series crew looking for the paranormal that travels to an abandoned asylum for a live broadcast in order to garner views and publicity.

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Cloverfield

Many movies on these entries were made on a low budget and by people that may not had broken into the field just yet. But then came Cloverfield that showed strong muscles and Hollywood heavyweights. J.J Abrams came up with the idea for the movie when he went to Japan and saw Godzilla toys with his son in shops. And thus, the American monster was born and a crossover between Blair Witch and a Hollywood blockbuster was made with a horror spin.

Synopsis: The film follows six young New York City residents fleeing from a massive monster and various other smaller creatures that attack the city while they are having a farewell party. We follow them as they try to survive and get to safety from the attack and monsters.

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[•REC]

This Spanish movie from 2007 was later given many sequels as well as American remakes in light of the first movies success. The film was a commercial and critical success. It is now recognized as one of the early successes, and one of the best films in the found footage genre as well as various list of horror movies at all.

Synopsis: The film follows a reporter and her cameraman as they accompany a group of firefighters on an emergency call to an apartment building. The situation quickly escalates after an infection begins spreading inside, with the building being sealed up and all occupants ordered to follow a strict quarantine.

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Willow Creek

On a fresh, but still a classic take on the lingering Bigfoot legend of America, the movie from 2013 has enough of flannel, pilot sunglasses and forest as far as eye can see, just like a classic American horror movie should have. The movie also came out in a time when the found footage movies was a more well established genre and showed that the audience were still up for a shaky camera angle, even though there was no rumours about the actors being dead or anything.

Synopsis: Set in Humboldt County, California, Jim (Bryce Johnson), a stout believer in Bigfoot, and his girlfriend Kelly (Alexie Gilmore) are traveling to Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California, where Jim plans to shoot his own Bigfoot footage at the site of the Patterson–Gimlin film.

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Paranormal Activity

Paranormal Activity used the hype of mockumentaries and took it all the way. And after a number of sequels, prequels and spinoffs, bot official and unofficial, we can safely conclude that this was a very successful franchise if nothing else. The producers used a home camera and relied heavily on improvisation from the actors to make it as believable as possible.

Synopsis: It centers on a young couple (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) who are haunted by a supernatural presence in their home. They then set up a camera to document what is haunting them. And through it, they find more than they ever could dream of as a demonic presence is getting to them.

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Troll Hunter

The Norwegian found footage movie has turned into a cult classic of working well as a huge dose of dry nordic comedy as well as a horror adventure movie. Combining modern bureaucratic Norway with its whimsical superstitious roots, the movie captured something about the old and past and how we as humans are still not over old folklore of the Trolls.

Synopsis: A group of students from Volda University College, Thomas, Johanna and their cameraman Kalle, set out to make a documentary about a suspected bear poacher, Hans. But they soon find out that it is not a bear at all he is hunting, but something far more dangerous and supernatural.

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What We Do In The Shadows

On a lighter note, this mockumentary by the New Zealanders Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi is more of a comedy than horror flick that breathed new life into the vampire genre as well as giving old vampire tropes and lore a comeback in mainstream media.

Synopsis: Viago, Deacon, and Vladislav are vampires who are struggling with the mundane aspects of modern life in Wellington, New Zealand, like paying rent, keeping up with the chore wheel, trying to get into nightclubs, and overcoming flatmate conflicts as well as battling with immortality, the sun and the local werewolfs.

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Cannibal Holocaust

If we can call The Blair Witch Project the found footage horror movie’s parent, this movie can be called its ancestor.

It is considered by many to be one of the goriest movies that have been made. Ten days after its premiere in Milan in 1979, the film was seized by the Italian courts and director Ruggero Deodato was arrested and charged with obscenity and the murder of the actors, a rumour that would last for a long time.

In reality, the cast had signed contracts requiring them to disappear for a year after shooting to maintain the illusion that they had died. However, when he was arrested, Deodato contacted the actor Luca Barbareschi and told him to contact the three other actors who played the missing film team. When the actors appeared in court, alive and well, the murder charges were dropped.

Synopsis: During a rescue mission into the Amazon rainforest, a professor stumbles across lost film shot by a missing documentary crew that met an unfortunate and gory end.

PS! Although the deaths of the actors were revealed to have been a lie, the animal deaths in the film were real by the way.

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Hauntings at the Weston State Hospital or the Trans-Allegheny Asylum

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Many of the patients spent most of their lives inside of the walls of the old and overcrowded asylum then known as Weston State Hospital as well as the Trans-Allegheny Asylum. Some even say that some of the souls will spend the rest of eternity in this old asylum. 

The asylum was first built in the period between 1858 to 1881. During the Civil War it was used as a base for soldiers and the completion of the hospital happened first after the war. 

It was back then known as the Weston State Hospital, although it best known by its original name today: The Trans-Allegheny Asylum.

It opened the doors in 1864 with nine patients and was supposed to be a fresh start to cure the insane? But after it closed the doors, it became known as one of America’s most haunted places. How was it possible? For that we have to go back to when the now haunted asylum opened its fresh coated doors. 

Read about more haunted asylums around the world: Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital

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The New Era for the Insane

The man behind the building that is now filled with rumors of ghosts and ghouls was Thomas Story Kirkbride who is considered to be one of the fathers of the modern American practice of psychiatry. The building was built after what was known as the Kirkbride plans which was the golden standard for mental hospitals in the 19th century. 

The architecture was supposed to be spacious and receive a lot of direct sunlight to comfort the patients. The hospitals were usually built out in green and lush places. The very word asylum used to mean a place of comfort. The idea that they would remove the inflicted person from the environment, would supposedly help cure them. 

But although the base philosophy was moral care and kindness, the reality turned out to be something completely different as the spacious rooms became overcrowded with patients that never recieved their cure. 

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The Patients Haunting the Asylum

Although it was seen as an innovative and modern way of dealing with the mentally ill back then, today we look at it as quite barbaric. For instance the patients were admitted with diagnoses like hereditary, menstrual  and even masturbation, as they thought this habit caused mental illness.

Some of the more unusual listings but still accepted as diagnoses were: “novel reading,”  “doubt about his mother’s ancestors,” “marriage of son,” “Salvation Army,” “seduction and disappointment,” among some of the reasons we today would consider just silly. 

And the supposed cure they promised was reported as being at only 26 percent. Many succumbed to the horrible conditions at the hospital, suicide or even murder. Even the methods that were put in to cure your affliction could end up killing you. It is estimated that around 50 000 people died in the hospital while it was operating from 1864 to 1994. 

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Horrible Conditions

When the asylum was first built it was supposed to hold up to 250 people. It was built with a lot of space as the idea was that the patients should be able to roam about the premise free as part of their cure. 

But soon the asylum got crowded, at most it had ten times more patients than it should have. By the peak in the 1950s, the asylum housed over 2400 patients. They were sleeping maybe up to five people in dirty rooms on the floor in freezing rooms. The windows were almost blacked out by the dirt and mold with the wallpapers peeling in the decay. 

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The care for the patients also declined. And although the hospital philosophy was to use as little restraint as possible, it became increasingly more difficult as the overcrowding kept happening and only getting worse into the new century. And the use of straightjackets, cuffs, bed straps and cribs were frequent. 

It wasn’t only for the patients that the condition was bad. The staff also had its problems. There are several records of female employees being raped on duty. There is also a story about a nurse who went missing. They didn’t find the rotting body at the bottom of an unused staircase before two months passed. 

Lobotomies, Electroshock and Ice Baths

It wasn’t only the rooms and amounts of patients that were a problem at the asylum. It was also the treatments. When it was at its worst, the asylum was also a place where they began experimenting with some experimental lobotomies in the 1930s. 

These lobotomies left the patients, some even perfectly healthy before the procedure, with brain damage and hemorrhages. It is estimated that over 4000 of these experiments were performed at this asylum. 

There was also a spread of electroconvulsive therapy and hydrotherapy. Hydrotherapy was widely used in the first half of the 20th century and was a cold bath where the patient had to sit for hours, sometimes even days. 

Electroshock Therapy was given up to several times a day and some also suffered permanent brain damage from it in the long run.

The End of the Asylum

Although some were considered cured and helped during their stay at the hospital, many patients held great resentment towards the place and the staff. One even tried to burn it to the ground in 1935. 

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The asylum closed its doors for patients first in 1994. In 2007 it opened its doors for tourists and was renamed to Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum which was the original name when it first opened its doors. Here they host tours and overnight stays to tell the story, both the medical and the supposed paranormal ones. 

Ghosts Reported of in the Asylum

Lily

One of the most talked about ghosts in the old asylum is the little girl, Lily. The story differs slightly from who tells it, from her being a patient from the Civil War era that died from pneumonia when she was 9. Some even say that she was born in the asylum. 

She usually plays in a room on the 4th floor in Ward R. This was once a place for violent women. She is often seen in her playroom, where you can hear her both crying and laughing.

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There have been several claims to exactly who she is. In one paranormal investigation series, she featured in one of their episodes. There the psychist Tammy Wilson met a girl around nine years old wearing a white dress. Her mother started with the letter E came to the hospital already pregnant. Her parents died though and both her and her daughter had to live their remaining days at the asylum. 

According to the producers, they actually found records of a woman beginning with an E and gave birth in the 1920s. Could it be Lily?

Big Jim

One of the more scarier ghost is Big Jim, said to have murdered another patient with a bedpost. He is said to haunt the third floor together with a murdered man who was bludgeoned to death after the murdered failed to hang him. 

James

A ghost who is said to have died of a heart attack in the bathtub. 

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Ruth

On the first floor of the building you can find the ghost of former patient Ruth. She haunts this place which is called the Civil War Wing. Apparently she hated men and used to throw things at them, someone says she still does it to this day. 

Nurse Elizabeth

Another ghost that is haunting the third floor is that of Nurse Elizabeth. Not much are known of her. 

Civil War Soldiers

From its story stretching all the way back to the civil war, there wouldn’t be a story complete without a soldier ghost. Although not specified as being from the civil war in all the sources, there is a ghost named Jacob who are haunting the hallways of the fourth floor. 

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Slewfoot

One person nicknamed Slewfoot is said to haunt the upper floors. He is said to have committed many of the murders in the upstairs bathroom and supposedly haunts the area. 

Other Ghosts

In Ward 2 on the second floor there is a room where a man was stabbed 17 times by another patient and still haunts it. In another room there were two patients that hanged themselves from the curtain rods and have been seen as shadowy figures.

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Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum one of WV’s most haunted spots (FlipSide)

 THE CIVIL WAR-HISTORY AND HERITAGE TRANS-ALLEGHENY LUNATIC ASYLUM

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ghost-tour-mental-hospital

Weston State Hospital

I Spent the Night in a Haunted Asylum and I Still Can’t Explain What I Saw – Washingtonian

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and the Haunting Enigma of Lily

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, Weston, West Virginia – Legends of America

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Poveglia Island — The Most Haunted Place in the World

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The haunted Poveglia Island has always been a place for the unwanted. It has been a place for plague victims, a psychiatric hospital and burial ground. Today it’s known for being one of the most haunted places in the world. 

Today, even fishermen avoid the Poveglia Island, not only because it is forbidden to go there. On clear days you can allegedly see skulls and bones under the surface. If a skull is caught in the fishing net, the fisherman will just dump it all back into the sea. There are no fish that are worth taking from the cursed plague island. 

The Plague Island

Most of the legends started when the government closed off the whole island because of cases of the plague. There have been found numerous plague pits of dead bodies. Over the years it turned into a dumping ground of the undesired to isolate them from the rest of the population. According to locals there have been over 160 000 deaths on the island of no return. According to the legends, the ground on Poveglia Island consists of half dirt and half human ashes. 

Read Also: The Plague of the Past?

The Plague Island: Plague mask and tools for disinfecting letters discovered on Poveglia island by Theodor Weyl in 1889.

People with the plague were shipped off to this island, both the dead as well as those still alive. From 1776 it was used as a quarantine station for ships that were coming and going from Venice, although it had been used as a quarantine station way before that as well. Most notably in 1348 when Venice was hit with the Bubonic Plague, more commonly known as the Black Death. It is said you had to stay on the island for 40 days to see if you would die or survive. The word quarantine comes from the Italian quaranta, meaning 40. 

The Vampires on Poveglia Island

Because of the death toll the island saw, the locals started calling it the Island of Ghosts. But it wasn’t the only fear the Venetians had of the dead that had their final resting place there. They were also afraid of Vampires living on the Poveglia Island. 

When people rediscovered these mass graves of the plague pits, they noticed something strange about some of the skeletons. Some were found with large rocks between their jaws, and it is believed that the Venetians did this because they believed they were vampires. 

A scientific explanation of this of course is the decomposition gasses that caused internal organs to rupture. Sometimes, blood came out from these organs and out from the dead bodies mouth. So when the Venetians opened up the plague pits to put more people into it, they were sometimes met with dead bodies with bloody mouths, looking like they had just been feasting on human flesh. That is at least what we hope happened, as the paranormal explanation is so much worse. 

The Mad Doctor in the Belltower

In 1922 the whole Poveglia Island turned into an asylum to hide away the mentally ill. Because a cursed island is not complete before having operated as an asylum. The patients supposedly reported seeing ghosts of the plague victims all the time, but who would take a pshycriatic patient’s visions of ghosts seriously in an asylum?

Read Also: Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital

But it wasn’t only plague victims from the past that were torturing the patients. Their doctors were as well. According to legends, there was this one doctor who took to experiment and torture his patients in the bell tower. Apparently he used to do these crude lobotomies with a hammer and a chisel into the patient’s brain.  

Cursed Asylum: View of Poveglia in the Lagoon of Venice. Closeup of the Hospital and the belltower.//source//Chris 73

Exactly what happened in the bell tower with the patients, we will never really know. He himself died when he fell from that very same tower sometime in the 1930s. Some say he went mad and threw himself off, some say it was the angry spirits of those he tortured and killed who drove him to it. 

The fall from the tower itself didn’t kill him immediately, but he died from the wounds not long after. Together with his victims, he now haunts Poveglia Island that no one returns from. 

The mental hospital closed down in 1968 and Poveglia Island has been vacant ever since. Or has it? 

The Ghost of Little Maria

Although the fishermen in the lagoon try to stay away from Poveglia Island, it is impossible not to hear the screams and the moans coming from it at times. Even the bell from the bell tower can be heard at times, even though the bell was removed from the towers years ago. 

One of the more known ghosts is called ‘Little Maria’. she has been spotted on Poveglia Island for more than 400 years now and is considered to most likely have been one of the plague victims that never returned. She is forever doomed now to walk along the beach on Poveglia Island as she cries for help to get away. 

The Forbidden Island

Getting there is hard as Poveglia Island is off limits and its remaining buildings in desperate need of repair. This is fuelling the legends of the island being haunted. But does anyone really want to stay on the island themselves? It is said to be a haunted place by the locals, believing that the very soil, mixed with the ashes of people laid to rest there, made the very ground cursed. 

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https://no.hotels.com/go/italy/venice-haunted-spots

Poveglia Island – The Little House of Horrors

Inside Poveglia Island, Venice’s Haunted Quarantine For The Black Plague

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Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital

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Arguably the most famous haunted place in South Korea is the Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital. When it was still standing it attracted a lot of ghost hunters, curious tourists and urban explorers. What was it behind the place that drew all these people?

One of the allegedly most haunted places in South-Korea was the Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital (곤지암 남양신경정신병원). It was closed down in the 90s and the owner left the country after not documenting for the public the reason why it closed down according to myth. And the legends, rumours and tales started spinning, everything from murderous patients, mad doctors and so on.

So spooky did the world find this place that even foreign TV-station CNN called it one of the world’s most freakiest places in 2012, really making it an international destination for thrillseekers. Today however the empty building been torn down. But before that it managed to become one of the biggest hotspots for ghost seekers in Korea.

Let’s see how the abandoned hospital became known as one of the most haunted places in the country and unravel some of the legends it became known for before being demolished with nothing left but its legend.

The Asylum: This is how the abandoned hospital looked before being demolished in 2018, hidden away between trees at the foot of a mountain..

Abandoned Asylum in the Mountains

Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital was a building near the small city of Gwangju outside of Seoul in a residential area at the foot of a mountain. The old ruins of the abandoned hospital was just remote enough to be considered a spooky and haunted asylum tucked away in the mountains, and close enough to visit from big places like Seoul to spread the word of ghosts and mad doctors. Much to the locals’ nuisance as they have hated the rumours about the place that have drawn people from all over the world to trespass to have a look for themselves.

According to those who tried to find their way there, the locals around the place are not so forthcoming with giving directions to the site. This of course has fueled the excitement for the urban explorers and paranormal researchers alike, and every year thousands of people broke through the barriers to get a glimpse of the allegedly haunted asylum. 

The Mad Doctor at Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital

So what really went down inside Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital before closing? Let’s have a look at what the legend claims happened inside of the supposed haunted asylum.

The Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital first opened its doors in 1961 and was a full functioning one all the way up to July 1996. Nurses took care of the patients on the three floor hospital and the doctors made their rounds, just as expected. But over the course of the last decade the hospital was in operation, mysterious things kept happening according to the legends the place left. 

Read About More Haunted Hospitals Around the World in the MoonMausoleum

The story goes that the patients started dying mysteriously without a good explanation. In addition to dying patients, there were also some of the staff that went missing and turned up dead in the rooms inside of the hospital. From a medical standpoint it was first believed that it could be an infection seeing as it also afflicted some of the patients family members as well, but no, it turned out to be something much more sinister. 

Apparently it was the owner of the asylum who went insane himself and kept many of the patients prisoners and killing them one by one until he was stopped. It wasn’t until the government came to investigate because of the missing staff that he was caught and fled to America, causing the hospital to shut down. 

There were also rumours about the director of the hospital took his own life after being found out to be behind the dead patients and missing staff, becoming one of the souls haunting the place.

But even after the mad doctor was caught, the souls of the victims could never be at peace, long after the hospital closed down and became forgotten for a long time as time ate away at the building.

According to the locals, screams had been heard coming from the abandoned building along with mysterious figures lurking around the dark hospital, believing it to be the haunted souls of the asylum. Poor victims that turned to vengeful spirits, haunting the premise and seeking revenge on those who wronged them.

The people that dared to visit the haunted asylum to check out the stories told of scary encounters they could only explain as paranormal. There were reports of dropping temperatures when it suddenly turned cold on a hot summer’s day, opening and closing of the heavy doors without a draft and they kept hearing voices of people that weren’t there.

The Legend of the Haunted Hospital Grows

Although Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital was such a well known place, the facts of the asylum’s history is hazy, especially after it has been mixed in with unverified legends and blockbuster movies. In 2008 a ghost hunter show showcased the hospital where they brought on shamans and reported that there indeed was something going on in the place.

It was not the only “documentary” that were made of the former hospital and helped to make it a well known building in the entire country and beyond.

The Documentary of the Ghost of Gonjiam: The ghost hunter “documentary” series Ghostspot aired an episode in 2008 about the legends of Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital. This definitely helped further the legends of the place and made the whole nation aware of its existence.

The culmination and peak of the legend must have been when the movies like commercial successful Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (Korean: 곤지암) from 2018 didn’t help to quench the rumours about the asylum being haunted by ghosts. Although the movie itself was primarily filmed at Busan National Maritime High School, a supposed haunted place in itself, it capitalized on the legend behind Gonjiam.

It was kind of a big controversy when Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum came out in theaters as the owner of the building tried to stop the movie as he feared it would affect the property value.

But he lost and the movie was aired, making it a paranormal hot spot to visit once again, despite of the owner trying to keep people out. Barbed wire, cameras and warning signs have tried to keep visitors out since it closed down, to no avail. And the legend would not stop until the whole building disappeared. 

Unraveling the Legends Behind Gonjiam

So why did Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital close down then if not for a mad doctor, missing nurses and murdered patients? More mundane reasons like financial difficulties, unsanitary conditions and big problems with the sewage systems according to the owners of the building was most likely the case. And with the water pipes not up to modern standard, they had no choice to pay up or shut down.

The director that was rumoured to have taken his own life had really just started to work at another hospital after Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital closed down. The children of the director inherited the hospital, but the costs of operating the hospital was too big and they decided to let it fall into ruin, perhaps not realising the stories an abandoned building can create.

In regards to the missing staff and murdered patients at the hospital, there are no evidence for it at all. According to a journalist making a piece on the Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital, they found out there had been no suspicious reports about the hospital over the years about missing people and dead patients.

The source to this article delving into the truth behind the claims was among others a policeman in the local police district. In fact, the patients that resided in Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital were supposedly transferred to Yongin mental hospital after the hospital closed down.

Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital Movie: The movie based on the legend from 2018 was a box office success. Screenshot from that iconic scene. //Photo: Source: IMDB

So, although alive in legend, the former hospital and legendary haunted building is no longer there for those curious about the legend to see for yourself and we have to make due with movies, picture and old footage. In 2018 Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital was demolished, the same year that the movie made the legend last forever on film.

There are plans that it may be a new apartment building at the place, further erasing the history and creating a new one at the foot of the mountain. So perhaps now the legend of Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital will die out as an actual place and story, as the building can no longer attract the curious people looking for a thrilling legend? Or maybe the spirits of the place now just lost their home?

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Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital – Gwangju-si, South Korea

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum

Best time for Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital in South Korea 2021

A Creepy Afternoon Alone in an Abandoned Hospital- Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospitalgonjiam-psychiatric-hospital-patients-started-dying-mysteriously-know-the-horror-behind-it

[ESC] 공포영화 ‘곤지암’ 실화냐? 정신병원 괴담의 실체

귀신 나온다는 ‘한국 3대 흉가’는 조작됐다

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5 Horror Movies with Kick Ass Black Characters

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Can we say that Jordan Peele with his two movies, Get Out and Us, made his mark on horror cinema? Yes, I think we really can. His fine line of horror, social commentary and comedy is so well balanced it makes us wonder what the hell we were watching before. And it also have given a voice to black people through the genre as well as killing some tired tropes of black people dying pretty fast. So, here are some other horror movies that came before with some kick ass black protagonists in them.

Night of the living dead (1968)

With: Duane Jones

Director George A. Romero’s classic, Night of the living dead, turned cinema upside down. He was a pioneer in many ways. That includes iconifying the zombies, casting a black man as his starring role, and letting him be the bad ass survivor that he was. It seems stupid by calling that a pioneer, but that is the stupid world we live in. In any case, the role of Ben, played by Duane Jones is still some of the most kick-ass characters in one of the most kick-ass movies there is.

Synopsis: A ragtag group of Pennsylvanians barricade themselves in an old farmhouse to remain safe from a bloodthirsty, flesh-eating breed of monsters who are ravaging the East Coast of the United States. Who knows what would have happened if the horror genre just continued to treat their black characters like this?

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28 days later (2002)

With: Naomie Harris

Director Danny Boyle, claims he didn’t set out to make a zombie movie, but no matter what his intentions were, he ended up with reinventing the whole genre. On the DVD commentary, Boyle explains that, with the aim of preserving the suspension of disbelief, relatively unknown actors were cast in the film. Cillian Murphy had starred primarily in small independent films, while Naomie Harris had acted on British television as a child. It is perhaps weird to think of her as a relative unknown actress today, but hey, the movie is a couple of years old, and Naomie Harries looks and kick-ass as she did back then. As the kick ass Selena, she is the one character that got the comic book spin off and that the audience follows. (Heads up: Most of the zombie-characters that are actually great and memorable are black. Remember Ben, Selena and Michonne. Whatever that is a metaphor for, I think we will leave to the reader.)

Synopsis: Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary.

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I am legend (2007)

With: Will Smith

A lot of white actors were considered to play the lead role, including Tom Cruise, Nicolas Cage, Michael Douglas, Mel Gibson, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Ted Levine. It was after all what could be called: A confirmed white man. Whatever that mean, whatever, whatever. But it went to Will Smith when Francis Lawrence directed the movie, and gave way of putting many black characters in a blockbuster horror movie. As it should as Will Smith is sort of the only great thing about this movie. (Not to say I don’t like it, but…)

Synopsis: Years after a plague kills most of humanity and transforms the rest into monsters, the sole survivor in New York City struggles valiantly to find a cure in this post-apocalyptic action thriller.

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Gothika (2003)

With: Halle Berry

Yes, they did try to give Halle Berry a razzie for this role. But it is still alive and kicking on various streaming sites, and it is Halle Berry, so it makes the list. Her role was of a kick-ass, well educated black woman that saves the day and herself (of a white man’s oppression if we read into it a bit.) It is worth watching the movie if only for that fact, even if the script is a bit… well, silly…

Synopsis: A depressed female psychiatrist wakes up as a patient in the asylum where she worked, with no memory of why she is there or what she has done.

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Seven (1995)

With: Morgan Freeman

It might be more of a thriller than a horror actually, but it got Morgan Freeman in it, so hey! It is also so well received and made, it needs to be remembered. And I don’t think I need to tell anybody about how kick-ass Freeman is, it’s just the most unnecessary thing, we all know, he played GOD for heavens sake!

Synopsis: Two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, hunt a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his motives.

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