Original subtitles

There are some objects that harbor spirits within them.

When I saw the video, my jaw just fell.

He turns his head and looks at me, and then turns his head back. It was one of

the creepiest things I have ever seen.

And when that spirit is angry... Fear me. It said, fear me, through the ghost

box. It will stop at nothing to get what it wants. I'm literally having a heart

attack. Stephen!

Stephen! Norman was trying to kill me to get rid of me. Stephen!

In America, there is real evil.

It lurks in the darkest shadows and in our most ordinary towns.

Between the worlds we see... Someone's in my room.

And the things we fear, there are doors when they are opened.

Nightmares become reality.

My name is Stephen Lancaster.

I am a paranormal investigator. I have seen a lot of things, but never.

seen anything like this.

There was definitely the beginnings of a haunting. I just couldn't predict

exactly how far it would go.

Off the coast of North Carolina sits the small town of Buleville, home to

paranormal investigators Stephen and his fiancée Christina.

I had met Christina.

In the field of paranormal research, at a class I was teaching, she was one of

the students.

Let me know if you need assistance or have any questions.

Okay, thank you.

Me and Steven were friends for years before we started dating.

We loved to go to antique stores and find rare and unusual things.

I look for anything that calls out to me.

It has to have some kind of feeling for me.

Suddenly, something catches Stephen's eye.

I just happened to look up and it just stood out to me.

It was this high chair with a wooden box sitting in it.

Wow, that's cool.

I wonder what's inside.

Looks like someone doesn't want us to find out.

Lock's been sawed off.

Somebody had popped the lock out, so there was no way to unlatch the lock.

This is definitely something somebody didn't want anybody into.

So I pulled out this little pocket knife. I always carry a pocket knife

with me.

What are you doing?

Don't you want to find out what's inside?

Shimmy did inside.

and just pried the thing open.

Oh, man.

There was this ugly doll inside.

This thing's creepy.

I've always had a fascination with dolls.

I'd collect dolls.

I have a bunch of them, but it was the kind of thing that I like.

I don't like just any doll. It's older dolls. I just think they have a lot of

character.

He'd fit right into our collection.

What do you think?

Let's do it.

Welcome to the family.

Whatever your name is.

I'd like to buy this.

What I really want is the doll.

The dealers recognize the doll right away, although it's for sale.

Knowing the doll's history, they've tried to hide it.

One of them just looked at us funny, and she made some mumbly remark, and the

other one said, well, I don't know that you really want that doll.

At first, the ladies at the counter were very reluctant, I guess would be the

word to use.

This doll had a very sad start in life.

Oh, I won't bother you with it.

Oh, no, please do.

We love anything with a past.

It's a very sad story.

She said, anywhere this thing's at, sadness comes with it.

Years ago, there was a pregnant woman, and this particular doll was given to

her as a congratulations gift, you know, shortly before she had

birth.

She was pregnant with twins.

The male baby was born, stillborn.

The female lived.

She took the doll and the female child home.

The mother was totally devastated.

She was overcome with grief over the loss of her baby boy.

Just six years later, that same mother died very

tragically in a house fire.

And the doll remained with the girl twin.

Years later, the same girl brought the doll to the shop, and gave it to these

two old ladies.

I think maybe that was closure for her, that she was saying goodbye to this.

Despite the doll's sad past, Stephen and Christina purchase him for their

collection.

I'm glad he'll have a good home.

Be careful.

Thank you. Thank you.

He fits right in.

What should we name him?

I was thinking Norman.

He looks like neither doll nor man.

Norman.

It's just me. Calm down.

What are you guys doing?

I'm a mother of five.

Hannah is my youngest. She still lives at home.

Oh, God. What is that?

This is Norman.

He's the newest member of our family.

Wow.

You guys are so weird.

Uh, yeah, I'd appreciate it if you actually kept him as far away from me as

possible, so... They know I don't like dolls, and especially that type of doll,

because it's just creepy.

I heard somebody pounding at the door.

Knock, knock, knock.

Instantly, I am up and wide awake, heart pounding through my chest.

What was that?

We heard this really loud boom. It sounded like loud drumming, but it was

like bam, bam, bam.

It's the middle of the night.

I'm trying to sleep. My family's trying to sleep.

Someone's at the front door.

There was panic behind those knocks.

It's four in the morning.

I'll go check it out.

It wasn't tap, tap, tap like a Girl Scout selling cookies. It was bam, bam,

bam.

Just stay here.

I'll be right back.

There was quite a bit of anxiety.

What if somebody's down there and they have a gun or...

You know, I didn't know what their intentions were.

I walked down into the stairs, and I'm thinking, the knocks were in series of

threes. That was scary.

In the field of paranormal research, any series of three typically relate to an

evil force.

What do you want?

Stephen Lancaster has been suddenly roused from sleep by knocks on his front

door at 4 a.m.

When I opened the door, I saw nothing.

I could see as far out as the darkness would let me see, but there was nobody

there.

At first, I tried to be rational about it. It's a prank. It's dark.

It scared me to death.

Who was it?

No one.

No one was there.

Maybe just some neighborhood kids.

At 4 in the morning?

I don't know.

I was just wondering, you know, what in the world? Who was this person that was

at my door, and what did they want?

Alarmed, the couple purchases a multi-camera surveillance system.

Our cameras were installed scattered throughout the house.

One was on the front porch where it would pick up anybody's face if they

were knocking on the door.

It was there to provide answers for me.

A camera doesn't lie.

Inside and out, there wasn't a piece of ground that you could not see on the

surveillance, and the only areas we were blind to on the inside...

was Hannah's bathroom in her bedroom.

I thought it was mom because she'll come in and like grab someone from my

bathroom while I'm taking a shower or something.

Hello?

Mom?

She looked petrified. She looked more scared than I've ever seen her in her

entire life.

Are you sure? Yes, I'm sure.

You believe me, right?

I believe you think you saw something.

Can you not believe me?

We searched the house to make sure nobody was in the house.

And then we just tried to reassure her the best you can to a 16-year-old child.

But the 4 a.m. visit and Hannah's encounter in the shower have left the

family on edge.

One afternoon, Christina's grandchildren, 11-year-old Amy and 8

-year-old Adam, come by the house.

Stephen sometimes would babysit my grandchildren while I was at work and

their parents were at work and school.

I'm kind of a convenience for them because I work from home.

Who's that?

When the grandchildren came over that day, the first thing they went to was

Norman.

He's a dolly bot at an antique store.

Cool. Can I play my game?

Uh, sure.

I've got some work to do anyhow, so you guys can hang out in here with me for a

little bit.

I guess that's okay.

Adam, he wanted him. You know, he wanted to play with him.

I'd just let them do their thing.

You know, Adam watched TV, Amy played on her tablet, and I just continued

working.

I've got to grab something from the other room.

You guys stay here.

What's going on?

What do you mean the doll moved by itself?

I initially thought she did it.

They're storytellers. They're kids. They do what kids do.

Come on. What'd this thing do? Jump off the bed?

So I said, we're going to do something. We're going to watch the surveillance.

And if I see either one of you two grab that doll, I'm going to have to talk to

your mama.

You two think you're so funny.

Stephen goes back to the moment before he left the room.

When he was sitting at his desk and Norman was sitting on the bed, suddenly

he sees it.

He turns his head and looks at me.

And then turns his head back. It was one of the creepiest things I have ever

seen.

Stephen Lancaster has just recorded proof.

The doll he bought at an antique shop and named Norman is haunted.

When I pulled that surveillance clip up.

That was one of the creepiest things I have ever seen.

This doll cannot physically do that It's I still

cannot get over it

Steven

shows the video to his fiancee Christina When I saw the video my jaw just

fell I Don't know what to think I mean

How can a doll move on his own?

If anybody else ever told me that they had a doll that did that, I would have

thought they were crazy.

You know, you can't imagine things like that.

Even seeing him sit on the bed behind the kids and move his head, I had no

idea the things that Norman could do.

Suddenly, Stephen recalls what the salesperson told him when he and

Christina bought the doll.

She believes it's haunted.

Years ago, this pregnant woman was given this very doll

just before she gave birth.

She had twins.

They told me that the original owner of the doll had a visitor, a family member,

a friend, brought this doll to her as a gift.

She went into labor.

The first baby was a stillborn, which would have been the brother of the two.

And the second baby survived, which was the little girl.

And she was overcome with grief over the loss of her baby boy.

So she was convinced that the boy's spirit lived

on inside this tub.

That explains why it looks like hell.

Anything that comes from hell is bound to look like hell.

There are a lot of wives' tales and a lot of fake stories that go around.

I figured it was just two old ladies just spinning a little yarn for us, but

little did I know.

Do you think they were telling us the truth?

That Norman is haunted by that twin baby boy? Oh, my God! How is that?

of this okay?

You guys are talking about this like it is nothing.

And meanwhile, we are gonna wake up to him stabbing us in our beds. Hannah,

you're being dramatic.

Am I, Mom? You saw the video!

That Norman could move on his own made me really uneasy.

If Norman can move, does that mean he can do other things?

Why are you acting like I'm crazy for thinking Norman is evil?

Honey, we don't think you're crazy.

We just don't know what Norman is yet.

and we just can't change it. No, no, no.

I am not talking about this anymore.

This entire thing is crazy.

I'm going to my room.

I wish that you would get rid of that monster of a doll.

My greatest fear about Norman is falling asleep and waking up and him being over

top of me.

I was asleep, and my blanket started pulling down.

The covers started getting yanked harder and harder.

I felt someone sit on the edge of my bed, and then someone started crawling

towards me.

Mom! Mom!

Mom! Mom!

Hannah Parker is convinced a doll named Norman is behind the haunting

experiences in her house.

I was like, no, this is not happening.

I felt someone sit on the edge of my bed, and then someone started crawling

towards me.

Mom!

Mom!

It's okay.

Come on, baby.

It really freaked me out. I can't imagine the terror she had felt.

What happened?

There's no one in here. I know what I felt. There was a man and he was in my

bed. Maybe it was a dream. I'm not dreaming.

It's that doll. That doll is behind all of this. It's evil and it's trying to

kill me.

She was really shaken up, and she's a tough girl. She really is. You just

don't mess with Hannah. I'm not sleeping in here again.

Okay, okay, okay.

You can sleep in the guest room. Come on, come on.

Seeing how upset she was, Christina and I decided to let Hannah go stay with one

of her older brothers for a while.

until we could get a better grasp on what's going on.

Determined to get to the bottom of things, Stephen contacts a fellow

paranormal expert.

This must be Norman.

My name's Darren Evans.

My specialty is pretty much spirit communication, demonology, hauntings,

that kind of stuff.

When he sent me the video, I saw the head move.

I was like, whoa, wait a minute. You know, this is something going on here.

You know, it doesn't make much sense.

So he was, you know, he was on to something.

But Stephen's always pretty skeptical of everything. He doesn't like to just

automatically assume something is paranormal.

Do you mind taking some notes?

Yeah. I want to conduct a couple tests.

I'm going to check his temperature first.

74 degrees is the temperature of the room.

I'm not seeing any signs of Norman.

Wait.

It's dropping.

I've never dealt with anything like this before.

The temperature test.

That blew my mind. There was some sort of manifestation.

Some form of spiritual energy.

inside of this doll able to affect the temperature, the environment.

Darren, Christina, and Steven decide to further investigate Norman using a ghost

box, a device which allows spirits to speak through radio frequencies.

Since the doll was in a fire, Darren taunts him to elicit a response.

Obviously, Norman's been burnt, and so I took a flame.

and held it to Norman's face. Just pretty close, but not... I don't want to

hurt Norman, of course.

No. No.

Holy... The flame is

triggering. Mm-hmm.

Interaction.

This is amazing.

Norman, what do you think about Steven?

Die. Die.

What does Darren have in his hand?

Fear me.

It said, fear me, through the ghost box. And I'm like, OK.

Can you turn the light on, Norman?

No. No.

The communication was just crazy.

It was just insane, the amount of answers that we were getting from

Norman.

If you can't turn the light on, do something else.

What? What was that?

My camera's been recording. It sounds like somebody tried to open the door.

That

was

plain as day. It was like... I've never experienced that level of interaction

with a haunted object in my life.

That doll has a spirit attachment.

My advice to people is if you feel like something is evil, unless it's worth a

million dollars or something, is to get rid of that object or give it away or

get it out of your environment.

There's no time to waste.

Stephen finds a woman online with an interest in haunted dolls and tells her

everything about Norman.

Despite the potential danger, the woman agrees to buy him.

For Christina, it's not a minute too soon.

I believe that story from the antique store, that woman's baby boy spirit

is what's inside of Norman.

I had to believe that maybe it was the spirit of this child that was stillborn.

I had no other reason to believe it was anybody else.

I think he's looking for another mother.

Me.

And he won't stop until he has me.

That's... That's why I targeted Hannah.

And me.

To get rid of us.

Have you all to himself.

I really, truly did start to believe that he wanted me out of the picture.

I think that he wanted me gone. I think he felt he was going to intimidate me in

a way to where I would leave.

And he would have the mother he always wanted.

Over the next few days, the family senses a certain peace in the house.

Feels different in here without Norman, doesn't it?

Better.

Happier.

You know when the humidity is so strong, it makes it hard to breathe?

That's what it was like living with Norman.

When he was gone, it felt like just crystal clear, clean air.

I'll go see who that is.

No.

All I could think was, you gotta be kidding me. That cannot be what I'm

thinking that is.

The woman who was to take Norman claims she never received him.

No one from the post office is able to verify why or how he's come back.

There was absolutely no explanation as to why the doll was returned.

I am not an angry person. I am an extremely laid-back person. But I lost

my damn mind.

Why are you doing this to us?

After attempting to rid their North Carolina home of a haunted doll, it

returns and sets its sights on owner Stephen Lancaster.

Leave us alone!

We don't want you here!

The room started to spin, and then all of a sudden I could feel it in my chest.

I was scared to death. I'm literally...

having a heart attack.

What was going through my mind was, oh my God, I just don't know what to do.

What if something happens to him?

I knew it was Norman.

Norman was trying to kill me to get rid of me.

I tried to get rid of him.

It was his turn. He was trying to get rid of me.

The couple is beyond terrified.

But before they can figure out a way to get rid of Norman, they are faced with a

new problem, one capable of making the haunted doll even more dangerous, a

Category 5 hurricane.

Our area is often highly affected by hurricanes, tropical storms.

When a storm hits, it could at least be two weeks before you can get to a main

road.

The belief is that the ionic energy in a storm can help fuel any paranormal

activity.

When you're talking about a hurricane, it doesn't get any bigger than that.

I've been through a lot of hurricanes.

Power goes out, it's no big deal.

Stephen, I'm scared.

But when the lights went out during Hurricane Matthew, my heart fell into my

stomach. And all I could think was, oh my God, what's going to happen?

I hear like a whisper.

I jerked my head. It was right in my ear.

What was that?

It's coming from upstairs.

Where were you going?

To check it out.

Come on.

I was mostly afraid of something physical happening to Christina or

myself because there would have been nothing we could do.

Let's go check out the bedroom.

I was expecting Norman to make his move.

And part of me hoped he would, so I could see

exactly what is inside this doll.

After gathering proof that their doll Norman is haunted.

Video of the doll's head turning on its own.

Audio of the doll's voice captured on a ghost box.

What do you think about Steven?

Die. Die.

Steven and Christina attempt to capture evidence that a spirit is attached to

the doll.

What the hell was that? No, he was standing right there in the mirror. I

saw him. I saw him right there.

He was right there.

When I saw that figure, it scared me to death.

I got him.

I got a picture of him.

When I looked down and I saw that picture, I thought, this is it.

This is the guy.

This is who's been in Norman. This is who's been haunting us.

I do believe that what we saw that night was a manifestation of Norman.

Stunned, the couple comes up with a plan.

Since they haven't been able to get rid of the doll, they decide to make peace

with its spirit by giving him his own room.

I think this is actually going to work.

I was hoping for closure when it came to creating a room for Norman.

I was hoping that that room would give Norman some normal in his life.

that would make him feel like he was part of a family.

Norman missed out on everything in life.

He never got a chance to live.

Hopefully this will give him what he wants.

Hopefully this makes him happy.

The couple has developed a theory as to who inhabits Norman.

They believe the spirit of the baby boy who died during childbirth is now a

grown man.

If this...

infant that passed at birth.

If his energy transferred to this doll, would he remain infantile

for the rest of existence?

Or, by observation, would he age mentally?

We read books, we play video games, we learn things every day from observation.

It's very possible

that there's a 56-year-old man inside this doll

if he has aged mentally simply by observation.

Think he likes his new room?

His own room?

I do.

I think he's probably angry because he's stuck inside a doll.

His whole life has been seen through the eyes of this doll.

A childhood.

Growing up, his first kiss, you know, his first girlfriend, you know, his

first job, he just has to sit back and watch everybody else enjoy those things.

And I think with that comes a lot of spite.

It's now been two years since the couple moved the doll into his own room, and it

appears his spirit is alive and well.

Things calmed down.

There were no more.

as I like to call them, after he moved into his room.

There were times that I could hear what sounded like a little giggle come from

the room.

I thought I heard the rocking chair rocking.

And then you could hear what sounded like little footsteps in the room.

I would just creep up and just put my ear to the door, and I would hear things

moving around in there.

It became few and far between, you know? It just quieted down.

It was just...

Out of sight, out of mind at that point.

As for the family, they have become true believers that haunted objects exist.

My experiences with Norman has changed me a lot.

Before this, I would have never subscribed to the idea of haunted dolls.

I believe in a lot of things I didn't believe in before because Norman has

made me a believer.

The way I feel about Norman now is he's it's just a part of our life now He's

just gonna be there and there's nothing you can do about it So far I think we're

closer to peace for all