Original subtitles

- That house changed every aspect of my life

and my children's lives.

And it changed us to the core of who we are.

They obviously prepared the bodies in this room.

- I've never in my life

seen stuff like I saw in this house, never.

- There was something tormenting my son.

Smack!

- [Screaming]

- Thy will be done!

- I thought, "this thing is trying to kill me."

It wants me dead.

- [Screaming]

- Back in 1987, I had a wonderful life.

I lived in a little small town in upstate New York

with my husband, Alan,

my four children:

Brad,

my daughter Jennifer,

and a.J.

And then there was the oldest, Philip.

He was very mischievous.

They all idolized him.

He was the big brother.

They played baseball

and lived normal life riding bicycles out front.

And it was just a nice, slow-paced life.

There was nothing

that I thought could destroy our lives.

[Phone ringing]

Philip was 13. - Hello.

- And I noticed a small lump at the low portion of his neck.

- Baby. - [Crying]

- It turned out the cancer was very serious.

It was hodgkin's lymphoma.

Unfortunately, we had found

that there was no childhood cancer treatment centers

in the area where we lived.

And we had to go to Hartford, Connecticut,

which was 300 miles round-trip a day.

And we were making that trip five times a week.

- [Retching]

- The treatment was new.

And it was very radical and very aggressive.

The radiation was so intense

that it burned his skin and turned it black.

Just going back and forth

was taking such a toll on his body

with the headaches and the nausea

and the body aches that this child was suffering.

And I can't reach around and comfort him

or hug him or hold him.

- [Coughing]

- I was afraid

that the trip itself was gonna kill Philip,

let alone the cancer.

My husband and I decided that we needed to move

to Connecticut to be near his doctors.

- Okay?

- It was very difficult to find a place to live

in Connecticut.

I looked at everything in the papers

and called every realtor.

But they said that they didn't rent

to anyone with more than two children.

- Okay, bye-bye.

- So I was gonna take this town house regardless,

even though it was sight unseen.

It was our last resort basically.

I begged al.

And I said, "please, please, please,

go in and check."

- See if it's okay.

- What? No, come on.

- No. - Mar'.

- Go. Go on.

Please.

- So now I'm chewing my nails, waiting on him to come back out.

He was gone about 15 minutes.

- What?

- Come see.

- And we go into the house...

And everything looks pretty normal.

[Floorboards creaking]

But then I started noticing above every entranceway,

there was a crucifix.

- It was a funeral home.

- I think the word, "oh, my god," came out

many, many times.

Then Alan took me down into the basement.

There was a counter that ran around the three walls.

There was another room off to the right.

[Door creaking]

They obviously prepared the bodies in this room.

[Water plunking]

And I thought,

"oh, my god, this is an embalming machine.

This... this had people's fluids going through it.

When I turned around,

I could see this lift.

[Door squeaks]

I realized that that lift was what they put the coffins on

and lifted them up through the floor.

[Chain clanks]

[Chain rattling and clanging]

- [Sighs]

- And I looked at al, and I said,

"we have a son that has cancer.

"I don't want him thinking about his own mortality.

We cannot live here."

And he said, "we've got no choice."

- Our savings are gone.

Our resources are gone.

- We're stuck.

And I decided I would do the best I could

and I would make it a home

and try to keep it from the children

that it was a funeral home.

- I remember, I was really excited

because of the size of the house.

It was humongous.

And I thought to myself,

"wow, this is like a palace.

This is like a castle."

- Al had to return directly back to New York to work.

I had to continue with Phil's treatments

and then try to get the house settled on my own.

I decided to put Philip in the basement room.

It was right next to the bathroom.

He was still suffering

with a lot of nausea and vomiting.

I could keep my ears open

so I could hear when he needed me.

[Light switch clicks]

[Crickets chirping]

The very first night we stayed there,

Philip went downstairs to his bed.

He was totally wiped.

[Clock ticking]

- No.

- I was on the phone with al.

- [Laughs]

Don't be ridiculous.

[Clock ticking]

[Distorted indistinct whispering]

- I was explaining how the day had gone

and what was going on.

- I'll probably check on Philip a little later.

- [Distorted whispering] Philip.

[Clock ticking]

- Hmm.

No, Philip's got to start school again.

- [Distorted whispering] Philip.

- Bye.

[Gasps]

- I heard somebody calling my name.

- And I explained to him

that I had been on the phone with his dad

and that he had probably heard,

through the way the sound traveled in an empty house,

me say his name.

- I'm sure that's what it was.

- And he said,

"no, we have to leave this place and never come back.

It's evil."

[Clock ticking]

- Careful.

- My brother was a real prankster growing up,

so when he said, "oh, this is where

they displayed the coffins,"

I said, "yeah."

I said, "you're just pulling my leg."

And he said, "no, I can prove this used to be a funeral home."

[Wood creaking]

- Philip wasn't a fool.

He had been messing around in the rooms

where he wasn't supposed to be.

- Give it a try.

- I didn't really want to, but, you know,

it's my older brother daring me to do it.

And when your older brother dares you,

you have to do it.

[Ominous music]

♪ ♪

The lights were going around and around

and around and around.

- Stop. Stop.

- Light, dark, light, dark, light, dark, light, dark.

- Stop.

Stop.

Stop!

- He was really trying to creep me out.

And the next morning, he said that,

"there's something cool about these counters

that go all the way around the room."

- [Grunts]

Put it right here.

- Once that hole was exposed,

I just remember a dark darkness behind it.

- Phil was in front.

Then it was me.

- Then naturally me being the youngest one,

I was in the rear.

And it was like a long, dark cave to me.

- You all right, Brad?

- Yeah.

- I noticed there was a stain on the ground.

I was touching the stain.

And it was... It was a dark, thick substance.

And it was really sticky.

- All of a sudden, Phil took his flashlight,

and he pointed it to the wall.

- [Gasps]

- What... what is that?

- It was a deep, dark red,

the color of blood.

- What... what is that?

- We're all getting nervous,

and we're all getting freaked out and spooked.

- Is that blood?

- Get out!

- I could just hear them screaming,

"get out of here; Get out of here."

When they came by me,

there wasn't a whole lot of room,

so naturally, I got pushed out of the way.

- Go! Go! Go!

[Panting]

- They were white as ghosts.

And they said that there was blood

coming out of the walls.

I said, "if there was blood coming out of the wall,

I would see evidence of it."

I thought that just paint running down the wall

that was dried.

And I started laughing at them.

And I said, "scared yourselves, didn't you?

"That's what you get for going in there.

You had no business being in there anyway."

- I felt that there was something wrong with the house.

And I was really unnerved.

I didn't want to be in the house anymore.

I wanted to bring life back to the way it was

before my brother got sick.

[Birds chirping]

- One day, I noticed the crucifix

inside the basement room disappeared.

You could see the perfect outline.

I believed that the kids were being mischievous

and taking them down,

playing a prank on mom.

[Clock ticking]

I was worried about Philip, who had been so ill.

The treatment was putting a lot of stress on him.

And he was going through more than I can probably imagine.

[Clock ticking]

- [Distorted whispering] Philip.

[Clock ticking]

- [Distorted whispering] Philip.

[Clock ticking]

- The voices again?

- He said he was hearing them every night.

But now he was seeing things as well.

I was pretty sure it was a consequence

of the radiation to the head.

- It's okay, honey.

- I was surprised that he wasn't seeing pink elephants.

I was afraid

that Philip was telling the other kids these stories,

and they're gonna believe it no matter what.

- We'd been living in the house, I guess, at least six months.

- Bedtime.

[Clock ticking]

[Dishes clanking]

[Clock ticking]

- What is it? - Shh.

- He was going, "shh, shh.

"Don't say nothing; Don't say nothing.

Be quiet."

- [Whispering] Shh, be quiet.

- [Whispering] "Look over in the corner.

There's four guys sitting over in the corner."

- [Whispering] Look at those guys over there.

[Mechanical buzzing]

- My robot was going crazy.

And the four guys were standing around it.

[Indistinct whispering]

All I'd seen was the dark cloaks.

I couldn't see if they had any faces or not.

All of a sudden, all four of 'em simultaneously...

My heart's in my throat,

scared, you know, just about to pee in my pants.

[Indistinct whispering]

- Mom! - Mom!

There's four men in the basement.

- There's people in the basement.

And there's a...

- I was more angry than frightened.

- Come on.

- If somebody is in my house with my babies,

I get angry.

I was going down to rip them a new one.

[Wood creaking]

Brad and Phil are right there next to me.

- [Whispering] I want you to wait here.

Don't move.

- They're scared to death.

[Suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

- [Panting]

[Sighs]

- The next way of coming into the basement

would have been through the back half of those rooms.

[Door creaks]

I went from room to room, looking.

- [Shrieks]

Oh, god!

[Panting]

- We looked in every possible room

and every possible place.

And there was nobody there.

- It's okay.

Go ahead and sit down.

[Sighs]

Police.

[Birds chirping]

- No, well, I mean, i'm... I went to...

Can I call you back?

- My mom noticed the crucifixes were disappearing off the walls,

but we were getting blamed for it.

- Okay, bye-bye.

- We kept telling our parents that we weren't doing it.

It was whatever was in the house.

- Philip!

Brad!

- Mom, can we play?

- I said, "all right, all of you, family meeting.

There's no ghost."

- We live in a funeral home

or what used to be a funeral home.

There is no such thing as ghosts.

- They blamed Phil for a lot of the stuff that we were seeing.

- I told him he needed to start acting his age

and stop toying with the children.

- And I don't want to hear any more ghost stories!

[Door bangs]

- It was hard for me to be angry with Philip.

He had been so sick.

He'd been through so much.

- It was a year after we moved in.

I came home from school one day,

and he had moved his bed from my bedroom

to the next room over

or the embalming room.

- And I said, "you were so afraid of that room.

Why are you all of a sudden going in there?"

And he just shrugged his shoulders.

- Phil was constantly getting in trouble.

[Distorted indistinct whispering]

- Puberty was kicking in.

He'd moved to a strange city.

He had cancer.

He was hearing voices.

He was seeing things.

His doctors were telling him it wasn't the medication.

- He became more withdrawn.

He didn't really talk to us as much.

- He rarely smiled.

I did not know how to deal with this other being,

this person that he had become.

I wanted my baby back to who he was.

- Come on, let's go.

- The second summer we lived there,

two cousins come stay with us, Kim and Tammy.

- Me and Philip had a really great relationship.

We just had this deep connection,

brotherly, sisterly, playful.

- How are you doing?

- Everybody greeted me at the door except for Philip.

I was kind of hurt.

I wanted to hug him.

I wanted him to be excited with me

that I was there, you know.

He just wasn't.

- Phil had this book he always wrote in.

So I'd come in there, and I'd start bugging him

or, "what are you writing?

What are you writing?"

He'd just sit there, and he'd just look at me.

It would send chills up my spine.

- I was helping aunt carm clean.

Philip's room would get quite messy.

As I went through Philip's notebook,

I felt as if I were, you know, invading his privacy,

taking something from him.

But I was worried for him.

- I started to read the words.

And they were very dark words.

- Everywhere about death...

Murder, the word "kill."

- It was very terrifying

to read some of the dark thoughts

that was going on in his head.

And then I began to wonder if they were his writings at all

because Philip was dyslexic.

I had spent years of trying to teach him

to write the alphabet

let alone these complete, complex words.

When I ask him, "how did you write them?"

He said

the man helped him write them.

- [Distorted whispering] Philip.

[Dishes clanking]

- That's my spot.

- One night, we were at dinner.

Philip reached around me at the dinner table,

and his sleeve went up.

- What's that?

- And I noticed these scratches in his arms.

- What is this?

- [Distorted whispering] Philip.

- [Whispering] Philip.

- And I'd ask him, "Philip, why are you doing that?"

"Why are you making yourself bleed?

What are you doing?"

And he would say, "I don't know what I'm doing.

"I don't know why I'm doing it.

Something is telling me to do this."

This was not Philip's nature at all.

It wasn't anything that I was used to.

But now he was different.

[Muffled upbeat music]

- [Gasps]

- You could always seem him kind of just leaning around,

looking out at you.

It would scare me.

It would spook me.

- As time progressed

and Philip's personality changed more and more,

he became more aggressive.

- He'd come and say something to me,

and I'd say something back to him.

And the next thing I know, we were throwing punches.

- Why are you so angry?

Smack!

- And then Tammy went to defend Brad.

- Get off of him, Philip!

Come on, what is wrong with you?

- And he went and ran into my room.

And he just destroyed my room.

- Philip, no!

Philip, let go of me!

Stop!

Let go of me!

Stop it.

No.

[Screams]

- Out of nowhere, he became very, very strong...

- Stop!

Stop it!

[Distorted indistinct whispering]

- Threw me across the room like I was nothing.

It put the fear of god in me.

This was a person who had cancer.

He was a sick boy.

There was no way he was able to throw me

across the room like that.

[Distorted indistinct whispering]

[Door slams]

After this big fight with Philip,

things really started to change for me.

[Clock ticking]

[Blanket rustling]

It was like hands were grabbing the bedcovers

and pulling them down.

I felt like something was coming after me.

- Aunt Carmen?

- Yeah.

- I... i don't know what it is, but...

- My bedcovers are being pulled off of my bed.

And my shirt is, like, being lifted up.

- She would feel it pulling at her bra strap.

- I felt very violated.

- She was very frightened

because she didn't see what was pulling at her.

She had said she didn't see what was pulling at her blanket.

But at the end of the day,

there is no way I believed that is was ghosts.

The only conclusion I could come up with

was that it was my son, my baby,

that he was doing this.

- Okay, guys, time to go.

- I didn't know what to feel or what to think.

I was more like a robot

running on battery power than anything.

Your emotions are very torn.

- What's wrong, mom?

- Nothing, nothing.

- This is your prized possession.

This is your firstborn child.

And you adore him.

And you've suffered through his skinned knees

and his cancer

and his dyslexia.

But you have to protect your nieces and your daughters

and the other children in the house.

Alan was in New York,

so I'm left with deciding on how to handle it.

I called his doctor.

- It's about Philip.

- And I said, "this is what's going on.

It has to be handled before it gets any further."

And he said I was describing schizophrenia.

It's time to have him committed.

I was a vacuum.

My emotions were just completely void.

Come 6:00,

I'm trying to act as if nothing's going on,

everything's normal.

I make his favorite dinner.

- After dessert, we'll have a race outside, guys.

We're gonna have a race, okay?

All of you guys... And I will be the judge.

And whoever runs...

[door clicks and creaks]

- They didn't even knock.

They just entered into the house.

- It was just, like, all the happiness was gone.

Everybody was sitting there quiet.

- Come on, son, come with us. - Kids, can you come with me?

- Mom, please, mom, don't do this.

Mom?

- And your son's looking at you, saying, "mom, don't do this.

Mom, please, don't do this."

- Why are they here? - Son.

- What did I do?

- He was screaming at this point, you know,

"why? What's going on?

Where... Where are we going?"

- Why are they here?

- I couldn't tell him.

I just would cry and tell him, "I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry, Philip."

- [Yelling indistinctly]

Why are they here?

- I wanted to believe him.

I wanted to believe him.

But every time that they had told me

that there was something going on,

I went in there, and I looked, and I never found anything,

so I couldn't prove that there was anything there.

- [Yelling and screaming]

[Shrieks] Mom!

- So I had to cover all my bases.

And I had to make sure the other children were safe.

- Mom!

- I'm right behind you, baby.

- Mom!

I want to go home!

Mom!

- And then they strapped him in a straitjacket.

- No!

[Crying and screaming]

- And they wouldn't let me go in.

- [Speaking indistinctly]

- He said, "mama, don't leave me.

Mama, don't leave me."

- [Shrieking]

Now that I'm gone, they're gonna come after you.

[Screams]

- He's yelling, "now that I'm gone,

they're gonna come after you."

- I'm so sorry.

What did I do?

- I cried the entire way, and I was angry.

- [Crying]

- Everything he said to me as I left

preyed on my mind.

- They're gonna come after you.

- I felt very conflicted because for months,

I had been finding rational explanations for everything.

But at this point, I was in such a rage

that I was ready to believe anything

other than that my son was gonna be a schizophrenic

the rest of his life.

I went directly down the back stairs.

And I said, "all right, you son of a bitch,

you want to play, you come play with me."

[Clock ticking]

- It was very... very solemn, very still, very eerie...

Just a quiet eerie.

- I sat there for hours.

Nothing ever appeared.

[Crickets chirping]

[Clock ticking]

- It wasn't long after, in my room...

- [Shrieks]

[Gasps]

- Philip wasn't around.

This wasn't something that he did.

You know, he's not home.

He's in the hospital.

[Glass banging]

- Aunt carm.

- Who is it?

- It's happening again.

- Philip's not in the house.

And I have no explanation for what's going on.

- [Sighs]

- On the way out...

I happened to notice that the last crucifix

had disappeared.

So all of the crucifixes in the house were now gone.

At this point,

nothing that I knew to be true was true.

Nothing that I understood to be

was what it was.

I was in the twilight zone.

- "Though a host should encamp me against me,

my heart shall not fear."

- Got her tucked into bed.

And I began to read from the Bible.

- "One thing have I desired of the lord

"that I will seek after;

that I may dwell in the house of the lord all"...

And she said, "aunt Carmen, it's coming.

Can you feel it? It's coming."

- "Yea, I will sing praise unto the lord..."

- I felt a hand just rise up under my clothes.

- Get it off!

[Shrieking]

- I can see the bones and the wrist

and the knuckles.

- [Shrieking]

- [Speaking indistinctly]

- It was violating.

It was just horrifying.

- [Screaming]

- I scooped her up.

And I ran into the dining room.

- [Gasping and panting]

- Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done

on heaven.

[Panting]

[Clock ticking]

[Distorted indistinct whispering]

- Ah, no.

I can feel it coming.

Aunt carm, I can feel it coming.

- And she says, "aunt Carmen, can you feel it?

It's coming," and I can feel it.

- Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

- Growling and the motion of the room...

- It's coming back!

- And the coldness, the smell...

- It's coming for me.

- Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done!

- I could feel it, but I couldn't see it

or fight it back.

My rosary begins to levitate up off my neck.

[Distorted indistinct whispering]

- I realized that I was wrong

in committing Philip at this point.

[Electricity buzzing]

[Distorted indistinct whispering]

[Beads clacking]

So I pick up the phone, and I call the church.

Fortunately, they believed me.

And they just told me

that there would be an exorcist there tomorrow.

- [Panting]

- I was so joyous

that finally somebody's gonna come in

to heal my family.

[Water running]

- [Screaming]

- The shower curtain very quickly wrapped around me.

[Distorted indistinct whispering]

And I couldn't push away.

- [Screaming]

- It was completely tightened around my face...

- [Yelling]

- As if somebody was trying to smother me.

[Distorted indistinct whispering]

- [Gasping]

- And it's getting tighter.

[Curtain squeaking]

- Help! Help!

- I thought, "this thing is trying to kill me."

- [Shrieking]

- "It wants me dead."

- Help! Help!

Tammy!

- I hear my aunt carm calling for me.

- [Yelling indistinctly]

- And the more I screamed, the tighter it got.

- [Yelling indistinctly]

- If I didn't get her out soon, she would suffocate.

- [Screaming]

- I got you! It's okay!

- I pulled, and I ripped.

- [Screaming]

[Gasping]

[Birds chirping]

- That house changed every aspect of my life,

my children's lives.

And it changed us to the core of who we are.

The guilt of what I've done to my son is overwhelming.

I knew that I had to get Philip out of the hospital

and get that stigma removed from him.

- You coming?

- The first time I saw him,

I just grabbed ahold.

And I held him, and I rocked him.

And I rubbed his head.

And I said, "I am so sorry, baby."

- Are you there?

I can hear you; Can you hear me?

[Static crackles]

Well, I told my mom from day one

that the house was evil.

My parents weren't believing me.

And I guess, yeah, I became more fascinated with...

Rather than frightened

of the things that were in the basement.

My mom was trying to be strong on one hand

and do what she thought... Felt was right, you know.

But I definitely felt a sense of betrayal.

- It took a lot of time for Philip to re-trust,

just through everyday love and trust and conversation.

- It's hard to describe the way, you know,

evil can actually find its way into little nooks and crannies

in your life and, you know,

begin to manipulate you like that.

- He came to me one day in the kitchen

about a week before he passed.

And he said,

"mom, am I evil?"

I was stunned.

I... i was... "no, baby, you're not evil.

"You're a sweet, sweet boy.

And I'm proud of you."