Original subtitles

We were starting a new life in Rockford, Alabama.

This is gonna be the perfect house.

I'm thinking, "What's the catch?"

I was expecting quiet country life,

and what I got is this feeling of apprehension.

I think there might be somebody in the house.

Ain't nobody in that house.

You're just dismissing me.

This time, I'm going to see what it is.

I couldn't believe it.

And I thought, "This is how I'm gonna die."

Sync and corrections by btsix www.addic7ed.com

Can you feel it in your spirit?

I said... I said you feel it in your spirit?

Amen!

Give me a hallelujah.

Back in 2012, I was a journalist.

I worked for the local paper

in a city called Auburn, Alabama,

in east central Alabama.

I'd lived there ten years.

But this morning, I had to say good-bye

to being a career woman in the city.

- Hey, honey. - Hey.

Just gonna get Gracyn strapped in,

and we should be ready to go.

You go with Daddy; get in that truck.

Yeah.

My husband, Hunter, was starting a new job,

which meant we needed to move

to be closer to where he worked.

This job was going to be my chance.

It was a lot more money.

Had to make some sacrifices, but we were very excited.

It would be just the four of us out there.

Just gonna lift you in.

Hunter, our daughter, Gracyn,

and our dog, Betty-Lou.

This was a big change for me.

I was gonna have to be a stay-at-home mom.

But I was really determined to make this work.

I thought this is the perfect opportunity

to use my journalism skills

to blog about our whole experience.

It's moving day.

It's time for a fresh start for our family.

Today we move to Rockford, Alabama.

We're leaving the city for the country.

Our journey begins.

We're gonna stop at that place you like, all right?

Jenny and I both had children by previous marriage.

Jenny had Buddy who was nine, and I had Faith.

She was also nine.

It's a kind of, you know, it... it fit.

Hunter is the love of my life.

You don't often get second chances,

and this was our second chance, together.

We said good-bye to the concrete

and just rolled out into this country green landscape.

I started getting nervous

because we were literally in the middle of nowhere.

Oh, my gosh.

Hunter, it's amazing.

It's so big!

It was absolutely beautiful.

I was really impressed that he had found us this house.

Are you sure we can afford this, Hunter?

I was amazed it was in our price range.

Oh, yeah. It was a deal.

I'm thinking, "What's the catch?"

That's gonna be your bedroom up there.

Big house.

There were fields as far as the eye could see.

Our closest neighbor, I have no idea where they are.

Come on, honey.

I want to show you the inside.

Yeah. Great.

Betty-Lou!

It looked like the people that had lived there before

got out in a hurry.

I didn't want Hunter to be disappointed in my reaction,

because he was so excited about this house.

It was a heck of a deal.

Yeah.

I bet.

Pick out your new room.

Let's put you down right there, sweetie.

Upstairs, all I could see was this awful, awful blue.

Oh, my gosh.

This paint had been thrown on.

Like someone had taken a paintbrush

and just done like this.

Why would you paint the window frames?

Why would you paint the light switches?

What an ugly mess.

Probably trying to liven it up a bit.

What were they thinking?

It was creepy.

Gracyn, can you come here, please?

It made me really wonder what I was getting in to.

I think this is a bathroom.

Careful, sweetie.

Why'd they take the mirror?

It was like the mirrors had been ripped off the wall.

You don't ever notice a mirror,

but when it's not there,

then you're like, "Why is it not there?"

Anything else I should be looking out for, Hunter?

And then it dawned on me

I haven't seen one single mirror in the whole house.

I thought, "This is just another expense."

Let's have a look at the bedrooms.

Okay.

I could see something on the ceiling.

There was duct tape on the attic entryway.

It's been duct taped completely shut,

and it has that same awful blue paint.

The tape has to go.

So I reached up,

and I yanked it down.

I thought the reason it had been taped

was because it was broken.

But it was fine.

It was kind of odd to me.

It looked like somebody

didn't want that attic to be used for a reason.

Well, I can see why it's taped up.

It's filthy!

Let's go check out the kitchen while it's still daylight.

Oh, yes, ma'am.

Oh, my gosh.

Honey, what time is it?

About 8:30.

Oh, I got to go.

Soon after we had moved in,

it was time for me to start this job.

I was excited.

Jenny and I only had one car,

and so I felt bad leaving Jenny by herself.

Wish me luck, honey!

Show 'em who's boss!

But Jenny put on her happy face.

She's being the supportive wife, you know?

We'll do what we gotta do to make this work.

When he went off to work and the door closed,

it was so quiet.

The house had a cool music system.

It was like an intercom system,

and it would play music throughout the house.

The classical music made me feel comfortable,

secure.

Hunter was working late, and Gracyn was asleep.

I was alone.

I suddenly got this strange feeling

like something was watching me.

Being out in the country was starting to get to me.

And so I just decided to go to bed.

I wanted some company upstairs in my room,

and so I was like, "Come here, Betty-Lou.

Come on, baby, let's go upstairs."

Come on, baby.

Betty-Lou, come. Let's go upstairs.

And she would not go.

Come on. Come on.

Let's go upstairs. Yeah.

Okay, Betty-Lou.

Okay. Come on.

What's the matter, hon?

She ran faster than I've ever seen her run.

Betty-Lou didn't want to be around me,

and she didn't want to be upstairs.

The house was completely still.

I heard something scurrying.

Outside of my window...

a thud.

And then this...

Almost like a cat, but bigger.

My heart was pounding.

On the front of the house,

there was a motion sensor system.

But whatever made the noise, it did not trip the lights.

I can't see anything.

Whatever's out there, just have fun,

because I'm not opening this window.

I don't want to get bitten

by some strange animal out in the country.

The next morning, I told Hunter what had happened.

Security sensor is armed, so...

I checked those sensor lights.

Every time, they'd come on.

Didn't turn on last night, Hunter, I'm telling you.

I'm thinking Jenny's imagination's

getting carried away.

Country quiet is starting to kind of

get to Jenny a little bit.

It's an old house.

Could have been creaking or settling.

Hunter said when you go from

bustling city to completely quiet,

you start thinking, "Well, I'm hearing things," you know?

Looks fine to me.

I mean, I'll just check it again and I'll be right back.

So I thought it was all in my head.

Just put it out of my mind.

If I wasn't writing my blog, I unhappy.

I had to have an outlet.

The to-do list just keeps growing.

I am no Martha Stewart,

but I'm gonna have to do a real makeover on this house.

I do always love a challenge.

It was time to start getting to work on this house.

Hunter and I both had children from previous marriages,

and I wanted to make sure that when they come to stay,

everything would just be perfect.

It's the kids' first visit.

We are really excited.

Hunter's daughter Faith and my boy, Buddy,

are gonna be with us all weekend.

We're really looking forward

to the house being full of the sound of laughter.

It had been maybe a month

since we'd seen Buddy and Faith.

I'm sitting proud papa.

Dig in anytime you want. Want some salad?

New house, a good job, the family's together:

in my mind, I've made it.

It was bath time,

and Buddy always looks forward to bath time.

Come on up.

Hey, Faith,

remember how you said you've always wanted your own room?

Yeah.

Jenny and Buddy were in the bathroom,

and I was excited to show Faith her new room.

Check this out.

We had put in a lot of work.

Whoa.

It's awesome.

I got dad points there.

So I was excited about that.

In the bathroom, Buddy just stops.

He just fixates on one point in the mirror.

Faith and I are sitting on the bed.

So you like it?

I love it.

And I hear something on the window.

It's really pretty.

All the pillows and the blankets and sheets...

Buddy was seeing something in the mirror.

That's... that's good. Just stay there a sec, honey.

We're gonna fix this, okay, honey?

We're gonna get it all cleaned up.

It's okay.

I asked him, "Honey, what do you see in the mirror?"

And he just wouldn't tell me.

I couldn't explain it.

After the weekend, the kids went back to the city.

I just feel so deflated and upset.

We had such high hopes when we moved into this house,

but there are so many strange things happening.

What's going on?

A few days later, I'm downstairs

standing in the kitchen doing dishes.

I was thinking, "Maybe I could get some chickens

"or start a garden or something

"and just really make this work.

I can make this work."

Suddenly I just got this feeling

that somebody was standing behind me,

looking at me.

I thought, "Well, Gracyn is sleeping.

"Hunter's at work.

Nobody's here but me."

There wasn't anybody there.

So I just dismissed it.

Like...

"I'm going crazy."

Suddenly, the radio system is playing full-volume.

It just made me jump out of my skin.

I can't get the thing to turn off.

There's something wrong with the radio.

The music was so loud,

it was like it... it hit you with full force.

Can you turn down that music?

I can't get it to turn off.

And she's frantic.

Just tear out the wires completely.

I had to reach my fingers around

and jerk it out of the wall.

Jenny?

Honey.

Suddenly, I started hearing this creaking noise

coming from right above my head.

Are you still there?

Hunter,

I think there might be somebody in the house.

And I'm like, "Nah, ain't nobody in that house."

Hunter?

Hunter.

Jenny?

Whatever it was was heavy enough

to make the boards creak as it walked.

And so I knew it wasn't Gracyn.

Somebody was up there.

And my daughter was up there too.

There's nobody there.

I realized that creaking

was coming from the room down the hallway.

I had to take care of it.

I have to protect my child.

I couldn't see anything,

but I knew that whatever it was was still there.

There's nothing in the closet.

I was absolutely sure of what I heard.

Now there was no doubt in my mind:

the house was haunted.

And whatever it is, it doesn't want us here.

It doesn't want me here.

- Hunter. - Honey, you okay?

Listen to me.

This house is haunted.

It's haunted.

She was convinced that the house was haunted.

And I was not convinced.

- Honey, it's an old house. - Hunter.

It's all creaky and settly.

This is the problem, Hunter.

You're just dismissing me.

It really made me mad.

Why don't you believe me?

You need to start thinking about your family, Hunter.

The last thing I shouted at him was,

"I gave up everything for you.

I gave up everything for you."

And...

I need you to be there for me.

I can't do this by myself anymore.

It's too much.

Hearing that from Jenny was a knife in the heart.

I felt like Hunter and I were leading separate lives.

I was expecting quiet, calm country life,

and what I got instead is this feeling of isolation.

I really, really needed somebody to talk to face-to-face.

So I invited my friend Kim over.

My first impression was that the house

was very odd and out of place.

I felt uncomfortable just to be

standing in the yard of this home.

Then in the upstairs room...

a shadowy figure

through the window.

It gave me chills.

- Hey, Kim. - Hi.

- You made it. - I did.

Say hi to Kim, Gracyn.

- Hi. - Hi, Gracyn.

Nice to meet you.

Can I get you a coffee?

Yeah, that'd be great.

Thank you.

When Kim came over, it was nice

to be able to talk to somebody who wouldn't judge me.

I decided to show her photos of the house

before I had painted.

I noticed that the blue paint was just everywhere.

Jenny, I...

I've seen it before.

It's called haint blue.

It's used in voodoo.

It made me think back to

when I would visit New Orleans with my mother

and she would tell me about the blue paint

warding off evil voodoo spirits.

Maybe there's something in your house.

I felt I could trust Kim.

I told her everything that had happened in the house.

She told me about the bug infestations...

The footsteps;

her son being afraid of mirrors.

Let me be clear.

You think this house is haunted?

Jenny knew that I was a historical researcher.

It's kind of like being a investigator.

I hoped we could come together

and find out what was going on in this house.

Jenny and I planned to meet at the courthouse

and see what we could find out

about the families that had owned the land

prior to her living there.

- Drive safe. - I will.

I need to convince Hunter

that this haunting is real.

The fight back starts here.

I got home late from work one night,

and Jenny was already in bed,

so I flopped down in front of the television

to unwind a little bit.

So I'm watching TV.

Hunter?

Hunter.

Was my wife's voice...

right here by my ear.

Hunter!

Jenny, you need me?

I'm thinking, "She's playing with me.

She's not really asleep."

And so I go and I shake her.

What?

Did you need me for something, honey?

No.

I was annoyed because he woke me up.

You didn't just call me just now?

No.

No, I didn't.

I'm dumbfounded.

I'm sleeping.

I'm trying to process what's going on.

I worked a 14-hour day that day.

Not getting a lot of sleep.

Stress.

Did I really hear it?

I go back to watching TV.

There's something out of the corner of my eye.

Am I going crazy?

There's something out of the corner of my eye.

There's nothing there.

And I know I saw it.

Started to believe what Jenny was telling me.

But at the same time,

I didn't want to discuss it with her.

I was trying desperately to push through this,

and this is gonna be the perfect house.

The following morning, I met Kim at the courthouse.

We were looking for clues that would explain

what was going on in Jenny's home.

I just had to know the history of this house.

- Jenny? - Mm-hmm.

Okay, come here.

We discovered that there was a family

by the name of Maxwell...

There it is.

Right here.

That back in the 1940s had owned Jenny's land.

Is this one?

Hopefully the name Maxwell

would give me the answers that I needed.

I began searching on the Internet,

and a ton of stuff came up

about a local preacher called William Maxwell.

In the 1970s, he would preach

at the church right down from our house.

The rumor was that he was involved

in some mysterious deaths in the area.

It was a huge story.

The national press picked it up.

Even Harper Lee, the iconic Alabama author,

spent time in Rockford because

she was gonna write a true crime novel about it.

The suspicious thing about the Maxwell case

was that all the people who turned up dead...

Happened to be Willie Maxwell's family members.

There were five deaths.

And the Reverend Maxwell had taken out insurance policies

on every one of them.

Thank you.

At the last funeral,

the victim's uncle went up to Willie Maxwell

and shot him dead.

Wait! Wait!

No!

But that wasn't the end of the story.

I found out that the locals referred to Reverend Maxwell

as the Voodoo Preacher.

I was shocked.

Kim had told me that the haint blue paint

was a way to keep out voodoo curses.

There was no way that this is a coincidence.

Later that day, I was cleaning.

I spent a lot of time cleaning, because it was a big house.

Gracyn was in the bedroom.

How you doing, baby girl?

Good.

Good.

If I do get a call during the day,

it's usually Hunter.

And so I thought, "Well,

I need to hurry up and answer that."

I started feeling like

something was standing behind me.

But Betty-Lou was yelping and growling.

Betty-Lou, shh!

I get to the top of the stairs...

Betty-Lou, shh!

Bam.

I'm in a lot of pain.

But my first thought was to turn around

and see what had pushed me.

This time, I'm going to see what it is.

Honey, are you okay?

What happened?

Where's Gracyn?

She's upstairs.

She's asleep.

No man likes to see their wife in tears.

It wanted to hurt me, Hunter.

I can no longer deny what's going on in that house.

He finally said, "I believe you."

Hunter, we can't stay here anymore.

It's too dangerous for all of us.

We both agreed that as soon as the lease was up,

we were out of there.

There was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Betty-Lou,

don't go too far!

Even though in just four weeks, we'd be gone,

I wanted some answers.

Did the things going on in our house

have something to do with the Reverend Willie Maxwell?

I decided to dig deeper into voodoo.

I found out that mirrors are the doorway to the dead.

Bug infestations...

Are common voodoo curses.

Just started to really make sense.

Damn it. Betty-Lou.

Betty-Lou!

Betty-Lou, come home!

Nothing.

I didn't want to go looking for Betty-Lou

in the dark with Gracyn.

So I just waited until Hunter got home.

Betty-Lou!

Come here, girl.

I'm looking for Betty-Lou,

and I thought maybe if she is hurt,

I can hear her yelping.

But I got nothing.

Suddenly something just jumped off the page.

The voodoo spirit known as the Boo Hag.

It's just like a vampire

that will come into your room at night

and sit on your chest and steal your life energy.

And after it's finished, it will move into the attic.

And I thought, "Well, the attic was duct taped shut."

Had I let some sort of voodoo creature out of my attic?

Betty-Lou?

I couldn't find Betty-Lou at all.

Maybe she's on the trail of something.

She'll be back in the morning.

Come on, girl.

I began to think was it the Boo Hag

that Buddy had seen in the mirror?

Had the Boo Hag pushed me down the stairs?

I was afraid my family was in danger.

Come here, girl.

Betty-Lou?

And then,

all of a sudden...

I was just seeing these disturbing voodoo sacrifices.

Blood everywhere.

I'm almost back to the house...

And my light catches something.

I couldn't believe it.

Betty-Lou was ripped open savagely,

and her heart had been removed.

Had Betty-Lou's death

been some kind of voodoo sacrifice?

I was angry.

I was so angry.

That night, Gracyn was asleep,

Hunter had already gone to sleep,

and I was really, really tired.

I heard...

a scurrying sound.

Through the darkness,

I can see this shape.

I tried to get Hunter's attention.

But I can't move a muscle.

I'm paralyzed.

It starts sucking my air out of me.

And I thought, "This is how I'm gonna die."

Suddenly it just popped in my brain,

"I'm going after your daughter."

And it ran down the hall.

Hunter!

I've never heard Gracyn scream like that before.

Jenny takes off down the hall.

I was just freaking out.

You okay? Are you hurt?

Let me see you.

I looked over her for physical marks.

What happened?

I'm the husband.

I'm the protector.

And here something has attacked

your wife and your kid.

I'm sorry, baby.

It makes you feel like crap.

I'm so sorry.

I was terrified it was gonna come back

and finish what it started.

I just wanted out of there.

If we could have moved that night, we would have.

The next morning,

Jenny and I, we got out.

Was the Boo Hag some voodoo curse

conjured up by Willie Maxwell?

Whatever it was was absolute evil.

And what about Harper Lee?

Maybe Harper Lee did dig too far into Willie Maxwell.

We will never know.

Sync and corrections by btsix www.addic7ed.com