Alice Oscura, Featured Writer
Editor’s Note: Alice had previously reviewed Lee Daniel’s horror drama The Deliverance which is based on real events. In this article she will be reviewing a paranormal documentary based on those events.
Disclaimer: The following contains major spoilers and references to paranormal experiences and psychologically sensitive topics that some readers may find disturbing.
Now let’s switch gears here and look into 2018 documentary Zak Bagans’ Demon House. After Bagans’ purchased the house in 2014, it seemed that he was hoping for his usual get-in, buckle down, investigate, collect evidence to corroborate Latoya Ammons’ story, and move onto another paranormal hotspot.
The thing is, Zak’s method doesn’t always appeal to the masses, and sometimes paranormal fans find the extra theatrics and overly aggressive taunting a bit tiresome, especially after seeing it repeatedly. However, there are some investigations of Ghost Adventures that have managed to stand out due to solid evidence being captured through logical scientific methods and specially designed equipment by their team of experts. Not to mention being successful at being terrifying and leaving you with a creepy, crawling sense of impending doom.
This particular investigation, the Latoya Ammons case, would prove to be one of the most difficult and life-altering cases that Bagans and his Ghost Adventures crew ever had to face. It ended up taking three years to complete the documentary since, during the principal filming, a lot of the production crew quit, and many other unforeseen factors kept causing multiple delays.
Before Bagans even began his investigation, he confessed that he had a very vivid, disturbing dream that would act as a warning to the evil that awaited him at the Demon House. To support this, he documented a call that he received from Chris Fleming, a renowned psychic medium, who issued caution because of what he was able to sense remotely from within the Demon House. However, if you know Zak, you’ll know that he tends to throw caution to the wind whenever he becomes obsessed with a location.
The full story of the Ammons family is accompanied by video footage of interviews from eyewitness accounts like the DCS case manager assigned to the Ammons, law enforcement officials, the original landlord of the property, and Father Michael Maginot, who has performed an exorcism on Latoya Ammons. There are also local news station interviews with Rosa Campbell, who is Latoya Ammons’ mother, who was living with them at the time of the alleged demonic possessions and gives her version of what she had witnessed. However, the Ammons family refused to have anything to do with Bagans’ documentary for fear that the demon may have attached itself to him just by being at the house.
Bagans stated during the documentary that anyone who crossed paths with the Demon House would end up a victim of sudden, unexplained illness and freak accidents. The cast and crew experienced excessive aggression and would get into frequent arguments, of which clips are shown as evidence in the documentary. One of the creepier and most disturbing occurrences during the documentary is when a woman who used to live in the rental house during the 1990s shows up accompanied by her three children to visit. The woman in question, named Meka, had lived at the house for about four to five years and became visibly uncomfortable once she entered the basement. Two days after their visit to the Demon House, Meka called Zak with some distressing news. Her eldest daughter, Erica, attempted to commit suicide by overdosing on medication and stabbing herself after having an aggressive confrontation with her mother. Three weeks after the incident, Zak arranges for Erica to receive an exorcism at the hands of the same priest who performed an exorcism previously on Latoya Ammons, Father Maginot.
Bagans would relate his experience of tragic loss after close friends and fellow paranormal investigators, Mark and Debby Constantino, tried to contact whatever entity that resides at the Demon House. This couple regularly appeared on the Ghost Adventures series as EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) specialists. By September 2015, Mark and Debby Constantino had died by an apparently bewildering murder-suicide. In the documentary, Zak mentions how their deaths hit him extremely hard, and it was difficult to accept the loss because he felt like he had lost a member of his family. He goes on to state that he believes that certain environments can contribute to demon activity being present, like poverty, high crime rates and murders.
One of the key elements that most skeptics would appreciate is the fact that Zak tries his best to debunk the paranormal allegations through scientific research throughout his investigation by consulting with experts in different fields. The reenactments are engaging and unsettling, especially when combined with Bagans’ sincere narrations.
In 2016, Bagans had the house demolished. At the end of the documentary, he maintains that the neighbours still report hearing and seeing strange things happening around the property, despite the site just being an empty lot of land now. Lee Daniels’ film posted in the ending credits simply that the house was demolished in 2016. However, I found myself mildly disappointed that he did not mention that Zak Bagans purchased the house, and it was he who had the Demon House demolished. But that’s just me.
However, the documentary still doesn’t eliminate the ambiguous nature of the Ammons family’s allegations of experiencing demonic possessions. It leaves it up to the audience to make that choice based on what we’ve seen. Usually, when a case has as many factors and unsubstantiated details as this one, it always leaves room for doubt. Nonetheless, the Demon House documentary is still a chilling watch and gives a better sense of the true story. The Deliverance film, on the other hand, misfires due to the amount of time that it takes before reaching that pivotal point where it gets to be even moderately scary. Can it even be categorised as a horror? My bet is on NO. Director Lee Daniels should stick to drama because clearly horror is not his forte, period.
Dark Alice Score: 6 out of 10
And you can check out more reviews on Robot Mango Reviews below:
Dark Alice has an old soul and a curious mind. I believe that anyone can be a hero and that the good guys should always win! I dislike cruelty to animals and think that they have far superior qualities to humans. My motto is there is no future without the past. I also have a weird penchant for Paranormal TV shows even though the slightest sound makes me jump. I enjoy writing reviews and throwing in fun facts to pique the readers’ curiosity. My ultimate goal in life would be to become a published writer one day. Read More