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SCENES OF SPIRITS: Top 10 Séances From Classic Cinema

Attempts to contact the spirit world are nothing new – you can trace them back to ancient times – but the idea of a formal séance (led by a medium, at a round table, holding hands, in a dark room with a few flickering candles for ambience) only became popular in late Victorian times.

Séances remained popular up to World War I and through the 1920s as families tried to contact the souls of fallen soldiers.

It’s not unusual for people to attempt séances today.

In movies, séance sequences are inherently suspenseful.  There is always some preparation, some buildup, some burning question needing to be answered.

Even if the ghosts are fake, which often happens in film as in real life, you feel the suspense before someone tricks or attacks the séance participants.

Psychiclibrary.com claims that an effective séance requires at least three willing participants.  Dark rooms and lit candles help to attract spirits, as do light-colored tablecloths.  Outside noises, such as electronic devices, will scare most spirits away.  Linked hands help to channel the participants’ energies.  Chants help to focus the energies so that spirits will hear when called.  After the ceremony, a simple “thank you” to the spirit will help send it on its way.

Nearly all of this is borne out in cinematic séance sequences.

So here are my picks for the top 10 séance sequences in classic horror films up to 1982.  Some are serious, some are funny, and all are worth watching.

HOUSE OF MYSTERY (1934)

Here’s an Old Dark House movie, the type I profiled in this column back in January 2014.

Some shady archaeologists once stole a Hindu statuette and killed an Indian monkey.  Now they find themselves stalked by a killer Indian gorilla seeking revenge.  To determine if the gorilla is supernatural, a medium conducts a séance to contact Pocahontas.

Pocahontas?  The Native American princess?  Well, apparently one type of “Indian” is the same as the other back in the 1930s.  Yet, silly as it sounds, the picture is complex and suspenseful.

YOU’LL FIND OUT (1940)

 Bela Lugosi wears a glittering robe and turban as he leads a grand séance, surrounded by an audience, in this odd horror-musical featuring one of the most famous bandleaders and radio personalities of the 1940s, Kay Kyser.

A young and suave Peter Lorre looks on, making sure the ritual is legitimate.  Boris Karloff assists with the lights.  “If for any reason the trance must be broken,” says Bela, “strike the gong three times!”

It’s pretty hokey, but the three stars and the theatrical trappings make it quite entertaining.

THE DEVIL COMMANDS (1941)

This one is serious.  Boris Karloff enlists a psychic for a scientific séance to channel the brainwaves of freshly dead (and freshly dug-up) corpses.

It’s an outlandish film, but it unfolds deadpan and slowly turns eerie and disturbing.  In a decade not known for horror films, this one is a standout.

NIGHT OF THE GHOULS (1959)

Ed Wood’s third most famous film (after Plan 9 and Bride of the Monster) offers two extended semi-comical séances apparently inspired by the Lugosi-led séance from You’ll Find Out.

“Dr. Acula” thinks he’s nothing but a clever sham psychic, decking out his séance hall with skeletons and skulls.  He tricks his visitors for profits.  But what if some spirits are real, and what if, one day, they decide to pay Dr. Acula a little visit?

It’s sometimes slow, but with nearly 20 total minutes of séances, it’s a key entry on our list.

THE WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN (1966)

Here’s a ridiculous hodgepodge of a movie, most famous for using “Batwoman” without permission.

Alongside the crimefighting Batwoman and her bikini-clad “batgirls” are a villain named Rat Fink and an atomic hearing aid.

In the dumbest séance scene on our list, Batwoman channels energies from the realm of “etheric existence.”  She invokes a spirit who speaks gobbledygook – which we are told is Chinese.  Sitting around the table are a bunch of patent lawyers wearing suits.  Not very mystical, this one!

The movie is an attempt to combine 1930s serials with 1960s superhero TV shows made by people who had no idea what they were doing.  MST3K does its usual good job of making fun of it.

THE HOUSE THAT WOULD NOT DIE (1970)

ABC commissioned dozens of fine horror films for television in the 70s (and I profiled them in this column back in October 2013).

Here’s one of the first, and it stars Barbara Stanwyck (of Double Indemnity Noir fame) as the resident of a farmhouse infested with colonial-era ghosts.

Two séances will help her discern who the ghosts are and what they want.  Both are classic straightforward séances.  A crackling fireplace provides ambience for the second one.

BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE DEVILS (1973)

Much tamer than its title but still fun for 70s camp, Blood Orgy throws in every type of occultism it can muster: exorcisms, Tarot cards, crystal balls, voodoo, reincarnation, and, yep, a séance.

Toward the beginning of the film, an evil matriarch conjures an Indian spirit who speaks in broken English (“you burn’em hair in fire!”).

The “she devils” are little more than amateur ballet dancers, but the evil matriarch is exciting.  Dig the atonal electronic soundtrack.

FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE (1973)

Anthology horror movies – each with four or five stories linked by a frame tale – were big in England in the early 70s.

This one is better than most, partly because the great Peter Cushing plays an old antique shop owner in the linking frame tale.

In the first tale comes the most creatively filmed séance sequence on our list: the camera is placed in the center of the table right behind a large lit candle, and the camera slowly rotates round and round – across the participants’ flickering faces – while keeping the candle in the foreground.

“It’s séance time!” one character jokes.

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973)

From the famous writer Richard Matheson comes this intense haunted house movie.

Four investigators confront a house haunted by a powerful ghost.  Each investigator has a different tactic, but can they work together to solve the mystery?

Several serious séances are undertaken, with eerie and frightening moments.  The movie’s main flaw is an anticlimax.  But it’s one of the best haunted house movies out there.

THE CHANGELING (1980)

Here’s the most serious movie on our list, with the most serious séance scene.

George C. Scott acts cautiously and rationally, just as we ourselves would hope to act, as he leases a house that is obviously haunted.  Several paranormal investigators assist him at a séance.

If a séance scene can be realistic, then this is that scene.  It’s a slow séance, almost sad.

The Changeling is an intellectual haunted house film, with a performance that might be Scott’s best.



And what about

POLTERGEIST (1982)

It has a quasi-séance, more about contacting the lost girl than contacting deceased spirits.  This scene is different from “real” séance scenes.

But the medium is so creepy, and the film is so great, that it makes a nice bonus entry to our list.

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