Original subtitles

In this world, there is real evil.

In the darkest shadows and in the most ordinary places.

These are the true stories of the innocent and the unimaginable.

A young couple discovers an old Victorian that seems the ideal place to

raise a family.

But when they find a secret chamber hidden for decades,

They uncover a dark past of unspeakable horror that triggers a battle for souls

between the living and the dead.

Between the world we see and the things we fear, there are

doors. When they are opened, nightmares become reality.

Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah, was founded in 1847 by Mormon pioneers.

Persecuted for their faith, the Mormons came to this peaceful mountain valley

seeking refuge from a dark and brutal past.

Here, spirits still feel the torment of those bygone days.

Souls trapped for eternity within the walls of the city's oldest homes.

February 2003.

I've got hot chocolate if anyone's interested.

I am, I am. Oil and marshmallows?

April James and her fiance, Matt Brody, live together with April's two sons in a

small but loving household.

Matt, a general contractor, takes pride in his role as surrogate dad to 13-year

-old Chris and 7-year-old Brian.

I love them like they're my own.

They're incredible boys.

They've accepted me into their lives, and I really feel that we make a really

good family together.

Yeah, I'm realizing it would be a lot easier for us to buy a new home if we

were independently wealthy.

April works nights as manager of a nightclub.

They're eager to start their new life together.

I just got a job promotion, and Matt and I were making a lot more money than we

were used to.

We really wanted to have a bigger house for the children.

And I wanted my dream home. I wanted to have a Victorian.

April's wish is soon realized when they find a home in one of the oldest

sections of Salt Lake.

Matt, this place is perfect.

After only a brief tour, April knows she has found her home.

Hey,

look, we love you.

Can we talk?

Whatever work you're doing, just stop. Just stop right now.

Can we make a deal?

Well, I don't know.

Matt makes an offer on the property.

It was grand.

It was 100 years old. It had history. It was gorgeous.

It's everything I wanted to ever give her, and I knew it was the right house.

The boys were pretty excited that... There was a tree swing.

And the fact that they were going to have more room.

Thanks.

Well?

Well, it looks like April gets her dream house.

Really? Really.

I know. Look, I mean, it's not like we can move in tomorrow.

That's okay. I mean, I'm talking major renovations here, a lot of work. I know.

The ground up, wiring, plumbing, everything's got to be redone. I know, I

know. Total renovations, huh?

Why do you think I keep you around?

They agree to lease the house with an option to buy.

It's a fresh start for a new family.

It was our dream home.

In the spring, Matt oversees the renovations while the family continues

to live in their old house.

Hey, I'm not going to have any problem getting the electrical up to code, but

I'm going to need a bigger crew to get the gas lines in and the boiler.

Okay, okay. Well, I can take care of the floors.

I can take care of the plumbing.

It reminds me I need your help before you leave to get an old tub down from

upstairs, okay? It needed everything.

Nothing in the house had been maintained.

uh adequately i mean this is an old home we decided to work our way down from the

third floor we knew if we made that livable i could continue to work on the

house as i had time okay okay you really got your work cut out for you don't you

tell me about it hey i'm upstairs okay

Inside the closet, there's a small two-by-two opening that a child could

fit through.

On the other side, there was a kid's area with paintings and butterflies

completely hidden from the rest of the house.

It had a larger opening for like a man to get through that had been nailed

shut.

I had never seen chambered rooms off of a closet that had only a small opening

like that.

It almost became kind of a fascination with me why it was there. I mean, it

didn't make any sense.

Matt. Hey.

Didn't you hear me calling you? No.

No, look at this. Look at this place.

This is great.

We talked about leaving it.

But then I thought, there's no access to it. So I had suggested to April that we

open the closet up, make a huge walk-in closet.

And I knew once I opened it up, it would be beautiful, and the light would flow

in.

I wanted a big closet, and he was just doing it for me.

But I was still a little upset because I knew that that closet belonged to

someone, a child, a certain play area.

You know, it had some type of history to it.

Matt gets right to work on the project.

You scared me. Oh, I'm just looking for the circuit breaker. Gonna work on the

wiring. Good, good, good. Look, I was doing some demo upstairs. I'm just gonna

leave this stuff right here. Is that alright?

Oh, yeah, sure.

Circuit boxes. This way, my friend.

Well, what's up? You all right?

Man, I've been doing this job for 20 years, and I've never been bit so many

times as in this one house.

What are you talking about?

There's something going on with your breakers. I go downstairs, and I flip

them off, and then I listen, click, click, click, and they come back on.

Now, I can get through it. I can get the electrical done, but I'm telling you

there's something going on in here.

It just seemed like at every turn, every workman I had had an issue in the house.

for some apparent reason.

I'll see you tomorrow.

What is it?

I don't know, it's probably just one of the boys. I'll take care of it, alright?

Man, you alright?

Yeah, I'm fine. There was a burglar. He got away.

Honey. Honey. Oh, God, the boys. The boys.

Go check on them.

It left us with a very unsettled feeling.

All right, thank you.

Yeah, okay.

Thanks. It's all right. They're still sleeping. Good. Let's get this mess up.

Don't, don't, don't, don't. Don't touch.

Just... The cops will be here. They said not to touch anything.

I can't believe this.

What if I'd been at work? I would have walked right in on him.

Though the renovations are not complete, April suggests moving into their new

home. We just wanted to get away.

We didn't feel safe there.

In the summer of 2003,

Matt and April rent out their small home and move into the old Victorian across

town.

Although there's still a lot of work to be done, Matt has finished the upstairs

rooms as planned.

All right. Take it off. Take it off. All right.

It's beautiful.

Thank you.

As the weeks go by, the family settles into their new home.

But it's a difficult time for the devoted couple.

I'm off.

April's working 50 to 60 hours a week.

Third shift, which was leaving us passing like ships.

Why do they call it graveyard shift?

Because mom's real job is at the cemetery digging up the bodies.

It is not.

You better watch it, Mr. I'm going to bury you.

Lights out, little man. It's late.

You alright?

Night, bud.

Don't let the bed bugs bite.

Is that you?

Hey, what's wrong? Hey, what's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong? There's

monsters in my closet.

It's okay, buddy. It's okay.

You're just having a bad dream. That's it. That's it. I'm here. But I heard

noises. Okay, shh. Look, it's okay. I'll check it out. Is he okay?

Yeah, thanks, bud. You can go back to bed. He's just having another nightmare.

It wasn't a nightmare. It was real. The noises are real.

It's all right. Look, I'll check it out, okay?

Check it out.

I'll tell you what.

Look, you can come with me. We'll sleep in the big bed, all right? Matt begins

to worry about Brian's frequent nightmares.

It was a constant state of bad dreams.

And it wasn't just at one time a night. It was several episodes every night.

Big boy bed, okay?

It's all right.

Sleep in here with me.

Something had closed my bedroom door.

I had no explanation for what had happened.

But after the door had closed in front of me, I never felt really comfortable

with him sleeping very far from me.

Over the next few weeks, Matt has many restless nights.

We were just getting moved into the house, and I'm very frustrated because I

still have heavy construction going on.

It's a mess, and I mean, everybody's, you know, stressed out.

It became more and more a problem to get any sleep.

I thought I was losing my mind.

These were not normal events.

There was a lot of things that weren't adding up in the house.

Not wanting to alarm his family Matt keeps the strange events to himself He

and April make time for family fun whenever possible We were doing

everything we could do to keep the quality of life that we wanted for the

boys

I miss you.

Mommy.

I miss you, Mommy.

Brian?

Everything seemed to be fine. I was thinking, you know, what was that?

Where did that voice come from?

Several nights later, April tries to relax after working another graveyard

shift.

Anyone does that at the precise moment that the deceased's vehicle is...

April! Her hair was being braided.

The minute I said, April, the hair dropped.

Hey, hey, hey, April. Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you all right? Are you

sure you're all right?

Something was braiding your hair. I saw it on the steps and then we stopped in

there. Matt, we need to face facts.

Something is in this house.

Matt really opened up to me.

He said, yeah, we're just trying to protect you and the boys because I

didn't want them to know what was going on.

We'll call your mom. We'll have them stay over there for a few days just till

we figure out what's going on, OK? OK.

April's mom agrees to take care of the kids for a couple of days.

Oh, hi, sweetie.

How you doing?

I really appreciate you taking the boys like this, Mom. Oh, it's no problem.

But are you two okay?

It's always stressful moving into a new house.

Do you guys want to come in and relax for a while?

Can't.

It's just we have a lot of work still to do. A lot of work we still have to do.

But thanks, Mom. Okay.

With the kids safe, Matt and April are determined to face whatever is haunting

their home.

I dumped my life savings into that house and our time and energy and I didn't

want to just give it up.

looking for ways to combat the unknown forces in their house.

Matt and April research the world of hauntings and the paranormal.

Hey. It says here that if you command them to leave and go to the light that

they will, you just have to burn the sage, which evidently neutralizes

their spirit or something.

Are you sure you want to do this by yourself?

We're a very strong couple, and I've always believed that love can conquer

anything, and I knew that we could solve this somehow.

Look, just go to work, don't worry about it, and I'll call you later.

I wasn't going to be driven out.

It almost became a personal war between me and that house.

I was going to fight it all the way.

April had already gotten sage.

People had said that sage is very spiritual.

Sage could neutralize the energy of a house. And I saged that house from top

to bottom.

I never physically saw it, but my immediate feeling was, I found you. This

is where you hide.

After that, the house seemed completely neutral for three days.

Nothing seemed out of ordinary.

Everything seemed completely as if it never happened.

I think Brian's having a nightmare.

Baby, you're dreaming. Brian's at your mom's.

was so intense that we were afraid for our lives.

I told her, that's it.

We're done.

Whatever's going on, pack up your stuff. We're going.

It was apparent that whatever was going on in the house, it was building power.

And it was becoming stronger.

Matt and April check into a hotel until they can figure out their next move.

April, April, hey, baby, baby, honey.

Sorry.

What'd you say? I don't know what else to do.

I just think we're running out of options here, babe.

I was talking to a friend of mine about what was going on, and a woman had

overheard us talking about the experiences that were going on.

And she mentioned to me that her husband, Bill, is a paranormal

investigator and gave me his number to call him. And she told me and assured me

that he could help me in what was happening with us.

We need professional help.

They meet Bill Spencer at the house.

My initial impression was skeptical.

But when I met him in person, I got a sense of professionalism from him. They

were very scientific.

It's nice to meet you both. Here's the key.

Thank you. And we're going to do everything we can to help you out.

The name of our group is Insight Paranormal.

We're looking for the most objective evidence that we can gather to either

prove or disprove the paranormal activity that's been reported.

Jeremy Spencer, Bill's nephew, is co-founder of the group.

You could tell that it was very emotional for them.

I honestly believe that they truly believed what they were experiencing was

real. There is a certain credibility with that.

Bill and Jeremy agree to spend the night alone at the house.

I was really excited to know that someone could maybe get some proof that

we weren't crazy after all.

Testing, testing.

The team sets up recording devices throughout the house in the hopes of

catching the sounds of ghosts undetectable to the human ear.

Can you hear us? What paranormal experts call EVP.

Can you hear us?

EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon.

Basically, it is a collection of disembodied voices caught on tape.

Is anyone here?

We'll ask questions with the hope that we will get an answer on playback.

Have Matt or April done something wrong?

Have we offended you?

What are you trying to say?

After several visits to the house, the Spencers share their findings.

Come on in.

Well, I almost, um, feel a little nervous.

Ah, don't be. This is the second half of the process.

First, we did the recordings on site, then we bring them back here, and we

process them.

So, do you have EVP?

unquestionably. We received well over 100 EVPs, which is an extraordinary

amount for any one location. It's the most we've ever gotten anywhere.

In fact, we've never encountered anything like this before.

Most EVP is residual.

Residual energy will stay behind or be trapped in space and time of any given

location. There's no consciousness there. It's just an image cut in time.

Stuck in space.

Now the other kind of EVPs, they're actually conscious. You ask them a

question and they're going to answer.

Have we offended you?

The other half of those EVPs seem to be conscious that they actually respond to

our questions.

There was a definite strong male voice, and there was a fairly clear, I want you

out of here. I want you out!

Why are you doing this? What did we do?

I felt very frightened because it was directed at us.

Did you hear the voice of a little boy?

I miss you, mommy.

I was like... That's the voice that I was hearing at night.

It's true.

That child really does exist.

The idea that a child might be trapped there or stuck there, you know, is kind

of gut-wrenching.

I think a child could be the key to this whole thing.

Now, the question is, which one?

You don't have the ghost of a child in your house.

You have...

The spirits of a dozen children.

Maybe more.

Bill and Jeremy Spencer can confirm that Matt and April's house is haunted, but

unfortunately they're unable to cleanse the house of its spirits.

In the days that follow, April searches for a new house, but she and

Matt refuse to sell the old one.

We're afraid that another family might experience the same thing that we did,

and we could just never forgive ourselves for that.

So we're looking for a smaller house this time, at least two bedrooms, maybe

a small yard if that's possible.

From staying in the hotels, we were kind of running out on money, and so we

thought that we need to find a place for the kids to be safe and a home to call

our own. What happened to the big, beautiful Victorian you bought? Is it

not working out? We contacted a real estate agent and told her the problems

that we were having in the house.

She mentioned to us this woman, Debbie.

She's a clairvoyant, and she has ability to cleanse houses.

She may be able to help. Here's her card.

So she gave me Debbie's number to contact her and see what she could do to

help me.

Debbie White agrees to investigate the house.

She's a real estate broker with a psychic gift.

I found that I have this ability to read things

perceive people in the room that have passed on.

And with my real estate career, I've been involved in several homes wherein I

would walk into the home and find that there were, in fact, ghosts or other

beings within the house and be able to help them to leave or to move on.

I had a sense that there was something going on in here.

The next day, Debbie meets with April and Matt to discuss what she found.

I believe the force in your house.

is the spirit of a man who once lived there.

A Mormon.

A polygamist.

With several wives and many children.

But the Mormon church outlawed polygamy years ago.

Well, they lived there almost a century ago.

Now tell me, did you change that upstairs bedroom?

Yeah, yeah, I did some renovations on the closet. Ah.

Why?

Well, when I entered that closet,

I felt an evil presence that made me sick to my stomach.

The feeling of black and evil hiding, hiding something from me.

That's where he did it.

Did what?

He's torturing or he's molesting these children individually or several at a

time.

That's where he does his work, is in that room.

What he's done has just eaten him up and it leaves nothing but blackness.

I

don't

think he's ever left the house. I think he's been there generation after

generation. But his secret has always been left alone.

When Matt altered that, he let great light into the house.

and he also took away his hiding place.

What do we do?

You need to cleanse and bless that house right away.

Now, I can do it, but I'm going to need your help.

Yeah.

We knew there was no way we would risk anyone's happiness, well-being, or

health in the future in that house, anyone's, until we helped everything.

and that house move on.

In February 2006, Debbie White performs a ritual cleansing of the historic home.

Is everyone ready?

Bill and Jeremy Spencer agree to record the ceremony.

We had our cameras and microphones running to document, you know, what was

going on.

Let us begin.

April and Matt carry candles to light the way for lost souls.

Debbie sprays salt water to purify the ground.

I have a blessed salt water that I spray into any type of an angle to the house

at the base of the floor.

Is this part of the railing that was from that secret room upstairs?

Yeah, yeah. Boy, I'll tell you, just 100% him coming out of that piece of

wood.

Anger and hostility and bitterness.

I think we should take it with us.

We may need it.

I wanted him to have his security blanket. I think we should try to put

things back the way they were.

She felt the reason why he was so upset is because we took it out. If we put

some things back to normal, then it would help us that he wouldn't be so

upset at us.

Can you feel them?

They're here.

It's alright.

Debbie?

Debbie, are you alright?

Debbie? Debbie?

Debbie, are you alright?

All is as it should be.

Trust us.

You can come out.

We're here to help you.

Follow us.

With every room in the house blessed, we have him cornered here. As we blessed

the house, I found these children actually following us, walking with us.

all knowing we were going to one location, which is the closet in the

upper level.

I just had this sense I couldn't quit now. We were so close.

The candle.

This candle represents health.

Renewal.

Don't let him out! I won't! I won't!

The lights! We've got to get them to the lights! It won't open! It won't budge!

It's down!

It's down! Shut!

With the captive spirits released, the evil entity is finally gone.

You okay?

It is

Debbie's belief.

that once the spirits have been removed from the house, the items used for the

ceremony must be kept on the property to ensure the evil spirit never returns.

The light the candles provided will protect future owners from harm.

And then they are buried on the premises, giving them complete ownership

in the home.

I believe with all my heart he has left that house, and he is not coming back to

that house, and he can't. And we've left these personal articles to make sure he

doesn't.

If someone else ever had an experience like this, I would always suggest to

them to get professional help and to get out of the house right away.

Because it's not worth what you put your family through to try to fight something

that you have no control over.

Since the blessing, there has been no supernatural activity in the house.

But April still wonders about the desperate little boy who would visit her

at night.

Debbie believed that he just wanted to try to tell me what was wrong with him.

That's why he kept coming to me at night.

Matt plans to continue the renovations until the house is ready to be put back

on the market.

We will continue to monitor the house until it is subsided and it is safe for

some family to live in.

We've bought another home. We've moved on.

We've found peace in our family and are rebuilding our life.