Film Night: The Haunted House

The Loring-Greenough House, 12 South St, Jamaica Plain, MA | Get Directions »
FREE

Tuesday Club Film Night
October 23, 2012 at 7 pm
Loring – Greenough House

presents The Haunted House

by Volker Anding
Germany 2011, 90 min

FREE for members, $5 for guests

This is not a Hollywood script – it really happened!

The well-respected lawyer and Swiss National Councilor Melchior Joller was an urbane, enlightened man, who fought against “backward thinking” and reviled all forms of superstition. Yet of all people, this progressive man discovered his house was haunted by a poltergeist. Windows and doors were opened and shut until they shattered, chairs were hurled across the room, pictures and furniture tipped over, stones rained down scarcely missing the children. The haunted house in Stans became a tourist attraction. One day, after months of suffering, Joller precipitately moved his family to Rome.

Joller had noted every incident in a detailed diary which he published in 1863. The filmmaker Volker Anding takes off with this document and an on-site inspection. His crew moves into the still existing house. Experts of all kinds – a famous ghost hunter, a monk, a magician, villagers, a medium a.o. – join them and contribute their theories. With irony and humour Anding’s documentary thriller hopes to find a natural explanation for every “cognitive dissonance”.

Several years after the original shooting the Haunted House in Stans was demolished. But the story is not resolved yet. Anding discovered that Joller’s heirs keep a secret – Joller devised another document about a “Night of Revelation” which turned his hair white. And now Anding is working on a sequel of The Haunted House.