8213: Gacy House

The Asylum Home Entertainment

R1 DVD

The film’s cover tells us earnestly that it is “Official Crime Scene Footage, Property of the Des Plaines Police Dept.” I doubt it. It also warns us that the film is “not a hoax, nor a reenactment. “ Also highly unlikely. In large print in quotation marks we have “Shocking” and “Unbelievable” – these terse quotes are unattributed. Unbelievable, though – definitely.

John Gacy murdered over thirty young men in the 1970s. When finally caught he was executed by lethal injection. In their search for evidence and bodies Police virtually dismantled Gacy’s house. A new house was later built on the site and the house is now being investigated by a bunch of “paranormal investigators”. The film starts like any documentary of live footage. The group sets up cameras in every room and already the drama queen is talking about feeling a presence. The paranormal manifestations consist of a few things that go bump in the night (why are ghosts nocturnal and clumsy?), some curtains flapping, a rumpled tablecloth and a picture that falls off a wall. What they believe is a shadowy figure seen on camera in one room is debunked by the producer as just the camera overloading by being pointed into a lamp. The producer demands his K2 meter which is a device that according to the advertising blurb “picks up on the energy fields that spirits disturb when they are present in the environment”. A burst of static recorded in the basement is split into three bands. According to the producer one band has Gacy’s last words “kiss my ass”. It takes a fairly vivid imagination to hear this. All very technical.

The new age woman / token psychic decides to hold a séance to summon Gacy’s spirit. She has candles, a pentagram drawn on the floor, and calls Gacy in bad rhyming couplets of verse. What more could a self-respecting ghost need? She tempts it with a Tshirt owned by her neighbour’s son. More things go bump but so far nothing of any note has actually happened. She says they are protected by Diana the Moon Goddess. Not very well protected as it turns out.

The “documentary” part of the film continues this way until about halfway through. It is the standard jerky, soft focus stuff that seems typical of this type of film. There is lots of running around in the dark and , frankly, at lot of the film here is just padding. The suddenly it’s as if a new director has taken over and the film becomes a standard ghost / horror film. In the cellar where Gacy is supposed to have killed his victims (but isn’t this a NEW house?) Gacy’s presence is manifested. He breaks cameras, scratches the very ample breast of the psychic (we get lots of shots of her chest), and scratches the back of the drama queen (through her clothes, but it has nothing to do with the fact that she and the team leader were upstairs a while ago having it off and that’s the only time she has taken her shirt off). The ghost starts to attack team members including the so-far disbelieving cameraman. Interestingly, while the drama queen is having a hysteria attack he puts his camera on the table where we can clearly see it in the close-ups of her screaming and carrying on. From the camera angles I figure there were three other cameramen in the room at the time. Even in the shots where the cameraman is racing up the stairs with his camera in his hand there must be another cameraman behind him to film the cameraman running.

The ghost of course gets them all in the end (including the mystery cameramen?) after grabbing one guy, jamming him against the ceiling, ripping his pants off then dragging him down to the basement. It’s the funniest scene in the whole film, which by now is pure farce.

Surprisingly I enjoyed the film. The acting is dreadful but you can play “guess who’s going to die?” or “spot the deliberate continuity errors” or “look for the hints that this is a fake”. It’s a bit of harmless fun, but a serious documentary? No way.

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