The best ghost stories ever told are the ones that people claim are true. The Discovery Channel has managed to serve up over five seasons of “true stories” from all over the country. The people in A Haunting are real people. The episodes are dramatized for entertainment effect, but appearances by the real haunted residents lend quite the air of authenticity. In fact, some of the episodes of A Haunting are downright scarier than anything presented on movie screens in the past decade. Here are five of the Discovery Channel’s most frightening A Haunting episodes.
“A Haunting in Connecticut” (2002)
This pilot episode is perhaps the scariest of all A Haunting shows. The story is based on the Snedekers, a family from Connecticut who (unbeknownst to them) moved into a mortuary. The oldest son (who had been undergoing treatment for cancer) began to experience the brunt of the haunting, as his room was located in the basement (the actual old mortuary space). In the show, the family name has been changed to Parker. This episode did a good job of building the tension throughout the ordeal. Watching the oldest son’s “transformation” was particularly chilling.
“Lake Club Horror” (2005)
People don’t readily think about public places when hauntings are concerned. But in this episode of the program, a nightclub becomes the focus of several strange and terrifying occurrences. One of the club’s employees receives a message from a ghost indicating that someone is about to die. This earlier A Haunting installment provided a good balance of interview material along with the dramatized sections. Viewers of this one will be drawn in by the fear they sense from those being interviewed.
“Hungry Ghosts” (2006)
A father’s job moves him and his family to a mansion-like home in Taiwan. But they are unaware that the place has been built rather “irresponsibly” atop a burial ground. The torments the family endures are complicated by the foreign surroundings, and the sheer intensity of the attacks themselves. The horror reaches a zenith when the friend of the daughter sees her mother’s doppelganger outside of the family home. The lush surroundings in this episode of A Haunting work perfectly against the horror occurring inside the property: a sure goose bump-inducer.
“Where Demons Dwell” (2006)
Watching this installment of the show without getting the chills will be difficult. This episode finds a young boy coming into contact with a large cloven-foot man. Several other horrible events occur. But it isn’t the succession of bumps in the night, or any of the many inexplicable mishaps taking place in the home. It is the possession scenes in this episode that evoke some of the same feelings as demon-possession films.
“Dark Forest” (2006)
A rural farmhouse in upstate New York is the setting for this horror story. The scenes that will make your hair stand up take place mostly outdoors, where eerie music is heard high above the trees; the boy and his friends also have a chance encounter with a man who disappears in the property woods. The peaceful quiet in the setting is somehow unnerving, contributing to the heavy atmosphere. This episode is what ghost stories are all about.
