A Brief History
On April 25, 2014, The Quiet Ones will be released in American theaters. The film purports to be inspired by actual events, but to what extent does the movie recreate these so-called “actual events”?
Digging Deeper
In the 1970s, real-life Dr. Alan Robert George Owen created the Toronto Society for Psychical Research. According to journalists Ryan and Louise Hung, this group consisted of eight adult men and women who invented a fictional aristocrat named Philip Aylesford. This fake man lived centuries ago and achieved infamy for cheating on his wife with a Gypsy. The angry wife then accused the Gypsy of witchcraft, resulting in her execution by being burned alive. All of this background story was intended to make Philip as lifelike as possible. Why? Well, the group’s goal was to see if paranormal activity could be created by the group’s psychic power out of belief in something rather than by the existence of actual spirits. The group held seances in which they called upon Philip to show signs of his presence, which the group claims this fictitious deceased person did in fact do at the group’s behest. Fortunately, the group recorded their “evidence” of what occurred, including levitating tables and weird knocking sounds. You can judge for yourself if what you are seeing is really something paranormal or an elaborate hoax.
Beyond the whole paranormal experiment taking place in the 1970s, the movie takes just about everything else in an entirely different direction with no real historic basis. Instead of a group of Canadians making up a man and conducting relatively lighthearted experiments, the film’s characters conduct much more frightening experiments concerning a living young woman plagued by strange phenomenon. The film further brings in other bizarre elements ranging from a mysterious cult that died in a fire to an ancient goddess possessing a little girl. One need only watch the video footage of the Philip Experiment and then see the trailer for The Quite Ones to see how profoundly different the film is from its alleged historic inspiration.
These are not little minor changes in character names, for example, but rather the majority of the movie is the invention of the filmmakers. Question for students (and subscribers): That does not necessarily take away from the movie as an effective horror film, but what do you think? Is it fair to claim inspiration from historical events when the movie is so much different from what actually occurred? Also, do you think the Philip Experiment was a genuine successful display of human psychic power or a hoax? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For the broader context of the Philip Experiment in paranormal history, please read…
Aykroyd, Peter H. and Angela Narth. A History of Ghosts: The True Story of Séances, Mediums, Ghosts, and Ghostbusters. Rodale Books, 2009.
For more on the paranormal, please visit the John Carroll University Paranormal Research Group. As can be seen on Facebook, the group will be among the first Americans to see the film this week!
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="1943 http://www.crackedhistory.com/?p=1943">26 Comments
I think that most of the time the paranormal claims made are just made up whether or not the person means to. I do believe that the paranormal is real though.
I don’t believe there’s any way a fake person that these people created could have possibly showed up during their seances. Even if this person actually would have existed in the past, I still don’t believe their seances could have brought him back so they could somehow feel his presence. I do, however, very much believe in the presence of evil. I believe that demons are real, and so are angels. If these people actually did experience strange happenings and shaking of tables and such, it was only because satanic powers were being used.
I personally hate horror movies. Evil is a very real thing and I believe that there are demons, I don’t believe that a human being can create another human and then call him back later.
demons can be real, yes the individual did experience something weird, evil powers were being used. But who really knows! but i don’t think a human can personally call back another though. but everything is up in the air
i think that it is fine to take references from events the only thing that i would have to say is for them not to say and stress that it came from real events because if it was real it should be really close to the actual events not just parts from it. but other then that the movie really was great.
I think it is okay to gain inspiration from historical events but not to say that things are based off of them if the story is so much different. The experiment was extraordinary to say the least. I can’t say whether I believe that it was a spirit or some sort of psychic power but considering the experiment has been duplicated I could see how having possible unknown psychic abilities could be the reason behind the strange phenomena.
I love horror movies but I 100 percent agree with Deanna on this one.
Quite interesting. I do believe in the paranormal but I agree with others that most cases of paranormal activity are faked, whether the people were directly involved or not. It would be a movie I’d check out, probably in the dollar theater.
I am a huge fan of horror movies, so I found this article very interesting. It would be awesome if it were actually true!
This is a good article and i love to see when new movies come out on cool events that happened and hopefully it is not fake.
I hate horror movies, so this article was one of my least favorites. So I would not go and watch this.
I do not think it is fair to claim historical inspiration unless the film follows an actual event more closely. I also agree that what happened was likely faked, but that if something like this were to happen, it would be demonic.
I think that it is interesting what actors think are historically inspired. But a lot of movies say this when they say “inspired by true events” this never means the entire movie is true. Just that one little piece of it is. And typically that piece is altered like in this example.
The writer asks,”Is it fair to claim inspiration from historical events when the movie is so much different from what actually occurred?” And I’d have to say that it’s fair to claim “inspiration” from anything for anything. If I write a story about a slasher who collects tongues and claim I was “inspired” by watching the Teletubbies, who can say that’s not true? I know at least three different film-makers have claimed that their horror movies were inspired by Ed Gein and I’ll be darned if I can figure out what any one of their works has to do with Gein.
The Phillip Experiment appears to be nothing but a hoax.
The fact hollywood can be so inaccurate when it comes to the real historical story makes it hard for me to believe in the “real thing”
That’s a very interesting idea for a movie I wish Hollywood would present it similar to the actual study however I understand if they need to make it more exciting to have and audience
Aside from the completely messed up story that Hollywood tried to portray as “actual events,” I really want to see the Quiet Ones now because I’m a huge horror movie fan.
Sadly, history doesn’t often make for a good movie. Its understandable that directors have to stray from the true narrative in order to gain mass appeal and turn a profit.
I’m not sure they can claim inspiration from the historical event at that point, but who knows? As Skippy already pointed out. inspiration can be a funny thing and doesn’t always necessarily make sense looking in from the outside.
They movie makers defiantly appeared to spruce up the story line and dramatize certain aspects.
Quiet Ones looks interesting. Sometimes you have to take creative liberty to make real life events more exciting.
I love horror movies so I actually knew most of the things they talked about in this article
Honestly a story/movie about a man cheating on his wife with a gypsy could be something out of a TLC show and it does not surprise me at all that the story has been spruced up.
I think it is fair when filmmakers and other artists make drastic changes to their adaptions of stories. Since everyone has a unique perspective on these kinds of subjects, it is interesting to see different takes on the same story.
LOL at Alexa V’s comment. Agree with her. I will give this movie a chance even though I am terrified by scary movies.