White Noise

[ulthar]

Anyone seen it yet (in a preview)?  Planning to see it?

The tv trailers look pretty creepy, but I am reminded of The Ring.  All the build-up, with no real substance to back it up.

One reviewer, claiming to be a professional ghost researcher, on imdb liked it, though.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375210/

Universal Site:  http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/white_noise/

[BeyondTheGrave]

yeah I am planning to see. what I find creepy is when the old woman says "get out of my house" I hope its not like the ring or darkness. I will be seeing it the first day so I will probably do a write up on it on the board.




 You can’t give it, you can’t even buy it, and you just don’t get it!-Aeon Flux



Post Edited (01-04-05 13:26)

[Kory]

I've been waiting for this ever since I saw the preview before 'Shaun of the Dead'.  Previews never creep me out... this one gave me chills.   The "get out of my house" lady REALLY creeped me out too.

[Vermin Boy]

Yeah, the trailer was genuinely spooky... though I couldn't shake the feeling that all the "based on a real phenomenon" stuff is just more Texas Chainsaw/Blair Witch ballyhoo. I don't recall hearing about any of this stuff before-- Anyone find any non-movie-related info on it?

[Kory]

Go to google and type in "Electric Voice Phenomenon" or "EVP" and you get TONS of info.  It seems to be a real thing.

[odinn7]

Many paranormal researchers believe EVP is a real thing. This has been around for a long time and it's really nothing new other than it's hit the mainstream now since someone decided to make a movie based on it. The thing about EVPs is that I find most that I have heard to be very subjective. To me, much of it sounds like noise but I have heard some that are definite sounds of "something" speaking.

Here's some links:

TAPS

CPPRA -Select EVP at the top

Info and some EVPs



Post Edited (01-05-05 11:11)

[Fearless Freep]

I listened on Art Bell to a guy who was an EVP researcher talking to Art.  He played recordings of 'voices'.  Problem was, before each recording playback, he would say what the 'voice' was supposed to be saying.  A few of the first ones I thought 'well, sorta..I guess'   So I started turning the radio down for a few seconds when he was about to say what was going to be in the next recording.  When I did that,  the recordings just sounded like noise.  At that point I figured he was either pulling a sham on Bell, or he'd actually deluded himself into thinking his recordings were something

You don't see the bunny in the clouds until someone who wants to find a bunny points out  the bunny to you, but to be honest, it's just your imagination and there really is no bunny

[Vermin Boy]

Cool-- Thanks for the info, guys!

[odinn7]

Freep, my point exactly. Like I said, I have heard some EVPs that are pretty clear and sound like "something" speaking. Most, however, are just noise that someone decides is saying something. I doubt the guy on Bell was trying to pull a fast one. I think he probably really believed what he "heard". Most researchers/investigators have good intentions but they want to find evidence so badly that they will really reach for it. I saw this firsthand when I went with a research group this past Halloween. We were taking pictures trying to capture something on digital "film". Along with some orbs that we all were able to get, one guy got this bright streak in the lower left of the picture while aiming downwards on a stairway. When it came time for all of us to compare what we had gotten, most were very excited about this picture, I mean real excited. One guy said he thought it may be the camera strap...oops...a doubter. They convinced him that it surely couldn't be the camera strap because, well, just because. I got to see the picture and I can guarantee it was the camera strap as if you looked close enough, you could see the braid of the strap in part of the streak. I didn't bother to voice my opinion. These guys wanted to believe and I wouldn't be able to convince them otherwise. They were a real great bunch of people, real nice and quite funny too but they all just wanted to believe so much that anything would be proof for them. Does that make them bad or scammers? I don't think so. Not sceptical enough and too willing to accept things but that's about it. I believe in ghosts myself but am not willing to accept everything that isn't ordinary as evidence that a paranormal entity caused it. But that's just me...some people are just the opposite.

BTW, what you are talking about with the clouds...there's a term for that called "matrixing" and it also happens with sound too (EVPs in this case). Basically, it's where your brain hears or sees something that isn't exactly familiar but it tries to make it into something you recognize. We all did this as kids with clouds. There's some kind of shape in the cloud and my brain will point out that it's a bunny maybe. I've seen lots of "ghost" pictures like this too. "See that face in the window?" No face, just shadows or something else that your brain is trying to make into a shape because you want it to.

OK...Sorry to go on like this, I'm done now.

[ulthar]

When I was in high school, the big thing was backward masking - Satan talking on records played backwards, etc.  We studied this for weeks in government class (the debate on censorship, labels and regulation, etc).  This was early 80's - the days of Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority.  To set the stage further, keep in mind I grew up in the Bible Belt Appalachians of Western North Carolina.

I remember one instance very clearly:  We were listening to a tape of a guy talking about all this evil stuff and he played some song backwards.  No one in the entire class heard anything recognizable as human speech.  Then he said, "did you hear that...did you hear him say 'Satan is Lord'?"  Then he played the clip again, and nearly the entire class said "oh yeah, I heard it that time."  That was enough to convince me it was crap.

The reason we call this sort of thing pseudo-science is that it is not reproducible.  The process of science requires results to repeatable. This in turn is why we focus on PROCESS so much in science classes; one of the hardest things I had getting across to my students was the process was more important than the final answer.  When you are doing research, new research, you don't know the answer, you have no answer key.  The only 'check' you have on your work is to use sound, logical process.  This is very, very difficult to achieve in paranormal research where so much is indeed subjective interpretation and people WANT to believe what they heard was grandma saying "I'm okay."

But hey, I will be the first to admit that there is an AWFUL LOT going on around us we don't understand....

[Vermin Boy]

There are some great sites out there with backmasking soundbites (I'd post a link, but the one I go to is evidentally offline). I think it's all bull, of course, but it's still funny. I think Bill Hicks said it best: "If you're sitting around all day playing your albums backwards, I've got news for you: You ARE Satan!"

[peter johnson]

Everyone on this board needs to go on over to both/either Strangemag.com or forteantimes.com & cruise around & hit the links, etc.
Forteana -- the philosophical examination of strange phenomena -- is getting more mainstream all the time:  "evp" stuff, ghosts, rods, UFOs, monsters, all the cool stuff you ever saw on "X-Files", etc. etc. etc., is all touched upon with an inclusive investigatory overview on these websites.  Forteans take neither a "pro" or "con" attitude toward odd phenomena, which distinguishes them from sceptics.  They are primarily concerned with accurate presentation of the phenomena, first and foremost.  Thus, you will find virulently pro & anti UFO articles, for instance, being given equal space in an issue of Fortean Times magazine.  (Subscribe now!!)
I guarantee that you'll get an education on any number of topics being made into films either this year or in the coming years.
Fun stuff!!
peter johnson/denny crane

[Mr_Vindictive]

Peter,

Checked out Forteantimes.com.  Amazing articles.  

Any other websites of the type?

[Fearless Freep]

Parascope used to be pretty cool but I haven't really checked them out in a long time

[Max Gardner]

Just saw it now. What crap. It's nice to see Keaton's still getting work, but it's a shame the film isn't scary and makes no sense. There's very little, if any, discussion of the scientific aspects of the EVP phenomenon itself, beyond the basic spiritual rhetoric. It's possible to make an effective horror movie in which very little is explained (see The Mothman Prophecies, if you haven't already), but White Noise is just incomprehensible and shallow, offering no resolution whatsoever.