IN FRAME: Horror movie history has significant ties to NEPA

As far as I’m concerned, spooky season has begun.

And judging by all the homes on my street already decorated in orange and purple and cobwebs, everyone else is in the festive spirit too.

I like to begin my horror movie watching pretty early in September. That way, I have enough time squeeze in new movies and old favorites.

My sister Katie and I started this year off particularly strong, in my opinion. I finally watched “Possession” and the 1978 version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” both of which my sister absolutely raves about, and now I know why.

There is a great sense of paranoia that permeates both films, as they’re both classic doppelganger stories that play on our anxieties and fears surrounding the very idea of who we are. The 1978 version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” updates the setting in the original 1956 version from the Cold War to the then-present day, in order play on the distrust of institutions many were feeling following the Watergate Scandal and the Vietnam War.

“Possession,” on the other hand, explores a relationship between two people struggling with domesticity and traditional gender roles against the backdrop of a divided Germany in the final years before the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Another horror film I’m excited to see this season is the final entry in The Conjuring series, “The Conjuring: Last Rites.” This last installment is loosely based on the time when real-life self-proclaimed demonologists, Ed and Lorraine Warren, investigated the infamous Smurl Haunting in West Pittston.

Jack and Janet Smurl, who have since passed away, lived in a double block on Chase Street from 1974 to 1989 and during that time, they claimed the home was haunted by a demon. The supposed haunting brought national media attention to the area and resulted in a book, “The Haunted: One Family’s Nightmare,” written by Scranton writer Robert Curran, along with the Warrens and the Smurls, as well as a made-for-TV movie, “The Haunted,” in 1991.

“We’re dealing with an intelligence here,” Ed Warren said in an article that appeared in The Times Leader in August 1986. “It’s powerful, intangible and very dangerous.”

Local author Max Furek, of Mocanaqua, recently wrote his own book, “The Smurl Haunting, When Ed and Lorraine Came to Town,” about the case.

As a researcher, Furek was fascinated with the Smurl haunting and took numerous trips to the Chase Street Duplex, where he took pictures and interviewed several neighbors. In 1988, Furek had the opportunity to meet Ed and Lorraine Warren in person when they were in Jim Thorpe. Over the years, he kept in touch with them. Ed Warren died in 2006 and Lorraine Warren died in 2019.

The Smurl Haunting is just one part of NEPA’s spooky past. There’s a wealth of supernatural and true crime tales to tell and the Luzerne County Historical Society will host Downtown Wilkes-Barre Ghost Walks on Oct. 17 and 18 so people can explore that darker side of the city’s history.

Maybe that’s why, over the years, horror filmmakers have time and again chosen to film their movies here.

Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, who grew up in Montgomery County, has famously set most of his films in Pennsylvania. “The Sixth Sense” was set and filmed in Philadelphia, while “Signs” was set on a rual farm in Doylestown and filmed there in Bucks County.

Other famous horror movies shot in Pennsylvania include 1958’s “The Blob,” a personal favorite of mine growing up, which was filmed in Phoenixville and Downingtown and of course, “Night of the Living Dead,” which was filmed in Butler County.

Local horror filmmakers have also taken advantage of the many historical places around NEPA.

A few years ago, the indie horror “Shadows of the Past,” featuring talent from the area, filmed inside the Frederick Stegmaier Mansion.

“Shadows of the Past” also filmed in several other locations throughout Luzerne and Lackawanna County, such as the Electric City Trolley Museum, Wyoming Area High School, The V Spot and the Brooks Mine.

Another indie film, “Bitter Souls,” was recently filmed in Lackawanna County, namely The Circle Drive-In, and the film “Nanticoke” was filmed around the city in 2023.

“Nanticoke” will be screened at the Moonlite Drive-In in West Wyoming on Oct. 17 and 18. The Drive-In also plans to show “Hell House LLC” on Oct. 10 and 11, which was filmed in Towamensing in Carbon County in 2014.

In Frame is a weekly arts and entertainment column focusing on everything from pop culture and new movie releases to the local arts and culture found right here in NEPA. News reporters Sam Zavada and Margaret Roarty contribute to this column.