Haunted

Last night I was watching a 1995 film called Haunted, directed by Lewis Gilbert, and based on a book by James Herbert. In 1905, England, a young boy named David Ash witnesses the accidental death by drowning of his twin sister. 24 years later, Ash (played by Aiden Quinn) is a professor of psychology, and is devoted to debunking paranormal phenomena, and exposing fake mediums, he is also the author of a popular book on the subject. Because of the book, Ash is being hounded by letters from a distressed old woman who lives in the isolated mansion of Edbrook Hall, and who is convinced that she is being kept prisoner in the house by evil spirits. Ash arrives to investigate and meets a young woman, Cristina (Kate Beckinsale) and her two brothers. It turns out that the mansion was owned by the parents of Cristina and her brothers, and the old woman (Anne Massey) was the family servant. However the parents are now dead. Ash, who is far more interested in investigating Cristina than in investigating ghosts, tries to convince the old woman that there is nothing happening, with the help of the old family doctor (John Gielgud). However a series of bizarre supernatural happenings soon shakes his scepticism, and Ash comes to realise that there is more going on in Edbrook Hall than he could have guessed. The film is quite slow to get going, but it does have a lot of atmosphere, and is at times quite suspenseful. I'm always quite surprised that James Herbert hasn't really caught on with filmmakers because his books are pretty popular.

After the film I watched some TV and played Resident Evil for a bit on the GameCube. Resident Evil is a video game where you wander though this big mansion shooting at zombie things. It's quite fun.

It was another really dull and quiet day at work. The start of another week. Although I did have a nice e-mail from one of my old Team Leaders saying that he really liked the story that I wrote and got printed in the staff magazine.

I got home at around half past five and as I was eating my dinner (a microwaved spaghetti carbonara) some guy knocked on the door to try to get me to sign up to a new electricity supplier, but I wasn't interested. I was actually quite annoyed at being disturbed in the middle of my dinner, especially by someone trying to sell me stuff.