i’d always been drawn to stories about haunted houses. maybe it’s cliché, but i’ve always felt connected to them, to the idea that there could be something in a home that makes a family’s life take a tragic turn, that it could all be tied to a haunted doll or a malevolent presence. when i was a child, i went through a brief phase where i was sure i’d been possessed, after reading a book my mother thought was sascha-appropriate but that turned out to be just a little too intense for me at the time.

i still think about that sometimes, that kid who felt so lonely, so hopeless, that i was sure there was something inside me to blame for it. i still feel like that kid sometimes, when that ugly part of me rears its head and starts down a path of destruction or helps me bury my feelings somewhere unseen.

things are more simple in haunted house movies. there’s always someone to call, someone to exorcise the demons. and in the end, the family is left battered and bruised, maybe incomplete, but there’s always some kind of happy ending, even if it borders on bittersweet.