In A Dark Place

By Lorraine Warren, Ed Warren, Ray Garton, Carmen Reed, and Al Snedeker

The Sexton’s musings (spoilers are likely):

This is a story known by many due to the movie “Haunting in Connecticut”. I have seen the film only once and only have a vague recollection of it. Chances are for entertainment purposes there was some added drama but if I remember correctly it was somewhat close in basic premise anyway (family moves into an old funeral home, it’s haunted…blah blah blah). The book itself is unique from the other books that I have read in the Warren series. While many of them were co-written by people in the journalism or academic fields this one was written by a Horror genre writer. Its structure is different. It’s more like a narrative, third person novel than the interview/fact telling style of the other books. I think in this case, for the non-fiction reader the latter is a better delivery style. This is not to say that the writing of this book is bad. Quite the contrary, it’s a well written story. However it does not read as true for me when in fact it is. I just wonder what is factually part of the story and what is license taken by the author.  

The true story is far more disturbing than the movie of course. I will say that my heart goes out to Stephen as he is the one that seems to be the target. At least the first target as I’m only about 20% of the way through. I decided to start my post at this point because of the anger I felt toward Al and Carmen. Carmen mostly as she completely disbelieved her son. Even after Stephens younger sister saw something a felt something. She even blamed Stephen for his sister being frightened, accusing him of telling her things and even dressing up as a woman to frighten her. Really Carmen? Really!? Then she was upset when he stopped talking to her…duh you dumb bitch. Why tell you shit when all you do is make accusations and disbelieve him? I wouldn’t confide in you either! Plus I’d imagine that her not believing him did not help with his fight against cancer. For her to think it was for an attention grab is ridiculous. I’d imagine that he’s already had more attention than he can handle because of his illness. I don’t give people a pass when their minds are as closed as their eyes to the world around them. I mean she even denied what was going on after she had her own experiences. Not to mention Al, the dick, that has also had frightening things happen to him yet he is still yelling at Stephen calling him a liar and threatening him. These people are fucking assholes! Assholes that are not even thinking about what their attitudes toward Stephen is doing to him and their relationship with him. Assholes that are responsible for their son inviting a demon infestation into their home. Hopefully it proves them wrong in spectacular fashion.        

Okay these people are infuriating. They are talking about the change in Stephen like they are unaware of the strange shit going on around them. They are denying it completely like fucking blind assholes! You know, unlike the families from the other books, who were open enough to look at the facts, the evidence, of what was going on. These stupid fucks get everything they deserve! Hell I probably won’t think it to be enough. These are not good people. Just because they go to church, are involved with their community does not make them good people. They are first and foremost liars, to themselves, each other, and their children. They brought this thing into their lives with their lies and stupidity! I feel so very badly, even more badly than before for Stephen. Having parents this stupid! Shit the neighbor, who had never spent any kind of time in the house came over for dinner one night and couldn’t stay because the house felt wrong. She even told Carmen that and she still was in denial. Still blaming the poor 14 year old for everything. The fact that she wonders why he is acting the way he is toward herself and Al is dumbfounding. He’s acting that way bitch because you called him a liar and blamed him for everything that was happening, and told him you didn’t want to hear his lies. And now that he is distant, does not want to talk with you, you are wondering why. REALLY you fucking moron! Shit I would expect him to be like that even without the influence of the spirit. I know that I would be! No point talking to people who call you a liar and accuse you of being the cause of everything that goes wrong. These people need to get their heads out of their asses with a quickness.

At 60% of the way through and these people still need the help of a good proctologist! The neighbor that left even offered up a suggestion of help (the Warrens) and Carmen aka the dumb bitch is still trying to convince herself that it’s just stress and her own imagination. At this point in the book we have, yet again, another person (Carmen’s niece who is 17) telling her that there is something wrong with the house. That there is something dark there. And once again Carmen ignores the voice that keeps trying to tell her that something is wrong. Al is a complete and total looser who does nothing but drink to escape. Even though he knows that there is something very wrong and has denied even more obvious signs that there are otherworldly things in play is solution is to drink because there is nothing he can think of to do. He doesn’t like that he’s acting the way he is but what else can he do? Call the proctologists assholes. My GOD this book is frustrating to no end. How can you have shit thrown in your face and not acknowledge that it’s reality. You’d have to be an award winning reject in the cranium department!

Oh and now they are being told that he’s mentally ill and needs time in a hospital. Now it’s going to be even harder to convince them that the house is infested. He’s not mentally ill people! He’s possessed. And I hope that Stephen’s rather ominous warning to them proves that it’s not him but what is in the house. It’s a damn shame that it has come to what it has. If they had been smart they would have researched what they could do, believed their son as well as their own eyes and ears avoided all of this shit. But NOOOOO they had to be stupid assholes! Everyone should take a lesson from the Smurl family and how they handled their situation. It was a beautiful thing. You can read about some smart people in the book The Haunted.

Yup! It happened. The moment that Stephen was not there to keep the thing occupied it pounced! It took their niece being sexually assaulted by the damn thing to get them to open their eyes and even then Al didn’t want to come to terms with it. It’s about damn time that Carmen grew a pair and stood up for what she knows is going on! Al needs to proctologist now. Is “I told you so” appropriate here folks?

And finally here on page 216 we have the Warren’s but they are not involved yet. In fact Carmen calls their parish priest who ends up not believing them. Now Carmen knows how Stephen must have felt when he was desperately trying to tell them how he was feeling.

Chapter 22, when church fails them a second time, the Warrens come through. Oh and did I mention the good news…Al finally got his head out of his ass. Took his wife getting sexually assaulted by the entity BUT he finally came clean with his own experiences and cleaned the shit off his head. Unfortunately that shit has also hit the fan. I’m feeling like I may be able to now put my anger aside…at least for the time being. In fact I’m hoping that the last quarter of the book is smooth sailing.  

Yup smooth sailing.

Closing thoughts:

While the reactions of the adults in this tale are probably the more common ones it did not make me any less angry. This said as the author has chosen to write this in narrative form I am unsure what parts are fact and what parts are the artistic license of the main author. If indeed it took Al and Carmen over a year to stop denying what they were being told by everyone around them and believe their own plethora of experiences then my sympathy for them is not great. This said I do feel for the children, especially Stephen. His parents lack of trust and lack of action caused him to damn near lose his soul. He was targeted because he was ill/weak and because he was the most sensitive to what was in the house. He knew and this made him a threat. His parents disbelief, accusations and harsh judgment only helped break him down further and faster. I know kids make shit up, do stupid things but when you are hearing it from multiple sources, including people who were not even around when Stephen was making his claims then you have to stop and actually listen to what they are telling you. These people, if the narrative is true, did not do that.

NOW I have read some other articles while putting things together for this post and learned that everyone, except Allen Sr. and Carmen’s names were changed. Not sure why as it’s dead obvious that the names were not withheld in general. FYI – Stephen’s real name is Phillip and he went to live with relatives instead of coming back to the house. He was fine after that. The house itself was formally known as the Hallahan Funeral Home. Many of the occurrences that are described in the book did happen but I do think that there was quite a bit of artistic license taken here so that the book could be written in the style of a novel instead of an informational/non-fiction piece like the other books. Better? Worse? I suppose it’s up to the reader to decide. It does however seem that Al and Carmen did not believe their children for a good clip based on multiple sources so while the author had to throw things in there to make the book sound more story telling like I think that at its base, it’s probably pretty close to the story the family was telling and is still telling consequently. I saw an article as recent as 2022.   

Happy Devouring!

The Sexton