Hauntibles

Can ghosts and spirits be captured on film? Several early photographers claimed to have accomplished this feat. Although double exposures are the likely culprit, their images still inspired the idea for HAUNTIBLES. People at the turn of the century weren't as savvy as we are about photographic trickery. Sadly, this attracted a number of charlatans who preyed on the susceptibility of those who'd lost loved ones. These photographers claimed to be able to capture portraits of dearly departed relatives and the results are pretty convincing. Not everyone believed them, however. Experts such as the magician Harry Houdini tried to debunk the images as fakes.  Houdini loved to expose the trickery of fraudulent mediums and other supernatural charlatans. An image Houdini created of himself and Lincoln, intended to show how easy it was to create an apparition with the use of double exposure. Despite evidence to the contrary, many people continued to believe these image...

Over the years, I've directed a number of historical documentaries for television. This required a large amount of research at the the Library of Congress & National Archives. It was here, among faded photographs and dusty card catalogues, that I first discovered the creepy imagery that would inspire the game HAUNTIBLES.  Early photos such as Civil War daguerreotypes break down over time. The figures captured in them now appear rather ghostly. My mind wandered as I searched through the old images. What were the people in these photos like? What stories could they tell us? How might they communicate from beyond the frame? The idea for HAUNTIBLES began to materialize. Many collections are digitized, but not everything's online. Sometimes, it's nice to take a stroll through the card catalogues and see what you find. Spooky old photos did more than just inspire the game HAUNTIBLES. Many ended up in the game itself. I incorporated these images direc...