“Paranormal explanations for the origin of EVP include living humans imprinting thoughts directly on an electronic medium through psychokinesis and communication by discarnate entities such as spirits, nature energies, beings from other dimensions, or extraterrestrials.”
Movies have been quick to utilize this phenomenon in horror
films – there’s not one but two films completely dedicated to
it. I wanted to examine a specific
offshoot of EVP that happens in films more often than one might think – creepy
occurrences on baby monitors.
Let’s start with Insidious,
the most recent film to feature a creepy ass baby monitor scene. See below.
Horrific, right? Insidious
is terrifying for many, many reasons, but that scene might take the cake.
The thought that someone – or in this case, something – could be up in your
baby’s room whispering creepy nothings in its ears…yikes.
Paranormal Activity 2,
another recent horror film, also
features a creepy baby monitor scene.
Ali and Hunter, respective niece and nephew to Katie, the original
film’s possessed protagonist, are playing in one of their home's bedrooms when
Hunter gets spooked by something he sees in a closet and takes off. Ali, who
has been filming up to this point, is forced to put the video camera down on
the bed to take off after her little brother. While unattended, the camera
records the baby monitor picking up some strange activity.
A different kind of ghostly baby monitor scene appears in
the vastly underappreciated 1999 horror flick, Stir of Echoes. Kevin Bacon’s Tom Witzky gets hypnotized at a party
and starts seeing and hearing a smorgasbord of supernatural terrors in his
house. But one of the creepiest scenes features his young son, Jake.
It’s date night for Tom and he and his wife Maggie go out
with some friends to a local sporting event. They hire a babysitter who quickly
plops down on the couch, with a baby monitor to keep an ear on Jake nearby.
The scene is creepy enough with Jake’s heavy, constant
breathing on the baby monitor. But suddenly, his breathing stops. The
babysitter holds the monitor close and Jake suddenly exclaims “YOU SCARED ME!”
The ghost haunting Jake's house has woken him up, and the two begin to casually
talk about the babysitter downstairs.
Ghost flicks aren’t the only films to utilize the creepy
baby monitor. Remember the Wikipedia quote that mentions extraterrestrials? Signs, the 2002 film from M. Night Shyamalan,
features a scene in which Morgan, son of Mel Gibson’s grieving widower Rev.
Graham Hess, reveals that he’s using an old baby monitor to try and pick up on
signals from visiting aliens.
But finally, the creepy baby monitor scene to end all creepy
baby monitor scenes occurs in a film you probably haven’t even heard of – The Baby’s Room, a film practically
dedicated to creepy ass baby monitors. The 2006 Spanish film – part of the “6
Films to Keep You Awake” series – revolves around a family that begins to
notice strange things on their baby monitors. With this film, however, it isn’t
just what they’re hearing – the movie features video baby monitors as well as the
standard audio device, making the film even creepier.
 |
| Gah! |
The movie starts out a little slow and gets strange when it
starts talking about Schrödinger's cat and evil twins, but it’s got some solid
scares.
I might have to try out one of these baby monitors and see
what all the fuss is about. Surely nothing scary will happen if I leave one in
my bedroom and keep the other next to me while I rewatch Insidious…
