with all the cameras, lights and too many probing questions, have re-edited The G-string Horror to their own liking.
1. In 1985 I was shooting in an exercise chamber at the Northern Shaolin Temple in China that had never been photographed before. The monks allowed me and two other cameramen to shoot for a few minutes only. We kept shooting, I suppose, longer than the unseen “inhabitants” of the chamber thought acceptable.
Although all indications were that we were recording, there was nothing recorded on any of our tape beyond the first couple of minutes that the monks had originally designated. A similar thing happened while I was shooting a sub basement tour with a dancer/witch at the Market Street Cinema. We encountered several of her unseen friends who did not like what I was doing. From that point on, nothing was recorded even though, by all indications, the camera was functioning properly.
That was just the beginning. Much of the strange tale told in the film actually happened in a slightly different form. Shots were moved around in the edit…not my doing. At times the movie DID change each time it was viewed…not just for me…others also. And none of us were “smoking” or drinking. The actors were not themselves at times. On several occasions when an actress was playing a fictional version of one of the ghosts, it seemed that the real ghost took over and enjoyed being “exercised” by a human host.
2. In December, 2012, the Ghost Adventures (Travel Channel)
crew did an investigation of the Market Street Cinema. The episode was first
shown at the beginning of March, 2013. During the investigation Zak Bagans had
a serious run in with the dancer/witch (mentioned above) and one of her dead
friends who chose to show his demonic side.
Soon after the show aired I noticed that the hard drive that
contained the files for the film was showing less…and then still less…available
space, and I had added nothing. I opened the drive and found that a copy of the
film had been made and that the timeline for the copy contained a flipped
(backwards) version of the film superimposed over the normal forward version. I
had not done this. No one else had access to the movie. Malfunction? Hardly.
There have been experiments with hidden (demonic?) messages
being added to songs by artists, or interpreted as such by fans, by reversing
audio, and even an experimental presentation of Kubrick’s The Shining projected backwards and forwards
simultaneously that has developed a cult following, but those manipulations
were performed by human hands. (see links below) I had already experienced what
seemed to be some sort of paranormal intervention in the shooting and editing
of the film, but nothing this extensive.
“Bizarre juxtapositions and startling synchronicities…you
begin to get drawn into the surreal, hypnotic interplay of images on screen.
And you begin to see that the movie is commenting on itself, playing with its
own themes and echoing itself again and again.”
Badassdigest re The Shining Forwards & Backwards
But this was just the opening move in what has become a
surreal and darkly comical game. Several days after the film had been turned
backwards, other changes…new footage I could not account for, shots of ghosts
who had been “left out”, voice changes, disturbing messages, etc…began to
appear spontaneously. I have come to realize that I now have very little say in
whatever the final “final cut” of the movie will be. Through the continuing
work of my prankster “collaborators”, the film continues to evolve on its own.
I have been able to make copies of a recent version of The
G-string Horror, which I call the *Demon Cut*. A Director’s Cut is out of the question at this point.
Charles Webb
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