The Devil's Hour

A few days ago, our good Blogger friend Kat posted about some possible paranormal activity in her home. Was it the cat? Was it da debbill? Who knows, but she mentions that it happened between 3AM and 4AM which she referred to as "dead time"...the hour in which paranormal activity is at it's highest.

I had really never heard of this hour and it's sinister meaning. Witching hour, at least from my readings on the matter, occurred at Midnight. Midnight makes the most sense to me. The middle of the night. When things go bumpity-bump.

Then I watched the film The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and they spoke of the 3AM hour as the true Witching hour...the Devil's hour...dead time. According to the film, 3AM is when evil spirits mock the Holy Trinity because it is the exact opposite of 3PM - supposedly the time when Christ died. All the freaky happenings in the movie occurred at 3AM.

Guess when I watched this film?

That's right. I started to watch it around 1:45AM and I soon realized that I would be approaching the last act of the film right around 3AM, and it really freaked me out. Let me state here that, normally, scary movies don't freak me out. Or at least they haven't since I've grown pubic hair. But this movie really freaked me out. The story was so-so, but the concept of court-room drama centered around demonic possession was fairly novel. It was the performance of Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter), however, that truly raised one's hackles while watching the film.

She is really a sight to see in this film. The director wanted to do most of her contorted possession scenes with a good dose of CGI to maximize the horror, but Ms. Carpenter suggested that she could do most of the contortions herself. And she did. And it really freaked out the crew of the film as well as the audiences. Myself, in particular.

Anyway, so I'm watching this film with one eye on the TV and one eye on the clock as it ticks inevitably towards 3AM. It was bugging me so much that I eventually propped a pillow on my chest to block my sight line to the clock. This didn't really help because I kept having to check to see if it was 3AM yet. And it always seemed as if only a minute had passed since I last checked. It was excruciating.

Then 3AM came and nothing happened. Phew!

Except that at 3:02AM a fucking bird flew directly into a closed window in the living room with a tremendous "BANG!!!" Scared the shit out of me! I jumped up to see what had happened, because I obviously couldn't tell what it was just by the sound and when I looked out the window I saw a small dazed bird hopping away from the window before flying away. Do birds even fly around at night? What the fuck?!?!

I watched the rest of the film with my heart rate going about double what it normally runs and didn't really get a good night of sleep after that. For the next week, no matter what time I went to sleep, I seemed to wake up right before 3AM. Just so I could re-live the nightmare of that stupid bird flying against the window. Thanks!

Anyway, that's my "dead time" story, Kat. Hope you enjoyed!

As a post-script, I would like to add that I have never really experienced any paranormal activity that I can categorize as such. One time I stayed at a friend's house outside of Boston, and they put me up in a loft bedroom that used to be an attic or something. Right before going to bed, they warned "Oh, by the way...there's a ghost of a Revolutionary War officer living in that loft, but he's harmless. Have a good night!" Who does that? I didn't see or hear anything that night, but I also didn't sleep very well. Thanks again!