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In 1900, lumber baron John J Cruikshank built his family a monumental mansion overlooking Hannibal, Missouri. With nine bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, and 13,000 square feet, the colossal building was a virtual palace for Cruikshank, his wife, and 4 daughters, who lived there until the wealthy baron’s death in 1924. For the next 43 years, the house lay vacant until, two weeks before its scheduled destruction, when it was saved and restored by three local families.
Today, the beautifully restored Rockliffe Mansion boasts such amenities as a Bed & Breakfast, Cabaret, gift shop, gallery, and a bistro. However, Rockliffe Mansion also houses its very own ghosts; from strange noises in the cellar, to loud breathing that frightened worker’s away from the family’s bathroom, to Mr. Cruikshank’s bed, that despite constant smoothing out, always bears a mysterious depression that mimics the height of the baron himself.
In this documentary, a team of ghost hunters led by the self-proclaimed “Ghostcatcher” Gary Hawkins PhD. Attempt to uncover proof of the spirits that haunt this elegant mansion. Dr. Hawkins claims to be able to sense the energy of any nearby spirits, and then to change his own energy, effectively turning himself into a magnet to “catch” and hold the spirit stationary.
Content
The format of this documentary reminded me a lot of the popular Travel Channel show “Most Haunted”, which mainly focuses on the British Isles and made several treks to well-known locations in the United States, as well. The show provides a brief history of the location, as well as a graphic map of rooms where particular paranormal phenomena are said to occur. A group of people, led by a medium or psychic, spend a night in the house, and record the strange goings on, and then follow with a wrap-up. The Spirits of Rockliffe Mansion followed a similar format. It started out with an introduction to the building, interviews with staff and tour guides, a walkthrough of the mansion, led by the film’s narrator, and – the part the audience is most looking forward to – the team’s all-nighter.
Although the story is certainly an intriguing one, I do think that the structure of this film needs a bit of work. There was only a little bit of background given on both the house and family – in fact I found more information on the mansion’s website, than in the film itself. One of the tour guides alluded to the fact that the family – and Mr. Cruikshank in particular – may not have been the most moral person, which might explain the present-day haunting, but it would have been nice to get a little more detail in this area.
During the interviews with the staff, one tour guide told a rather chilling tale of a Turkish exchange student who, while using the bathroom on the ground floor, was frightened by the sound of very loud and ominous breathing outside the door, even though there was no one standing there. Her belief was that, because the young man was darker-skinned, the sprit or spirits looked at him as one of the help, and the help would not have been allowed to use the family’s bathroom. It was a good story to include in the documentary; however, it was promptly followed by the exchange student’s rather lengthy explanation of the same story. While it is a good thing to include both accounts, this gets a bit redundant for the audience. A better edit would be to piece both accounts together, cutting back and forth between the two. This would both streamline the story, and help eliminate the more extraneous parts of the interviews.
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