For my last episode of “The Hair-Covered Hand” I am going to be talking about Raúl Rangel and his paranormal experience. Poltergeist is the German word for a ghost or other supernatural being supposedly responsible for physical disturbances such as loud noises and objects thrown around. And this case Raúl witnessed a shadow in his new home.
Raúl had just moved in into a new house in Ecatepec, Mexico; and right after he started feeling uneasy around the house, claiming that he could see a shadow roaming around the kitchen. The guy who used to live in the house before them came one day to ask if everything was okay so far with the house, and of course Raúl and his family asked him anxiously why such question. He then confessed that when he used to live there, strange things used to happen to him, and he asked if anything weird had happened. Raúl told him about the shadow, although he had not really paid attention to it. This guy told Raúl that one time when he was leaving there, his brother told him that he felt like he heard something coming out of the kitchen, but he thought his brother was just trying to be funny and he went to the kitchen to prove him wrong, and once he got there, a frying pan that was laying on top of the stove started shaking fiercely, and before he knew it he took of running out of the kitchen. After this anecdote, Raúl did not feel so comfortable around the house, but his economic situation did not give him any choice but to stay there.
The first time Raúl really got spooked in the house was one night when Raúl went to bed late at night, once he was about to fall asleep, he felt like the blanket all of the sudden stopped covering his legs, and out of nowhere, a little hand grabbed one of his legs, a chill ran up his spine and he was frightened but could not make any movements or say a word, then the second hand grabbed his other leg, and if it was not terrifying enough, he heard the voice of a child go “Dad, why don’t you pay attention to me?” repeatedly. All Raúl wanted was to. get up and run as far away as possible but he just could not do it, then after a couple minutes, he finally moved and screamed for his father to go up his room, he saw the terror in his face and decided not to stay in the room upstairs anymore.
After that multiple little events kept happening around him and his house, silhouettes appearing in pictures taken, random noises around the house, etc. Raúl eventually just could not take it anymore and decided to leave with his parents. To this day, it is said that nobody wants to live in that house, and has been sitting there waiting for someone to man up and rent it.
Just as well as my last blogs, this podcast uses sound effects in the background that keeps you focused on what the narrator is saying, it captures the intensity of the situation the subject is going through. Mr. Saenz keeps the story going by asking Raúl questions about how he felt at the moment and asks if any actions were taken. As I stated before, Mexican culture is big in religion, and people are extremely superstitious, they claim having paranormal encounters or know someone that has. This podcast is both a narration and an interview.
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I really like the uses of accounts and experience of different character here. The new character may not provide accurate account of what is actually happening, yet, this is what the audience knows so far. The later incidents show how unsettling the environment is and confirms the earlier doubt to be real and not imagining things. I feel it is a common trope many people use in horror stories. The fear of the unknown is commonly used in describing supernatural events or events that cannot be explained due to lack of information. Furthermore, this trope is commonly used in uncovering mystery, but it may not always be the case because sometimes fear without origin or background can be just as terrifying if not more terrifying. I really like the title here, Poltergeist, which reflects the focus of this podcast, and using this topic in a religious place such as Mexico is a good match and good fit for the background to make the audience feel relatable. I also agree with you that the uses of sounds is important to set up the atmosphere. It also reminds me of the podcasts I heard, and those podcasts have great uses of different kinds of sounds to make the transitions, from serene to unsettling. The uses of narration and interview make the supernatural events happen in the podcast feel real; it feels like one of the news people might read on the newspaper. Similar to the podcasts I heard, those podcasts have extended uses of narration and interviews in each episode, and each episode’s interview and narration has its own focus and serve as a foundation for the next episode. Those interviews make the stories feel connected because they are built on top of each other. I also like the descriptions of the supernatural events in your podcast. The descriptions make the stories feel more real, and they are more likely to scare people because they feel more relatable and push the audience’s imagination.
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