When you write about paranormal pop culture, you rarely expect things to be, well, normal. Instead, it's sort of par for the course to be researching some news bits and then find yourself sucked into a rabbit hole where you're following bread crumbs on an odd story for a couple hours.
That's the story on my relationship with Patient X, a Filipino horror/suspense flick about a doctor who returns home after 20 years to discover a bunch of aswangs (bone-sucking vampiric monsters) eating up his town. The film opens Oct. 28 in the Philippines and the trailer, which follows, is pretty bloody, engaging stuff.
But wait, there's more.
While reading up on Patient X, I found an interesting news bit in the Manila Bulletin where the film's cast and crew claim they were surrounded by ghosts during the shoot in an abandoned hospital. Not only have reports of hauntings on set been widespread, but now the filmmakers have released a photo they claim shows proof of a ghostly presence.
Although any paranormal investigator worth his K-II would say the shadow next to producer Joel Abacan (the man sitting down) is simply from another person in the room, he says not so. So is it a fake and part of a buzz campaign surrounding the movie? Who knows, but if so, a lot of people in the film industry are doing their best to convince the Internet community otherwise.