Devil’s Road: Judy Spera Details Life Growing Up As A Warren

BY AARON SAGERS

When a child grows up with famous parents, it means dealing with overly eager fans, and invasive reporters. But for Judy Spera, the daughter of Ed and Lorraine Warren – arguably the most well-known paranormal investigators ever --  growing up with famous parents also meant dealing with dark forces, and one notoriously haunted doll.

Spera was an adult in her twenties by the time her parents gained mainstream attention for their work with the paranormal in the mid-70s. But before the Lindley Street Poltergeist case in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1974, or the Amityville Horror, and long before The Conjuring film franchise, Spera’s parents sold Ed’s artwork, and carved out a decent life for their daughter. Ed grew up in a haunted house, and Lorraine was a clairvoyant, and though they had explored unexplained phenomena for years, theirs was a normal existence compared to the talk show appearances, lectures across the globe, and attention that was to come.

And in the Travel Channel documentary, Devil’s Road: The True Story of Ed and Lorraine Warren, Judy Spera opens up about life with her paranormal investigator parents. The special includes rare audio and video from Warren cases. But Spera’s involvement is likewise rare due to her reluctance to be involved with most projects about her parents.

Ed died in 2006, and Lorraine in 2019, so Judy, along with her husband Tony Spera, are the caretakers of the Warren legacy – although it is a legacy she is hesitant to continue. In the following interview, Spera discusses what it’s like to grow up haunted. Along with responding to critics of her parents, she opens up about “that doll” Annabelle (safely contained in the since-closed occult museum her parents left her), her own potential psychic abilities, and what might be next for the Warren name.

Hans Holzer at 100: America’s First TV Ghost Hunter Still Haunts Paranormal Community

BY AARON SAGERS
(Originally published at Den of Geek)

Born in Vienna on January 26, 1920, Hans Holzer was like many children, fascinated by the ghost and fairy stories he heard in his youth. But those tales, told by his Uncle Henry, which he retold at school to the disapproval of adults, stayed with Holzer. Ghosts became his life’s work as one of the world’s most famous figures in the paranormal field.

Before his death in 2009, at age 89, Holzer authored nearly 140 books on the paranormal, extraterrestrial life, witchcraft, and more, beginning with 1963’s Ghost Hunter. During a career that famously involved the “Amityville Horror” house case in 1977, Holzer also taught parapsychology at the New York Institute of Technology, and both appeared on, and consulted for, Leonard Nimoy’s late 1970s show In Search Of… And interestingly, actor Dan Aykroyd claimed an obsession with Holzer, which inspired him to write Ghostbusters.

The paranormal subgenre of reality television exploded around 2005 – a trend that continues today with numerous series on networks such as Travel Channel, and A&E, and which has expanded online. Four decades prior, Hans Holzer was one of America’s first famous ghost hunters, preceding Ed and Lorraine Warren.

“He was the king of all paranormal media,” says Dave Schrader, lead investigator of Travel Channel’s unscripted series The Holzer Files, which re-examines Holzer’s cases, and host of the popular paranormal radio show Beyond The Darkness. “He was like the Howard Stern of his time, and was on TV, wrote for movies, and wrote books.”

Bella Thorne Set to Star in New “Amityville” Movie

According to Yahoo’s “The Wrap”, Disney Channel star Bella Thorne is set to star in the new “Amityville” movie for Dimension Films and Blumhouse Productions.

The horror flick will also star Jennifer Jason Leigh. Originally, the movie was set to film through a found footage angle, but the idea was dropped after falling out of favor with horror fans. Currently, the storyline revolves around a single mother (Leigh), that moves into the house with her three children, seemingly unaware of the homes dark history.

Directed by Franck Khalfoun ("Maniac"), the film was co-written by Casey La Scala and Daniel Farrands, with Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions is expected to produce. Audiences can expect to see the film hit theaters on January 2, 2015.

-Ashley Adriance

New Amityville Movie Gets Release Date

The latest addition to the Amityville chronicles has a release date. The joint venture of Dimension Films and Blumhouse Productions was formerly titled "Amityville: The Lost Tapes," is now simply "Amityville" and is set for release on January 2, 2015.

Cinema Blend offers up this brief synopsis of the new film; "[Amityville]…showcases the events after the time of the original The Amityville Horror book and movie through found footage dating back to 1976. An ambitious female television news intern, on the verge of breaking the most famous haunted house case in the world, leads a team of journalists, clergymen and paranormal researchers into an investigation of the bizarre events that will come to be known as The Amityville Horror … only to unwittingly open a door to the unreal that she may never be able to close.”

Currently, there is no casting information to share, but keep checking back for news!

-Nowal Massari