Editor’s Note: This review is the first in a series on folklore adapted to film. The whole series will be posted to our new ‘Reviews’ page.

The Vanishing Hitchhiker stands out as one of the oldest, and most frequently told, of urban legends. In fact, the term ‘urban legend’ became known to the general public after the publication of Jan Harold Brunvand’s first popular work, titled ‘The Vanishing Hitchhiker.’

Folklorists trace the story back to ancient times, with a possible early variant appearing in the Biblical story of the Apostle Phillip’s encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch. Thousands of variations exist in oral circulation. Some tellings deal with religious and apocalyptic themes, while others seem more concerned with unrequited love. The setting of the story also finds great flexibility, with variations set throughout most of the English speaking world.

In most modern versions of the story, a motorist picks up a stranded traveler from the side of the road, often with the explanation that they ‘never pick up hitchhikers,’ but found themselves doing it ‘this once.’ The motorist drops the hitchhiker at a specific address, but finds the hitchhiker has taken along a borrowed item (often a jacket or sweater). When the motorist returns to recover the lost item, the hitchhiker is identified as someone long dead. Often, the driver discovers the borrowed item, proving that the ghost existed.

Return to Glennascaul, also titled Orson Welles’ Ghost Story, adapts this version of the story into a twenty-three minute short film, and fittingly for a legend, Orson Welles’ narration explains that he himself heard the story from a hitchhiker he picked up in the country outside of Dublin. He tells the story as a sort of apology/explanation for the disturbed (but humorous) behavior he exhibited after hearing the tale.

The film itself effectively dramatizes the story, implying that spectral existence is a lonely one, and establishing a motive of lost love for the return to the mortal plane. It also hints at a link between the protagonist and the spirit of the young woman he encounters, making it possible that the visitation was intended just for him.

Orson Welles’ appeared in this film during a break in production from his own ‘Othello,’ and Hilton Edwards, his Othello co-star, wrote and directed Return to Glennascaul. Edwards did much of his work in the theatre, and most of Glennascaul’s small cast is made up of stage actors. They do their jobs well and the film makes excellent use of its small budget, and was nominated for an Academy Award.

Return to Glennascaul is not available on DVD in the United States, but appears as an bonus feature on the recent UK DVD release of Welles’s version of Othello. Currently, it can also be found on YouTube.

We’re taking a break from working on the first post of our new review series, and came across a cool collection of Haunted Mansion themed desktop wallpapers from the Ghost Relations blog.  The Strangetastic staff read Ghost Relations regularly, but somehow we missed this post when it went up in August.

Fortunately, we live by the words ‘ Better late than never.’

The end of our Mystery House series raises the question, what can readers expect from Strangetastic? Good question, and we’re glad you asked.

Starting Monday, Stephen begins a weekly series exploring folklore adapted to film, and for the first few months he’ll explore  the role of urban legends in Strangetastic’s favorite genre: horror.

Podcasting and horror fiction will also play a role at Strangetastic in the coming months, as we launch a ghost stories podcast in December, and a publish a series of short-short horror stories beginning in January.

Longer articles on strange and unexplained topics will appear as we explore the haunted, mysterious world around us, but on a much less scheduled basis.

Finally, Stephen has an interest in honing his photography skills, and plans to post new photos of spooky locales each Tuesday.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoyed the Mystery House Commentary, and join us this Monday as Stephen explores the Orson Welles film  Return to Glennascaul.

We’ve posted the first fifty photos from Stephen’s Mystery House photo collection in our galleries. Over the next few weeks, we plan post the full 500 photos, but for now enjoy these high-res samples.

Also, if you’ve enjoyed the Mystery House series this month, then check back Thursday for details on what Strangetastic has in store for the future.

Editor’s note: Every weekday in October, former Mystery House blogger Stephen will post an excerpt from his in-progress guide to the Winchester Mystery House. Previous entries can be found here. Come back tomorrow for a special Halloween treat from Stephen.

The tour script for the Venetian Dining room explains that Mrs. Winchester ate most of her meals in the room, and then runs through a list of numbers (”the house has ten-thousand windows, 2,000 doors…”) Giving the list correctly is quite a test, and adds a bit of showmanship, even if the numbers aren’t exactly accurate. Of course the tour script also gently directs you through the exit and into the Gift Shop, where all manner of T-shirts and Mystery House paraphernalia can be purchased.

If you feel the need to purchase a souvenir, I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of Ralph Rambo’s history of Sara Winchester. I’ve mentioned his work several times in the course of this commentary, and though I can’t be sure of its historical accuracy, he did have some connection with Mrs. WInchester. It’s a small book, but it offers some insight into what the people of San Jose thought about the house and its owner.

The highlight of this room for me has always been the brief question and answer time at the end of each tour. In honor of that, I’d like to close this commentary with a list of frequently asked questions (and their answers).

At what point was it named the Winchester Mystery House?

The house opened to the public in February of 1923, just five months after Mrs. Winchester’s death, and it’s possible the owners began referring to it as “The Winchester Mystery House” immediately. Harry Houdini toured the mansion in 1924, and the newspaper account of his visit (on display in the rifle museum at the estate) uses the Mystery House name.

If the house opened right after Sarah’s death, was her remaining family approving of using the house as a tourist attraction?

I’m not aware of any public statements by Mrs. Winchester’s family. Both her sister and her niece were living in the San Jose area when the mansion opened for tours, but I think they probably chose to ignore what was happening. The stories about Mrs. Winchester were not new, and they may have believed that trying to refute them would only draw attention.

I read that it was sold at auction but were there any stipulations in Sarah’s will about its use after sale at probate auction? Was it purchased inexpensively? Did all the proceeds go to the niece?

Mrs. Winchester made no stipulations about the future use of the mansion. In fact, her will doesn’t mention the mansion at all.

Appraisers valued the house as worthless, probably due to the unrepaired earthquake damage and the impractical nature of its design, and the house was sold at auction to a local investor. The proceeds were divided among several of her heirs.

The house sold so cheaply ($135,000), that the divided proceeds were significantly less than the other sums Mrs. Winchester left to her main heirs.

Where did the ’story’ of the house come from?

First, I think it’s important to separate the story of the house from the story of Mrs. Winchester. The story of Mrs. Winchester, that her husband and daughter died tragically, and that a psychic told her to build a house for the spirits of everyone killed by the Winchester Rifle, grew out of rumor and speculation. There may have been some truth to any portion of it, but its never clear where the truth ends and gossip begins.

The story of the house itself seems much more invented to me. Having walked through the mansion more than six hundred times, I find the idea that Mrs. Winchester purposefully built it in a confusing manner unconvincing. There are a handful of oddities (a door that opens to a wall, stairs to a ceiling, etc.), but most of these can be explained in mundane ways. For example, the stairs to the ceiling were covered over when the second floor of the barn they were in was connected to the second floor of the mansion. Mrs. Winchester would not have been able to use the stairs at this point anyway because of her arthritis, so they were simply abandoned.

In my opinion, the idea that she built the house to confound the spirits is more of a marketing scheme than a historical fact.

Editor’s note: Every weekday in October, former Mystery House blogger Stephen will post an excerpt from his in-progress guide to the Winchester Mystery House. Previous entries can be found here.

Leaving the ‘Largest and Smallest Cupboards’ room, you’ll follow the guide down a short hallway. About halfway to your next destination, on the right, you can make out the faint outline of an arrow painted on the cement floor.

These painted arrows are visible in a few other places in the mansion, notably on the landing of the ‘7-11′ staircase (located at the center of the house.) I don’t know their origin, but I assume they were used to direct visitors through the mansion in the days before guided tours. At that time, guests roamed the mansion unsupervised, which seems unthinkable today, but for most of its history after Mrs. Winchester, most people considered it little more than a tourist trap.

A little bit of that tourist trap legacy is visible in the ‘Post-1906 Kitchen.’ At one point, the mansion housed a wax museum. In fact, one of the portraits of Mrs. Winchester found on the official Winchester Mystery House website actually shows a wax dummy. Mystery House management removed the wax figures long ago, but the heads are in a storage room adjacent to this kitchen.

Find the window on the left side of the room that looks into a hallway. Look through it and you’ll see another window, and behind it shelves full of wax mannequin heads. While it isn’t part of the tour script, I always pointed it out to kids, who by this point were usually bored, exhausted, or both. It freaked them out, which entertained them and me.

Also, as you enter the Pre-1906 Kitchen, look through the window to your left and you’ll see an old gas stove. The stove is the single item left in the mansion from the time of Mrs. Winchester. The stove is part of the servant’s kitchen, the same kitchen that you can drop into from the door in the Seance Room.

Have a look around, then follow your guide to the Venetian Dining Room, THE LAST ROOM ON THE TOUR!

I love how mainstream media embraces Halloween, leading to Bizarro-world versions of their usual columns. Today, ‘This Old House’ answers your questions about what you do if your quaint 19th century farmhouse is haunted:

“Once you’ve found an investigator you’re comfortable with, ask him how long he’s been involved in paranormal research, and about his past investigations — especially those involving private residences. If he claims to be some sort of “doctor,” ask what kind of doctor he is. Find out if he’s affiliated with a research group or a national organization, such as the American Ghost Society. Being affiliated with a group with a good reputation can help you make a better decision about allowing him into your home. You can also call the organization and request additional information.”

Read the rest of their advice here:

To be fair, this isn’t a proper review of the show we mentioned last week. I’d planned to write a follow-up post, but decided against it because it didn’t seem fair to review a show we couldn’t sit all the way through.

But then Strangetastic reader J-Mo sent wrote to me and asked:

“I was curious if you caught any of the show, and if you had any opinions about it. I imagine the Winchester House corporation was compensated to let these people conduct their show there, but I was curious if they had had any misgivings after seeing the actual broadcast. The whole thing was almost laughable in it’s stupidity, but I felt sad that it seemed to cheapen the images of both the house and Mrs. Winchester.”

He writes more than we have room for here, but you can read his complete rant on his MySpace blog.

To answer his question, I can’t speak for the owner’s of the Winchester Mansion, but shows like this don’t bother me too much. While I’ve always felt protective of Mrs. Winchester, the reality is that most of her fame is based on gossip and speculation, and that same gossip keeps people coming to the mansion. Without it, I doubt we’d have a place to visit and get to know her.

But does it have to be so badly done?

Unfortunately, the ‘psychics’ on Most Haunted Live at the Winchester Mystery House are the worst psychics I’ve ever seen. Cliche possessions, boring revelations, and night vision cameras do not make for compelling television. I’m even okay with obvious fakery if it’s interesting. Call it my inner ‘PT Barnum,’ but a genuine phoney is okay with me.

And why were they wandering around in the dark? All of those rooms have electric lights in them.

Also, ‘cold skeptics’ do not wander around with an EMF meter explaining that the psychics are experiencing hallucinations from ‘increased electrical activity.’ Cold skeptics point and laugh, then go on with productive life.

Other inanities include scrolling text messages about psychic impressions from viewers at home, a ‘historian’ that reads from a script but pretends it was research, and a feature where viewers could fax in psychic drawings.

On a more positive note, I will say that I thought the camera and editing crews did a fine job making the house look big and scary (when they weren’t using cheap night vision effects.)

I’m also curious, if anyone out there has an idea about how to make shows like this better, throw it in the comments section. I’d love to know your thoughts.

Editor’s note: Every weekday in October, former Mystery House blogger Stephen will post an excerpt from his in-progress guide to the Winchester Mystery House. Previous entries can be found here.

As your tour group leaves the Grand Ballroom, you’ll head to a room in the mansion that contains ‘the largest and smallest cupboards.’ On the way, you’ll pass back through the pre-1906 Kitchen you saw just a few stops before, but this time you’ll be on the other side of a dividing wall where there are a few more interesting things to see.

As you re-enter the kitchen, notice the antique water heater, which the house management believes was the first installed in California. The water was heated using exhaust heat from the oven.

If you have a moment, walk over and stand next to the water heater, then look straight up and you should be able to see daylight. There’s a ventilation shaft (pictured above) that passes through the top three floors of the mansion. What’s most interesting about this shaft is that there’s a door on the third floor that opens right into it. It also piped heat into an office used by Mrs. Winchester prior to 1906.

As you reach the actual stop, the tour guide will show you the largest and smallest cupboards in the house. I won’t spoil any surprises for you, but I will say that this room is a true test of comic timing and skill. If the guide does it correctly, the brief moment of comedy serves the tour well, but woe be it unto the guide that blows his line or doesn’t put enough energy into his delivery.

Which makes this as good a time as any to discuss the tour guide situation. Many of the guides at the Winchester Mystery House are quite good, but many of them are not. Particularly in the busy summer season, the mansion operators hire dozens of high school students and plunks them into the role of tour guide without regard to their delivery.

Unfortunately, the experience of the Mystery House tour is entirely dependent on the individual guide. The reality of the tour will never match most guests expectations, making it the guide’s responsibility to make it work with a new set of expectations. Many guides just aren’t equipped to do this. So how can you ensure a good experience when you visit the mansion?

First, keep an open mind. Despite the scary billboards and specials on the Travel Channel, it isn’t a particularly spooky experience, but it is an opportunity to see interesting things and get to know a fascinating story about rich and lonely woman.

Second, don’t go in the summer if you can help it. The Mansion is open year round, but most of the short-term staff is hired on during the summer. If you go during the late fall or winter, you’re much more likely to get an experienced guide. You’re also more likely to be in a smaller tour group, and your guide will have more time to point out small details of the house. If you can only visit during the summer, go early in the day. Many of the most experienced guides are older or retirees, and they tend to take morning shifts.

My final advice, and this applies to everyday life too, not just Winchester Mystery House tours: wear comfortable shoes.

Editor’s note: Every weekday in October, former Mystery House blogger Stephen will post an excerpt from his in-progress guide to the Winchester Mystery House. Previous entries can be found here.

As you move from Guest Reception Hall to the Grand Ballroom, you’ll pass a large room with unfinished timber walls. I’m not sure of the intended use for this room, but if you look inside, you’ll find a second room in the right-hand corner. This room is an unfinished bathroom, and was only accessible from outdoors.

The ballroom is my favorite room in the mansion, not for its elaborate architecture (the most expensive in the house), but because it contains the only true message we have from Sarah Winchester.

In the picture of the ball room above, you’ll notice two stained-glass windows. Each contains a different quote from the works of Shakespeare. The tour script states that we know nothing of the meaning behind these quotes, but I disagree. Knowing the story of Mrs. Winchester’s life, and the context of the quotes, their meaning to Mrs. Winchester becomes more clear.

“There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.
O! these encounterers, so glib of tongue,
That give a coasting welcome ere it comes,
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts
To every tickling reader, set them down
For sluttish spoils of opportunity
And daughters of the game.”

These lines from the play Troilus and Cressida offer a cynical description of the character Cressida. The Greek Ulysses speaks them after she denies him a kiss, and his scorn for her physical beauty and flirting manner. The excerpt on the window, “wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts” may mirror Mrs. Winchester’s own feelings about her younger self.

However, when the production history of Troilus and Cressida is studied, a second possibility emerges. As written by Shakespeare, Cressida is unfaithful to Troilus, but in the Victorian era, the play was revised to accommodate the stricter sexual mores of the era. Mrs. Winchester may have been more familiar with this depiction, in which Cressida becomes a heroine for her faithfulness, and Ulysses cynical assessment becomes slander. Perhaps Mrs. Winchester chose the quote out to express her feelings that she was misunderstood.

One other note about Troilus and Cressida, the structure of the play itself mirrors Mrs. Winchester’s life. The opening acts depict a romantic view of love and war, followed by a final act filled with scenes of brutal violence and death. The shift in tone is sudden and bitter, and I believe it reflects Mrs. Winchester’s own experiences of grief and loss.

The quote in the second window comes from Richard II, and is spoken by Richard himself. The excerpt in the window reads “These same thoughts people this little world,” but the lines spoken prior give much needed context. They read:

“I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world:
And for because the world is populous
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it; yet I’ll hammer it out.
My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul,
My soul the father; and these two beget
A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
And these same thoughts people this little world”

In this soliloquy, King Richard II, imprisoned and deposed as ruler of England, muses that in isolation he can create a world unto himself, populated only by thoughts, and that these thoughts will be the children of his own mind and soul.

The image of Mrs. Winchester that emerges from this quote, taken with the other line from Troilus and Cressida, is that of a woman isolated and broken down by grief. She blames herself for the deaths, making her grief a punishment, but she is determined to create a new life through her own will. This life she is creating will not be vulnerable to the loss of loved ones. It will exist only in her mind and soul.

It’s fitting that, just a few feet away from the only message she left to the world, Mrs. Winchester hid away her most valued possessions. On the right-hand side of the room, behind a large wooden door, there is a hidden vault so heavy that it required its own foundation. After Mrs. Winchester’s death, her servants gathered around as the vault was opened. Rumors of a solid gold dinner service had circulated for years, but according to legend they found nothing of conventional value. Instead, the safe contained to a few locks of hair, newspaper clippings, and other sad reminders of the thoughts that peopled her little world.