Houses of horror

Theses houses, infamous for their spooky past, were either used as shot locations in horror films or were inspired by scary stories.

Marcos Twin Mansion

Marcos Twin Mansion

The “Haunted Mansion,” a Regal Entertainment horror film, was shot in the Marcos Twin Mansion owned by the Marcoses. The film, written and directed by Jun Lana, starred Janella Salvador, Mario Mortel, Jerome Ponce, Janice de Belen and Iza Calzado and was released on Dec. 25, 2015 as an official entry to the 41st Metro Manila Film Festival.

The permission to shoot inside the mansion came from former First Lady Imelda Marcos herself, according to Lana.

The 25-ha property in Cabuyao, Laguna, used to be the party place of the Marcoses before it was sequestered by the government in 1987, or a year after the ouster of the late dictator. In 2010, the Sandiganbayan ordered the return of the property to the Marcos family.

Ettington Park Hotel

The 1963 psychological horror film “The Haunting,” directed by Robert Wise, featured the Ettington Hall as the exterior of the house.

Now known as the Ettington Park Hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon, managed and operated by Hand Picked Hotels Ltd., the neo-Gothic mansion once served as a nursing home and prisoners camp during the World War II.

After it was damaged in a fire in the late 1970s, the building was leased and restored to its old glory before it officially opened as a luxury hotel.

The hotel is said to be one of the most haunted hotels in the United Kingdom with alleged sightings of a woman in Victorian-era clothing walking along the conservatory entrance and a ghost of a man wandering in the library with his dog.

Amityville house

Located on Long Island in New York, the now infamous home is where the DeFeo family mass murder happened, inspiring a book and film entitled, “The Amityville Horror.” The remaining family member, Ronald DeFeo Jr., then 23 years old, turned out to be the killer and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Built in 1927 at 112 Ocean Avenue, the three-storey waterfront home, which has five bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms and a basement, now sits at 108 Ocean Avenue. Since the tragedy, the house has been owned four different families and none of them reported strange experience, according to reports.

In 2016, the house was put on sale for $850,000 and was named the “most popular house” in a real estate website, the Washington Post reports.

Diplomat Hotel

Diplomat Hotel

One of Baguio City’s famous landmarks, Diplomat Hotel, is known as an abandoned haunted structure. It was also the shoot location of the 2013 horror film, “The Diplomat Hotel” starring Gretchen Barretto and directed by Christopher Ad. Castillo.

But before the building became a hotel, it was originally a retreat house of the Dominican friars called the Dominican Hill and Retreat House, built in 1913.

When Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941, Baguio City became the headquarters of the Japanese Imperial Army who turned the Dominican building into a prisoners-of-war camp. The Dominican house did not survive the war, as portions of the building turned into rubble.

In 1974, the Dominicans sold the property and the retreat house was converted into the 33-room Diplomat Hotel. The hotel closed in the ’80s when one of its owners, faith healer Antonio Agpaoa, passed away.

According to reports, there were ghost stories of marching hooded friars, Japanese soldiers and wailing babies during the last years of the hotel.

When the hotel closed, it was looted and cannibalized. The city government had been rebuilding the structure inch by inch, but at a pace slowed down due to meager finances.

On Sept. 1, 2014, the Dominican house was declared an important cultural property by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines.

“The Conjuring” house

The 2013 film “The Conjuring” was actually shot in North Carolina, but the house that inspired the movie is in Harrisville, Rhode Island.

The film is about the supposed haunting of the Perron family, which was investigated by two ghost haunters in the 1970s.

In 2015, the owner of the house, 68-year-old Norma Sutcliff, sued Warner Bros., the company that produced the film, after a number of movie fans kept trespassing on her property, CBS News reported.

Sources: Inquirer Archives, handpickedhotels.co.uk, latimes.com, washingtonpost.com, cbsnews.com,