#bridey murphy

[electronicsquid]

Hypnotic Regression - while hypnotized, subjects remember previous lives

(Allan Grant. 1956?)

[archivist-crow]

On this day:

BRIDEY MURPHY

On November 29, 1952, in Colorado, housewife Virginia Tighe, a.k.a. Ruth Simmons, the first person to experience past-life regression, became the center story of a nation fascinated with hypnotism and steeped in controversy over reincarnation. Under the guidance of Morey Bernstein, a businessman with a belief in previous lives, Simmons experimented with trance states. It was a Saturday, midmorning, in Bernstein's home when the proof arrived. With a tape recorder running, Simmons relaxed on the couch, and Bernstein began the slow count to ten, rhythmically moving a burning candle back and forth in front of her face.

Now in a trance, Simmons was regressed through childhood and then was given the suggestion to go to "some other place, some other time." Responding as the eight-year-old Bridey Murphy from Cork, Ireland, and speaking with an accurate dialect, Simmons said she had flaming red hair, lived with her family, and attended church and school. The year she lived in was 1806. Bridey shared the names of her dolls and what she had for breakfast. At seventeen, she married and moved to Belfast. At sixty-six years old she fell down a steep flight of stairs and died. After watching her own funeral, she had rested in limbo until she was reborn as Ruth Simmons.

Bernstein conducted six more hypnotic sessions with Bridey and published the results in his book, The Search for Bridey Murphy. Hundreds of details about Bridey's life were revealed. Bernstein researched the information he had received, hiring librarians and lawyers to track down old records and files to prove Bridey had existed. When the book became a best seller, reporters flocked to Ireland to test the background. To this day, the debate about the validity of Simmons's regression bounces between the debunkers and those debunking the debunkers.

Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009

[screamscenepodcast]

This week, your deadicated hosts cover an Ed Wood picture not made by Ed Wood... it's THE BRIDE AND THE BEAST (1958) from director Adrian Weiss, his one and only film!

This wild and weird flick stars Charlotte Austin, Lance Fuller, and Steve Calvert as the beast in a suit from Crash Corrigan.

Context setting 00:00; Synopsis 15:15; Discussion 32:06; Ranking 46:58

[thepopculturearchivist]

Hype for a film about past-life regression. MOTION PICTURE HERALD, September 15, 1956.

[screamscenepodcast]

Is it Roger Corman's best film? Or, is it his worst? His film THE UNDEAD (1957) comes out of post-production hell starring Pamela Duncan, Richard Garland, Allison Hayes, Val Dufour, Mel Welles and Billy Barty!

When a woman is sent back through time via hypnosis, her psychiatrist must follow her to right the temporal hiccups she sets in motion. (Sort of).

Context setting 00:00; Synopsis 18:14; Discussion 36:49; Ranking 1:02:13

[screamscenepodcast]

Inspired by the Mummy movies from Universal, Alfredo Salazar pens the Mexican horror film LA MOMIA AZTECA (1957) directed by Rafael Portillo! The film stars Ramón Gay, Rosa Arenas, Crox Alvarado and Jorge Mondragón.

Can you take a Mummy movie outside of a pulpy, colonial context? Are there genre ties between horror and classic serials? Just what are Aztec mummies? We answer all these questions and more!

Context setting 00:00; Synopsis 20:22; Discussion 32:36; Ranking 51:19.

[electronicsquid]

Hypnotist visits a sorority house

(Allan Grant. 1956?)

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/14/2025: LOBSTORAGANZA PT. 2 - THE SHE-CREATURE (1956)

My most recent online event for the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies was a terrifically entertaining survey of hypnosis in horror films by critic Adam Nayman, which produced a lengthy list of must-see movies for me and the audience. Nayman briefly touched on the influential story of a Colorado housewife who in 1952 underwent hypnotic regression to a past life as a doomed 19th Century Irishwoman called Bridey Murphy; hypnotist Morey Bernstein's book The Search for Bridey Murphy inspired a pop culture sensation, the strangest result of which must surely be the 1956 AIP oddity THE SHE-CREATURE.

Arkoff in-law and stalwart Corman screenwriter Lou Rusoff brings us the fabulously convoluted story of Dr. Carlo Lombardi (Chester Morris), a celebrity hypnotist whose exploits are tied to a string of seaside serial murders. Somehow, when he regresses his lovely assistant Andrea (Marla English) through her past lives all the way to the origins of life on the planet Earth, this summons, like...well, you know, a She-Creature. It's like a sort of a big lobster lady with weird wiry "hair" and huge chitinous boobs. I don't really know what else to say. This is a weird movie!

While I understand the reference to the then-current Bridey Murphy story, "IT CAN AND DID HAPPEN!" is a great tag line for such a strange and confusing movie. I might also submit, "IT COULDN'T POSSIBLY HAPPEN -- BUT IT SHOULD!" Maybe being regressed to a form of primeval life would be cathartic, maybe it could be the new primal scream therapy. The only real drag about this 77-minute treat is its uniformly reluctant performances; apparently Peter Lorre had been cast as Lombardi, then bailed and fired his agent when he saw the script, so now we'll just have to dream about what might have been.