Customer Reviews

In A Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I read this book thinking it would be the pinnacle of the true horror genre. While it is readable, its not as great as the bandwagon would lead you to believe. Here we have a family who moves into a haunted house with their fourteen-year-old son Stephen and his siblings. Stephen has cancer which robs him of physical strength and will. He must undergo debilitating treatments, presumably making him even more susceptible to possession. Stephen and his brother repeatedly complain to their parents about weird events in the house. These complaints are never sufficiently investigated though the parents later admit to experiencing some of the same phenomena. Instead Stephen is labeled a slacker by his stepfather who comes across as weak, insensitive, and a redneck of monumental proportions. His world seems to revolve around going to work and guzzling beer. Some of the events here defy credibility. For instance, Mrs. Snedeker's two nieces move in with the family for awhile. By now she knows her home makes the House of Usher look like a stroll in the park. But she encourages the girls to visit, keeps quiet about the haunting, and then allows them to be traumatized repeatedly. Her younger niece wisely decides to leave. Inexplicably Mrs. Snedeker approves of the older girl staying on until she is actively assaulted. Keep in mind also that the Snedekers have several other young kids living in this turmoil. Which begs the question: Would you remain in a place filled with evil demons intent on raping and pillaging your family which includes a son fighting cancer? Most people would find a way to get out. Depression far outweighs the chills here. Imagine a huge cauldron boiling over with sickness, evil, and disgust and you have this book. It's possible that the Snedekers were sabotaged by demons. Such things do exist in this world. But they seem so dysfunctional and their responses were so inappropriate, so bizarre that the whole scenario strains credulity.

I found this book in the library years ago. I have always been interested in accounts of supposedly 'true' hauntings and this book turned out be my my absolute favourite to date. I have since read it 3 times.

It really is compelling. I'm sure there are many people who feel they are true afficionados of hauntings so I challenge you to read it and place your opinion on it here.

This is the only book I have read that actually bothered me and I couldn't put it down.

Whether Ray Garton has embellished on the happenings I don't know. I know a film was made, changing the name of the Snedekers but it was apparent it was the same family. The film is totally wishy washy compared to the book though. A lot is left out and in my opinion you don't get the same feeling that you get from the book. I loved it. It still scares me to this day and I have been searching ever since for more stories like this, which is shameful of me because it means someone else will have been through what the Snedekers went through. I have to say it grabs you from the start. Its such compelling reading. I recommend it. I don't usually scare easily when reading, but this one did it.

This book, In A Dark Place, is, without a doubt, the best book I have ever read. It's exceptionally written, terrifying, and unsettling: just to think that such a thing could really happen to a family like the Snedekers. The most frightening thing, for me, was Stephen's transformation from a happy, normal boy into the dark, brooding, evil person he became, as he was, in essence, posessed by these demons and spirits in the house. I still wonder if he's ok now. The description in the book is so vivid, and I felt as though I was there. With the spirits in the basement, the voices that were heard, all of it. Stephen, Carmen, and the whole Snedeker family, I wish you the best of luck in the future. I highly recommend this book to anyone, who, like me, is an unofficial, though truly dedicated, ghosthunter.

I found a copy of this book a couple of years ago after watching the documentary version of it, "A Haunting In Connecticut" on the Discovery Channel. The TV show was one of the scariest I'd seen, and the book tracks the film pretty closely.

The premise of the book is that the Snedeker family needs to move closer to where the oldest son, Stephen, is being treated for cancer. The family thinks they have found the answer to their prayers when they find a large home that has just been remodeled that is being leased for a very reasonable price. However, they soon learn the reason for the bargain. The house is a former funeral home. However, with the expense of the son's cancer treatment weighing heavily on the family budget, the Snedekers are unable to afford breaking their lease and moving to yet another house. According to the book, demons invade their domicile - or they invade the demon's domicile, depending on how you look at it - until the supernatural detectives, the Warrens, are called in and with the help of an exorcism, restore peace to the household.

Just as much as fright, though, I felt a great deal of anger at the Snedekers as parents. For one thing, Mr. Snedeker seems to believe that the size of his electricity bill is more important than the mental health of a child recovering from cancer since he removes all of the light bulbs from the basement bedroom so that Stephen can no longer sleep with the lights on. Then he forces the boy to continue sleeping in this bedroom in spite of his tales of horror of being tormented by apparitions coming from the former embalming room adjacent to his basement bedroom. He does this in spite of the fact that he and his wife have both personally been the victims of attacks and witnesses of various manifestations of the house's spirits. Afterwards, in despair, the boy just gives in to the demons' collective will, manifesting in more and more bizarre behavior until he finally attacks a visiting cousin. How Mrs. Snedeker could have invited this young niece into her home in the first place just because she wanted the companionship and help around the house, having witnessed firsthand the mayhem that the house's demons can cause, as well as her son's deteriorating mental state, is a wonder to me.

I have read an interview with the author, and he paints both the Warrens and the Snedekers in a very unflattering light in that interview. He basically says that he does not really believe the Snedekers' stories, since even the Warrens themselves told the author that they think that all of their clients are crazy including the Snedekers. Plus, apparently there was considerable drug and alcohol abuse going on in the Snedeker household and the family members would never tell the same story twice. The author only went through with writing the book because he was already legally obligated to do so. However, even if the account is total fiction, it is well told and frightening fiction and I highly recommend it if you can find a copy. If not, the next time the documentary comes on TV, you should watch it. Also, there have been rumors this story is going to be made into a feature film to be released some time in 2006, but I haven't been able to find any other details on this alleged movie.

I cannot believe this book is out of print.It's still the scariest thing I've read on ANY subject and had me spooked of funeral homes,old drains,and rusty sinks for a long time. Not to mention the poor boy who's bedroom turned out to be the south coffin room.Different,chilling, and true, and the grotesque events leading to the hauntings made my skin crawl.Thank you, Mrs. Snedeker for telling the world your story. Thanks also to Ed and Lorraine Warren, and the state of Connenticut which I can't pass through anymore without thinking of this book...it's that good---

It's kind of irrelevant whether, as the author claims, this is a true story. But even read as fiction, this is one of the scariest books I've ever read, and I've read a lot on this theme. Makes the "Amityville Horror" school of "true haunting" books look like children's fairy tales by comparison. A truly frightening book about a young family who unknowingly move into a converted Funeral Home, and despite their terror are unable to afford to move out. I've read it multiple times and it gives me chills every single time.

In this book, derived from the experiences of Ed and Lorraine Warren (who are well respected, self-proclaimed Demonologists), with regard to the Snedeker family, the reader is brought into the realm of the unknown and seemingly impossible, world of demonic possession. Through this compelling saga, one is tranported into the horrific lore of the Snedeker's reality. A family of seven persecuted maliciously by a group of apparitions that catapult the family into an incubus of acopocolyptic proportions. The demons manage to invade the very core of the Snedeker's family, trying desperately to destroy their familial bonds. The devilements of these omnipotent, devilish demons increases more and more as they gain control over the Snedeker family. Not one member of the family is left untouched by these oppressive entities. This book leaves the reader in awe of the potential danger of the unknown realm of spiritualism and demonic possession. Whether you "believe" or not, it is a truly compelling story worth putting some effort into reading.

Ghosts and I have a long and turbulent past, but nothing could have prepared me for the utter terror that this book brings to mind. Just thinking about it in the past tense I get goosebumps. A loud voice screaming your name from the wide open basement door, "Get down here!" just absolutely thirlls me. I have yet to read anything scarier than this book and it is a travesty that it is out of print.

Just when you think that Ed and Lorraine Warren have been through everything they come back with this book about a haunted former funeral home. This is one book that I will NOT read at night. I would say that this is even scarier than Beware the Night, The Haunted, and The Demonologist. If you have followed the work of the Warrens than this novel is definitely a must read. "Do you know what they did to us!!"

Okay, so maybe you've never heard of IN A DARK PLACE; but believe me: if you like horror mixed with the struggles that a family goes through in the never-ending saga known as life, read it. One of the only books that have ever sent shivers down my spine. I was, cautiously, racing through the book, having finished it in two or three days. Words cannot describe (well, obviously they can if they're in the book) the atmosphere that this book presents, the way its pages reach out with their hands and grab you, not releasing its grip until the very last page is read. Although I'm not really sure if this book was ENTIRELY true I think it was still a very dark, entertaining journey into the realms of the Unknown. Do read it!