1.17 Hell House
Title | Hell House |
Episode # | Season 1, Episode 17 |
First aired | 30 March, 2006 |
Directed by | Chris Long |
Written by | Trey Callaway |
On IMDB | http://imdb.com/title/tt0763064/ |
Outline | Sam and Dean struggle to shut down a haunted house generated by an internet audience. |
Monster | Tulpa |
Timeline | June 7 - 12, 2006 ? |
Location(s) | Richardson, Texas |
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Contents
Synopsis
A group of teenagers in Richardson, Texas, visit a reputedly haunted house, but the thrills turn tragic when they find the body of a girl hanging in the cellar. However, by the time the police arrive, the body is missing.
Sam and Dean, who are engaged in a prank war, decide to investigate and track down Craig Thursten, who relates the legend, told to him by his cousin Dana, of Mordechai Murdoch, a farmer who lived in the house during the 1930s, and who killed his daughters, hanging them in the cellar.
Sam and Dean visit the house, which has symbols painted from many different origins freshly painted on the walls and floor. While searching the house, the boys run into Ed Zeddmore and Harry Spangler, paranormal investigators, who run a website called Hell Hound's Lair.
Sam and Dean do some more research, but can’t find any evidence to support the legend of Mordechai Murdoch. They are preparing to leave when they hear that the previous night a girl did die in the house – hung from the rafters.
Returning to the house they again run into Ed and Harry – and the spirit of Mordechai who chases them from the house and is not slowed by a blast of rock-salt.
Back at their motel, the boys try and work out what is happening. Mordechai’s spirit appeared to have slit wrists, which was previously not part of his legend. The story on the Hell Hound's Lair website has also changed.
Dean recognizes one of the symbols painted in the house, and he and Sam return to visit Craig. The symbol is from a Blue Oyster Cult album cover – and Craig works in a record shop. Craig admits that he and his cousin painted the symbols and spread the rumour about Mordecai as a prank.
Sam postulates that Mordechai is a Tulpa – the manifestation of a thought. One of the symbols painted in the house is Tibetan spirit sigil, which assists in concentrating mental energy. Sam thinks that as people view the website, they are willing into reality what they read there.
In order to “kill off” Mordechai, the boys tell Ed and Harry that they have found out that being shot with iron rounds will kill him. They wait for the boys to post it on their website, and enough people view it so that it becomes real.
Sam and Dean return to the house to finish off Mordecai, but Ed and Harry are there and tell them the server crashed, so the new legend will not manifest. As Mordechai attacks them, Dean sets the house on fire, figuring that without that part of the legend Mordechai won’t exist.
Sam and Dean farewell Ed and Harry – Sam with a prank call from a Hollywood producer and Dean with a fish in the back of their car. The boys call a halt to their own prank war – for now.
Characters
Definitions
- Satanic Looking Symbols PoD
- Sigil of Sulfur PoD
- Tibetan Spirit Sigil: Tulpa PoD
- Hell Hound's Lair
- Thought Forms/Psychic Projections
- EMF
Music
- Blue Öyster Cult – Fire of Unknown Origin
- Blue Öyster Cult – Burnin' for You
as well as, according to the S1Com:
- Extrem Music - Slow Death
- Extreme Music - Anthem
- Rex Horbart and The Misery Boys - Point of No Return
- The Waco Brothers - Fast Train Down
Quotes
Dean: Start what up?
Sam: That prank stuff—it’s stupid, and it always escalates.
Dean: Oh, what’s the matter, Sammy, you afraid you’re gonna get a little Nair in your shampoo again, huh?
Sam: It does.
Dean: Right. Well, I mean, that explains why he went after you, but why me?Sam: And after his time, too. The reverse cross has been used by Satanists for centuries, but this sigil of sulfur didn't show up in San Francisco until the sixties.
Sam: I'm not touching that line with a ten foot pole.
Dean: So?
Sam: ‘Cause you’re a bad person.
Dean: Well I have an obligation to kick both of your little asses right now.
Harry runs back to the trailer. Ed follows more slowly.
Dean: No one will go in anymore. Look, Mordechai can't haunt a house if there's no house to haunt. It's fast and dirty, but it works.
Sam: What if the legend changes again and Mordechai is allowed to leave the house?
Dean: Well then, we'll just have to come back.
Dean: Oh, yeah? Wrong number?
Dean: What's that?
Sam: I was the one who called them and told them I was a producer.
Dean: [laughs] Well, I'm the one who put the dead fish in their backseat.
Sam: [laughs] Truce?
Trivia & References
- Dean puts a plastic spoon in Sam's mouth while he is asleep, takes a photo, then turns the music on really loud, waking Sam up and startling him.
- Sam turns the car radio's volume all the way up, startling Dean with a tango song.
- Dean puts itching powder in Sam's underwear while he's in the shower.
- Sam glues Dean's hand to a beer bottle.
- Sam calls Ed & Harry, pretending to be a producer offering them a movie.
- Dean puts a dead fish on the back seat of Ed & Harry's car.
- Dean mentions putting Nair in Sam's shampoo bottle as part of a prank war when they were younger.
- A line taken from the 1973 movie The Exorcist, from the Roman Catholic rite of exorcism.
- Lord of the Rings is a fantasy epic written by J.R.R. Tolkien and a box office hit movie trilogy directed by Peter Jackson.
- This could be a reference to Harrison Ford's character "Indiana Jones", who has a similar adversion against snakes. (His father, Henry Jones, reveals in Indiana Jones III that he doesn't like rats.) Harrison Ford also plays Han Solo in Star Wars, a character, Dean has been related to by series producer Eric Kripke.