On display Fall/Winter 2025: a vintage poster exhibition from writer & collector Barry Yuen.

Now that we’re entering the autumn season, (and it’s likely to be autumn by the time you read this) it’s time to start thinking about Halloween (I was in MICHAEL’S store and they already had Halloween decorations out – in July!) An appropriate theme for the season is Ghosts and Hauntings. We all love a good, scary ghost story, and the notion of ghosts is fascinating. In recent years, movies like THE CONJURING, INSIDIOUS, and their various spin-offs have been hits with audiences. Kingston’s HAUNTED WALK remains a popular attraction. True Ghost Stories are a favourite topic of mine. If you ask around, there are a lot of people who have a true ghost story to tell that happened to them or someone in their family. When making THE SHINING, Stanley Kubrick said to Stephen King that he found the idea of ghosts optimistic, since if they exist, that proves that there’s such a thing as an afterlife. Be that as it may, we tend to regard ghosts with fear. There have been countless ghosts in literature, and naturally they have been the subject of many films as well. The storyteller may have the ghosts turn out to be a hoax, and sometimes they introduce an element of doubt, leaving open an interpretation that the ghosts may be the figment of disturbed mind (the “Unreliable Narrator” trope). But there are plenty of instances where the ghosts are presented as real. See POLTERGEIST, for example.

Ghosts have been used for comedy purposes as well. Comedians like Abbot & Costello, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin, Laurel & Hardy have done haunted house comedies. In more recent times, we’ve had the GHOSTBUSTERS movies. And we have the sit-com GHOSTS, which has been on the air for a few seasons now. But I prefer my ghosts to be scary. Some of my favourites are contained in this exhibit, like THE HAUNTING (the 1963 version, not the terrible remake from the 90’s) THE INNOCENTS (quite possibly the scariest ghost movie ever made) and THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE.

Barry Yuen
“As someone due to enter the next world, I would like to know if there IS one.”
- Mrs. Sanderson, owner of Hill House, in THE HAUNTING

GHOSTS AND HAUNTINGS - EXHIBIT WRITEUPS (pdf)