She’s all of the things that we've talked about. Eric Price, do to reveal the truth about this misunderstood woman? Boehme, who has spent her life studying Winchester, says, of course, that she doesn’t expect a documentary: “I understand the artistic license in making a film based on a story, so I don’t expect it to be the true story.” But O’Day is adamant that the movie does justice by Sarah Winchester, even as she is terrorized by specters: “She’s not depicted as a crazy lady. So, what can Mirren’s Winchester, a thriller with ghosts galore and an invented character in the shape of Jason Clarke’s skeptical San Francisco psychiatrist Dr. “Because it was as much their house as it was her house.” “I think they probably felt very identified with this house,” Mirren theorizes. On the day she died, Sarah Winchester’s servants walked away from the property-and, in a move that would be unheard of in today’s era of tell-all book deals, never spoke a word about what went on in the house. In return, the staff gave her unquestioning loyalty and never spoke to journalists about their unusual boss’s habits or motivations. Winchester spent an unusual (for the time) amount of money on making sure her servants lived in comfort, and reportedly treated them almost like family. The mystery around Sarah Winchester grew all the more intense thanks to the unusually close-knit bond she shared with her staff. “But I think, in fact, she was someone with great empathy.” “This legend grew up around her of her being crazy,” Mirren told me, sitting inside the very parlor of the misunderstood woman she plays. But as it turns out, the most curious object inside the mansion was actually Sarah Winchester herself. But there are certainly enough unsettling sights within-a stairway the leads to nowhere, a repeating motif of the number 13 baked into the elaborate decorations, a second-story door that opens out to nothing-to convince Houdini, the friendly Winchester tour guides, and scores of Bay Area residents who visited the house as children (this writer included) that something is awry here. Your mileage may vary when it comes to believing there are, in fact, spirits lurking in the corridors of the Winchester Mystery House. Believe it or not, this ghost-packed film could be the closest mainstream audiences come to understanding that Winchester was far from just a “crazy” lady who built a crazy house. Part historical preserve, part spooky theme park oddity, the Winchester Mystery House has now inspired a new horror movie, Winchester, starring Helen Mirren as the titular, reclusive heir to a massive rifle fortune. There have been over 12 million visitors to the house since its mysterious architect died in 1922. Picking up on some popular nicknames of the day, Houdini dubbed the building “Winchester Mystery House” after the late Sarah Winchester, the secretive woman who built and lived in it. The massive estate, partially demolished by the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906, had a reputation for being haunted-and not even Houdini himself could shake the sense that something inside those walls was wrong. Though a magician by trade, Houdini was devoted, at this time in his life, to debunking what he considered a scourge of fake spiritualists and mediums. In 1924, Harry Houdini visited a rambling architectural oddity in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley.
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