Halls of horror ...report taken from Sunday times 06/03/05.
What lurks in darkened cinemas? Plenty of ghost tales, as LifeStyle finds out
By Karl Ho
IT IS the last show of the night and all is quiet inside the cinema hall save for the steady drone of dialogue emanating from the screen.
WHO'S THAT GIRL?: Among the wild tales of cinema 'ghosts' is that of a 'little girl' and the toys she leaves behind.
A little girl sits in the front row of the hall, alone. All of a sudden, she giggles wildly.
Her features are indistinct, shrouded by the darkness.
But when the lights come on later, the little girl has disappeared. The only evidence of her existence? A clutch of toys left behind on the seat.
Or so the story goes.
Cinemas, it seems, are not just favourite haunts of the living, but also the dead.
Any movie-goer worth the salt in his popcorn would have heard of the myriad supernatural tales revolving around Singapore's cinemas.
One of the more prevalent legends currently being circulated in Internet chatrooms like forum.aiomobile.com is of the 'little girl' in Golden Village Plaza's multiplex at Plaza Singapura.
Apparently, she has been spotted sitting in the front row of cinema halls 7 and 10 during the first and last shows of the day.
Story has it that cinema staff would find toys in these two halls. When they leave the toys by the exits at the end of the night, the toys would be gone the next morning - yet reappear in the front seat after the last show the same night.
Like any other urban myth, this one changes with every retelling.
Movie industry insiders LifeStyle spoke to gave differing takes on the creepy tale and its origins.
One version has it that gynaecological and paediatric clinics once occupied the space where the halls now stand.
Abortions were said to have taken place there, hence stories about patrons hearing sounds of children playing in the background during screenings.
In fact, taller tales have it that priests have performed cleansing rituals in the hall.
Armed with this information, LifeStyle set out to investigate.
Our own ghosthunt
SO, IS the ghost of a little girl really lurking in GV Plaza Singapura?
For the final leg of our investigation, LifeStyle went ghosthunting on Feb 15 and 16, watching the first and last shows of both cinemas 7 and 10.
I sat in the third row of both halls hoping to spot anything unusual in front.
But, sorry folks, there was no little girl, no toys, no giggles, nothing.
In fact, movie-goers on those two days might have been spooked by me instead: Seated in front and turning my head back and forth frequently, I must have looked like Linda Blair in The Exorcist.
What scared me was not the prospect of chancing upon the elusive young apparition, but the fact that up to 40 people - mostly couples - had actually paid to watch the 9.50 pm screening of the atrociously bad movie Racing Stripes at cinema 10 on Feb 15.
The movie features talking animals and revolves around a zebra which aspires to be a racehorse.
Movie patrons interviewed at those screenings also dismissed the urban legend as rubbish.
'I'm still going to watch movies in 7 and 10,' said make-up artist Rosalind Foo.
Indeed, even supernatural buffs like writer Lim doubted the GV ghost story.
'I don't think ghosts can leave tangible things like toys behind. And how can the sighting times be so accurate?' he said.
'It's one thing to have a weird feeling that you've seen something. But when you can say for sure that it's a girl but still not pinpoint any further details about her, then the story's suspect.'
On Feb 18, LifeStyle invited the Singapore Paranormal Investigators' Mr Goh to watch the 2.10am screening of action movie Flight Of The Phoenix at cinema 7.
Again, there was no close encounter with the spiritual kind, though Mr Goh told us he enjoyed his free movie.
'I was looking around and counting the number of people going in or out of the theatre and there wasn't any extra girl or anything,' he said.
'Maybe she'll turn up when the cinema shows a horror movie,' he quipped
