Vernon Town Cinema
The Vernon Towne Cinema is located in the city of Vernon, British Columbia, Canada. Vernon is a city of 37,000 people located in the North Okanagan region of B.C. The actual theatre building was built in 1928, and was originally constructed as a dance hall and live theatre. In 1938 the live theatre was converted to a movie theatre by the Famous Players Corporation. Famous Players have long since departed the old Towne Cinema, and it now operates as an Art House, playing art films for those patrons that enjoy the more intellectual movie fare than the main stream multiplexes tend to provide. There have been many strange and odd occurrences in the theatre for years, many of these occurrences have been detailed in the book, Ghosts II, by John Belyk. It walks the theatre at night after the final curtain falls.
Mysterious footprints appear on clean, newly washed floors, often the print of a naked foot appears as the floor is being washed and there have been many witnesses to this phenomenon. On one occasion, when a technician was checking the focus on a newly installed projection lens, the man suddenly jumped back and accused the manager of giving several hard "yanks" on his hair. The surprised manager who had been standing several yards away at the time denied the accusation. The technician, realizing how silly his charge had been, then rushed out of the projection room and didn't stop running until he reached the box office, he was white with fear and trembling. Who or what had yanked his hair has still to be explained. The old lobby foyer still has its oversized poster boxes, and often when the doorman has faithfully mounted the new posters portraying up and coming movies, he arrives the next day to find that they have been unattached from the cases and have to be rehung once again. After a renovation, the theatre was being cleaned prior to re-opening. The cleaning staff brought their equipment into the auditorium through the bottom exit and stacked it to one side of the stage. When they returned from a coffee break to begin cleaning they were shocked to find their equipment had been moved across the auditorium by unseen hands. The frightened staff cleaned with extra haste that day. During this cleaning session the auditorium suddenly came alive with the sound of dance music. Someone or something had mysteriously turned on the theatre sound system and Glenn Miller played in the old Towne once again!
On one occasion the concession worker was doing her nightly inventory and cleanup when the sound of a rattling doorknob could be heard. She looked over to see the doorknob on the janitor room door turning and the door shaking as though someone was locked inside. The only other person in the building at the time was the manager, the worker called out his name, thinking he had locked himself in the room. The manager, hearing his name called, emerged from his office to enquire what it was she had called him for. She explained that there was someone locked in the janitor's room, but on inspection, the manager found the door unlocked and the room empty, no explanation has ever been found!
Odd occurrences have become so common that the staff have even given our mysterious ghost a name, he is affectionately know as "Lloyd" and whenever something happens its just old Lloyd acting up again.
The current owner of the Towne Cinema commutes from the nearby city of Kelowna every day to run the theatre, a drive of about one hour. On most days its a beautiful drive along beautiful lake shore most of the way. During the winter this commute can be sometimes very treacherous and the owner has been force to stay overnight in the theatre on occasion due to severe weather and snow storms. The first time that he stayed overnight he tried sleeping in the office only to awake in the middle of the night unable to move. It seemed like a great weight was pressing down on his body and he was unable to move a muscle. After what seemed hours he finally managed to move his arms and with great effort his legs and then struggled to a standing position. Groping for the light-switch, he finally managed to turn the lights on...but there was nothing visible in the room. The next time he stayed overnight he tried sleeping in the projection booth, with the same result...waking in the early hours of the morning with a great pressure on his upper body. After a long struggle, he managed to overcome this force and once again there was nothing to be seen. Finally he fixed up a some storage space just off the projection room as a sort of small apartment, hoping this time to get a good nights sleep. He awoke at about 3:00am to the sound of a heavy tread on the steep, wooden projection room stairs, they progressed to the top of the stairs then stopped. The owner lay in his bed, frozen, waiting to see if the intruder was going to attempt to get into his locked room. After a few minutes of silence the sound of the mysterious footsteps retreating down the stairs could be heard. With much trepidation, and fearing the worst, the owner proceeded down the stairs in the dark, expecting to find a burglar prowling about the lobby....once again, nothing. There was no-one there, nothing to explain the mysterious footsteps.
A few weeks later, with temperatures dropping near 30 degrees below zero and the roads treacherously slippery, the owner had no choice but to choose once again to spend the night. At approximately 4:00am he awoke in his locked room, he opened his eyes to see a man standing in the doorway of his room. Somehow through two locked fireproof steel doors this man had appeared in his doorway. The owner was shocked as the apparition stood there and looked sadly back at him. The owner finally got up enough nerve to say "So That's What You Look Like". The apparition was that of an elderly man, possibly in his mid 60's, he was wearing dress slacks and a shirt and tie, and a light blue jacket similar in design to that of a lab technician, the apparition said nothing, after a few moments he simply turned and walked back through the steel door he had entered by.
Who the man was has yet to be explained but obviously he has some attachment to the building and just won't let go!
From the BCGHRS
The experiences of the manager, as related above, could be attributed to a phenomenon known as Sleep Paralysis, a not uncommon condition in which one feels paralyzed, usually when awakening. The condition is very often accompanied by either visions of a presence in the room or the feeling that there is a malevolent presence in the room. I have experienced Sleep Paralysis and it can be quite unnerving, even downright terrifying.
The Towne Theatre is at:
2910 - 30th Avenue
Vernon, BC