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HAUNTED HISTORY – The Safety Coffin

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Safety Coffin

Taphophobia is the fear of being buried alive. The limited advancement of medicine in the 18th and 19th century made this fear all too real for the public at large. In light of this, the safety coffin or security coffin was invented and fitted with a mechanism allowing an occupant to signal that they have been buried alive.

Diseases Mimicked Death and Brought about the Need for a Safety Coffin

Many diseases of the time often led people to be buried alive. Both cholera and bacterial infections caused severe diarrhea and dehydration often leading to a near catatonic state. Other diseases would cause the heart to slow down where it is almost undetectable.

African trypanosomiasis, also known as African sleeping sickness is an infectious disease that causes uncontrollable abnormal sleeping patterns. This disease led to a great number of premature burials and enhanced the widespread fear of being buried alive.

In 1790, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick had the first safety coffin built. The coffin included a window to allow light in and a tube that provided fresh air. Once the lid was locked, 2 keys were sewn into a pocket in his burial shroud. In the event he was to awaken inside his coffin, he would be able to reach the 2 keys and unlock the coffin. The window would also allow the cemetery caretakers to periodically look down onto the coffin to see if his body was decomposing.

The dying request of George Washington reportedly stated, “Have me decently buried, but do not let my body be put into a vault in less than two days after I am dead.”

In the 19th Century, Germans designed over 30 different safety coffins. The most popular one was from Dr. Johann Gottfried Taberger. This coffin included a rope system that attached to the corpse’s hands, feet, and head to an above-ground bell. However, this system was not as effective as he hoped because he failed to take into account the bloating of the body. When the body begins to decompose it becomes bloated which caused the ropes to move and ring the bell above ground.

Other designs included a raiseable flag, a firecracker, or a pyrotechnic rocket which could be used to alert the cemetery caretakers. A few designs even included a shovel, a ladder, and a supply of food and water. Some experts believe the idiom ‘saved by the bell’ originated from the use of safety coffins.

There were 149 cases of actual premature burial, including 10 people who were accidentally dissected before death and two who were embalmed while still alive. In 1905, the book Premature Burial: How It May Be Prevented was co-authored by William Tebb, the founder of the London Association for Premature Burial. This book was meant to help stop help prevent people from being buried alive.

Safety coffins are still available for purchase today. As recently as 1995, an Italian named Fabrizio Caselli invented a safety coffin model that includes an emergency alarm, two-way microphone/speaker, a torch, oxygen tank, heartbeat sensor, and heart stimulator.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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