GENESEO, N.Y. — Imagine coming face to face with a ghost right in your own dorm room. That’s what one former student at SUNY Geneseo says happened to him back in 1985. Now he’s featured in the chart-topping new Netflix documentary series, “True Haunting.”
“It was bizarre. I didn’t believe those things could happen. My dad was a science teacher,” said Chris Di Cesare, the subject of the first three episodes of the series. “And to see this thing come through the wall and look at me, to hear this voice coming from nowhere. It’s just – I didn’t know if there’s a gas leak in the room or drugs in my food or practical joke, mass hysteria, S.A.D. But I went down the checklist trying to see what’s happening, and the only thing that was left was the occult. The paranormal.”
Di Cesare says it was an honor to tell his story in the series produced by James Wan, director of other horror films such as “Saw” and “The Conjuring.”
Tom Kowalski, News10NBC: “What’s it like, seeing your story, told on the big screen here?”
Chris Di Cesare, “True Haunting”: “It’s amazing. I mean, imagine the worst time of your life being broadcast to everyone in 40 languages. It’s so amazing. It’s been very positive. The dentist was taking a selfie with me. On the subway, people saying, ‘hey, how are you?’ So it’s been a really nice, celebration of survival and friendship.”
Di Cesare says he was approached about the show through an email he initially thought was spam. After speaking with John Zaffis, the host of the TV show “Haunted Collector,” he trusted the UK-based production company and responded.
Tom Kowalski: “How accurate was it, I guess? Like, I know there’s some dramatization.”
Chris Di Cesare: “It feels like I’m back there…There are always going to be some changes. The changes that differ from the actual experience are the dates. They had to film in a certain window of time so they can’t show spring, fall, winter, spring doesn’t work that way. They compress some of the dates.”
“The other change was toward the end. They said, we can’t keep on having every scene be based in that room. Room. Room. Room. So they took the portal, the closet with the thing would come through, and they had the final encounter kind of take place at the torture tree.”
Di Cesare says the production initially wanted to film everything on the SUNY Geneseo campus but had to move filming to RIT due to construction and repairs on Geneseo’s water systems.
SUNY Geneseo said in a statement “Our students have always said the campus has ‘spirit.‘ Now Netflix agrees. Seriously, we can’t confirm any hauntings, but we do know our residence halls are full of life.”
If you’d like to meet Chris Di Cesare, he’ll be having a free watch party and meet and greet at the Geneseo Community Center on Saturday November 1st at 10 a.m. More details can be found here.
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