“Hotel Camarillo” is a 67 minute documentary focusing on paranormal investigations over the past 10 years at former Camarillo State Mental Hospital. Using a decade of archival footage, EVP, ITC, and photos along with new interviews with the investigators, “Hotel Camarillo” is the complete history of paranormal activity in the old abandoned buildings, some that no longer exist on the campus.
“Night Stalkers” is a paranormal documentary which follows Southern California paranormal investigators, and asks what drives them to hunt ghosts. Night Stalkers was shot in 2010 and 2011, and captures a unique time in Southern California where paranormal investigating was starting to grow. We learn the philosophies and techniques that ghost hunters use to communicte with the energies some call spirits.
In April 2011, I got a call from The Boyle Heights Paranormal Project to come down to Linda Vista Hospital, and bring an IR illuminator with me. The Hollywood Ghost Hunters were filming a teaser trailer that night at the hospital, in order to drum up interest for a possible TV show. I was told that they needed an IR illuminator for one of the cameras.
I stopped at home and picked up the illuminator (I wasn’t allowed to film any footage) and as I drove to the hospital, I wondered why the crew didn’t have an illuminator themselves? Or why the ghost hunting group BHPP wouldn’t have one? I concluded they may have just wanted me there for something else. When I got there the whole HGH team was there. Rick McCallum (Hollywood Stuntman), Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees in the Friday The 13th movies, from part 7 to part 10), R.A. Mihiloff, (Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3), and Danielle Harris (Halloween 5).
I gave my illuminator over to one of the cameramen following the HGH crew around. I thought maybe I could do a little investigating too, but that was futile. Kane and R.A. were having fun trying to scare Danielle Harris by hiding and jumping out of rooms screaming at the top of their lungs. When that got old, Kane began scaring R.A. , who was a little jumpy being in Linda Vista Hospital in the first place.
A few hours later filming wrapped. The HGH crew was asked if they’d like to do any further investigating of the hospital, but Kane decided to call it a night. I took pictures with R.A. and Kane before he left (I don’t have the Kane photo). For the picture, Kane put me in a headlock and nearly lifted me off my feet! The headlock wasn’t for show; it was the real thing. I nearly blacked out! I’m 5’9″. Kane Hodder is 6′ 4″, and R.A. Mihiloff is 6’3″. I looked like a midget next to these guys!
We watched Kane drive away in his bad ass all black heavily modified Chrysler 300. The rest of the HGH entered Linda Vista Hospital again, heading up to the third floor. About 20 minutes later as the rest of us were talking in the parking lot, Kane drove in again! He then snuck up to the third floor to scare the shit out of his team mates!
(Special thanks to Carlos Gonzalez for helping me identify Kane Hodder’s car!)
An unfortunate event happened just hours before Night Stalkers was shown at Defenders Park, at the east side of Pasadena’s haunted Colorado St. Bridge. Or as it’s most commonly known, “Suicide Bridge”. A man jumped from the bridge and into the Arroyo Seco to his death, after police tried to talk him down for 7 hours.
I was on the road to pick up a friend for the screening when word came in about the tragedy. I monitored the event page as we drove toward Pasadena wondering if we would have to call the screening off. That didn’t happen, and by the time the screening began at 8:00pm, there wasn’t even any police tape on the bridge restricting access.
We had a great turn out, and a fun Q&A afterward. One sobering question asked was how many of the paranormal teams featured in this documentary filmed in 2010 were left? Not many really.
Just after the screening, ANOTHER distraught man attempted to jump from the bridge, but was quickly taken into custody by police. There’s a reason Suicide Bridge has the reputation it does.
Great news just came in today from ScareLA!. NIGHT STALKERS, my first paranormal documentary, will be shown at this year’s ScareLA! NIGHT STALKERS is a time capsule of paranormal investigation and investigators as they existed in Southern California in 2010. Be sure to come to ScareLA this August, on the 8 & 9, and see NIGHT STALKERS on the big screen along with other GREAT horror related films.
I will also be sharing a vendor table at the event with Bob Davis and Brian Clune of PLANET PARANORMAL, where I will be selling NIGHT STALKERS and HOTEL CAMARILLO DVDs, so be on the lookout for our table!
This year ScareLA will be at a brand new 100,000+ sq.ft. venue, the Pasadena Convention Center on August 8 & 9, 2015
We just had Hotel Camarillo‘s 5th public screening at the legendary and infamous C.I.A. Bar February 26th. There may be a couple more surprise events for Hotel Camarillo coming up in the near future.
We are also gearing up for a Queen Mary paranormal doc with Planet Paranormal’s Brian Clune and Bob Davis. And we are now in the planning stages for a paranormal doc on California’s haunted missions, with Stephen Franco and Richard Senate!
But first, time has to be made for investigating the unknown! I have a lot of supernatural events that I will be going to this month, but by far the biggest one will be the David Oman House investigations Friday, March 13th, and Saturday, March 14th.
The David Oman house, which was featured on the season 9 opening episode of Ghost Adventures, sits 150 feet away from the site of the tragic Sharon Tate murders committed by the Manson Family in 1969.
The Oman House tour includes the history of the Tate Murders and full investigation of The Oman House, a Seance, Good Food and Drink and a “I Survived The Oman House” T-Shirt. All for $99.00.
Lately I’ve been getting a lot of emails and Facebook PMs from people who tell me they are being threatened, warned off, and “unfriended” from Facebook for being involved in the “Hotel Camarillo” project. Make no mistake, there is a lot of jealousy swirling around this documentary. All of it completely necessary, as we’ve reached out to even the most distasteful Paranormal Pariahs, in an effort to include all investigators who have walked Camarillo’s abandoned halls capturing evidence.
Fortunately,”Hotel Camarillo” currently has nothing but the best in the paranormal field participating. The vapid will not be missed.
Here is one such email that I received. The sender asked me to eliminate their name, but gave me permission to use this in the blog to illustrate the pettiness going on. Below is the original comment in reaction to my “The Thick Plottens…” blog:,p>
“Oh WOW! I couldn’t help but start to roll my eyes a little at Louis’ claims! WE have ALL investigated out there at one time or another. We have all paid our “dues” to be there and if he chooses to be nasty about the film then guess what? That is HIS loss and he will regret it one day! He cannot sue Frank for what evidence Frank uses, a judge would just throw out the case! It is just too bad that Louis can’t get over himself, or the issues he bears long enough to be a part of the film since he did put a lot of time in investigating as lot of us have over the years. It should be about educating the public about what CSUCI once was and still in many ways remains. I just wouldn’t pay any attention to anyone that is negative about the documentary.”
The emails follow:
“I guess I cannot speak my mind. I was threatened by withheld for posting how I felt about him. (Here’s what he wrote:)
… Even before you wrote this, I found your attempt to friend me on Facebook quite amusing… to actually think I’d accept a friend request – not out of any actual desire to interact with me – but instead to be a fly on the wall.
…. I DO also have a series of several damning photos of you taking bong hits of marijuana in one of the hallways – so much for “educating the public about what CSCUI one was…” (whatever the hell that means). But alas, I’ve keep those little inconvenient truths under wraps… No negativity – or any feelings whatsoever – for individuals I’m neither emotionally invested in, nor whom I respect. These people are as dead to me as the Spirits they claim exist there.
Friend Request Denied.
So I get accused of being a spy and doing bong hits at CSUCI! lol
I told him I do not hide that I once smoked pot at CSUCI, but at least get it right, it was not a bong, it was a pipe! What a jerk! I told him I’m a medical marijuana patient. I happened to be very sick that day and the person I was with, whom I trusted and asked if they even minded if I smoked, did a sneaky thing to me and snapped photo’s of me smoking! Then months later emailed them to people obviously trying to make me out to be a bad person. I’m over it and I do not hold negativity toward that any longer. He talks as if he took photo’s of me himself, lol!
He is obviously still very bitter about the past and won’t let it go! I tried to explain to him I didn’t write what I wrote to attack him. I was trying to say, why hold onto the past when something awesome like your documentary is happening, ya know? I told him I feel sorry for him that he feels I had bad intentions toward him. Oh well…
Oh and here is the last message he sent me:
Truth… You are an acquaintance at BEST – irrelevant in my lived experience… Ergo, your “opinions” as well as your revisionist historical account of someone who threw you under the bus are rendered mute.(sic) Keep defending folks that think your cray cray. Some of whom only live mere miles from you.
Editor’s Note: The proper phrase uses the word “moot”; those that bolster their self importance by picking phrases out of a Thesaurus usually won’t know that.
…and then he actually blocked me after that message! Good lord! Someone is being quite dramatic!
It’s difficult trying to find a relatively quiet place to conduct an interview in Hollywood, but I was willing to try in order to secure another great interview for “Hotel Camarillo.”
On October 6th, I waited for Paul Major at a small park (Hollywood Rec Center on Santa Monica Blvd) and began wondering if it was possible to do an uninterrupted interview here. There were several homeless people sleeping and “conducting business” here, along with a ball game being played in one field. A woman with black fairy wings on her back sat at my table and began speaking loudly into her cell phone. Soon after Paul arrived, and we fond a more subtle venue to record the interview.
Paul Major was co-founder and director of the former SCSPR; another early invstigator at Cam. I lost the first 10 minutes of the interview due to my Sony camcorder finally biting the dust. I switched to the Kodak, and captured another unique addition to the doc. Paul was SCSPR’s resident skeptic, so it was a very easy interview speaking to a like minded investigator. As with me, there were still some things at Cam even a skeptic can’t explain, and we explored those instances. I gave Paul a copy of “Night Stalkers” as we ended the interview.
I have since taken down “The First 16 Minutes: Hotel Camarillo” until I clear a few copyrights that have nothing to do with Frank Beruecos’ footage. Very good news in that I’ll be able to use some great significant footage as soon as I save up the cash to pay for the licensing fee.
Ricard Carradine from GHOULA had told me he and his sister rented one of the abandoned buildings at Camarillo for several years to put on alternative plays and other shows. He viewed “The First 16 Minutes: Hotel Camarillo” and expressed concerns about the trespassing issue and local ghost hunters. I saw an opportunity and asked if he’d like to debate the issue with 3AM Paranormal’s Joe Mendoza. He readily agreed, and an awesome debate ensued on Sunday the 19th, after Richard’s “Haunted L.A. Redline Tour.”
It certainly has been a while since I’ve updated this blog! In truth, the documentary, “Hotel Camarillo” was shelved for a while; it’s future uncertain as participants backed out of the project. I’m happy to report that we are back on track, and it’s more exciting than ever. Of course, it’s still not without it’s controversy.
In consulting with Joe Mendoza of 3AM Paranormal, and Frank Beruecos of Beyond Paranormal Investigations, we agreed that to tell a complete and accurate history of the paranormal investigations of Camarillo State Hospital, we would need to reach out to every old-school investigator who has walked those abandoned corridors over the past 20 years and ask them to participate. This included Frank’s former collegue Louis Gonzales, the former Founder of the now defunct “Southern California Society for Paranormal Research”.
This was against the wishes of several people. They reminded us that Louis is a polarizing figure, and is shunned by the legitimate paranormal community for purposely driving wedges between people. One college suggested I watch “Dangerous Liaisons” and keep Louis in mind. But out of respect, and again, a drive to tell the complete story of haunted Cam, I sent him the following email:
Wayne Poe Sep 24
Hi Louis;
I know a lot of negative things have happened over the past couple years on both sides, but I would like to talk to you about a comprehensive documentary about the paranormal Camarillo investigations.
As you may know, I am currently working on “Hotel Camarillo”, and want to make it as accurate as possible with all the research done there in the past 10 years. I have spoken to Joe, and he said despite the state of things between everyone, an accurate documentary couldn’t be told without including you. Frank also agrees with this. So far I am currently working with Frank, Syd, Joe, Rebecca, and Tom Durant on the documentary.
I told Joe this morning that I would love to film a roundtable discussion on the Camarillo investigations with You, Syd, Frank, and Joe all at the same time, but it probably wouldn’t happen. Frank suggested that I email you and ask. I’ve filmed sit down interviews with Frank, Joe, Rebecca, Tom, and Syd already, and if you’d like to do one of those as well, that would be great.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you consider it.
This was Louis’ response, and my reply. (He seems to have dropped the “o” in his first name these days):
Luis Gonzalez Sep 26
I DO NOT GIVE yourself or anyone else involved in this project any permission whatsoever to include my name, likeness, voice, commentary, or video footage showing myself to be included in this documentary or any related project. Any failure to remove me or mention of myself in this project will be dealt with through legal means. As of this writing, I already see my likeness and data collected through the auspices of SCSPR that should never have been included. without my consent.
Further, Mr. Poe, I gave NO PERMISSION or did I sign ANY WAIVER for me to be included in your first attempt at doing this, so I am now formally requesting for you remove my image or likeness on that earlier video as well.
Luis A. Gonzalez
Wayne Poe Sep 26
Understood, Mr. Gonzalez. Your likeness nor voice will not appear in this documentary.
Wayne A. Poe
“Luis” is referring to the video I put up on September 25; a rough cut of the first 16 minutes of “Hotel Camarillo”
I can only guess “Luis” reference to the ‘first attempt at doing this’ must be referring to the original teaser for “Hotel Camarillo”, which was then titled, “Haunted Asylums.” “Luis” was blurred out of a 7 second scene in that trailer. And, said trailer has been offline for close to a year.
On Sunday, September 29th, I returned to Cam to film more interviews. Joining me there was Frank, Scottie Megelin, Richard Senate and his wife Debra, and Stephen Franco, another long time Cam investigator. We had a great time walking the campus, and filming interviews in various courtyards, and at the Bell Tower.
Me with Mr. Richard Senate in front of the Broome Library 09-29-2013
Later that night I visited Joe Mendoza of 3AM Paranormal. Frank and Scottie had already uploaded some pictures of the interview shoot to Facebook, and apparently when “Luis” saw that Stephen was participating in the documentary, be blew his stack. “Luis” send desperate PMs out, and posted the following on his Facebook wall:
Recently, a few individuals – without my consent – posted a short 15 minute documentary teaser with video and / or other image(s) and voice. After an initial request of the producer to remove my images in this video, it has yet to be done and this is misleading to people who – because of it – erroneously believe I’m involved in this endeavor.
Tonight, I formally asked a second time that any and all image(s), video, or sound files featuring myself be removed from these 15 minute teasers…
So… tonight, this post is two-fold, to advise those directly and even remotely affiliated with this project that ANY video captured under the auspices of SCSPR is – STILL – sole property of myself and SCSPR.
A signed waiver of ownership of anything recorded by former members of SCSPR, and under the auspices of SCSPR are STILL on file with myself and are legally binding…
In addition, I also have several years of DBA Business Tax Filings in the City of Los Angeles under SCSPR listing myself the sole owner and proprietor. These documents, as well as the aforementioned signature of Mr. Beruecos can and will be presented for any and all legal purposes should this 2nd formal request go ignored.
Any claim that these videos, images, or sound files are “property” of anyone but myself is not only misleading and false, but also prosecutable. Anyone wishing to contest their own signature on these waivers or the business tax filings for the City of Los Angeles for which I’m listed as the sole owner…I DARE YOU.
Empty claims carry no weight… Actual SIGNATURES AND BUSINESS TAX FILINGS ON THE OTHER HAND…
Luis A. Gonzalez
It looks like some should have been committed to Cam rather than looking for ghosts there…
After laughing on the phone with Frank, I sent this letter to “Luis”:
Dear Mr. Gonzales;
Your likeness in the rough cut of the First 16 Minutes: “Hotel Camarillo” Youtube video has been effectively eliminated. As to your claim that any video included in First 16 Minutes: “Hotel Camarillo”s is in any way, shape, or form your property has no factual basis.
My college, (typo; should have been ‘colleague’) Mr Frank Beruecos, of Beyond Paranormal Investigations, who has provided the archival investigation videos of Camarillo did so on video tape he purchased himself, and utilized on a camera he owns. He is in physical custody of these tapes which are not watermarked or otherwise identified as anyone else’s property other than Mr Frank Beruecos, of Beyond Paranormal Investigations.
Mr. Beruecos has now publically stated that he did not sign any waiver, stating his property has been signed over to any other individual. The aforementioned videos exist on Youtube in various forms as of this writing. Even if Mr. Beruecos didn’t own one centimeter of videotape, the footage used in “Hotel Camarillo” would still be protected under the Fair Use provisions of copyright law. (Section 107 of the US Copyright Law.)
Fortunately, we have no need to invoke Fair Use, since Mr Frank Beruecos, of Beyond Paranormal Investigations is the sole owner of the aforementioned footage. If you have such a signed waiver, please present a digital copy to me and I will have my legal counsel peruse this alleged document. I will also provide Mr. Beruecos with this alleged document so that he can confirm or deny that his signature appeared on such a document.
So in closing, the “Hotel Camarillo” documentary will be making full use of any and all archival investigation footage of Camarillo Mr. Beruecos sees fit to provide. Please present the alleged signed document at your earliest convenience.
Wayne A Poe
So yeah, buddy. We’ll take that dare. Better Call Saul.
Let’s put on our hip-high waders and navigate through the river of bull feces Mr SCSPR has regurgitated our way.
So… tonight, this post is two-fold, to advise those directly and even remotely affiliated with this project that ANY video captured under the auspices of SCSPR is – STILL – sole property of myself and SCSPR.
A signed waiver of ownership of anything recorded by former members of SCSPR, and under the auspices of SCSPR are STILL on file with myself and are legally binding…
“Luis” is claiming anything Frank captured on his own camera, and recorded onto Hi-8 tapes he bought himself, as well as any EVP caught with a digital recorder he also bought himself…belongs to him (Luis).
“Luis” is also claiming that his non-profit ghost busting social club was a “business”. (DBA filings = “Doing Business As. Gotta love self-important acronyms.)
First of all, as stated in a webcrawl snapshot of http://scspr.org of November 21, 2011, SCSPR is:
…a non-profit organization whose aim is to foster a greater understanding of paranormal phenonmena with special emphasis on ghostly phenomena
So why is “Luis” stating SCSPR was a business? Don’t businesses have employees? Was Frank an employee, toiling under the thumb of “Luis”? An…UNPAID employee? I’m sure if that’s the case, Mr. Beruecos has a LOT of back pay coming his way…
And that is the end result, folks, if Mr. “I DARE YOU” wants to claim any media captured by Frank is his while Frank was an alleged “employee” of SCSPR. Copyright law clearly states that Frank and ONLY Frank owns those videos and audio files. UNLESS Frank was a paid employee of “Luis” working for SCSPR. If that were the case, “Luis” would own that media, because of a clause unique to copyright law called work for hire
SEVENTH PLANET PRODUCTIONS 