seconds he reaches the end. The hallway cannot be more than seventy feet long. "That's it. Nothing else. No big deal. Over this Karen and I have been fighting." Except as Navidson swings around, he suddenly discovers a new doorway to the right. It was not there before.

"What the . . . ?"

Navidson carefully nudges his flashlight into this new darkness and discovers an even longer corridor. "This one's easily ... I'd say a hundred feet." A few seconds later, he comes across a still larger corridor branching off to the left. It is at least fifteen feet wide with a ceiling well over ten feet high. The length of this one, however, is impossible to estimate as Navidson's flashlight proves useless against the darkness ahead, dying long before it can ever come close to determining an end.

Navidson pushes ahead, moving deeper and deeper into the house, eventually passing a number of doorways leading off into alternate passageways or chambers. "Here's a door. No lock. Hmmm ... a room, not very big. Empty. No windows. No switches. No outlets. Heading back to the corridor. Leaving the room. It seems colder now. Maybe I'm just getting colder. Here's another door. Unlocked. Another room. Again no windows. Continuing on."

Flashlight and camera skitter across ceiling and floor in loose harmony, stabbing into small rooms, alcoves, or spaces reminiscent of closets, though no shirts hang there. Still, no matter how far Navidson proceeds down this particular passageway, his light never comes close to touching the punctuation point promised by the converging perspective lines, sliding on and on and on, spawning one space after another, a constant stream of corners and walls, all of them unreadable and perfectly smooth.

Finally, Navidson stops in front of an entrance much larger than the rest. It arcs high above his head and yawns into an undisturbed blackness. His flashlight finds the floor but no walls and, for the first time, no ceiling.

Only now do we begin to see how big Navidson's house really is.

Something should be said here about Navidson's hand. Out of all the footage he personally shoots, there rarely exists a shake, tremble, jerk, or even a case of poor framing. His camera, no matter the circumstances, manages to view the world—even this world—with a remarkable steadiness as well as a highly refined aesthetic sensibility.

Comparisons immediately make Navidson's strengths apparent. Holloway Roberts' tape is virtually unwatchable: tilted frames, out of focus, shakes, horrible lighting and finally oblivion when faced with danger. Likewise Karen and Tom's tapes reflect their inexperience and can only be considered for content. Only the images Navidson shoots capture the otherness inherent in that place. Undeniably Navidson's experience as a photojoumalist gives him an advantage over the rest when focusing on something that is as terrifying as it is threatening. But, of course, there is more at work here than just the courage to stand and focus. There is also the courage to face and shape the subject in an extremely original manner. ⁷⁵