Dennis Rafkin

information

Profession(s): Psychic Information about the series Status: Deceased (Ghost) First Appearance: Thirteen Ghosts Last Appearance: Thirteen Ghosts Pictured: Matthew Lillard Dennis Rafkin was a powerful but neurotic psychic who helped Cyrus Kritikos capture the first twelve ghosts in Black Zodiac.

Biography

Dennis was a psychic and, according to the script of Thirteen Ghosts, was ostracized by everyone because of his abilities. At some point, he met Cyrus Kritikos, who took him in and offered to pay him to use his psychic abilities to help Cyrus capture twelve earthbound ghosts. However, Cyrus ended up double-crossing Dennis, never paying him the money he owed him.

Thirteen Ghosts

During the capture of Juggernaut, the twelfth and final wraith, Cyrus and his entire crew except Dennis are apparently killed, and Dennis demands payment from Ben Moss that Cyrus owes him. Some time later, Cyrus' nephew, Arthur Kritikos, learns that he has inherited Cyrus' mansion and comes with his family to inspect it. Posing as an employee of the power company to gain entry to the house and find the promised payment, Dennis meets them and searches the basement. During the search, he has a psychic episode. Realizing that there are supernatural beings in the basement, Dennis puts on spectral glasses and sees the trapped ghosts. Dennis loses his temper and tries to warn Arthur and Moss, but they refuse to believe him. Dennis then has another episode, and when Arthur tries to help him, Dennis sees Arthur's memories and realizes that when the fourth ghost (whom Dennis himself helped capture) was alive, she was Arthur's wife. However, Dennis kept quiet about this at the time.

Thirteen Ghosts

When Dennis reluctantly searches the basement with Maggie, he proves to her the existence of ghosts and discovers that several ghosts have been released. After several run-ins with rampaging ghosts, Dennis and Maggie meet up with Arthur and Kalina again and escape to the safety of the library. There, Kalina reveals who the fourth ghost is, and Arthur and Dennis decide to explore the mansion one last time, using the separated ectobar glass as a shield from the attacking ghosts. When Dennis encounters Hammer in his containment cube, he gestures obscenely at him, causing Hammer to retreat and show Dennis a vision of his death. Now at peace with himself, Dennis corners Arthur behind the glass of the ectobar when Hammer later attacks them. He distracts Hammer by dodging his attacks, but at that moment the recently freed Juggernaut appears and the two ghosts overpower Dennis. Hammer now knocks Dennis to the ground before Juggernaut finishes him off by breaking his spine on the corner of a house. After the events that lead to the machine malfunctioning, Dennis' spirit appears to Arthur, telling him to go to his children. Dennis watches as Arthur jumps safely to them when it finally explodes, leaving them unharmed. His spirit eventually leaves the house.

capabilities

Rafkin has psychic abilities that make him sensitive to psychic activity, especially ghosts and otherworldly forces. Unfortunately, he does not seem to have complete control over these abilities. Particularly strong psychic energies or sudden memories can cause him to have seizures. He also has the ability of psychometry, which allows him to "read" a person's life by touching them. He can also sense the history of small areas of land by touch, such as when he sensed the history of the murders committed by Juggernaut in a junkyard. He can also detect the existence of ghosts in any given area, but cannot physically see them. He requires the use of special glasses to see ghosts in their invisible state.

Little things

Dennis is actually the 13th ghost to appear in the film. However, his ghost has nothing to do with the car or the other 12 ghosts. Dennis was one of three characters based on Elaine Zacharides from the 1960 film; the other two were Kalina and Maggie. Elaine was a medium, housekeeper, and assistant to Plato Zorba. Dennis was created as a medium. According to Dennis, if he gets within a certain distance of something dead, he has seizures and life flashes before him, full of memories, whenever he touches someone or when someone touches him. This part of his psychic abilities is called a connection between two people. According to Dennis, he and Cyrus never needed bait to catch the previous eleven ghosts before they went after Juggernaut. According to Kalina, the ghosts don't like Dennis. Dennis admits that he didn't know Jean had a family, and when he finds out, he seems genuinely sorry about it. Dennis has a biography on the Collinsport Ghost Society website. While not canon, it attempts to describe his past, explain his character, and assess his abilities.

ghosts

Ghosts are disembodied spirits (or ghostly entities) of deceased people. The exact reasons why this phenomenon occurs are unknown. One hypothesis is that ghosts and earthbound spirits remain bound to the earthly dimension due to unresolved issues they had in life. Ghosts are also often bound to objects and places that were associated with them in life; Cyrus Kritikos (and possibly Plato Zorba in the 1960 film) was able to subdue twelve ghosts with their belongings, using specially constructed prisons to keep them under control.

Basileus's car

The Basileus Machine, as Kalina describes it, is a house-like machine "made by the devil and powered by the dead." Physically, it resembles a two-story mansion with walls of Extobar glass etched with Latin spells of containment; at the center of the house is a core of enormous mechanical gears and a rotating comb of rings. The machine requires thirteen earthbound spirits to operate, each representing a black zodiac. Once activated, the machine will supposedly reveal the Ocularis Infernum (Latin for "Eye of Hell"), which will grant the user unfathomable powers. The machine is named after the 15th century astrologer Basilius, who created the plans for the machine in the Arcanum while under the influence of demons. The machine was built by Cyrus Kritikos nearly 600 years later. However, it was destroyed before it could obtain the thirteenth wraith needed to complete the Black Zodiac and open Ocularis. The machine was built to resemble a large clock-like structure, made entirely of soundproof ectobaric glass and iron. Some electrical wires are still visible from the outside, as are the two upper floors (above the basement). All of the glass panels that make up the house are warded with spells to prevent the ghosts trapped within from escaping or traveling to other locations. Some important parts are the center of the machine (where the ghosts give their life energy to the machine to open the Eye of Hell), the fully warded library, and especially the basement, which is made up of containment cubes where the ghosts are kept until the machine is activated.

Cyrus Kritikos

used Denny to trap ghosts in his mansion and run Basileus' machine. arrogant