"Brian "Fox" Ellis explores the history behind Central Illinois legends and ghost stories."20 October 2026Horror, History, Factual30 mins
Gather around the campfire with Storyteller Brian "Fox" Ellis for four Central Illinois legends. From Illinois Wesleyan’s Lady in Red and Peoria State Hospital’s Old Bookbinder to Springdale Cemetery’s Witches Circle and the Cole Hollow Monster, Haunted Heartland explores the history behind the mystery and the real people whose lives inspired stories that still spark our imaginations.
TV Special released by PBS Illinois Public Media WTVP.
Watch the official Haunted Heartland 2026 trailer in HD below.
Once an architect, Frank Bannister now passes himself off as an exorcist of evil spirits. To bolster his facade, he claims his "special" gift is the result of a car accident that killed his wife.
Dahlia and her five-year-old daughter are ready to begin a new life together. But their new apartment — dilapidated and worn — suddenly seems to take on a life of its own.
When four student filmmakers are paid half-a-million dollars to look for ghosts on Boney Island, they assume it'll be the easiest weekend of their lives.
Since birth, Maryam's life has never been free from terror and the shadow of a genie. Until finally she received a mysterious letter that always appeared in front of her, the letter always appeared even though it had been thrown away, torn apart, even burned.
When 4 American tourists - Sofia, Carl, Belle and Michael - go on a ghost tour, they get much more than they bargained for, when the ghosts of an evil Doctor and his last patient victim trap them in the old abandoned psychiatric ward.
In the remote South Korean village of Hope Harbor, police chief Bum-seok and officer Sung-ae are called to investigate a mysterious creature wreaking havoc on the community.
A former soldier is thrown into a brutal race against time when a critical medical delivery makes him and his unlikely partner the targets of a ruthless cartel.
Gemma, a young mother raising her daughter in the house she grew up in, discovers she can travel into The Further, where she possesses an ability to bring what lives there back to the real world.
When a legendary thief sets his sights on the Mona Lisa, he recruits two young strangers to help him before revealing they are long-lost siblings… and oh yes, by the way, he is their father.
After breaking the mysterious "One Wish Willow" to win his crush's heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price.
After the world's population has been ravaged by a pandemic, a man lives a lonesome existence in a Colorado airplane hangar with his dog and a dour gunman he has befriended.
After Acme products fail him one too many times in his dogged pursuit of the Roadrunner, Wile E. Coyote decides to hire a billboard lawyer to sue the Acme Corporation.
Teenage Moana answers the Ocean's call and, for the first time, voyages beyond the reef of her island of Motunui with infamous demigod Maui on an unforgettable journey to restore prosperity to her people.
A quiet horticulturalist harboring a secret life as a lethal assassin finds his true identity jeopardized when he forms an unlikely friendship with a witnesses to police corruption.
Comments
Have you watched Haunted Heartland yet? What did you think about it?
