Once of the great things about Halloween is the annual Fark Scary Story thread, which is now up for this year. Here are links to the last seven years of Scary Story threads:
And now some gratuitous cheesecake pictures of Sybil Danning:
Let’s face it: Sybil Danning looks really good holding a gun…
So, vampires are so last year, and scary bunnies and goatmen don’t do it for you? Are you looking for a new urban legend to unnecessarily scare yourself silly with for the Halloween season?
How about Black Eyed Kids?
No, it’s not The Black Eyed Peas: The Next Generation (which would, let’s face it, be scary enough on its own). It’s kids/teenagers with all black eyes, with no iris or whites, asking to be let into your car or house, and whose mere presence instantly fills you with terror and dread.
However, unlike most creepy pasta and/or urban legends, this one actually has an identifiable origin, namely Abilene reporter Brian Bethel, who related his encounter thusly with two of them asking for a ride:
“C’mon, mister. Let us in. We can’t get in your car until you do, you know,” the spokesman said soothingly. “Just let us in, and we’ll be gone before you know it. We’ll go to our mother’s house.”
We locked eyes.
To my horror, I realized my hand had strayed toward the door lock (which was engaged) and was in the process of opening it. I pulled it away, probably a bit too violently. But it did force me to look away from the children.
I turned back. “Er … Um …,” I offered weakly and then my mind snapped into sharp focus.
For the first time, I noticed their eyes.
They were coal black. No pupil. No iris. Just two staring orbs reflecting the red and white light of the marquee.
Creepy enough for you? The fact that Mr. Bethel posted this to a “ghost-discuss” list, and that he had previously described a childhood encounter with evil muppets, might make you take his story with a grain of salt.
However, since that original sighting (which predates the black-eyed kid shown in the Japanese horror film Ju-on (The Grudge)) there
For extra grins, here’s the black eyed kids/alien abduction cross-over theory.
Now you’ll have to excuse me. There’s someone knocking on my door…
I’ve been looking for some scary videos on YouTube, and honestly, the most popular “paranormal” videos there are pretty embarrassingly lame. “Ah! A guy in eyeshadow steps out of the dark! It’s a ghost!”
Much creepier, to my mind, are the video of abandoned mental hospitals and insane asylums filmed by various urban spelunkers over the years. Most were pretty depressing places in the first place, so they’re doubly creepy and depressing at night compared to regular abandoned buildings. Here’s a sampler of a few videos I found.
A short video of an abandoned insane asylum in Maryland:
A longer video from the same asylum, with some paranormal creepiness near the end:
From Albuquerque’s abandoned insane asylum, seen in daylight:
The videos I’ve seen from San Antonio’s abandoned asylum have all been either crappy or still images, but this one from the abandoned Boys Home isn’t bad, though too long and also in daylight:
This appears to be the segment of a TV show called Scariest Places on Earth on Dixmont Insane Asylum in Pennsylvania. Full of both horrific history and cheestastic reality TV edited to hype the paranormal angle. Evidently being on a paranormal reality TV show requires subnormal intelligence. And voiceovers from the psychic in Poltergeist? Really, ABC Family?
Warning: Teenagers. Fortunately this bunch exploring the Downey Insane Asylum in California are merely teenage stupid and not reality show stupid (though sadly, this does extend to their editing choices). And the night vision lens does make their eyes look nicely creepy.
A different approach, for this mini-documentary on the Northville Regional Psychiatric Hospital in Michigan:
Here’s another longer video:
Seems like there’s a lot of videos on the place.
I wonder how many places there are like this abandoned in Michigan. Probably lots.
Finally, this abandoned church and school In Gary, Indiana is more sad than scary:
I may have to do a separate post on abandoned theme parks…
According to this list, Nurse With Wound’s “I’ve Plummed This Whole Neighborhood” is the Creepiest Song Ever. Having listened to it, I do think it’s contender, though a bit repetitive and trying too hard.
(The video is a bit NSFW.)
Humper Monkey’s Ghost Story has just about everything you could ask for in a haunted building story. Inexplicable occurrences, dead bodies, a Nazi past, and lots of general creepiness. Oh, and it’s theoretically true. It seems to have originally been posted on Something Awful.
Be forewarned that it’s really long; plan to set aside an hour or two if you want to read the whole thing, as it’s easily novella length.
And, if that weren’t enough, there seems to be more to the story here. It gets a bit less subtle.
I also hope Humper-Monkey gets a cut of this, and it’s not just somebody ripping him off.
So if scary bunnies aren’t your thing, how about Goatmen?
The story, which I have not been able to confirm, is that black goat farmer Oscar Washburn and his family near Denton, Texas were killed by the Klan in August of 1938. (Some set the date even earlier, which does suggest a certain lack of historical evidence.) From there you get the usual hauntings, abandoned cars, etc.
Here’s a mercifully brief video:
Of course, the Denton, Texas Goatman is not to be confused with the Maryland Goatman, who seems to be a Satyr-like half goat/half man creature carrying an axe.
“Hey, that sounds pretty unbelievable,” you say, “but is there a cheesy reality TV video with ominous music, various clip art, some BS theorizing, and random morons walking around in a forest at night to make the story more convincing?”
Why yes. Yes there is.
So it’s time for the one of my favorite traditions: the annual Fark Scary Stories thread. Here’s this year’s thread, and here are some of the threads from years past: