Monthly Archives

May 2017

/

The Watcher House – Million Dollar House Comes With Free Stalker

It sounds like some  scary movie or some spooky urban legend (perfect for urban legend month this month), but sometimes real life is all the scarier. The Watcher house is very real. And very scary. Before we begin, I ask you to not disturb, visit, or bother this house or its owners in any way... let's continue. According to the news, the address is 657 Boulevard,Westfield, NJ 07090. You can view it on Zillow here or Realtor.com here. It's described as a "stately colonial designed with all the character & charm of the early 1900's." It wa[...]

/

The Tale of the Carpet Gerbil

Hello, Dearies,   How are you? How's life? Working on anything neat? Write any really awesome lines lately? Draw a cool picture? Show me. My brain needs some inspiration. I haven't written in weeks. So my apologies if this post is smeared in coppered flakes of rust. We've been discussing Urban Legends round the MS campfire. I've been digging into my city's online vaults for a tale or two, but there aren't any good ones. So this little tale comes from none other than the handsome, the fancy dancy, Mr. Jenna. "We're doing Urban Legends this month on the blo[...]

/

Urban Legend: The Vanishing Hitchhiker

The legend of the vanishing hitchhiker varies; however, a few parts remain the same no matter who tells it--a hitchhiker is trying to catch a ride while on a dark back road. Once picked up, he/she disappears without explanation. Many TV shows have created their own versions of this legend, but I have found 2 favorites: Constantine and Supernatural. Constantine- Season 1, Episode 5: Dance Vaudou **I love this episode. There are two urban legends in one wonderful plot twist. And if you still haven't watched Constantine...I don't know what you're waiting for! A te[...]

/

Urban Legend: Murder at the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse

In my last blog post, I shared a local urban legend that I'd heard while growing up in suburbia about the old Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital. But that isn't the only urban legend to haunt Toronto's city streets. When I started to do a little poking around online, a number of familiar stories came up pretty quickly. The one I'm going to share today has it all - murder, mystery and purported ghosts! Murder at the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse People unfamiliar with Toronto may not know that we do, indeed, have a series of small islands just offshore from the mainla[...]

/

RESIDENT EVIL 7 Brings Me Back to FOOD OF THE GODS

As I've mentioned here previously, I've been playing through Resident Evil 7, and I'm constantly impressed by the nods to old horror stories and movies this game has. One of my recent sessions involved giant insects, and as someone who really hates bugs, it added a whole extra layer of terror for me. You can watch me freak out here: https://youtu.be/-Ju6y3NIpYk Anyway, those giant insects reminded me of a 1976 movie that scarred me for life--Food of the Gods. Loosely based on an H.G. Wells story, Food of the Gods was about a strange substance that is found bubb[...]

/

Urban Legend: The Lights of Bruick Road

Since it's urban legend month here at the Midnight Society, I decided to hit up dear old Google to see what it knew. If you have never searched the Internet for  "Urban legends in (insert your state, city, town)", I suggest you do it. I typed in... urban legends in Indiana, thinking maybe...HOPEFULLY...I would find something. ANYTHING! What I stumbled across took me on a little adventure...one I'm not quite done with, but TIME, PEOPLE, TIME! I came across several blurbs about 'The Lights of Bruick Road'... Wait...Bruick Road? I know a Bruick Road. IT IS VERY[...]

/

Currently Reading: These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly

So, I checked out These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly at my local library, and holy crow, it is SO GOOD that I am completely obsessed with it. I don't want to eat or go to work or really do anything at all except read this book! I'm not even done yet but I've already bought my own copy to keep and the first book in her Waterfire saga YA series Deep Blue to start when I'm done with this. These Shallow Graves has everything I was looking for: a murder mystery, romance, high stakes, more murder, more romance, mystery mystery mystery, girls doing what they s[...]

/

The Urban Legend of Bloody Mary

When I was a teen, there were two things you did at a sleep over. Chant "light as a feather, thick as a board" while trying to pick your friend up using only your index fingers. Say Bloody Mary into the bathroom mirror. 3 times. One, was lighthearted and fun. The whole Bloody Mary thing though...terrifying. There are so many different versions of this out there. Who Mary was before this game even came into being. I remember telling the story of a girl named Mary, who was so beautiful that she couldn't tear her eyes from the mirror. One day, she's in a terrib[...]

/

Urban Legends: Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital

I'd bet that everyone has, at some point or another in their lives, heard various urban legends. Maybe you heard it in a nursery school rhyme while playing hopscotch on the playground.  Maybe it was something whispered to you at a sleepover when you were a pre-teen. Maybe it was something that made the rounds in the hall at school that you heard from your best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend who heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with some girl. LOCAL LORE When I was a kid living in the suburbs of Toronto, we moved down the s[...]

/

Going Back to My Roots–Clive Barker’s BOOKS OF BLOOD

Clive Barker is my favorite modern horror author, and he's had a tremendous influence on my own horror writing. My Parted Veil series is heavily inspired by Barker, in particular by his ability to weave dark fantasy with horror to create worlds that both ignite your imagination and terrify you at the same time. But while I love Barker's longer works like Weaveworld, The Great and Secret Show and Everville, it's his short stories that first made me fall in love with him. And my first introduction to them was the Books of Blood. Like many kids in the '80s, my fir[...]