Good morning, spooky people. Today I'd like to introduce you to two prominent figures in the paranormal community. You've probably already heard of them if you've sat through Poltergeist, The Amityville Horror, The Haunted, or The Haunting in Connecticut. You know all those times that you settle in for a good scare, and the opening sequence informs you that the movie you're about to watch is based on a true story? A few of these accounts happily point back to a couple of folks who made it their life's work to document these cases. While the film adaptations[...]
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MidnightSocietyKira
4 While I hope that common sense will prevail should you find yourself in a particularly harrowing situation this summer, I think we might want to take two seconds to revisit The Rules. I offer this happy little reminder in the event that you should find yourself in a derelict cabin somewhere for a "fun" weekend, getting irregular phone calls from inside your house while babysitting, or your car dies on some remote part of the interstate and your only recourse is to make a phone call from that creepy gas station around the bend. The "Final Girl" is a horror movie t[...]
With camping season upon us, I've been trolling the internet for various campfire-worthy spooky stories. We like to pack up our gear and head to the nearest body of water on the long weekends -- take a dip, lounge on the beach, swim out to the docks. There's nothing like a still black lake in the wilderness to inspire a fright -- especially when you can't see two feet below you in the water. It's easy to imagine the brush of seaweed as reaching fingers, straining to grasp your ankles and pull you down below. Love it. I'm a huge fan of monsters, so today, I've u[...]
Some people keep their skeletons in their closets. Other people turn them into decorative art? A few days back I bit the bullet and purchased my plane ticket to Europe. It'll be my third trip across the pond, and every time I go, I venture a little farther. It's been previously stated that I'm big into visiting cemeteries amidst the art museums and various nooks and side streets, but I'll take on the occasional cathedral if it's there. (Notre Dame was in my way in Paris, really. When you're standing under it's massive shadow and don't have anything better to do -[...]
There's a lot of things out there that will kill you, but sitting seems to be creeping up the ladder. Weird, right? I work for a tech company where a lot of people have jumped on the standing desk bandwagon to reduce the number of hours they remain planted on their butts and increasing their chances of chronic disease, reduced life expectancy, kidney disease, crappy mental health, obesity, and just plain death. Death. Death. Death. (Check out this article from Popular Science if you're curious.) I don't know about you, but I sit at work when I'm not running betwe[...]
We horror writers are made of sturdier stock than most, right? We can handle a good scare without much psychological scarring. I think? Maybe? This is the lie I usually tell myself as I pop in another horror movie: "I can handle it." Telling myself that "I could handle it," I sat down for the first time to watch a series of Japanese horror films that basically destroyed my sleeping patterns for a the few following months. I bought a nightlight. I developed a habit of dashing from the bathroom, which is three feet away from my bedroom, once I'd shut off the ligh[...]
I love books. I have over six hundred of them in my library, and I'm still finding creative ways to cram more in even though I'm running out of space on my shelves. I especially love leather-bound books, though I don't have too many of those (YA titles don't usually get released with ooh la la fancy bindings like that.) There's something warm and buttery about holding a hand bound volume -- but what if a book you thought was simple moo cow hide was actually something a little more sinister? One of the most famous examples of a book bound in human skin comes from[...]
Hello from Boston! I've been in the city for the past week attending a design conference, but the place is so beautiful and there are so many adorable little puritan cemeteries I just had to bring some beautiful taphology home for you. The focus of today's post is Old Granary Burial Ground. Third oldest cemetery in Boston, it was founded in 1660, and holds 2,345 marked graves. Despite the small number, it's assumed that nearly 5,000 souls were laid to rest here, among them three signers of the Declaration of Independence (Sam Adams, John Hancock, Robert Tre[...]
I'm packing my bags today. Not, as you might imagine, because I've been accused of doing something insidious and I need to get out of dodge, but because I'm hopping on a plane tomorrow and heading to Boston for a week for work. Given my proximity to several creepy things, including Salem, I figured it might be prime opportunity to open up the floor for discussion on the latest television show to jump on the horror bandwagon. We've seen the haunted house and asylum aliens a la American Horror Story, we've got the zombies in The Walking Dead, we're even taking a c[...]
“How long do you think it takes to dig a six foot grave, six feet deep? What is that, like, a hundred cubic feet of dirt?” Hundred an’ eight, actually. Assuming shoulder-width is three feet across on average. “In the dark.” I’m sitting on a nearby tomb — feet dangling off the ground, shoes kicking so that the lace of my left foot sneaker’s come undone and it’s making a regular ticking sound against the cement resting place of some lady whose name I don’t recognize. The dark part is important. You don’t want to be seen while you’re doi[...]