No wonder it took me so long to get to this week's Real Life Creepy Place, because it's so creepy even I didn't dare research it after 6 PM. And what's creepy about it isn't just some questionable rumors of hauntings and other supernatural happenings recorded by impressionable people. The Cecil Hotel has had a bad vibe and an unsavory reputation since the 1930's, and incredibly violent and creepy things continued to happen there until recently. It's been shut down and turned into a whole new hotel... whether the strange curse of this place will persist remains t[...]
Category
Creepy Places
4 Hi all! Today's real life creepy place is in Jamaica, and trust me, it's creepy as hell. The place I'm talking about, Rose Hall House, is considered one of the most haunted places in the Western Hemisphere and the sinister figure at its center, the eponymous White Witch, makes Elizabeth Bathory look like a little girl ripping heads off her Barbies. Rose Hall House is located near Montego Bay, and its legendary owner was a British-born woman named Annie Palmer. The house was built in the 1770s and restored in the sixties. The story of Annie Palmer, much like Ba[...]
Hello all! In the last few weeks, I’ve been on an Eastern European kick. Now it’s time for some creepiness much closer to home—at least my home. So I present to you not one, not two… but three real life creepy places right here in Montreal. Montreal is one of the first European settlements in North America. For two thousand years prior, the territory was inhabited by Algonquin, Huron and Iroquois tribes; in 1535, a French guy named Jacques Cartier arrived on the scene, named the St-Lawrence River, founded what would later be Quebec City, and then moved d[...]
I like places. I like nature. I like places of nature. Forests can be pretty dope. They can also be pretty creepy. Forests don't necessarily even have to be legit haunted to creep me out. I attribute part of this to my horrible sense of direction. I can get turned around and be completely lost in ten seconds. Even when I'm positive I'm going in the right direction, there's a 90% chance I'm actually walking at a brisk pace in the wrong and opposite direction. I could totally see myself getting lost and starving in some woods. "We found her yesterday. Her stomach[...]
Most of the abandoned building photos I see are of schools or hospitals--buildings that are a few decades old. Seph Lawless recently put together a photography book called Black Friday featuring two abandoned Ohio malls. You can see photos in the video below. With zombies readily being compared to Black Friday shoppers, and the cartoons every Thanksgiving morning filled with the various horrors of consumerism, shopping malls do seem like the future landscape for horror novels. Maybe someday, instead of the abandoned asylum, the abandoned mall will become the[...]
Summertime is a great time for travel! The weather is warm, maybe you've got kids out of school... pack your bags, hit the road, it's time to take a trip! The world is a big place. So many places to see. May I suggest you go pretty much anywhere EXCEPT HERE: The Clown Motel. No, seriously, there is a clown motel. It's a motel, in the desert, with a clown theme, and it's haunted by clowns. Also, it's built next to an old cemetery which is the final resting place of hundreds of miners who died from the plague. I know... are you thinking what I'm t[...]
Today's real life creepy place isn't so much creepy as mystical, but it holds a very special significance to me: I grew up in that neighborhood and went for daily walks in this park when I was a child. The park is one of the oldest in Moscow, in a neighborhood called Sokolniki ("Falconers"). Moscow is an old place with a rich history, and Sokolniki is no exception. The park got its name from none other than Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584), who was fond of hunting with falcons. A well-known Russian folk tale about a famous falconer is also said to be inspired by[...]
Hi all! After my absence last time (what can I say, life intervened) I'm back with another Real Life Creepy Place. And this one is an oldie but goodie. Welcome to Centralia. Also known as the inspiration behind the Silent Hill games. Centralia is one of the most well-known ghost towns in North America. Abandoned since the eighties, it's situated near a town called Ashland (Ashland? I mean... really?), along a part of Route 61 that's now blocked off. Centralia used to be an ordinary small Pennsylvania town of less that 3000 inhabitants, a mining town that mainl[...]
I have to say just how fortunate I am to be surrounded by all of this talent! Not just the ladies I blog with here at The Midnight Society, but also those who have been so kind as to allow me to dig into their writer brains. Amazingness has come from these fabulous women and I hope to continue to be blessed. Now, without further ado--please welcome Bailey Knight to the cemetery! 1. What does the word “horror” mean to you? If it frightens me, I’m probably into it. I love horror because fear is universal and unavoidable. We are[...]
Saint-Petersburg is a city with a unique and oftentimes macabre history. It’s one of the “younger” Russian cities, founded in the eighteenth century (compared to Moscow, for example, which is more than 800 years old). It was built to be the new capital, then stripped of the title and re-baptized after the October Revolution in the early 20th century. It was one of the cities to suffer the most under a long and grueling siege during World War II. These days, the city regained its original name (after its founder the Tsar Peter I), but legends still suggest[...]