The Bible’s Eight Goriest Passages
And this is a text that people use to teach their children morality? Via Cracked, eight bible stories that compete with the worst horror novels and slasher movies in terms of grotesque, over-the-top violence, including the impaling of Haman on a 75-foot spike, the serving of John the Baptist’s head on a platter at a banquet, Herod being eaten alive by worms as Godly punishment, a lake of blood filled by crushing masses of people inside a giant wine press, and the dismembering of a prostitute:
“When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, ‘Get up; let’s go.’ But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.…
Happy Halloween from William S. Burroughs (Remix Video)
Once upon a time, there were witches … in this classic remix, the silent film Haxan is wed in an unholy matrimony to the laconic snarl of William S. Burroughs narrative aplomb.
For those of you with a big appetite, we’ve got a special sweet hidden away. Check out this great little recitation of Poe’s “The Red Death” — also read by William S. Burroughs — at Joe Nolan’s Insomnia.
Theme Park From Hell: Singapore’s Haw Par Villa
Singapore Paranormal Investigators has everything you need to know about the Haw Par Villa amusement park. Built in 1937, it is dotted with lush gardens and life-size depictions of scenes including the ten levels of hell described in ancient Chinese mythology, torture and dismemberment, humans with the heads of animals, and a women breastfeeding her father-in-law. It has been described as “if Heironymus Bosch built a putt-putt course”. Book your tickets and take your kids for a vacation that will change their lives.
Woman Dies Of Heart Attack After Awakening At Own Funeral
When someone miraculously returns to life at their own funeral, but then dies of shock at what’s taking place, is it perhaps best to continue on with the service as if nothing happened? The Daily Mail reports:
A woman died from a heart attack caused by shock after waking up to discover she had been declared dead – and was being prepared for burial. As mourning relatives filed past her open coffin she suddenly woke up and started screaming as she realized where she was.
Fagilyu Mukhametzyanov, 49, of Kazan, Russia, had been wrongly declared deceased [the first time] by doctors. Her eyes fluttered and [she was] immediately rushed back to the hospital but she only lived for another 12 minutes in intensive care before she died again, this time for good.
Young Children In South Africa Eaten By Giant Rats
A chilling urban legend from New York City comes terribly true on the opposite side of the globe, as three-foot rats run amok, feasting on human babies. The Daily Mail writes:
Giant rats as big as cats have killed and eaten two babies in separate attacks in South Africa’s squalid townships this week.
Lunathi Dwadwa, three, was killed as she slept in her parent’s shack outside Cape Town and another girl was killed in Soweto township near Johannesburg the same day. Bukiswa Dwadwa, 27, said: ‘I can’t forget how ugly my child looked after her eyes were ripped out. ‘She was eaten from her eyebrows to her cheeks, her other eye was hanging by a piece of flesh.’
Residents of South Africa’s impoverished townships say the giant rats grow up to three-foot long, including their tails, and have front teeth over an inch long. The suspects in the baby attacks are believed to be…
U.S. Warns Of Zombie Apocalypse
Hard to believe that this is a real communication from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, but it is! From the official CDC blog:
There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.
A Brief History of Zombies
We’ve all seen at least one movie about flesh-eating zombies taking over (my personal favorite is Resident Evil), but where do zombies come from and why do they love eating brains so much? The word zombie comes from Haitian and New Orleans voodoo origins. Although its meaning has changed slightly over the years, it refers to a human corpse mysteriously reanimated to serve the undead. Through ancient voodoo…
Lovecraft’s ‘The Shunned House’ Is For Sale
Interested in investing in demonic real estate? The home was built in 1763 by Stephen Harris, a wealthy merchant. Subsequently his children died and his wife descended into madness — in real life, not the Lovecraft story. Additionally, there likely are colonial-era corpses buried in the backyard. The Lovecraftian notes ominously:
The home at 135 Benefit Street in Providence, Rhode Island, that’s featured in H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Shunned House” is for sale. And if you’re looking for “a particular house on the eastern side of the street; a dingy, antiquated structure perched on the abruptly rising side-hill, with a great unkempt yard dating from a time when the region was partly open country” and you’ve got $925,000, it could be yours.
The house had a colorful history even before Lovecraft wrote about it, none of which is mentioned in the real estate listing however. Aside from a giant monster buried in the basement (which can,…
The Occult, Alchemy and Black Swan
I received a strange knock on my afternoon door earlier this week, followed by the sound of something hitting the wood floor in the hallway and hurried footsteps fading down the stairs. Opening the door, a large white envelope stared up at me, the unblinking red postmark stamp as omniscient as the eye of Solomon.
I grabbed the package, closed the door and locked it. The new Black Swan DVD had arrived.
Darren Aronofsky’s tale-within-a-tale, Black Swan was one of last year’s best films. Many are familiar with the Oscar-nominated flick’s re-telling of the Swan Lake ballet to create a psychological horror flick that explores the perils of artistic perfection.
The movie has rightly earned it’s place among genre classics like Rosemary’s Baby and Carrie and — like the former — Black Swan is rife with occult symbolism and references that add weight to the scary-movie-cliches, making this bloody ballet one of those unique films that define a…
U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Posed in ‘Trophy’ Photos With Murdered Civilians
Jon Boone writes in the Guardian:
The face of Jeremy Morlock, a young US soldier, grins at the camera, his hand holding up the head of the dead and bloodied youth he and his colleagues have just killed in an act military prosecutors say was premeditated murder.
Moments before the picture was taken in January last year, the unsuspecting victim had been waved over by a group of US soldiers who had driven to his village in Kandahar province in one of their armoured Stryker tanks.
According to testimony collected by Der Spiegel magazine the boy had, as a matter of routine, lifted up his shirt to reveal that he was not hiding a suicide bomb vest.
That was the moment Morlock, according to a pre-arranged plan, threw a grenade at the boy that exploded while other members of the rogue group who called themselves the “kill team” opened fire.
They would later tell military investigators that…
Horror Filmmaker Keeps Dead Mother’s Body
The house from Alfred Hitchock's "Psycho". Photo: Poco a poco (CC)
This story seems like it came directly from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. It’s an interesting portrayal of life imitating art. Arizona Daily Star reports:
A Tombstone man was arrested Wednesday after authorities found the decomposed body of a woman believed to be his mother inside her home.
The Tombstone Marshal’s Office received a call Wednesday to do a welfare check on Jill Fattig, 68, at her home in Tombstone, said Marshal Billy Cloud.
A deputy went to the home but, when no one answered the door, he went to question the woman’s son, Timothy Fattig.
Fattig, 34, told the deputy that his mother was at a hospital in Tucson. When the deputy found this was not the case, he went back to Fattig, who eventually told him his mother had died about a year go.
After obtaining a search warrant, deputies found the skeletal remains of a woman…
Fan-Created Trailer for ‘E.T. Sequel’ Shows Why We Should Never Trust Aliens (Video)
Great remixing and animation job by the filmmaker here, no wonder why the little guy always wanted to “phone home” … cool find from Cyriaque Lamar on io9.com:
Robert Blankenheim and Derek Johnson Productions have created a trailer for ET-X: Extinction, an unnecessarily gritty and violent sequel to Steven Spielberg’s family-friendly blockbuster.
In this preview, grown-up footage of Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore is spliced with generic disaster flick scenes (starring an authoritative Morgan Freeman, natch) and new animation of the red-eyed, cobra-necked extraterrestrials:
American Death Cult Part III: Pavlov Speaks*
A creepy house in backwoods Wisconsin funded by bloodmoney, built by a minion of the Aztec Night Lord Tezcatlipoca and a talking Chihuahua seeking redemption and to end the millenia-old feud with the Ho-Chunk culture hero Red Horn. Must be Thursday.
The first and most cardinal rule of any heavy drug habit is to hold fast to your center, not allow yourself to panic at the inevitable bad trip. Assenine braggarts are likely to tell you that it’s an inborn character trait that you simply either have or do not have, and that it is not possible to cultivate a tolerance.
Utter and complete bullshit. Dangerous bullshit. Because it denies the essential primacy of DISCIPLINE in the process and is a telltale sign of the feckless self-indulgent irresponsibility that means imminent death or at least a lengthy sanatorium stay. No, what is required is a steely willfulness and intense focus.
There are several techniques…
The Real 12 Stages of A Lunar Eclipse
John Rennie writes on PLoS:
Skywatchers are excitedly awaiting the total lunar eclipse that will occur tonight between 2:41 a.m. and 3:53 a.m. EST, and if you intend to stay awake to watch this amazing sight, then by all means read the Space.com description of the 12 stages of the eclipse. Joe Rao’s article thoughtfully explains what you will see as the moon transits through different portions of the earth’s shadow. I wholeheartedly recommend it — if you want to wallow in astronomical nonsense.
Oh, I’m sure Joe Rao’s piece is backed up by an abundance of scientific facts and observations, if you care to put your faith in such things. But those of us well-versed in the ancient wisdoms know that the real 12 stages of a lunar eclipse are as follows:
1. Faint penumbral dimming of the moon’s disk.
2. Pervasive creeping sensations of unease.
3. Howling of wolves.
4. Unclean things walk the earth; Dick Cheney rises from the grave.
5. Contortion of the zodiac.
6. Intrusion of strange dimensions.
7. Universal gibbering madness.
8. Cthulhu.
9. A glimmer of sanity in the chaos.
10. Restoration of Euclidean geometry.
11. Fungal Mi-go from Yuggoth return captive brains to their rightful owners.
12. Applause, followed by waffles for breakfast.
Is Wisconsin the Epicenter of an American Death Cult?* Part I
Did Jack Torrance stumble upon a truth much deeper and more primal than he knew when he wrote, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”? My girlfriend seemed to say as much a couple of weeks back and subsequent events in Winnebago County, Wisconsin lead me to believe that she just may have a point.
Aviva kicked me out. Said I was “no fucking fun anymore” since I started crusading against the Brylcreem Brigade1 and their weird rhetorical war on the middle class and just plain common sense. “Goddamn it, Liam, it was funny at first, but it’s getting old. Now you’re starting to sound more like my econ professor than the writer I thought I was living with.”
I guess I could see where she was coming from. When we’d met at a mutual friend’s holiday party last December I was riding high on the crest of a fresh wave of creativity. I couldn’t stop blabbing about this novel I’d planned to write. It was a Kabbalistic parody of contemporary American religious culture centering on a cabal of ambitious up-and-coming angels who set up to hit God’s target numbers of human souls by dealing in volume rather than quality….
How To Make Horror Movie Blood
Just in time for your Halloween hijinks, the BBC has an instructional video that shows how to create the artificial blood used in classic horror movies. Their recipe produces blood that not only is rich in color and creepily accurate in texture, but sounds as if it would be delicious to eat.
This Is My Nightmare: 700 Clowns Laughing Together Set Record (Video)
This is not OK, and it never will be. The horror. The horror. Via Fox TV DC:
About 700 clowns attended the Fifteenth International Clown Convention in Mexico City last Wednesday, where attendees set a new record. After laughing for 15 minutes, the clowns could not break the “laughing world record” but were able to break the national record in Mexico.
Clowns from the United States, Peru, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and other countries attended three days of meetings, which began on 18 October, participating in conferences, exhibitions and make up competitions.
Children of the Victorian Era, Post-Mortem
If you notice a sleeping or vacantly-staring figure in an antique photograph, it might not strike you to wonder if the subject is even alive. In the 21st century, we rarely see photographs of the dead that are not connected with crime scenes or accidents; dead relatives are instantly removed to funeral homes, where their bodies are embalmed by well-paid specialists. The Victorians, however, were not so disconnected from death, and a common practice was to have portraits taken of the recently-deceased. In these post-mortem photographs, the dead may appear in coffins, but were also quite frequently arranged among family in lifelike poses. As it was a period of extremely high child mortality, images like the ones in this video were often the only keepsakes 19th century families had by which to remember their short-lived sons and daughters:
Gimme Pizza! This Slow Motion Olsen Twins Video Is Creepy…
Via Urlesque:
[Here's] a slow motion version of the Olsen Twins “Gimme Pizza?” Yes, folks, 2010 seems to be the year the internet discovered that slowing things down makes them over 9000 times better.
The slow version of Gimme Pizza is so creepy that you won’t be able to look away. The Olsens’ repetitive dance — seriously, they’re doing the same thing in every shot — is weird enough, but it’s their friends who really steal the show. I’ll be having nightmares about the “whipped cream pouring like waterfalls” kid for a week.
Mexican Island Inhabited by Creepy Dolls
Delana at Web Urbanist reports on Mexico’s Island of Misfit Toys:
On a dark and creepy island in the canals of Xochimico near Mexico City sits what might be the world’s strangest and scariest tourist attraction ever. However, this sad island was never meant to be a stop on tourists’ holiday itineraries. The Island of the Dolls was dedicated to the lost soul of a poor little girl who met her fate too soon.
The Island of the Dolls (Isla de las Munecas) sits in the canals south of Mexico City and is the current home of hundreds of terrifying, mutilated dolls. Their severed limbs, decapitated heads, and blank eyes adorn trees, fences and nearly every available surface. The dolls appear menacing even in the bright light of midday, but in the dark they are particularly haunting.
Not surprisingly, the island’s origins lie in tragedy. The story goes that the island’s only inhabitant, Don Julian…
