Ominous Origins

Art Imitating Life | Michael Myers

Last week we looked at the dream demon, the nightmare himself, Freddy Krueger. We treated him as if he were a real world killer, and broke down his crime spree, in a realistic manner. Today we do the same with another beloved onscreen killer: Michael Myers.
Michael Audrey Myers was born on October 19th, 1957 to his middle class parents, with one older sister. Reports suggest that Michael was disturbed at a very young age, with him claiming to hear voices telling him devious things. One day, when he was just six years old, young Michael gave into those voices; he picked up a kitchen knife and stabbed his sister nine times before walking outside to wait for his parents, and ultimate detainment. 
Myers spent his entire life in psychiatric care, mostly being tended to by one Dr. Sam Loomis. After spending years with Michael, Loomis concluded that the young Myers was nothing but pure evil, an assessment that would be proven to be true years later when Michael broke out of the institution to return home. The rest, as they say, is history.
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Wes Craven | Freddy Krueger

Back in the 60's a child killer by the name of Frederick Krueger was burned alive in his own home by the parents of his victims. Krueger supposedly died in that blaze... But then a decade later kids and teens in Springwood began to die in mysterious ways, most notably in their sleep. It was bizarre, but things took a turn for the worse when somebody whispered the name, Freddy Krueger. Parents panicked, but continued to keep things quiet...
Of course, all this is pure fiction. But August is sort of an unofficial Wes Craven month, with it being his birth and death month, so I thought I'd take a look at his most iconic character, and treat it like a real murder case, with back story and history and all. It's a fun little look at the history and inspiration behind the character, and even Cravens direct influences for Freddy.
Sadly, we lost Wes Craven a few years ago, and way too soon. The horror world will never be the same, even if his legacy does live on forever. I'm sure before too long we'll get a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie, and there is a new Scream in the works as well, so we will see what the future holds for what the late, great Wes Craven has built.
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Homey The Clown

This is a weird one. It's part urban legend, part reality, all very confusing. Back in the early 90's, the TV In Living Color introduced a character called Homie the Clown - more or less a silly clown that went around smacking misbehaving kids with a sock. The show itself was great, but the sketch inadvertently set off a strange panic in the Chicago area among elementary school kids. According to some reports children were seeing a man - or even men - in clown outfits trying to lure kids into his white, blue, brown, or black van that had the words Ha-Ha printed across the door. It's perfect urban legend fodder.
 
I remember a similar thing in about the 4th grade - a clown living in the sewers was going to get you! Of course, the IT miniseries had just aired, and older siblings told their younger ones about Pennywise, and bam, urban legend. However, in the case of Homey (which is how I've seen it spelled when referring to the real clown), the police took it seriously - or at least semi-seriously. I did manage to find a couple articles relating to it, but it all felt very April foolsy to me. Nevertheless, it does make for an interesting story, and with what happened in around 2016 with clownpocalypse, maybe there is something to these claims. 5th to 8th graders didn't have a 30 megapixel camera phone in their pockets back in 1991, so evidence would have been hard to come by.
 
Regardless of the truthfulness of it, coulrophobia is a real thing, and clowns are indeed a little creepy. But for the whole story, you'll just have to listen.
 
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The Modern Vampire

I admit it, I'm a huge vampire mark. I love the lore, the stories, the fiction and the fact. It's true what a lot of vampire fiction says, they are alluring in their charms, and fascinating in their mystery, and that's why I find myself researching vampires more than most any other creature. And that's how today's topic came to be. I came across an article that sent me into a research spiral. At one point I had dozens of tabs open in my browser and on my phone, and they were all about modern vampires. What's a modern vampire? Well, they aren't the supernatural beasts you'd see on TV or in novels. They're people with a seemingly medical need to ingest blood of some kind - be it human or animal. Though, that only covers the Sanguinarian vampire. There are also Psi vamps, who feed off of energies. Then there's the hybrid that sort of do both.
 
These people not only claim to need blood, but if they don't terrible things can happen, such as ending up in hospital. It's hard to determine the underlying cause, as no medical research has shed much light on it, other than some very rare and specific cases of porphyria, or other mental disorders. But that's simply not the case with these people - who have developed a community around it. Those who suffer from the need to drink blood are of sound mind - well, for the most part. Surely there are some outliers in the field, but for the most part they're as sane as you. 
 
These communities are also very interesting, with some being very inclusive, and some exclusive. But they all share a common goal, especially the one based in New Orleans, called NOVA. It's made up of several houses, which act as independent arms of the same branch. It's all really... well, neat. According to a study, at least 5000 people in the USA identify as a vampire in some way. But, if you want to know more about these truly fascinating people, you'll just have to listen.
 
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Dark History | Albert Fish

This is an episode I've been toying with for quite some time. I first learned of Albert Fish when I was graduating highschool, when I was in a super edgy serial killer phase. He was a fascinating subject from just a human perspective, and he is the epitome of the nature versus nurture debate. Was he born evil, or was he victim of circumstance? Actually, I'm getting ahead of myself here. I do that quite a lot. Albert Fish was known by many different monikers, such as the boogeyman, The Grey Man, and the Werewolf of Wysteria, but ultimately he was a monster, and perhaps the most notorious child killer and molester in the history of the world. It wouldn't surprise me if Freddy Krueger was based off him, at least in a small way. 
Fish was first convicted of murdering a young girl by the name of Grace Budd. He lured her away from her family, in plain sight, from their home, took her to an abandoned house, strangled her, and reportedly ate her. Albert Fish was a cannibal. He enjoyed the flesh of children most. He was, as aforementioned, a monster. His claims of murder and molestation reach absurd numbers ranging from 9-100. 
He came from a family filled with mental illness, and he was also abused as a child at an orphanage, many of the punishments he carried over, using them as an adult on both himself and his victims. Strangely, out of all this, he was married at one point, and even had six kids, none of whom he ever abused.  At his trial, he obviously claimed insanity, and while some jurors admitted after the fact that they believed him to be insane, they still thought that he needed to be put to death. And so they did. 
For more information, you will just have to listen to the full episode.
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The Crying Boy Painting

Curses, they’re supposedly all around us. From the curse of the Bambino, to  the Annabelle doll, we’ve all experienced or heard of some kind of curse in the world. Sometimes they hit a little closer to home, and sometimes they’re very personal. Maybe there’s an intersection you won’t drive through, or maybe there’s a chair in grandpa’s house that gives you some eerie vibes, it could be anything. But in the 1980’s, a painting of a young crying boy popped up. By itself, that isn’t really newsworthy, but it’s how these (yes, multiple) paintings were discovered that was truly fascinating.
While it’s not been reported just how many of these mass-produced paintings were found among the wreckage of a burned home, multiple were. If that wasn’t weird enough, these paintings were the only objects left intact in the entire home. Yeah, that’s strange right? Aiding in the allure of the artwork was the mystery behind the artist. The name was unknown, but it could have possibly been a pseudonym. 
The curse truly took hold in the mid-80’s when The Sun, a British tabloid magazine, reported that this painting, or the subject of the painting, a crying orphaned boy, caused the houses it hung in to burn to the ground. Many speculated that it was revenge for abuse or mistreatment, or that the boy in the painting became an orphan because he accidentally burned down his family home, causing all those inside to die - except him.
From the murmurs of fire officials, to the tabloid reporting, the curse of the crying boy painting took off in the U.K., and it culminated in a massive bonfire, where, according to the Sun, 2500 copies of the paintings went up in flames, effectively ending the curse… or did it? You’ll just have to listen to the episode to find out!
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Dark History | Roanoke

It's one of, if not the oldest mysteries in America's history. In 1590, a colony of over a hundred people just up and vanished, with seemingly no trace left behind. Of course, this has lead to massive amounts of speculation and theories from everybody. From amateurs to professionals, and everybody in between, Roanoke has been the topic of great debate and mystery for over 400 years... Until now, apparently?
 
Roanoke could be summed up pretty quickly, and for those unfamiliar with what happened back in the 1500's, after setting up a colony John White, who was made governor, was forced to sail back to England for supplies. He left for three years, and upon his return, not a soul was left in the Roanoke colony. The only clue as to their whereabouts was a single word carved into a post: Croatoan. Another word, Cro, carved into a nearby tree. That was all he had to go on, and while a nearby island was called Croatoan, he never did find them, or what happened.
 
Enter today, literally, as I was scrolling through a news feed on my phone, a headline caught my attention: Roanoke Solved. I was intrigued, and so I began to dig deeper, and I discovered there have been a lot of advancements in the search for answers, and that mystery might just be solved. But for more details, and a better explanation, you'll just have to listen to the episode.
 
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Dark History | Cropsey

We all know the stories. We all know the tales - the boogeyman, the hook handed escaped convict, the monster in the woods - well what if I told you that maybe, just maybe, they were all real? Okay, well, not real, but real enough to be attributed to one single person. It all started with an urban legend by the name of Cropsey. It's a silly, yet unsettling name that people threw around on Staten Island, but nobody really gave much thought to its origin, other than there was a creepy old TB ward nestled in a local wooded area. That was until the early 1970's when people started going missing. Children, to be specific. Cropsey, for the first time, felt very real. Almost too real. First a young girl, then a you adult man, and then a disabled girl. They all seemingly vanished in plain sight, with only one suspect. Years prior, a custodian at a local school for disabled kids took 11 children for a ride in his van. He bought them lunch, and then took them across state lines to the Newark airport. While he never hurt the kids, he did spend time in prison for, well, imprisoning people. That man was named Andre Rand. The police never needed to look further than Rand for the crimes, and he was soon arrested. But what happened to the victims? Were they ever found? Was he ultimately sentenced after his arrest and trial? Well, to get the full story, you'll just have to give the episode a listen. The story of Cropsey is one that's caught my attention in the past, thanks to wonderfully made documentary by the same name. I highly suggest checking that out if you want an in depth look into this case.If you would like to donate to the show, you can, and I would forever be grateful.https://supporter.acast.com/Ominous-Origins-1Our sponsor: www.morbidlybeautiful.comMerch: www.redbubble.com/people/HorrorShotsYouTube: Horror ShotsTwitch: www.twitch.tv/muskyfauxWebsite: www.horrorshots.comInstagram: ominousoriginspodTwitter: @horrorshotsprodFacebook: HorrorshotsPatreon: www.patreon.com/horrorshotsCredit: Music: https://www.purple-planet.comSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/Ominous-Origins-1. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.