Ominous Origins

Art Imitating Life |Jason Voorhees Pt 2.

Last week we stopped our journey into the life of the notorious Jason Voorhees about 1/3rd of the way through, which is shocking considering his reign of terror. The trail of bodies Jason left behind in just a few years was staggering, but we have barely scratched the service. In fact, it seems that Jason only seems to ramp up his anger and aggression the longer he lives. There's no slowing this old dog down.
Despite numerous attempts, Jason Voorhees just couldn't be killed; he can barely be slowed. While he has had stints of inactivity, his legend lived on. He found new obsessions, he found new targets, and ultimately new victims - and still to this day nobody knows why, or his true motivation. It is possible he still mourns his mother's death, though given the time, I'd be hard pressed to believe that. Whatever his reasons, he has a near supernatural affect on people. His mere presence, his body, the mention of him has shown to overwhelm people and lead them to kill. 
For all of Jason's terrorizing, it's hard to deny just how stone cold he is when it comes to pure murder. But, there is another. One other killer, at least one, that can rival Jason's horrific presence, and it's one we've already discussed, and they just happened to team up, but that's for part 3. Listen to part two, now.
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Art Imitating Life | Jason Voorhees Part 1

It all started with a boy, a poor boy and a single mother, who was ultimately out of her depths when it came to raising said boy in a healthy and happy environment. That young boy would grow up to devastate countless lives; that young boy's name is Jason Voorhees. The reign of terror that both Jason and his mother, Pamela, would bring to the town of Crystal Lake would be the thing of Legends - and nightmares. 
When Jason was but a young boy his mother took a job as a cook at the local Camp Crystal Lake, however, while there Jason had a run in with some bullies, who ultimately chased him off the end of a dock. Jason was presumed to have drowned in that lake, something his mother would never be able to forgive. After an investigation, the death of young Jason was determined to be an accident, and all parties involved were simply let off the hook. 
Years later Pamela took her revenge on the new crop of counselors, at the camp by murdering several of them. Perhaps in a bit of poetic justice, one of the survivors was able to fight off the enraged Voorhees mother and eventually decapitate her. However, one thing that was unbeknownst to anybody is that Jason didn't drown in the lake that fateful day, but rather was able to swim to safety where he lived off the land for years. He also happened to witness his mothers gruesome demise. 
That's just the start of the events that would occur in the following years. So be sure to listen to part one of the Jason Voorhees drama. 
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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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