Unfortunately, stabbings happen all the time. However, this one was far more horrible than most, and had a specific strange detail that was enough to make me fairly interested in this heinous crime.
The victim was a 12-year-old female who was lured into the woods by two other 12-year-olds, her “friends,” and was brutally stabbed 19 times.
The young victim not only survived this attack by crawling to her own rescue, but is in stable condition in a local hospital.
Now, obviously this is awful news, and I in no way find this particular type of horror satisfying or entertaining, but there is a certain aspect to this crime that is not only creepy as hell, but raises some important questions to the “horror community.”
You see, the suspects, who may be charged as adults and face up to 65 years in prison, claimed they stabbed their “friend” in order to please Slenderman.
Fans of online horror writing and, specifically, creepypasta.com will know that Slenderman is a popular fictitious horror character represented by a suit clad, faceless man in a black suit (and sometimes back tentacles).
Slenderman appears when something awful happens and exists only in the peripherals. However, he is also entirely made up (despite what some conspiracy theorists may believe).
The fact that these preteens believed in the online bogeyman enough to attempt a murder in his name has posed several questions about horror fiction that have the media talking.
Absolutely not. However, I’m sure there are plenty of people who believe that the site should hold some blame, or at least that’s what the media is making it sound like.
I would love to go into a long-winded discussion about how fiction should never be blamed for reality, but creepypast said it best in their statement on the stabbings.
If you clicked on that link and took the time to read the statement (which I hope you did), you may have noticed this line, which sort of sums it all up for me:
“Unless you’re okay with blaming the world’s ills on Stephen King or H.P. Lovecraft, I don’t believe that it makes sense to say paranormal writing or an interest in the macabre should be blamed or even used as an indicator of a “sick” person […]”
This statement says it all, but also alludes (possibly unintentionally) to the fact that Stephen King himself was a victim of accusations when his book titled Rage was quoted by a gunman during a school shooting. King, although just another victim, decided to pull the novel because of the guilt he felt.
The subject on the radio, where I first heard of the “Slenderman Stabbing” seemed to be that parents should do a better job at monitoring what their kids view on the internet, but let’s think about that for a minute.
We live in a country where the internet is literally everywhere. It’s on computers, on phones, on tablets, hell, it’s on televisions. So it’s not really difficult for someone to get some alone time with the web.
Also, given the things that I was in to when I was 12, I don’t think my parents would’ve really given a second glance to online horror fiction.
So, Who do we Blame?
The two would-be-killers that stabbed their “friend” 19 times.
You may say “they’re just kids! We can’t blame them!” but you would be oh, so wrong. These “kids” had something wrong with them to begin with, and horror fiction didn’t cause it.
I’ve mentioned before that I have always been interested in the scary and macabre, and I do mean always. I enjoyed scary posters, toys and pictures LONG before I was old enough to read horror stories or enjoy horror movies. Therefore, I think it’s obvious that I enjoy going to horror sites and reading online scary stories because of who I am, not because these sites made me type their content into Google for the first time, which of course, made me obsessed with horror.
What I’m getting at here is that these “kids” already knew what they wanted to look at/read, and it’s because they already had an interests in horrible things, only in a not-so-healthy way.
I hate the idea of children being tried as adults, and I hate thinking of 12-year-olds spending their whole life in prison. But these 12-year-olds, maybe one of them more than the other, seem to be sick, and people who are sick in that way simply cannot be free to hang around other children.
As I entered the museum, I instantly realized that I was the only person touring at that particular time, which I originally thought was fantastic. However, a few strange sounds and eerie exhibits into it, I found myself incredibly relieved to see more people entering.
I took a lot of pictures (I asked for permission, don’t worry), but there was simply too many fantastic exhibits to capture them all. Please enjoy the images below and if you are interested in the history of the museum and its founder, George Glore, click here.
The First Floor
The first floor of the museum only had a small section of exhibits. However, the feeling of cold and the emptiness of the building really set the tone for the displays that awaited me on the upper floors.
Original Staircase
This was the original staircase for the hospital when it was operational. However, according to a note hung near the exhibit (not pictured) it was moved to this location for display.
Now, I know that this staircase is just a historical exhibit, but my “writer’s brain” (which was quite nervous at the time) took it as a metaphor.
I imagined a hopelessly ill mental patient of the past, constantly climbing the staircase of treatment, only to find a blank, white wall blocking his path to full recovery.
But hey, that’s just me.
The Second Floor
This floor was quite a bit more exciting/horrifying than the first. Not only did I get to see the darker side of patient care past, but I was (un)fortunate enough to come face to face with a man with quite a terrible story to tell.
Enter Phineas Gage, the man who accidentally discovered lobotomies:
Quite a looker.
You see, Mr. Gage was a railway worker… who had a little accident.
Ouch
This accident was caused when a dynamite explosion forced a 13 1/4 pound metal rod (replica pictured below) through Gage’s skull!
Step aside, Vlad.
Poor Mr. Gage, though surviving the injury, suffered massive trauma to his frontal lobe and, as anyone who has taken a psych 101 class will tell you, that has consequences.
Gage suffered from bouts of rage and violent mood swings for the rest of his life, which led to him saying:
“Despite all my rage, I’m still just Phineas Gage.”
After shaking off the shock of Mr. Gage’s ordeal, I found myself intrigued by this lovely display of art:
Yummy
As I read the description of this display, I instantly realized that it was way more delicious than I had previously thought.
That’s because, all of the items in this picture were removed from a single patients stomach. Nice.
The items include, but are not limited to, nails, thimbles, coat hooks and buttons.
Next I traveled down what I like to call the “Hall of Horrors,” which was a hallway filled with terrifying recreations of past treatments, which led to a very large room, filled with even more dreadful devices.
Here we have an example of electroshock therapy, demonstrated by two somewhat-faceless horrors, which was used as a common treatment for mental patients:
Shock Therapy
And here is an actual machine used to perform these shock treatments: (if you look on top you can see a rubber biting “block”)
Shock Machine
Next, I saw a fever cabinet, which was used to treat syphilis buy warming a patient up with hot light bulbs inside of some kind of medical iron maiden:
I’ve got the fever!
Here, I got to learn about trepanation, which is the art of removing a piece of the skull in order to relieve pressure on the brain.
Trepanation Model
Here are some trepans, which are the tools used to bore the bones inside a patents head:
Trepans
As you can see, the one on the very top is just a rock. Apparently, the practice of trepanation is fairly old.
Finally, I was in the giant room of doom, and here is what it had to offer:
Witch Burning
Solitary Confinement
This Guy
And finally:
The Devil’s Treadmill
Ok, so it wasn’t really called that. It was, however, used to help someone “walk off” their mental disorder.
There were MANY more things to see on this floor, a lot of them very creepy, but if you want to see them, you need to brave this museum on your own.
The Third Floor
This floor was mainly about the “lighter” side of treatment. It featured things such as art therapy, music therapy, work therapy and religious therapy.
There really wasn’t too much in the way of “horror” on this floor, except for this:
Patients Doll
This doll (which is pretty close to life-sized) was made by a patient with schizophrenia. It was intended to be a self portrait of sorts, so….yeah…
The Basement
This part was basically as small as the first floor, but way, way spookier.
While it was mostly just old agricultural equipment, it also contained the morgue:
Meat Drawers
And of course, an autopsy room:
You ok?
The End
Thanks for checking out this post. I really recommend that, if you liked what I presented, you check out the Glore Psychiatric Museum. It’s located in St. Joseph, Missouri, at 3406 Frederick Avenue.
Don’t go alone if you don’t do well around unpleasant sights.
As a horror fan, it should be incredibly obvious that I love horror movies. What might make me somewhat different from most horror fans though, is that I am a HUGE fan of the “Found Footage” sub-genre of horror filmography. The hand-held camera style filming, the unrecognized actors and the pure grittiness of these films make them much more believable, and much more original than their big budget counter parts.
Below, I have compiled a list of some must see “found footage” films. They have been placed in descending rank order, so that the films that I believe are the best are found at the bottom.
If you want to learn more about these films, click on their respective images. Enjoy the list and feel free to comment!
I’m sure fans of this Norwegian masterpiece will argue that it should be lower on the list, but in all fairness this film is only semi-horror, and mostly just kind of a creepy action film.
When a group of film students attempt to make a documentary about troll hunters, they find out that their skepticism was very unwarranted.
In a kind of beautiful way, the students get to discover the true nature of the grotesque looking trolls, while learning who the real monsters are.
This film is great because of its originality, even in such a novel sub-genre. It has monsters (trolls) and a few scares, but overall just isn’t quite a horror film.
This film is shot in a kind of “docudrama” format, with several pieces of “found footage” used to add intensity and mystery.
It tells the story of a family’s attempt to understand the death of one of their loved ones, both how it happened and (more importantly) why it happened.
While there aren’t very many scares in this film, the realistic style of shooting and the spooky ambiance of it make Lake Mungo a must see for fans of mystery and the paranormal.
Obviously, this film is a classic must for horror films. It has ghosts, jump scares, a creepy atmosphere and plenty of twisted images to make your skin crawl.
However, the abomination that was Grave Encounters 2 ruined the way I see the film, which is why it is so high on the list. I still highly recommend seeing the first film though, just avoid the second like the plague.
Grave Encounters takes us along with a group of paranormal investigators as they lock themselves into an abandoned (and thoroughly haunted) psychiatric hospital. The tagline of the film says it all: “They were searching for proof. They found it.”
Although I am not usually a big fan of alien/UFO movies, this one, and the next one on this list, are big exceptions. The Fourth Kind has plenty of terrifying moments and shocking revelations to keep it entertaining, and the best part is it’s based on a freaking true story.
Ok, so they embellished it a little, but still.
Milla Jovovich plays psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler, who uses hypnosis to find out what exactly has gotten the town of Nome, Alaska so freaked out.
The “real” footage peppered into this thriller will make you sleep with your lights on.
The movie itself will make you cringe every time you hear a “hoot” at night, and will possibly make you want to punch an owl in the beak.
Again, I’m usually not a big fan of alien horror, but if you were to tell me you found the lost tapes from some astronauts that showed horrific alien attacks and spooky settings, of course i would love it.
That’s the deal with this film, it claims to tell the story of why we never went back to the moon, and if it wasn’t just a work of fiction I would write to the president asking him to nuke that big hunk of cheese right out of the sky.
The thought of being alone, isolated in space already rattles the nerves enough as it is, but throw in a little bit of space bugs crawling in your clothes and you’ve got Apollo 18. Horrifying stuff.
This is a modern take on a classical tale. Something gigantic, unnatural and destructive has found its way into New York, and nothing we try seems to stop it.
Ok, so it’s basically the American version of Godzilla, but that is sort of the point.
This creature of unknown origin smashes its way through sky scrapers as our protagonists/film crew try to escape. Say what you will about this monster flick, it has a lot more to it than you might think. If you search for Cloverfield secrets, you’ll see what I mean.
This film is a must see if you love monsters, and I LOVE monsters, like, a lot.
What do you do when things around your house start moving and you hear strange sounds in the night? Get out the video camera of course!
If you haven’t seen any of the films in this series yet, you may want to start by watching with the lights on. There are plenty of jump scares and spooky moments to make your bones rattle.
More importantly, the nifty effects, camera tricks, and creativity used to make this film work will make you want to break out your cell phone camera and try making a horror film of your own.
This film really sets the stage for “found footage” demon flicks. Currently, there are five of these movies (Paranormal Activity-Paranormal Activity 4 and Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones) and the fifth is set to come out this October.
With this many sequels, you may assume that the films have gone down in quality over time, and you would be correct. However, the way all of the films have tied together has really given me a few “A-HA!” moments (I just watch The Marked Ones last night).
The movie uses “found footage” along with traditionally filmed material to walk a viewer through the final moments of a group of young documentary filmmakers who disappeared while on a mission to film Amazon cannibal tribes.
Don’t worry, this isn’t just 96 minutes of constant torture, there is actually a decent plot and a great twist. Watch it, but not while you’re eating.
This is the film that revolutionized the sub-genre of “found footage.” Much like Cannibal Holocaust (above), many people who saw this film when it was new back in 1999 completely believed they had actually witnessed the events portrayed, and for good reason.
The cast of this film were not only great actors, they were extremely dedicated to making their disappearance seem as real as possible. They even made and distributed “missing” posters of themselves prior to the film’s release. But that’s not all.
The director of this film constantly kept the actors in character by scaring them and filming it, and the cast was actually lost several times during filming!
As I mentioned above, I love monsters. More than ghosts, vampires and definitely aliens, I find a big hairy beast in the woods to be one of the scariest things there is, and this movie has them.
More than just monsters, this movie has something that is incredibly important to horror films: subtlety.
The monsters in this film start as just a possibility, then they are a quick glance in the background, then everything goes crazy as hell.
This movie is a little lesser known, which is awful because it has got to be one of my favorite films of all time.
It tells a familiar story (with a unique twist) of young people camping in the woods, and one of them just so happened to bring a camera. It begins very eerily and slowly grows into something incredibly action packed.
I’ll be honest with you, I have no idea what is going on at the end of this movie (and I have seen it a lot) but it leaves you thinking that there will probably be a sequel, and you crave it like heroine.
The special effects in this film are very good for B grade movie, and the suspense is ridiculously perfect.
I don’t think there will ever be a “found footage” film that will be as amazing as the VHS films. They have everything: monsters, killers, zombies, ghosts, demons, cults, and vampires (or maybe some kind of gargoyle).
These films are actually a series of short films directed by different directors (somewhat like, and including directors from, The ABCs of Death), and all filmed “found footage” style.
These “mini films,” if you will, are held together by a subplot (also filmed by handy cam) that all ties together throughout the first and second film.
That may sound confusing, but trust me, it’s worth it to check these out.
Also, while I was searching for the image to use for this list I stumbled upon the news that the third VHS film is soon to be released. I immediately peed myself in excitement, cleaned up, and then came back to the computer to watch the trailer, just to pee myself from excitement all over again.
Here it is, enjoy:
Mmmmm, so good. As of yet there is no release date, but you can bet your horror loving heart that I will see it the second it is released and blog about it.
The “found footage” sub-genre, though not as well funded or advertised as the A list Hollywood films, is an incredible, horrifying, creative take on the horror genre. If you aren’t a fan of these types of films as of yet, please give a few more of them a try.
There are many, many more terrifyingly awesome “found footage” films out there, but these are my favorites for now. In the future I am sure I will be writing about more of them. Thanks for reading.
Most people probably wouldn’t consider this short story to be “Horror” and I may agree in some ways. However, horror itself is an emotion born in human minds, and, though this story may not be full of ghouls, monsters and blood, I believe the battle between a person and his/her own “gods” is just as horrifying as any beasts.
Horath was a region nestled in the mountains of old, and beneath the shadow of the greatest of these mountains, lay the small village of Orgal. Considered by many as the “people of the Gods,” the Orgalians were dedicated to a life of worshiping their deities, and none were as dedicated as Rogda.
Once a great warrior, Rogda had now retired his ax and shield and had committed himself to a life of prayer and thanksgiving to the Gods who had kept him alive through all of his past battles. He spent several of each morning’s hours in the temple at the base of the Mountain of the Gods and, up until her pregnancy, he had spent them there with his wife Agdetha.
Agdetha’s beauty was known throughout Horath, but no man could ever feel about her the way Rogda did. He loved her more than anything below the peak of the mountain and spent every minute, that he wasn’t praising the Gods, praising her. He was soft with her and, therefore, understanding of her when she no longer wished to spend the morning hours at the temple with him. After all, the various bends and bows of the worship ceremonies were far too strenuous for a woman in her late months of pregnancy.
It was during the start of the frost season when, kneeling towards the great mountain, Rogda spoke one of his many prayers of thanks within the temple walls. “Thank you Lords and Lordesses for the many things you have given me, ” he spoke, “and with your blessing, I ask that my first child be born healthy and full of love for each of you, and for his mother and I.” He turned and gave a thankful nod to the priest, and then to the parents of Agdetha, who had been silently praying behind him. Before they could nod in return, however, a young man, Agdetha’s nephew, came running into the temple, smelling of smoke.
“You must come quick Rogda, your hut is burning!”
“And where is my wife, young man?!” he questioned, already rushing to the temple’s double doors.
“She cannot be found, sir,” the boy could do no more than stare at the floor and gasp for breath as he spoke this news.
Upon arriving to his hut, he found it surrounded by villagers and smoldering, a pile of ash on the earth. He looked desperately around for his beloved Agdetha, but found her nowhere. So, summoning the courage of his warrior past, and whispering a quick prayer to the Gods, he dove into the ashes and began to dig.
He did not feel the burns forming on his hands and legs as he dug, he felt nothing at all except for a sense of duty for the task at hand, until he found her. Buried where their marital bed once was, lay the skeleton of the most beautiful woman Horath, and the world, had ever known. Rogda felt his chest collapse as his eyes fell upon the skeleton’s hands, which were wrapped around the bones of a prenatal child at it’s midsection, his prenatal son.
For hours, Rogda paced around the ashes, carrying the two sets of bones, which were held intact by the few pieces of charred flesh that the fire failed at destroying. He wept, he yelled and he shivered in front of the audience of Orgalians who had continued to gather there, but he did not pray.
Finally, he rested the bones where he had found them, and stood in front of the villagers. He grimaced when he realized they were all, including the parents of his diseased wife and child, staring at the holy peak of the mountain in silent prayer.
“Today I asked the Gods for their blessing in bringing me a healthy child, full of love for them, and the Gods destroyed everything that means anything to me.” He held is posture and gaze strong as he spoke to the audience, but could not yet bring himself to look upon Agdetha’s parents.
“I lost not only the woman I love, but my unborn child as well and, in an act of cowardice and disrespect, the Gods also burned away my ax and shield! So i ask, who among you will spare me a weapon, so that I may climb the Mountain of the Gods and defeat them in combat?! ”
The silent crowd instantly became a sea of whispers and mumbles, but no one spoke directly to Rogda. Not until the priest made his way on top of a stone wall to address him.
“My son, fires are common at this dry time of year. It is pure blasphemy to accuse the Gods of such horror,” he shouted, waving his arms for all the crowd to see.
Rogda ignored the priest’s speech, and walked directly in front of the grieving parent’s of his lost love. “Not even you, sir, will grant me a weapon to avenge your daughter’s murder?”
Agdetha’s father’s eyes fell to the floor, and Rogda walked away from him.
“I will defeat them with nothing more than the burned hands of a grieving husband then,” he said calmly, and stepped towards the base of the mountain.
Once he had made it far enough from the crowd that he could no longer hear them cursing him, he allowed himself to begin to shed tears again. “Mourn as you travel, but regain your anger when you arrive,” he thought to himself, and then noticed the sound in the dead bushes around him.
“Whoever follows me, know this, I am on a quest for vengeance and if you are here to end it, I will end you. Show yourself!”
From the bushes came the young boy, Agdetha’s nephew, who had given him the news of his blazing hut hours earlier.
“I’m here to accompany you, Rogda,” he spoke timidly, “please believe that, although I could do nothing to stop the fire, I feel incredible guilt for your loss.”
“My boy, you have nothing to feel guilt about, it is them who should apologize,” he said to the boy, gesturing towards the peak of the great mountain, “I cannot allow you to come with me. A battle with the Gods is something a man must do alone.”
“Sir, they say that only four men have ever attempted to climb to the holy peak in order to defeat the Gods and none have succeeded,” the boy trailed off and looked at the earth at his feet.
“Believe me, I will not fail, boy. Now return to your family, they are mourning.”
“At least take these sir,” the boy said, removing a short sword from his belt and a fur coat from his back, “good luck to you Rogda.”
For several days Rogda climbed the mountain. He fought the cold, the wind, and his own mind. He slept very little, huddled under the fur coat against the mountain’s hard flesh. He ate nothing, but drank from melted snow in his palms. He walked, he climbed and he thought.
Finally, in the early morning of his eleventh day of climbing, he came upon a site different than the blank white and grey he had grown so used to seeing. In front of him was a cleared area, free from the boulders and ice mounds that the rest of the harsh mountain offered. Against the mountains side was a smoothed out area, almost like a flat wall of a home, and against this wall sat four frozen skeletons, each with its own weapon and armor. Above them, carved into the stone of the cleared area, were the words “TURN BACK!”
“They intend to scare me from this battle with a gruesome warning?!” Rogda thought, filling with rage as he realized that he was only a short climb from the peak. “I spent my life in praise of you! You took my happiness and I won’t be frightened away!” He began the climb to the home of the Gods.
It took only several minutes of climbing before he felt his hand hit flat ground, and he knew he had made it. He stood and drew the sword that the young boy had given him.
Every snow-filled gust of wind appeared as a god to him, and he raised the blade to each of them. He took swipes into the white abyss, and never felt a single landed blow. His heart raced, his mind was in battle mode. His eyes darted around the peak until, finally, they rested on the snow below him.
He examined the snow and realized he was looking at his own tracks. He had already covered nearly every inch of the small peak, violently thrashing and hitting nothing. He stood in cold realization for nearly an hour, before he climbed back down the face of the peak.
When he arrived at the clearing, he removed his fur and rested it evenly over the laps of the four skeletons. His eyes moved to the warning, which he now knew wasn’t placed there by any gods, and, before he threw it from the mountain’s edge, he used the short sword to carve a message into the stone.
He rested his tired back against the cold skin of the mountain, and became the fifth skeleton below the message, which now read:
B.G.'s Horror Blog 