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Yesterday, I posted Anthony Bordain’s great Krampus Carol and now for those of you who want a terrifying reminder of the evil Christmas character inside your own home, you can always look to this great doll from Shove Mink of Croshame. While the link doesn’t have any directions to make your own, the pictures can still provide you with a good starting point if you’re already a skilled crocheter.
Link Via Laughing Squid
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It may look like a simple piece of plastic, but this robot has the moves! In fact, that’s what it is for -to test out news ways for a robot to move. Developed by researchers at Harvard University, this soft robot was inspired by the movements of squid and worms. Link -via Cosmic Variance
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Ryan Matthew Cohn is an artist, antique collector, blogger, and a buyer for the store Obscura Antiques and Oddities in New York City. He makes art objects from human and animal bones. Read about Cohn’s collection and creations, and see some clips of his appearances on the TV show Oddities at Collector’s Weekly. Link
Buying a new home is a big commitment and for first-time buyers especially, it can be a little terrifying. Imagine just how horrific it would be then to discover your home ended up being home to thousands of snakes or the mummified body of the last homeowner. Read about these terrible discoveries and more over at Cracked.
Comments Off From a hook being left on a door handle by a crazed serial killer to a gang that will shoot you if you flash your bright lights at them, Halloween is a ripe time for horrific urban legends to be spread around. While most of these are fiction, the reality is that some of these stories originate from real news stories and sometimes things that start out as urban legends eventually become real horror stories. Here are five terrifying tales with some scary truths behind them.
This one involves someone checking into a hotel room and noticing that something smells rotten. Eventually, they realize it’s coming from under the bed. So they move the mattress and discover a dead body. This story has been going around forever and has even been featured in movies like Four Rooms. It seems like this story is pretty unlikely, particularly given that you’d at least think a hotel maid would notice the smell of a rotting body before a hotel guest enters the room, but if you believe that, you’re giving hotel staff too much credit. In fact, the most disturbing thing about this story is how often it actually happens.
In 1982, a few auto thieves killed an accomplice and left him under the bed of their hotel in New Jersey. Four days later, someone discovered the corpse, but the room had been rented three different times in the meanwhile and no one noticed they were sleeping above a dead body. In 1987, a drug user overdosed and his high friend stuffed him under the bed and then ran away. Three days later, a family reported a nasty odor in their room, prompting the hotel staff to discover the body.
In New York 1988, a murderer was clever enough to actually put the body inside the box spring. Even so, the smell still gave away the body’s hiding place only a few days later. This time, at least two guests slept on top of the mattress, not knowing what was below.
There are tons more stories like this. Apparently hotel workers often shrug off these types of odors and go on with their business until a guest complains or even refuses to stay in the room thanks to the smell. If there’s anything to be learned here, it’s that you should never stay in a hotel room with a funky smell. And, if you do notice something off, check under your bed or mattress…or you might not want to, that is, if you’d rather not know what’s below.
Source: Snopes
Image Via neekatnite [Flickr]
If you’re the kind of person who finds commercial haunted houses boring and instead loves traveling to macabre places, then you’d better start booking your tickets because we’ve compiled some of the creepiest and scariest places on earth. Of course, if you’re squeamish and don’t like to read about death or look at pictures of long-dead bodies, then you should probably skip ahead because this article just isn’t for you.
At first glance, the Aokigahara Forest near Mount Fuji is an ideal nature destination, filled with stunning trees growing on hard volcanic rock, and icy, rocky caverns. But the forest has a much darker side, one that was popularized with the 1960 novel Nami no T?, where the main characters end up committing suicide in the area. While Aokigahara was always a destination for the forlorn to end their lives, Nami no T? made the idea much more popular and since the book was released, an average of 30 people kill themselves in the area every year, with a record-setting body count of 108 deaths in 2004.
The government has put out a number of signs in both Japanese and English urging people to reconsider their decision and seek psychiatric help. Once a year, a group of volunteers patrols the forest looking for bodies. These body hunters mark off the areas they are exploring with plastic tape that is never removed. Thus, even if you never see a dead body or ghost roaming the forest, you are still bound to see signs of the forest’s secrets wherever you happen to go.
Image Via Al Kaiser [Flickr]
Unless you already have a doll phobia, the idea of an island filled with dolls doesn’t sound all that creepy at first. It’s once you learn that the dolls are mutilated and left hung in trees while they rot away, all in honor of a drowned little girl that you start to realize just how creepy this macabre tourist destination really is.
It all started over fifty years ago, when the island’s only resident, Don Julian Santana found the body of a dead little girl in the canal where the island sits. He was haunted by her memory and soon started hanging dolls in the trees to appease the girl’s spirits and to ward off evil spirits from entering the island. Doll heads, arms, legs, etc. are sprawled out across the island in a strange sacrifice to prevent further evil. Strangely though, in 2001, Don Julian suffered the same fate as the little girl, drowning in the canal beside his home. Some people believe this was the work of the dolls who have since become inhabited by evil spirits. These days, the dolls remain the sole occupants of one of Mexico’s darkest tourist attractions.
Image Via SkilliShots [Flickr]
The Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo started when the local monastery outgrew its original cemetery, so the monks decided to mummify one of their recently deceased brothers before placing him in their newly opened catacombs. The process seemed to work well, so the monks began mummifying all of their fallen comrades and placing them in the catacombs. After a few centuries, word spread about the monk’s unique burial methods and it soon began to be a status symbol for rich people to be entombed in the catacombs buried in their finest clothing. Some people even left wills requesting that their clothing be changed by their family members at regular intervals.
The last friar was buried in the catacombs in 1871, but famous people from the area continued to be interred up until the 1920s. There are now about 8000 mummies lining the walls of the many hallways, which have been organized into categories: men, women, virgins, children, priests, monks and professionals. Some of the bodies are even set in poses, including the bodies of two children who sit together in a rocking chair.
Anton Semenov is an artist at an advertising agency by day, but at night, his digital paintings take a turn for the dark and become much more interesting. While most people probably wouldn’t feel comfortable having his art plastered up in their bedrooms, it certainly demonstrates a lot of talent and is great to look at around Halloween.
Link Via Ratamatata
Last week, I told you about 10 Things You Can Do With Your Ashes, but if you want to read about some really creepy postmortem activities, be sure to check out Mental Floss’ great article about 10 Things Your Body Can Do After You Die, including getting married and standing trial.
Don’t have a lot of money but still want to have a fearsome Halloween costume? If you have the art skills you can always try making your own skull face painting like this one by Redditor Fakeproject.
Link Via BoingBoing
Don’t worry, these pots won’t bite, and once you plant something in them the chatter will stop, I promise. These creepy ceramic creations are the product of Ronit Baranga’s sick imagination, and their realistic look is enough to keep all but the bravest souls from reaching in. These would make great Halloween candy bowls, especially if you made the little ones dig around for their treat!
Link –via BoingBoing
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If you’re looking to plan a creepy vacation for Halloween time, the BBC has you covered with this wonderful article documenting some of the scariest spots on earth. Pictured is the Island of the Dolls.
Lying off the canals of La Xochimilco, in Mexico, is a chinampa (floating garden) covered with the hundreds of dolls. Gathered by Don Julian Santana Barrera who scrounged rubbish piles, the dolls were hung from trees to keep away evil spirits and remember the drowning death of a young girl. According to Barrera, the dolls he planted and hung around the chinampa were still alive, but forgotten by their owners. While alive, Barrera would move the dolls around the island from different trees, creating a chilling sight. The chinampa is accessible by boat and the dolls are still around, despite Barrera’s death in 1992.
Personally, I’d love to visit any of these spots, but I’m a bit morbid.
Link Image Via SkilliShots [Flickr]
Remember the dial-up modem? If you’ve ever used one before, then you know the sweet sound it makes when it connects (the "handshake" sound).
There’s not much use for the dial-up modem anymore (except if you’re one of the dwindling clients of Aol still connecting to the ‘Net on 56k), but the folks over at Geektastic discovered one unusual use: as creepy music (when slowed down 700x)
JD Rucker over at Techi has the clip: Link
Vaudeville ventriloquists are cool, but some of their dummies are beyond creepy -especially the really old-school ones. Go To Public School has a great collection of classic dummy pictures for your creepy enjoyment.
Artist Kate Macdowell’s sculptures take animals and put them in human accessories of war, or puts human body parts inside the animals. The result is slightly unsettling and very attention-grabbing. Check out more of her cool artworks over at Environmental Graffiti.
I know just as well as anyone else how easy it is to hate rats, mosquitoes and wasps, but like many other pests, these creatures are entirely necessary for our survival and for the ecosystems we call home. This great Cracked article explains why.
Warning: Some of the language is NSFW.
Most of the time when you go to Cracker Barrel, you expect to find chicken fried steak and giant games of checkers… not your great-great-great grandmother. Sandra, a server at the Owensboro, Kentucky, store, was working and thinking about her recently deceased niece, Cammi Jo. She happened to glance up at one of the old-timey pictures decorating the wall and found Cammi Jo looking back at her. Struck by the uncanny resemblance, Sandra took a picture of the photo and sent it to her sister-in-law, Cammi Jo’s mom. After some research, they discovered that Cammi Jo’s lookalike – the woman holding the baby in the picture – was actually Sandra’s great-great-great-great grandmother, and the baby was Sandra’s great-great-great grandmother.
Cracker Barrel is working on getting the photo back to Sandra’s family.
Link via BoingBoing
Sure, it looks like a wayward ball of fluff. Maybe a even baby tribble. But that little guy in the pic above is the White Flannel Moth caterpillar, and the photographer who picked it up? Not happy. Those tiny little hairs are urticating setae, poisoned barbs that break off in the skin, causing pain and itchiness and general freaked-outness.
The Ark In Space has a whole collection of crazy-looking caterpillars (including one that looks like a toupee for Chewbacca, should he ever need one). Click through for the gallery!
Link | Image: Flickr User Urtica
It seems everyone is familiar with the dangers of drug-resistant staph infections and well aware of just how scary they are. As it turns out, they are so terrifying that a woman recently robbed a convienance store using the staph infection on her arm as a weapon.
When a worker confronted her, prosecutors said Slusher showed her Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus-infected arm to the attendant, told him to stay away and then left the store.
She was later arrested and hopefully held in a cell away from the other prisoners.
Link Image via mtsofan [Flickr]
Artist Elliot Quince made linocut prints of creepy/funny zombie valentines you can print out and give to someone you love -if they have a sense of humor! What better way to say “Happy Valintestines Day”? Link -via Laughing Squid
David Dietle wrote a highly entertaining post on Cracked about the 10 Creepy Plants That Shouldn’t Exist. The list starts off with a bang with this one:
#10. Bleeding Tooth Fungus
The bleeding tooth fungus looks kind of like a wad of chewing gum that leaks blood like a rejected prop from The Shining.
They’re also called the strawberries and cream, the red-juice tooth, and the devil’s tooth. Whoever is in charge of naming scary bullshit
seems really insistent that this thing looks like a tooth, while mostly skirting over the fact that it freaking sweats blood.Oh, and they are listed as "inedible," which implies that someone attempted to eat one at some point. On the other hand, the bloodlike substance has anticoagulant and antibacterial properties. It’s nature’s next penicillin! All you have to do is lick it. Go ahead.
Read the entire list here: Link (some text NSFW)
Pretty creepy, huh? These unidentifiable biological specimens were created with polymer clay and sealed in glass jars by artist Carim Nahaboo. Link -via Boing Boing
Shain Erin uses dolls as an art medium. These creepy dolls are fashioned as zombies, ghosts, mummies, skeletons, and monsters! People like them; many of the dolls featured in his gallery have been sold, but there are some available in his Etsy store. The ghost shown is named Cecilia. Link -via Daily Dumper
Those who sleep with a mask on can now scare the living daylights out of a roommate or bedmate with the Michael Jackson Sleep Mask. Now half price! The mask features a picture of Jackson’s eyes, enlarged just enough to be truly creepy. Link -via Rue the Day
A collaborative art film from a group called Hydra, Homunculus pits “little men” against each other. This is the stuff nightmares are made of. -via Everlasting Blort
This is the directorial debut of Rodrigo Blaas, who seized the opportunity to make his mark in short film by recruiting some of the best artists in the field, including French animator Bolhem Bouchiba, character designer Carlos Grangel and Sergio Pablos, Art Director Alfonso Blaas, music composer Mastretta and sound designer Tom Myers.
Meet Alma, as she makes a rather unnerving discovery.
Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.
Perfect for Halloween, this dish is a regular meatloaf made into the shape of a hand! Not Martha has the instructions for several different versions, depending on how badly you want to creep out your dinner guests. Link -via reddit
We don’t know why abandoned places are so creepy, but they are. Here are 20 abandoned places in Europe that are a little too creepy for us to handle.
This was once the largest hemp and rope factory in Europe, dating back to 1840. A state-of-the-art water system facilitated steam- and water-powered machines through a labyrinth of tunnels that carried water throughout the complex. It was closed just over a decade ago…
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by yugosakimi.
Even though this is an ad for the ADG Conference the underlying message is very neat. To be a freak maybe different but then again we are all different so does this make us all freaks in the end?
Melting chocolate bunnies has never been as disturbing or creepy. And don’t get me started on the music used for this video! The creepiest one is the hairdryer scene. Brrrrrrr! Created by the Danish Dutch filmmaker Sander Plug.
Sander Plug’s website – Link
*Correction – Sander Plug is Dutch not Danish! Thank you tripleX!
Ever wonder how a Barbie could have less brains? Zombie Barbie is a sexy, creepy and totaly modern woman. The link has photos to help you figure out how to make your own.
Link Via BoingBoing
