Anyone who spends more than five minutes on this blog will see that I’m really interested in ghosts. Not so much the proving of them or anything like that; I’m not interested in trying to persuade anyone of their existence or otherwise. But ghost stories are one of the constants of humanity. When we think… Read More Creepy History: Ghosts in History
Spoiler Alert: This article contains plot details and analysis for the Netflix miniseries The Fall of the House of Usher (2023). Contrary to the title’s suggestion; the Netflix miniseries The Fall of the House of Usher isn’t just based on the short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe. It draws from the… Read More Creepy History: The References behind The Fall of the House of Usher
If you think of a shipwreck, it’ll likely be the most famous shipwreck in the world; the RMS Titanic. She holds the peacetime records for largest loss of life, largest ship ever wrecked to remain on the ocean floor, and has inspired more artistic works than any other ship. The loss was dramatic in every… Read More Creepy History: The Other Titanics
Mummies have fascinated popular imagination since the days of their earliest discoveries. Fictionalised accounts of mummies coming back to life have been a staple of the horror genre since 1827 with the publication of ‘The Mummy! A Tale of the 22nd Century’ in which the mummy of Cheops (an actual Egyptian pharaoh) was reanimated. Unlike… Read More Creepy History: The Curse of the Pharaohs (Tutankhamun Edition)
Once again, I find myself looking into the stories that inspired various horror films as part of my increasingly bad decisions to read weird and unexplainable stuff before trying to sleep. The term ‘based on a true story’ or ‘inspired by true events’ can cover a pretty wide base. It doesn’t necessarily mean the film… Read More Creepy History: ‘Based on a True Story…’ Pt II
I’m a child of the nineties and so most of my early movie education consisted of credit sequences that told us what happened next to the characters. Maybe that’s why after reading about some period in history my immediate thought is…okay and then what did they do? I recently wrote about the Donner Party, a… Read More The Donner Party: What Happened Next…
“It’s not Christmas until I’ve talked about the Donner Party.” – Me, Christmas Day 2019. It turns out that trivia of how the ill-fated Donner Party saw in the Christmas of 1846 may not be entirely appropriate conversation for Christmas Dinner, especially when there are children present. Luckily for you, my musings have to go… Read More Creepy History: The Donner Party, Deaths and Diagrams
Part one of this little series looked at the mass outbreaks of demonic possession (see also: convent hysteria) in several convents in France between 1611 and 1613. Despite geographical distance between the convents, there were a number of incidents which saw groups of nuns of varying denominations demonstrating behaviour considered to be evidence of possession.… Read More Devil Worship and Demonic Possession in French Convents Pt II
Witch hunts were not new to the seventeenth-century population, having been around since before the time of Christ, but the 1600s saw an explosion of interest (or hysteria) regarding witches and their work. During this time convents across Europe would see spontaneous outbreaks of witchcraft, devil worship and demonic possession. For the devil to gain… Read More “Out of spite for the Saviour”: Devil Worship and Demonic possession in French convents pt I
Content Warning: Bodies, corpses, cadavers etc. This article looks at unusual ways in which bodies have been preserved. With pictures.
