Polarising American author HP Lovecraft (1890-1937) wrote some deeply unsavoury things during his lifetime. But his contributions to the realm of speculative fiction are so immense that it’s impossible to ignore his continued influence on the genres of fantasy, horror, and science fiction.
READ MORE No, John Dee Didn’t Actually Translate the Necronomicon
Castle Sinister, released in 1932, was a 50 minute (4410 foot long) black and white British horror film produced by Delta Pictures that’s now classified as ‘lost media’. The film is so obscure that there is no remaining footage, stills, teasers, or posters and most of the actors don’t have any photos available online. It’s unfortunately common for early films...
READ MORE ‘Castle Sinister’: The Terrible 1932 British Horror Film Lost in Time
It’s 1999 and you’re at a sleepover for a friend’s birthday party. You’ve exhausted the films rented from Blockbuster and you’re all eager for something else to do. It’s nearly midnight when one of your friends mentions a game she heard from someone… a friend of a friend, but she doesn’t remember who. She’s wanted to try it for a...
READ MORE ‘Bloody Mary’: Is an English Queen Behind the Haunting Urban Legend?
On Halloween night in 1992, the BBC aired what would become one of the most controversial programmes in the broadcaster’s history. Ghostwatch, presented as a live broadcast, followed the Early family and the horrors they experienced living in what was pitched as one of the most haunted houses in the country. And luckily for the BBC an array of paranormal...
READ MORE ‘Ghostwatch’: When the BBC Terrified the Nation with a (Fake) Haunted House Documentary
In 1843, English inventor Sir Henry Cole created the first commercially produced Christmas card. It was tame and festive, showing a family gathered around for Christmas dinner above an inscription wishing the recipient a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. By the 1870s Christmas cards were being sent by nearly everyone thanks to the emergence of the affordable halfpenny stamp...
It’s no secret that the Isle of Wight is one of the most haunted islands in the world. Castles, manor homes, hospitals, pubs, roads, cliffs — everywhere you look the island is overflowing with creepy tales of ghostly apparitions and disembodied voices. It’s more difficult to find a part of the island that doesn’t have a ghost story than one...
READ MORE Whitecroft Hospital: The Haunted Victorian Asylum You Can Call Home
Overtoun Bridge, located in Scotland’s West Dunbartonshire, has a peculiar and frightening reputation: since the 1950s the bridge has allegedly been plagued by an ongoing trend of canine ‘suicides’. Reports of the number of dogs that have jumped or fallen over the edge of Overtoun Bridge could be as high as 300. In at least 50 cases, the dogs have...
READ MORE The Mysterious Dog Suicides on Overtoun Bridge, West Dunbartonshire
Scotland’s Gruinard Island, better known as ‘Anthrax Island’, is a frightening example of the catastrophic repercussions of biological warfare. From 1942 to 1943, the British tested the affects of anthrax on the small, unassuming island off the coast of Gruinard Bay… and paid the price for the next 48 years. What is Anthrax? Classified as an infectious disease, anthrax has...
READ MORE ‘Anthrax Island’: Britain’s Secret WWII Testing Ground for Biological Warfare
The first reported sighting of Owlman took place in the town of Mawnan, Cornwall on 17 April 1976. The Melling family, consisting of Don, his wife, and their two daughters June (12) and Vicky (9), were camping near Mawnan when they stopped for a picnic in the wooded area next to the medieval St. Mawnan and St. Stephen’s Church. While...
READ MORE Owlman: Did a Mysterious Creature Really Haunt the Cornish Town of Mawnan?
Helen Duncan, ‘the last witch’ of Britain, was born in the small town of Callander, Scotland in 1897 to Archibald McFarlane and Isabella Rattray. As a child, Helen (born Victoria Helen) was said to cause distress at school by tormenting her classmates with frightening prophesies. And from a young age Helen believed she was clairvoyant and could see the spirits...