🏚️ MetaHauntedHouses 👻 October 11, 2019 3:02 PM Subscribe
End of another week, and we're just a few scary weeks away from All Hallows' Eve, let's talk about haunted houses and/or ghost tours. Do you enjoy haunted houses/ghost tours? Do you hate them? Do you get scared easily? Are you into the extreme haunted/fright houses where you have to sign a waiver? Are there any 'real life' haunted houses in your area? Places with interesting or odd history? Let's talk about haunted places. As always, be kind to yourself and to others. Boo!
We were just talking at work about how difficult it can be for small children to tell the difference between dreams and reality, especially for recurring dreams. I mentioned how I used to be visited late at night by a giant, disembodied head that floated in the corner of the ceiling and talked to me. My coworkers laughed. Because they assumed I was offering an example of a remembered dream. Luckily, they didn't ask what the giant head had told me, which was very dark, very specific details of the future. My future. More like instructions, really. Or that every single thing the giant head had told me came exactly, specifically true, or that the giant head is floating on the ceiling talking to me right now. Telling me about you.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:44 PM on October 11, 2019 [15 favorites]
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:44 PM on October 11, 2019 [15 favorites]
The first haunted house attraction I went through as an early teenager back in the 70's seemed pretty wild at the time, but with uneven production quality in the various scenes. The wolf-man in the graveyard and the maniac doctor dismembering a corpse were vivid and alarming, the person caught in a giant spiderweb not so much. A few years later, I volunteered to work two nights in a "fright factory" which was quite the hoot. My first role was the crazy old hermit: a jump scare thing where the people would come around a dark corner, strobe lights would suddenly flash, and I would lunge across the tilted floor of a blood-spattered log-cabin interior with a fake pick-axe, screaming "GET OFF MAH LAND!" My second role was the devil, but they didn't have enough people to put anyone else in the scene, so it was just another jump scare. My voice was completely shot by the end of the second night. They did have a "JAWS" scene where as the people came around a corner, a giant shark head would swing up with a bloody actor hanging out of it's mouth like Quint's final moments... I thought that looked pretty cool, but I don't know what the reactions were to it. I haven't acted or gone through a haunted house since. I hear some of them are pretty over-the-top, these days.
When mrs.coppertop and I travel, we will sometimes take the ghost tours. It's fun to hear the stories, and it's not as stressful or intense as the haunted house stuff.
posted by coppertop at 6:51 PM on October 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
When mrs.coppertop and I travel, we will sometimes take the ghost tours. It's fun to hear the stories, and it's not as stressful or intense as the haunted house stuff.
posted by coppertop at 6:51 PM on October 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
You know those amusement park haunted houses where your ride in a little roller-coaster type cart through a dark building through scary dioramas and then actors (or animatronic mannequins) jump out at you and yell "Boo!" every now and then?
I can't do them. They're too scary.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:48 PM on October 11, 2019 [6 favorites]
I can't do them. They're too scary.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:48 PM on October 11, 2019 [6 favorites]
I think I'd say that I don't believe in ghosts, but I do. I love estate sales and go to them a lot; I enjoy collections curated by a single person and also old American pottery and silver plate serving pieces. A few weeks ago there was one at a house I've always wanted to go inside in my neighborhood; the woman wasn't dead, she was just moving after retirement. I walked in with my mother and was filled with immediate dread. There was a lot of good stuff, but I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I wouldn't let my mom finish looking, I just wanted to go. I googled the address later; the woman's adult son had died in the backyard in a freak accident 15 or so years before.
Whenever I think of ghosts, I always think of this piece from Elle magazine from a few years ago: Losing My Husband―And Finding Him Again Through A Medium
posted by purpleclover at 7:59 PM on October 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
Whenever I think of ghosts, I always think of this piece from Elle magazine from a few years ago: Losing My Husband―And Finding Him Again Through A Medium
posted by purpleclover at 7:59 PM on October 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
Oh, and all haunted houses are nightmares. The Sixth Sense was MUCH too scary for me. I am an adult woman, and I hate being startled so much I don't like being in the presence of balloons.
posted by purpleclover at 8:00 PM on October 11, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by purpleclover at 8:00 PM on October 11, 2019 [4 favorites]
I'd mostly just repeat the comment I made here about "real" haunted stuff.
As far as seasonal or theme park haunted houses, I used to be terrified as a kid, but now they're no big deal. I buried my face in my mom's lap for the length of the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland when I was around 5 (back when rides still required individual tickets). I ran out of a haunted house at my church when we got to the "unnecessary surgery" room at around the same age (what the hell, mom?). But just a few years later a friend of mine's birthday was around Halloween so his birthday party usually involved going to a big haunted house attraction with the whole birthday party troop, and I did fine at those. I did a local one a few years ago in Wisconsin that was mostly no big deal, but there was one room you walked into, where a little girl was sitting perfectly still under a table so that you wouldn't notice her, and then when you were just past her she'd screech at the top of lungs. That was the best jump I've had in years. Good job, kid.
posted by LionIndex at 8:08 PM on October 11, 2019
As far as seasonal or theme park haunted houses, I used to be terrified as a kid, but now they're no big deal. I buried my face in my mom's lap for the length of the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland when I was around 5 (back when rides still required individual tickets). I ran out of a haunted house at my church when we got to the "unnecessary surgery" room at around the same age (what the hell, mom?). But just a few years later a friend of mine's birthday was around Halloween so his birthday party usually involved going to a big haunted house attraction with the whole birthday party troop, and I did fine at those. I did a local one a few years ago in Wisconsin that was mostly no big deal, but there was one room you walked into, where a little girl was sitting perfectly still under a table so that you wouldn't notice her, and then when you were just past her she'd screech at the top of lungs. That was the best jump I've had in years. Good job, kid.
posted by LionIndex at 8:08 PM on October 11, 2019
The worst two hours of my life were spent on a ghost tour in New Orleans.
It was late May or early June. It was already 150 degrees in the shade. I didn't want to do it, because ghosts don't exist and and supporting such nonsense is actually harmful, but I was with some friends who wanted to go so I figured I'd tag along with an open mind and a sense of humor. While we were waiting for it to start we heard music and wandered outside to find that John Popper was playing in some festival. I would have been happy hanging out and watching John Popper. But then the tour started.
I figured it would be a tour with some ghost stories but it was basically a walk around New Orleans on a very hot evening, showing us the locations of recent grisly murders.
The tour guide was a failed actor. He would try to make the stories dramatic, he would say things like "and then she walked up the stairs... step... by step... by step" or "brick... by brick... by brick" or the classic "...when the wind blows... some people say... you can still hear her screams."
It was comically bad. Torturously bad. It was so bad it wasn't even fun. It was just terrible.
It would have been much more fun to watch John Popper.
As for my own ghost story, I posted this once before, and it's long and you probably won't watch it, and if you watch it you have to watch it until the end or there's no point, and you'll probably turn it off before then, but the night my father-in-law died I saw his ghost.
posted by bondcliff at 8:26 PM on October 11, 2019 [4 favorites]
It was late May or early June. It was already 150 degrees in the shade. I didn't want to do it, because ghosts don't exist and and supporting such nonsense is actually harmful, but I was with some friends who wanted to go so I figured I'd tag along with an open mind and a sense of humor. While we were waiting for it to start we heard music and wandered outside to find that John Popper was playing in some festival. I would have been happy hanging out and watching John Popper. But then the tour started.
I figured it would be a tour with some ghost stories but it was basically a walk around New Orleans on a very hot evening, showing us the locations of recent grisly murders.
The tour guide was a failed actor. He would try to make the stories dramatic, he would say things like "and then she walked up the stairs... step... by step... by step" or "brick... by brick... by brick" or the classic "...when the wind blows... some people say... you can still hear her screams."
It was comically bad. Torturously bad. It was so bad it wasn't even fun. It was just terrible.
It would have been much more fun to watch John Popper.
As for my own ghost story, I posted this once before, and it's long and you probably won't watch it, and if you watch it you have to watch it until the end or there's no point, and you'll probably turn it off before then, but the night my father-in-law died I saw his ghost.
posted by bondcliff at 8:26 PM on October 11, 2019 [4 favorites]
Not a haunted house but: when I was in my first year of Architecture school, we had to study a local Catholic Cemetery, spend the whole semester sketching, observing, etc.
It's about 136 years old, and the main part is a large neo-classical building, with lots of spooky halls, crypts, etc.
Underneath this main part is the really old parts, subterranean crypts, long, narrow tunnels, pitch black, about 100m deep and with no lighting of any kind except what comes in from the lone entrance on one end.
So me and my friends started challenging each other to go in without a flashlight, to the end and back.
I was the only one to take the challenge. Thing is, I'm third generation atheist, and I really, really, really don't believe in ghosts, zombies or any kind of life after death. At all. So I didn't really have anything to be afraid of.
My less atheist friends swore I wouldn't make it all the way in and out without running. They bet me a pizza.
I walked in, it's super creepy, there's spaces for coffins on each side, some broken into, sometimes with bones sticking out, with other tunnels branching off, even darker, and in some cases dug up, with mounds of earth, and holes in the ground, too dark to see how deep they are or what's in them.
I didn't bolt, I made it all the way and back. I will admit that at the end I was feeling an itchy feeling at my back, like there could be something lurking, somewhere. I can say, without a doubt, that if any demons, ghouls, undead, etc. existed anywhere on the planet, they would have been in those tunnels and come out to eat me then and there. So don't worry, friends, enjoy your haunted whatevers in peace.
My friends never paid up on the pizza.
posted by signal at 9:09 PM on October 11, 2019 [3 favorites]
It's about 136 years old, and the main part is a large neo-classical building, with lots of spooky halls, crypts, etc.
Underneath this main part is the really old parts, subterranean crypts, long, narrow tunnels, pitch black, about 100m deep and with no lighting of any kind except what comes in from the lone entrance on one end.
So me and my friends started challenging each other to go in without a flashlight, to the end and back.
I was the only one to take the challenge. Thing is, I'm third generation atheist, and I really, really, really don't believe in ghosts, zombies or any kind of life after death. At all. So I didn't really have anything to be afraid of.
My less atheist friends swore I wouldn't make it all the way in and out without running. They bet me a pizza.
I walked in, it's super creepy, there's spaces for coffins on each side, some broken into, sometimes with bones sticking out, with other tunnels branching off, even darker, and in some cases dug up, with mounds of earth, and holes in the ground, too dark to see how deep they are or what's in them.
I didn't bolt, I made it all the way and back. I will admit that at the end I was feeling an itchy feeling at my back, like there could be something lurking, somewhere. I can say, without a doubt, that if any demons, ghouls, undead, etc. existed anywhere on the planet, they would have been in those tunnels and come out to eat me then and there. So don't worry, friends, enjoy your haunted whatevers in peace.
My friends never paid up on the pizza.
posted by signal at 9:09 PM on October 11, 2019 [3 favorites]
My favorite performative haunted house was a steampunk haunted house in an old theater, which I went to years ago in NYC. Beautifully designed and executed, and chillingly creepy without violence or gore. That kind of scary gets me much more than blood and guts and people jumping out from behind things. It was GREAT.
When I was a kid I had a friend who lived in a very old farmhouse that had (really) been part of the Underground Railroad. In fourth or fifth grade we decided that clearly meant the house was haunted by the ghost of Harriet Tubman, and we tried to contact her via Ouija Board to express our admiration. Sadly, Harriet Tubman had better things to do than listen to a bunch of white children fawning over her and never responded.
posted by centrifugal at 10:40 PM on October 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
When I was a kid I had a friend who lived in a very old farmhouse that had (really) been part of the Underground Railroad. In fourth or fifth grade we decided that clearly meant the house was haunted by the ghost of Harriet Tubman, and we tried to contact her via Ouija Board to express our admiration. Sadly, Harriet Tubman had better things to do than listen to a bunch of white children fawning over her and never responded.
posted by centrifugal at 10:40 PM on October 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
I love love love haunted house stories (if you couldn't guess). I grew up listening to tapes of storytellers, with books of folktales to read in bed, and my favorites were always the stories about hauntings. My favorite, as far back as I can remember, was the story of Old Man Bucket, as told by the Black storyteller Alice McGill. There was something it captured really well about the kind of old house you'd find at the end of a country road; she started by saying that the paint had faded to the color of dried blood, and that's a line that's stuck with me forever. I love how these stories can so often capture not only the history of a place, but the feeling of it as well -- the boredom of adolescence, or the isolation and poverty of Southern rural life.
So as a kid I was always, always looking for ghosts and whatnot. I very much wanted ghosts to be real, but I never got proof positive. I'd still try to scare myself. Back when my family lived in rural Maryland, I used to pretend that the derelict houses in the woods were haunted. Sometimes I could spook myself by seeing how long I could go without turning around. Sometimes I used to pretend that my own basement was haunted -- I think the idea of a ghost in such a mundane place gave voice to my own feelings of vunerability and insecurity. Even boring, supposedly safe places could be dangerous.
Anyway, despite all that, I tend to hate the haunted house attractions. I think I'd like them more if they were just houses done up all spooky, like if you could visit a real-life Addams Family house. But the attractions tend to be too much of an in-your-face ARE YOU SCARED YET??? thing, and really I just like ghosts and things because I think they're cool, not because I want to be scared by someone with an axe or whatever. I don't have any problems with them existing, they're just not what I'm after.
I love hearing about people's haunting experiences, though. One of my goals in life is to try to collect local ghost stories. I visited a friend in super-rural Ohio once, and she and her friends drove me around to point out places (surrounded by corn fields, all of them) where they'd seen ghostly figures or spectral wolves late at night. I remember thinking, wow, being a teenager around there must have been dull -- but I loved that seeing ghosts was a thing. Or a few years ago when my ex's uncle told us about the haint he'd seen. Love it.
Well, I've rambled, but I'll tell one haunted house story: my first job was at a Japanese store in DC, an old store in an old building. The store was downstairs, and upstairs were some large rooms where we kept racks of overstock items. Shortly after I started working there, everyone kept asking me if I'd seen the ghost yet. All the other employees had seen it: a slim, elderly Japanese man in a suit, visible on winter nights when the sun had gone down early and the storerooms were dark. It was never clear who it was, but everyone said they had seen him.
Sadly, I never saw anything, although it did get pretty spooky up there.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 12:49 AM on October 12, 2019 [3 favorites]
So as a kid I was always, always looking for ghosts and whatnot. I very much wanted ghosts to be real, but I never got proof positive. I'd still try to scare myself. Back when my family lived in rural Maryland, I used to pretend that the derelict houses in the woods were haunted. Sometimes I could spook myself by seeing how long I could go without turning around. Sometimes I used to pretend that my own basement was haunted -- I think the idea of a ghost in such a mundane place gave voice to my own feelings of vunerability and insecurity. Even boring, supposedly safe places could be dangerous.
Anyway, despite all that, I tend to hate the haunted house attractions. I think I'd like them more if they were just houses done up all spooky, like if you could visit a real-life Addams Family house. But the attractions tend to be too much of an in-your-face ARE YOU SCARED YET??? thing, and really I just like ghosts and things because I think they're cool, not because I want to be scared by someone with an axe or whatever. I don't have any problems with them existing, they're just not what I'm after.
I love hearing about people's haunting experiences, though. One of my goals in life is to try to collect local ghost stories. I visited a friend in super-rural Ohio once, and she and her friends drove me around to point out places (surrounded by corn fields, all of them) where they'd seen ghostly figures or spectral wolves late at night. I remember thinking, wow, being a teenager around there must have been dull -- but I loved that seeing ghosts was a thing. Or a few years ago when my ex's uncle told us about the haint he'd seen. Love it.
Well, I've rambled, but I'll tell one haunted house story: my first job was at a Japanese store in DC, an old store in an old building. The store was downstairs, and upstairs were some large rooms where we kept racks of overstock items. Shortly after I started working there, everyone kept asking me if I'd seen the ghost yet. All the other employees had seen it: a slim, elderly Japanese man in a suit, visible on winter nights when the sun had gone down early and the storerooms were dark. It was never clear who it was, but everyone said they had seen him.
Sadly, I never saw anything, although it did get pretty spooky up there.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 12:49 AM on October 12, 2019 [3 favorites]
Also someone recently told me I should make a living giving ghost tours, and now I really want to make that happen. I don't think I'm a good enough storyteller, but shoot, maybe I can learn! I mean, I definitely have the enthusiasm. Ghosts are cool!
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 12:52 AM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 12:52 AM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
I have the dubious distinction of having lived in two places while they were in the process of becoming ghost towns. Like we were literally the last people who lived there, and when we left each became pop. 0. So I have a little trouble getting excited about a mere haunted house.
I like haunted houses fine, although clearly any house built more than 100 years ago is haunted. The Winchester Mystery House is a bit of a tourist trap, but still pretty cool.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:46 AM on October 12, 2019 [7 favorites]
I like haunted houses fine, although clearly any house built more than 100 years ago is haunted. The Winchester Mystery House is a bit of a tourist trap, but still pretty cool.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:46 AM on October 12, 2019 [7 favorites]
The ghosts in my building tell me they believe in me. This gives me confidence in tough situations.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:27 AM on October 12, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:27 AM on October 12, 2019 [7 favorites]
One small haunted house memory:
Each year, the city's park rangers give "Haunted tours" of Fort Totten, one of the old forts that dot New York harbor. The fort itself is a pretty atmospheric place, but each Halloween they have volunteers and kids dress up in spooky costumes and act out various and sundry vignettes as park rangers lead people through the fort and the grounds. It was more jump-scare-funny than gore-frightening scary, and still pretty fun.
We left the tour through a long tunnel leading from the fort to a parking lot, and they left it unlit on purpose to add the spooky. It was just a minute's walk, and it was a straight shot so that was fine. But something unexpectedly eerie happened - as my group was making its way out, suddenly ahead of us we could see a glowing...face. It wasn't at human face level, it was like....at chest level, and it was slightly cock-eyed. And it was gradually floating towards us.
A little murmur rippled through my group as it approached, a murmur that got louder as it got closer. But then when the face got just a couple feet from us, and people started to gasp, we suddenly heard a voice - a bored teenage voice, coming from the darkness just above the face: "I'm on my break, people, chill."
It was one of the kids who'd taken off the mask and had it slung around his neck and dangling at his chest. We all laughed as he made his way through us back to the fort.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:34 AM on October 12, 2019 [5 favorites]
Each year, the city's park rangers give "Haunted tours" of Fort Totten, one of the old forts that dot New York harbor. The fort itself is a pretty atmospheric place, but each Halloween they have volunteers and kids dress up in spooky costumes and act out various and sundry vignettes as park rangers lead people through the fort and the grounds. It was more jump-scare-funny than gore-frightening scary, and still pretty fun.
We left the tour through a long tunnel leading from the fort to a parking lot, and they left it unlit on purpose to add the spooky. It was just a minute's walk, and it was a straight shot so that was fine. But something unexpectedly eerie happened - as my group was making its way out, suddenly ahead of us we could see a glowing...face. It wasn't at human face level, it was like....at chest level, and it was slightly cock-eyed. And it was gradually floating towards us.
A little murmur rippled through my group as it approached, a murmur that got louder as it got closer. But then when the face got just a couple feet from us, and people started to gasp, we suddenly heard a voice - a bored teenage voice, coming from the darkness just above the face: "I'm on my break, people, chill."
It was one of the kids who'd taken off the mask and had it slung around his neck and dangling at his chest. We all laughed as he made his way through us back to the fort.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:34 AM on October 12, 2019 [5 favorites]
aw bondcliff reminded me of when my sweet husband took me on a date to Halloween midnight tour of the Winchester Mystery House and the tour guide was SO BAD, reciting her spiel in a world's most bored monotone, that I couldn't even enjoy the tour of the house itself, which does have a strange story and is interesting if just for the architectural weirdness. I don't believe in ghosts but I am sensitive to places with tragic histories.
posted by fingersandtoes at 10:18 AM on October 12, 2019
posted by fingersandtoes at 10:18 AM on October 12, 2019
My buildings don't have ghosts (I check the security camera regularly. Spiders, yes, preferably right on the lens).
But try to make your way down from Cornell Campus to Cascadilla Park Road across the cemetery there, which is pitch black at night. Ithaca. That's where they hang out!
posted by Namlit at 10:57 AM on October 12, 2019
But try to make your way down from Cornell Campus to Cascadilla Park Road across the cemetery there, which is pitch black at night. Ithaca. That's where they hang out!
posted by Namlit at 10:57 AM on October 12, 2019
But try to make your way down from Cornell Campus to Cascadilla Park Road across the cemetery there, which is pitch black at night. Ithaca. That's where they hang out!
If you run fast enough at the Cemetery Sprint, they can't catch you.
posted by zamboni at 11:19 AM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
If you run fast enough at the Cemetery Sprint, they can't catch you.
posted by zamboni at 11:19 AM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
Never been on a ghost tour nor visited a commercial haunted house (Haunted Mansion excluded) but like almost everything Halloween, I hate them, too.
posted by Rash at 11:34 AM on October 12, 2019
posted by Rash at 11:34 AM on October 12, 2019
When I was a teenager, I stayed overnight on the Queen Mary, which has lots of ghost lore. I attended a secret society meeting at midnight. It was a thoroughly harmless and ironic secret society exclusive to ham radio operators. But, taking part in a sacred ritual on one of the half-occupied lower decks was absolutely brilliant. When the lights went out, it was DARK..
At that point in my life I was pretty much over my interest in ghosts and starting to become disillusioned with UFOs. But, I didn't get any sleep that night. I had my own cabin and I wasn't quite enough over ghosts to avoid looking for them in places I shouldn't have been. Unlike my very successful (and, in retrospect, pretty easily explainable) UFO searches, I didn't hear so much as an unexplained knock. It was a total waste as far as ghost hunting. Perhaps it was because I was alone and didn't have friends to escalate the importance of minor events. But, the Queen Mary is a pretty neat hotel if you're ever in the neighborhood.
As a pretty extreme skeptic today, I'm not entirely sure how to view my childhood fascination with paranormal things. I think learning to question all those books and observations was a useful exercise. I'm mostly glad that my elementary school teachers encouraged our paranormal research clubs. (In one case even calling me late at night to come document a UFO from their yard. . . which left me with a mini-cassette tape I will keep forever and will never play for anybody else under any circumstances.) But, turning to skepticism may not have been the most likely outcome.
Halloween is my favorite holiday. It's the only day of the year when normies are willing to do crazy stuff and be creative in public. But, I think I've either aged out of or moved away from an environment where anybody I actually like spending time with cares about the holiday. It's been years since my spouse and I were in the same city at that time, which makes hanging out in bars awkward, and I also don't have close connections with any local Day of the Dead participants. I wish my friends would put their Thanksgiving energy into Halloween parties.
I also now realize that calling it "straight pride day" doesn't seem nearly as funny in 2019 as it did when Dan Savage said it ten years ago. Fuck.
posted by eotvos at 12:22 PM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
At that point in my life I was pretty much over my interest in ghosts and starting to become disillusioned with UFOs. But, I didn't get any sleep that night. I had my own cabin and I wasn't quite enough over ghosts to avoid looking for them in places I shouldn't have been. Unlike my very successful (and, in retrospect, pretty easily explainable) UFO searches, I didn't hear so much as an unexplained knock. It was a total waste as far as ghost hunting. Perhaps it was because I was alone and didn't have friends to escalate the importance of minor events. But, the Queen Mary is a pretty neat hotel if you're ever in the neighborhood.
As a pretty extreme skeptic today, I'm not entirely sure how to view my childhood fascination with paranormal things. I think learning to question all those books and observations was a useful exercise. I'm mostly glad that my elementary school teachers encouraged our paranormal research clubs. (In one case even calling me late at night to come document a UFO from their yard. . . which left me with a mini-cassette tape I will keep forever and will never play for anybody else under any circumstances.) But, turning to skepticism may not have been the most likely outcome.
Halloween is my favorite holiday. It's the only day of the year when normies are willing to do crazy stuff and be creative in public. But, I think I've either aged out of or moved away from an environment where anybody I actually like spending time with cares about the holiday. It's been years since my spouse and I were in the same city at that time, which makes hanging out in bars awkward, and I also don't have close connections with any local Day of the Dead participants. I wish my friends would put their Thanksgiving energy into Halloween parties.
I also now realize that calling it "straight pride day" doesn't seem nearly as funny in 2019 as it did when Dan Savage said it ten years ago. Fuck.
posted by eotvos at 12:22 PM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
Metafilter: I posted this once before, and it's long and you probably won't watch it, and if you watch it you have to watch it until the end or there's no point.
p.s. I watched it. It was lots of fun and the comic timing perfect.
posted by eotvos at 12:44 PM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
p.s. I watched it. It was lots of fun and the comic timing perfect.
posted by eotvos at 12:44 PM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
Key West is easy to walk, and Ghost Tours are staples of the season from October to April. The hosts will encourage their guests to sing out, "You're Doomed!," to any passers-by at just about end-of-happy hour time, with predictable results, usually humorous.
My route home would just about always coincide with one group, so I perfected, "Too late!," followed by the creepiest, cringe-iest Vincent Price maniacal laugh I could manage, which, it turned out, was a little too much for some of the tour guests. More than once, some would tear off screaming down the street.
A couple of the tour operators asked me to knock it off, so I did, but I still give it to one or two groups a season, just for giggles.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 1:42 PM on October 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
My route home would just about always coincide with one group, so I perfected, "Too late!," followed by the creepiest, cringe-iest Vincent Price maniacal laugh I could manage, which, it turned out, was a little too much for some of the tour guests. More than once, some would tear off screaming down the street.
A couple of the tour operators asked me to knock it off, so I did, but I still give it to one or two groups a season, just for giggles.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 1:42 PM on October 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
I love the idea of haunted houses but they are so often just lame wandering in the dark until someone jumps out at you, which I haaaaattttteeeee. I have poor night vision, so I have to have someone guide me through already, and if there's anything visibile to most people in dim environments, I can't see it. I love places that are actually, "here's a creepy scene happening in this room!" with full decorations and costumes and an acted-out scenario. And with lighting!
posted by acidnova at 2:21 PM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by acidnova at 2:21 PM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
I am way too easily startled by mundane real life events to ever go to a haunted house. Kid Ruki accidentally scares the crap out of me with her unexpected presence so often that I keep threatening to get her a cat bell to wear.
For 20 years, I firmly believed that my parents' house was haunted. We moved there when I was 18 and my bedroom was actually the two rooms in the finished half of the basement. It was amazing for a teenager. When I was 20, I begged to move upstairs to the small bedroom my dad was using as an office. Every night I would hear voices, an indistinct whispering, and I was positive we had a ghost. I would hear it when my parents weren't home, so I knew it wasn't them. Many people, including my parents, have slept down there since and have heard nothing. Aaaaaand then this year, the whole narcolepsy realization happened and I found out that sleep paralysis is not, in fact, a normal part of falling asleep, and while I never realized it, I have, in fact, been having hallucinations all this time. Auditory hallucinations. And all my symptoms began 20 years ago, in my parents' not at all haunted basement.
posted by Ruki at 4:11 PM on October 12, 2019 [6 favorites]
For 20 years, I firmly believed that my parents' house was haunted. We moved there when I was 18 and my bedroom was actually the two rooms in the finished half of the basement. It was amazing for a teenager. When I was 20, I begged to move upstairs to the small bedroom my dad was using as an office. Every night I would hear voices, an indistinct whispering, and I was positive we had a ghost. I would hear it when my parents weren't home, so I knew it wasn't them. Many people, including my parents, have slept down there since and have heard nothing. Aaaaaand then this year, the whole narcolepsy realization happened and I found out that sleep paralysis is not, in fact, a normal part of falling asleep, and while I never realized it, I have, in fact, been having hallucinations all this time. Auditory hallucinations. And all my symptoms began 20 years ago, in my parents' not at all haunted basement.
posted by Ruki at 4:11 PM on October 12, 2019 [6 favorites]
One of the office buildings on my campus is supposedly haunted. No sign of the ghost while my department was in there, though, unless it was responsible for the leaky ceilings.
posted by thomas j wise at 5:42 PM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by thomas j wise at 5:42 PM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
Some houses feel bad to me. I've made renting and buying decisions based on this feeling. A couple of years ago, when we were looking for a house to buy, we visited lots of houses. In one particular house, I started feeling creeped out when we went up to the second floor where the bedrooms were. I was feeling nervous in the first bedroom we looked, but then I almost lost it in the master bedroom. The sense of wrongness intensified in the master bedroom, and then a feeling of intense badness hit me when we opened the strangely configured closet in the master bedroom. At that point I had to get out of the house, and if we'd been in Korea would have gone to a shaman to get talismans or charms against evil. The house had been emptied and repainted for selling, so this couldn't be attributed to creepy interior decor. No, we did not make an offer on the house.
The house we eventually bought was one that felt neutral to me.
posted by needled at 5:48 PM on October 12, 2019 [3 favorites]
The house we eventually bought was one that felt neutral to me.
posted by needled at 5:48 PM on October 12, 2019 [3 favorites]
My friends never paid up on the pizza.
This was a good story until the horrifying turn at the end.
Anyway, despite all that, I tend to hate the haunted house attractions. I think I'd like them more if they were just houses done up all spooky, like if you could visit a real-life Addams Family house.
I've never really considered going to one, from what I've seen it's flashing lights and people yelling at you. That's not scary, that's annoying. I'd like your version.
I have the dubious distinction of having lived in two places while they were in the process of becoming ghost towns. Like we were literally the last people who lived there, and when we left each became pop. 0.
You're just going to leave it like that with no details?
posted by bongo_x at 6:36 PM on October 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
This was a good story until the horrifying turn at the end.
Anyway, despite all that, I tend to hate the haunted house attractions. I think I'd like them more if they were just houses done up all spooky, like if you could visit a real-life Addams Family house.
I've never really considered going to one, from what I've seen it's flashing lights and people yelling at you. That's not scary, that's annoying. I'd like your version.
I have the dubious distinction of having lived in two places while they were in the process of becoming ghost towns. Like we were literally the last people who lived there, and when we left each became pop. 0.
You're just going to leave it like that with no details?
posted by bongo_x at 6:36 PM on October 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
When I was a young teen my sister and I were allowed to stay home all by ourselves in the house we were house-sitting as a family while our parents went out, with strict instructions to go to bed at the correct time. So we had fun watching TV and then shut everything down, got into our jammies and went to bed. Then we started hearing noises. It sounded like someone or something was walking around the house, scraping and dragging things around as it went. I, being the oldest, said "stay here!" and took the only weapon I could find- a wooden ruler, and went around the house looking, clearing each room from the upstairs down. I walked through the living room towards the laundry (which happened to have a glass window in the door) and just about had a heart attack as I saw a ghostly white figure with wild hair standing in the laundry, staring back at me.
So for reference I am an incredibly pale person, (Scottish complexion), was freaking out so was paler and was wearing a white night gown- yes it was my reflection. My sister was huddled in her bed, listening, and herself freaked out when I screamed. She is still a little bit mad at me to this day! (She thinks I should have taken her with me.)
Oh, and the noises? It was a dark and stormy night (had to resist the urge to go back and add that as my first line), and the wind was moving the branches of a big old Eucalyptus tree, scraping along the roof of the house.
We told our parents that they could "never leave us again!!" Thankfully they didn't listen. :)
posted by freethefeet at 2:15 AM on October 13, 2019
So for reference I am an incredibly pale person, (Scottish complexion), was freaking out so was paler and was wearing a white night gown- yes it was my reflection. My sister was huddled in her bed, listening, and herself freaked out when I screamed. She is still a little bit mad at me to this day! (She thinks I should have taken her with me.)
Oh, and the noises? It was a dark and stormy night (had to resist the urge to go back and add that as my first line), and the wind was moving the branches of a big old Eucalyptus tree, scraping along the roof of the house.
We told our parents that they could "never leave us again!!" Thankfully they didn't listen. :)
posted by freethefeet at 2:15 AM on October 13, 2019
A couple of weeks ago I took my 13-year-old daughter on a weekend trip to San Antonio, where we stayed at the Menger Hotel, a 160-year-old establishment built atop land where the battle of the Alamo was fought, and that has the reputation of being Texas' most haunted hotel. I didn't know any of this when I booked our rooms--I was just looking for reasonably priced accommodations downtown--but she was thrilled to stay somewhere haunted. To really help her enjoy the spooky side of things, we signed up for a haunted history tour, which was about an hour an a half of walking around downtown, hearing stories of supposed ghosts in the oldest buildings of San Antonio, including, of course, the Alamo. It was well done and I felt that I had gotten my money's worth.
Nothing really spooky happened to us, although there was a LOUD rapping on our door the second night we stayed there, at 11:00pm. I jumped up out of bed and threw open the door to confront whoever did it, but the hallway was empty. Probably a still-corporeal human pulling a prank, but the hallway is long and narrow, with no places to hide, and I opened the door in just a few seconds, so if it was a prank, the person who did it had to have a door open right beside us to jump into. Even then, I didn't hear any movement, and certainly no doors closing, so I guess I'll leave "spectral visitor" as a possibility. The kid certainly wants to believe it was a ghost, and I'm not inclined to dissuade her. The whole weekend is now one of my favorite memories with her.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 4:46 PM on October 13, 2019 [4 favorites]
Nothing really spooky happened to us, although there was a LOUD rapping on our door the second night we stayed there, at 11:00pm. I jumped up out of bed and threw open the door to confront whoever did it, but the hallway was empty. Probably a still-corporeal human pulling a prank, but the hallway is long and narrow, with no places to hide, and I opened the door in just a few seconds, so if it was a prank, the person who did it had to have a door open right beside us to jump into. Even then, I didn't hear any movement, and certainly no doors closing, so I guess I'll leave "spectral visitor" as a possibility. The kid certainly wants to believe it was a ghost, and I'm not inclined to dissuade her. The whole weekend is now one of my favorite memories with her.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 4:46 PM on October 13, 2019 [4 favorites]
We just moved, but lived around the corner from the Eastern State Penitentiary (https://easternstate.org/halloween/) for 12 years. My husband and my sister's family went last night and they've changed the "don't touch me" wristband to a "it's okay to touch me" glow-necklace. My husband got the treatment, for sure - grabbed and made to crawl through a metal tunnel, sized up for a beheading, and several other things.
The prison itself was active until 1970, I think, and, though it gives tours year-round, makes almost all of it's revenue during the few weeks around Halloween for this thing.
posted by Pax at 5:26 PM on October 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
The prison itself was active until 1970, I think, and, though it gives tours year-round, makes almost all of it's revenue during the few weeks around Halloween for this thing.
posted by Pax at 5:26 PM on October 13, 2019 [2 favorites]
We went to Estes Park a few years ago, and decided to stay at the Stanley Hotel. We didn't have any ghostly experiences, but we did take the late night Ghost Tour.
Everything was okay until we were in the basement. It was dark and creepy and a staff member opened a door behind me, reached out and tugged the back of my shirt, and said "boo!".
Readers, I screamed bloody murder. I assume that this was a little prank pulled on the Ghost Tour people standing closest to that door, usually resulting in a little jump and maybe an "oh! haha". But since I am the jumpiest chickenshit on the planet I screamed my head off. It was the last tour of the night - probably 11pm? - and I'm sure that I woke up everyone in the hotel. The tour guide just kind of glared at me and sighed and continued on with whatever story she was telling.
Funny thing, when I actually WAS in a haunted house, I wasn't scared at all. I wrote about that in a previous Metatalk, Metaparanormal.
posted by Gray Duck at 11:38 AM on October 14, 2019 [1 favorite]
Everything was okay until we were in the basement. It was dark and creepy and a staff member opened a door behind me, reached out and tugged the back of my shirt, and said "boo!".
Readers, I screamed bloody murder. I assume that this was a little prank pulled on the Ghost Tour people standing closest to that door, usually resulting in a little jump and maybe an "oh! haha". But since I am the jumpiest chickenshit on the planet I screamed my head off. It was the last tour of the night - probably 11pm? - and I'm sure that I woke up everyone in the hotel. The tour guide just kind of glared at me and sighed and continued on with whatever story she was telling.
Funny thing, when I actually WAS in a haunted house, I wasn't scared at all. I wrote about that in a previous Metatalk, Metaparanormal.
posted by Gray Duck at 11:38 AM on October 14, 2019 [1 favorite]
I love haunted houses but I'm a huge chicken when it comes to ghost-related horror movies. Similarly, I can't do horror games for the life of me, but I can watch LPs. I think it's being able to take charge of my own situation that makes it easier. In haunted houses I usually take point (at 5'3"), and if they give me a flashlight you bet I'm going to enter and scan rooms like a tactical mission.
I have a really piercing scream, though, so sometimes I'll do it in the middle of a dark hallway or if I'm first around a corner to scare the other guests. :)
posted by lesser weasel at 12:38 AM on October 15, 2019
I have a really piercing scream, though, so sometimes I'll do it in the middle of a dark hallway or if I'm first around a corner to scare the other guests. :)
posted by lesser weasel at 12:38 AM on October 15, 2019
Forgot that I posted a different kind of haunted house story in an earlier MeTa thread.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:54 AM on October 16, 2019
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:54 AM on October 16, 2019
I live close to the Bunny Man Bridge, a spooky place where teens go to do teen stuff like loitering, smoking weed, and whatever else. I imagine there's an uptick in that for Halloween when the Bunny Man or his ghost are supposed to reappear.
posted by peeedro at 7:30 AM on October 18, 2019
posted by peeedro at 7:30 AM on October 18, 2019
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I enjoy haunted attractions and most years will attend one or more of the Los Angeles area theme park haunts. My experience is a little bit different than most; I am 6'5" and 300 lbs. so the monsters almost never run up on me. Total strangers who are on the smaller side have occasionally used me as cover and when the parks are particularly foggy I have called out to guests that I am just a normal dude because my silhouette is large enough that a lot of people find it frightening.
Ghost tours can be an entertaining way to learn the history of an area but they are sometimes overrun with true believers who take the whole thing seriously on a level that I find personally annoying. I try not to ruin anyone's fun so I did once drop out of a tour early because I decided that one of us had to go and I was willing for it to be me.
* The sort of people who get excited when you tell them that you remember seeing a ghost tend to be less enthused when you tell them that you also remember seeing a pterodactyl.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 4:03 PM on October 11, 2019 [4 favorites]