Happy Halloween Season, Witches! I’m here with another post, this one to scare you with! I thought it would be fun to start a thread with our favorite scary and ghost stories. Or poems, podcasts, and TikToks.
I’ll start us off and share two. First off, it was a favorite poem of my Mom’s. She and Dad lived in Alaska for 8 years, and I was born there. The Cremation of Sam McGee was one of her favorite spooky stories.
My Dad’s favorite? The Golden Arm. My favorite is a choice between two Ray Bradbury stories. The Halloween Tree, which is on Prime Video. Or Something Wicked This Way Comes, which will start streaming for the first time on Friday, October 3rd!
For a local ghost story, I’ve got The Legend and Haunting of John Henry, which takes place in Talcot, WV. About an hour away from me on the interstate.
I’ve always been a big chicken when it comes to scary stories I couldn’t even make it through the Gremlins movie as a child - those little buggers were downright terrifying!
Sorry to say my spook tolerance hasn’t improved much over the years haha. So I’ll be snapping my fingers in poetic appreciation of the tales shared from a safe virtual distance
Still, it’s nice to have a space for scary story enthusiasts to swap tales! Thanks for opening this up, @Amethyst Happy spooky season!
The first poem I ever memorized was in connection with the Holocaust. I don’t remember the name of it or who wrote it… or even if I’m remembering it correctly, but here goes:
We were walking through some barbed wire one day.
All of a sudden machine guns started.
As we ran, I saw my head on the ground in front of me.
Ooo… I love a good scary story. I will watch a horror, psychological thriller, thriller, mystery, true crime, whether they are series, movies, or books.
I was reading Stephen King books before junior high and Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys… Moved right into VC Andrews before highschool… So it’s a bit harder for me to get scared where I was exposed so young but also was the person my younger brother would go to when he was scared. And that could be because he saw Unsolved Mysteries and it was somewhere he saw as nearby to us
There is one & I was young the first time I watched it & the first time is when it really got me but I wanted to watch it every year when it came on or we could rent it. Darby O’Gill and the Little People… The first time I saw that and the banshee part I think my soul left my body & ran to hide under the covers. I remember being so afraid to go into my room to go to bed by myself & this time I made my brother come with me & then go to his room. I’m not sure what about the banshee part scared me, because I’ve seen it since & it hasn’t but that first time I watched it… Sleep was hard to come by
I can’t say that I have a favorite though. I’m very picky about anything that falls into the found footage category. I’m so much into the shock & awe & gore ones. I don’t mind it in the context of the show or story but not for everything in every scene where that is kind of the movie… Those shock, awe, & gore. So like I couldn’t sit through a marathon of Saw movies… I’d be off somewhere else mentally but physically in the room
I can’t remember the name of the story but it was one that we heard as children that was scary to when were in Elementary school because it was about something that could actually happen or happen again. It was kind of one of those area specific tales of a past happening in the area but the offender was never found but is believed to almost lying in wait. I wish I could remember it, I’ll have to ask my brother when I talk to him again
The Halloween Tree isn’t very scary. It’s a cartoon on the history of Halloween, with a little magic. Not very accurate, but it was based off a book written in 1972, and the cartoon itself is from 1993. But I am fond of it because it’s the first time I ever heard of Samhain, or Dia del los Muertos. Or that water running through the mouths of gargoyles lets them speak. It wasn’t that scary, but wonderfully fun!
You’re welcome, love! Glad you liked the idea!
Wow. And here I thought The Jabberwocky was scary. That’s sad and weird.
Ha! I was reading King in Fifth Grade. I never could get into Christine, but I loved Salem’s Lot.
I was scared of Three-Toes the Bear in The Adventures of the Wilderness Family. Not even gonna say what happened when he broke into the cabin, but yeah, I was scared!
Was it Lady in White? Because that movie freaked me out as a kid.
Oh, cool - another one like me! I’ll hide behind you as this thread continues.
@Amethyst - I love certain Stephen King novels- Salem’s Lot, The Stand, The Shining - if there’s a good dense story in the middle of the weirdness I can get through all right. (Don’t talk to me about “It”, though - I draw the line at clowns, all clowns!!)
I never advanced beyond sitting around a campfire with someone shining a flashlight upwards from the chin. Eeek!!
I didn’t watch much horror as a kid, mainly because there was too much sex for my Mom, not the blood and gore. LOL!
You might want to try a good comedy horror movie to start out with. Shaun of the Dead is one of the best, and there’s a movie called Slay on Tubi that you can stream for free, which was hilarious! Four drag queens accidentally get booked at a redneck biker bar in the middle of nowhere, but decide to perform anyway.
Of course, vampires attack. Which almost always seems to happen in bars in the middle of nowhere. What the heck? But yeah, it’s fun. There’s just a wee bit of gore, but the comedy makes up for it! And the Queens were wonderful! They owned that bar!
That comment brings up a memory of a short film I once saw in school. A child was walking around an European town, followed by a red balloon. No one held the string., it simply hovered about head high to the child and drifted along behind him. I thought that was creepy.
A wonderful, campy Halloween movie I enjoy each year is When Good Ghouls Go Bad, starring Christopher Lloyd.
The creepiest movies I ever watched in my youth starred Robin Ignido. She was about my age when I saw them. In one, she buried her parents in the sand up to their necks after they abused her. In the other, she used a pizza cutter to scrape the wallpaper while she tracked her victims. Mom cancelled the new- fangled invention called cable after watching those movies, fearing it might give me ideas.
I learned one important thing about myself during that time period. If I made the mistake of seeing a horror movie, the only time I’d have nightmares is if I turned it off before the end. Endings of movies usually removed the danger convincingly enough that my subconscious was satisfied the characters wouldn’t come after me.
I did choose not to watch horror movies whenever they could be avoided. Best not to tempt fate. I can handle kids movies and true hauntings, but that’s about it. Then again, “true” stories like Amityville and The Winchester House can get pretty creepy! I have chosen to research the Whaley House this year in honor of a descendent I once knew before Covid.
Oh yeah, the leader singer of the Queens, Mama Sue, has some wonderful one liners and the others are just as hilarious in their own ways! Even some of the rednecks will surprise you!
I think I remember seeing a clip of that one. I never got why the balloon was following him, so that’s what made it creepy to me.
That looks fun! I’ll have to watch it this year. Thanks for sharing!
I wasn’t in middle school before I was watching Tales from the Crypt, Psycho, reading stories, watching films & series Of course now I’m like… Huh, probably saw or read these way too young.
I remember my mom being so scared watching Nightmare on Elm St & she was having a time keeping my cousin & I put of the room. So we went to my room & laid on the floor & watched it through the curtain (my bedroom door had these glass pans like little windows, & I had a shade with curtains). We had the door open a couple of inches. It came to a part that mom got so scared & jumped & screamed then saw we were watching & jumped again. The we got in trouble & she turned it off but all the lights in the house came on promptly
I think a lot of school aged kids watched it. I’m pretty sure it’s this The Red Balloon, a film short from the late 1950s. Supposed to have some funny bits in it, too.
I LOVE that one! It’s so great and so hilarious with the twist.
My favorite spooky stories growing up were Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark with the original (awesome) horrific illustrations. They were banned in many schools. I loved them and often snuck them home in my backpack, lol. I own a re-release of it, thankfully with the original illustrations.
I also grew up with Disney’s Silly Symphony ‘Skeleton Dance’. It’s from 1929 and has been a favorite of mine since I was about 3 years old, along with another one named ‘Mickey’s Haunted House’. You can find both of them on YouTube. They both contributed to my love of Grim Reaper figures and skeletons lol. And haunted houses.
I generally love Gothic Horror this time of year, like The Haunting (the black and white movie from the 60s) or Vincent Price movies like House on Haunted Hill or The Pit and the Pendulum, and my daughter and I love watching Bela Lugosi’s ‘Dracula’ on Halloween, along with Arsenic and Old Lace.
You and me both!!! I was living here in Alaska when I first saw that movie, I was really little, and the Aurora outside had the same color as the banshee. I was convinced it was ghosts. I love that movie now and watch it every St. Patrick’s Day now, but the little girl in me still has a shiver when I see the Banshee on the screen.
Some classic family movies I enjoy are Hocus Pocus and Nightmare Before Christmas. Halloweentown is pretty darn cute, too.
Happy Halloween / Samhain!
PS - I love myself a good slasher movie, my era was the 80s and I will always love Freddy Kreuger. He was a whole new level of monster horror back then! But Ghostface is a ‘Scream’ .. haha. My daughter and I are going to try to see the re-release of the first Scream in the theater this weekend.
I have watched it on St Patrick’s Day, but still I tense up when it’s getting close & the little girl in me is ready to exit stage left… Still don’t know why, but I get that little tense up & I’m like… You know it’s nothing… You’re fine… But toss on like an M Knight Shamalayn movie like: The Visit & I’m fine!
I am right there with you! I remember it was this time of year & when my oldest was around 1, I went with my parents to their Cape house. My mom & I stayed up watching old horror movies. I remember it was Vincent Price, & Psycho… We watched a few then she said, well, if you want to actually get scared then you NEED to watch Rosemary’s Baby… I was very intrigued then spent over 10 years looking for the movie to watch… Blockbuster didn’t have it then when Netflix started they didn’t have it… It was a long time & finally I watched it. My mom told me how scary it was, no way I wouldn’t get at least a jump from it… I watched it… Then was like… So… I thought this was a terrifying movie… Recently we watched a movie & I can’t remember if Rosemary’s Baby was supposed to be the first one or if it’s supposed to be like the second one… Now I’m going to find out
I remember the video game Silent Hill, my husband & I would play when the kids went to bed. We would play with the lights on because there was one part where you’re like on a bottom floor or the basement or something but there’s some craziness that is there all of a sudden around a dark corner… There were parts that we’d just hand off the controller like… Nope, this is all you! So we’d spend the time turning lights on & off, handing off the controller… But do you think we stopped playing before finishing the game. No. Not at all. Now we’ve played the games, watched the movies, & are waiting for the next Silent Hill movie to come out
I really enjoyed the 2012 Hammer version of The Woman in Black (I like the BBC one, too), so I sampled and collected the book. It is SO good. Feels like you’re reading a Victorian classic. I love this cover, I found it on eBay. It’s a British import. I’m on my second read through in less than a year.
I love ‘The Haunting’ movie (both the 60s version and the goofy fun 90s one with Liam Neeson), it’s probably one of the best haunted house stories ever. I’ve listened to the audiobook several times (read by David Warner - the best! You can find it on YouTube). I finally collected the book, this one has a glow in the dark cover.
This book is the freaking best! Can you tell I love Victorian stuff? lol! This has such a weird and interesting collection of letters, newspaper articles, traditions, superstitions etc from the Victorian era, all surrounding death. It is quite a wild and fascinating read. Not many pictures, but there are some illustrations from the time period.
I couldn’t even make it through the Gremlins movie as a child - those little buggers were downright terrifying! 
Happy spooky season!
a good scary story. I will watch a horror, psychological thriller, thriller, mystery, true crime, whether they are series, movies, or books.
I’m not sure what about the banshee part scared me, because I’ve seen it since & it hasn’t but that first time I watched it… Sleep was hard to come by 
It’s from 1929 and has been a favorite of mine since I was about 3 years old, along with another one named ‘Mickey’s Haunted House’. You can find both of them on YouTube. They both contributed to my love of Grim Reaper figures and skeletons lol. And haunted houses.
