The victim starts removing all the doors from his house, and then suddenly goes silent (like the Caver story). Via some other source, we discover that the house was visited a few weeks later, and all the doors had been removed...except for the bathroom door, which is still on its hinges and standing wide open.
All this talk about doors, and I just remembered what creeps me the hell out. I'm all ready for bed, turning the lights off and closing the doors and such. Room light is switched off, and I see the light in my closet is on, but I don't remember turning it on.
Alternative endgame idea: Same as before, except the house is found with all the doors removed. Instead of the bathroom door standing wide open, there are signs of a struggle (dents in the wall, scratches on the floor, etc.) near the breaker box, which is standing open. The implication, of course, is that Manny turned the power off from behind the breaker box's door, then when the victim went to fix it...boom, grabbed.
If "Manny" needs a closed door to materialize from, I would expect that it needs a closed door to dematerialize. What would happen if you smashed the last door in the house off it's hinges with a sledgehammer when you realize that it's in the house?
Also, do you ever use a room at night with the light on and then expect to see the street lit silhouette of someone in the window when you turn the light off? Someone could watch your shadow from the window and be hidden by your light.
I've got a couple of great stories, this thread seems to be a little derailed, but I'll post them as long as it lasts.
The first one is something that happened to my dad before I was born. It's somewhat of a ghost story... and I do have a couple of true ghost stories to share later as well. I'll post another tomorrow.
This happened at my cottage, which I should mention is haunted by the previous owners son (I forget his name, I'll ask my dad tonight and update tomorrow). A bit of history:
He drowned just out front of the cottage while working on an old outboard boat motor. This was the kind that you had to wrap the cord around the starter (I'm not good with engines, don't know the technical term) each time you tried to pull it. When he finally started it, the boat jerked forward and he fell onto the open engine, which gored his chest open and tossed him into the water. It was a very traumatic death. The owner put the place up for sale shortly thereafter.
Unfortunately, I've never had any real experiences with the ghost. He disappeared shortly after my dad took me as a baby to the cottage for the first time, but has recently came back. The closest thing I've seen is my dog perking up suddenly, wagging her tail and tracking something around the room, sometimes getting up and trotting around the room merrily. He's very benevolent. My dad says all he does really is say "Hello." from behind you in a really deep voice. Sometimes he'll give you a bear hug. He isn't limited to the cottage as my dad says he's gotten a "Hello." outside on the driveway.
Anyway onto the story.
This took place before I was born. My dad was in his late 20's (I'll edit the exact details later), took place approximately in the mid 1970's. He woke up in the middle of the night totally awake and aware. Something felt wrong, like there was an intruder. My mom woke up from his movement, he told her to be quiet and stay in the bedroom.
At this point I should mention my dad was a cop.
He crept out of bed, staying low. He tells me that he somehow just knew where to look, like he was being guided. He moved to the back of the cottage and peaked out the back window. It was pitch black outside, no moon. The back of the cottage is overlooked by a hill that elevates as high as the roof of the cottage, which is a low lying bungalo with no basement. There is a small retaining wall maybe three feet tall preventing the hill from eroding into the cottage and a short, 45 degree incline onto a flat expanse which we park cars. On that hill he saw the tip of a cigarette light up which illuminated the silhouettes of two figures.
There is NO reason why ANYONE should be on our property. Yes, we've got neighbours on either side of us, but we're all on lakefront property. Nobody would bother with hanging out on the top of our driveway. We're 45 minutes from the nearest town as well.
Now during this time my dad was working undercover, into some heavy shit. I'll leave it at that, but the circumstances set his imagination off and he immediately thought the worst. He crept back into his bedroom and started putting on some black clothes, strapped on his service pistol, put on a bandoleer of shotgun shells and picked up a sawed off shotgun he kept under his bed. His plan was to dive out his bedroom window, sneak up around the men and take them down. Each side of the property is lined with trees and considering it was a moonless, starless night, it wouldn't have been hard for him to get up behind them.
My mother begged him not to go the whole time he was strapping up. He gave into her pleading, realizing that if there were others out there he'd be leaving her in a very dangerous situation. He barricaded the bedroom door and stayed up until dawn. When it was light enough, he checked outside and didn't see anyone. Checking around the property he found footprints all up and down our driveway, at least 4 individual sets. On the hill where he saw the two silhouettes overlooking his property were several cigarette butts and footprints leading up the driveway and eventually car tracks.
He swears to this day that it was the ghost that woke him up... and that if my mom wasn't there that night, events would've played out quite differently. As awesome of an action movie that scenario could've been, I'm glad he didn't dive out that window.
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Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
edited March 2010
You guys should make your tooth goblin somehow related to a serial killing dentist with a fetish for machinery.
Alternative endgame idea: Same as before, except the house is found with all the doors removed. Instead of the bathroom door standing wide open, there are signs of a struggle (dents in the wall, scratches on the floor, etc.) near the breaker box, which is standing open. The implication, of course, is that Manny turned the power off from behind the breaker box's door, then when the victim went to fix it...boom, grabbed.
Okay. That one creeped me the hell out. It didn't help that as I was reading the last two pages, I kept hearing a click-click-click-click from the other side of my office. Stupid aluminum cans settling in the recycling bag.
As an aside, I've been having some writer's block on my current novel project. I'd definitely be willing to help out here where needed.
Edit: Oh, and the breaker box reminds me: next to my own breaker box, there are a bunch of dirty bootprints on the wall all around it. The drywall guys were walking on that sheet before they put it up, and we never bothered to clean it. It's a little creepy sometimes, walking into your garage and seeing bootprints on the walls and ceiling.
I like this idea. I also think you shouldn't see Manny, and I also think you shouldn't let the mythology sprawl; don't make it too tooth-themed: the scary thing isn't the teeth IMO, it's the closed door.
If we absolutely need to give some visual representation of Manny, we could have a low-res (phonecam?) picture taken under the door, with the light off in the adjacent room. That way, you have a narrow field of view, low lighting, and low image quality in the first place, making it easy to provide an almost caricaturized and low-detail idea of what Manny might be -- probably just shiny glints from his teeth, with a vague silhouette-outline kind of thing in the shadows.
I have a good idea for an "outside the house" adventure for Manny's victim.
Have them out with a friend in a public place, somewhere where all the doors are glass and see-through, so that there's no way that Manny can be hiding behind it.
Have the victim talk about the weird shit that's going on at his place, about how he's recording his daily routine now, trying to figure out how exactly this is occurring. The exchange should give information but feel natural at the same time, and in any case it isn't the pull of the video.
What needs to occur is while they are shopping around, the victim (and camera operator) spots something odd out of the corner of their eye - it's some sort of door or container that spontaneously opens a bit - in my mind they are browsing shoes and you just barely see the lid of a shoebox jump a little - like something is tapping on it inside, experimentally. (I'm no mechanical wizard, but even I could figure out how to re-purpose some sort of RC car mechanism or similar to achieve such an effect.)
Anyway, the vic will freak out and the friend will ask what's up and the friend will go over and, despite protests of the vic, will open the shoe box to reveal that there's nothing but shoes inside (a quick camera tilt is all that's needed to ensure the device is removed before the reveal - or to swap boxes).
But... while their attention is focused on the open shoe box, another box of shoes in the background should jump a bit. This is not noticed by them - it should be a "oh shit" that the viewer spots.
The shoebox thing might be a bit of an extreme take on the Manny hiding behind closed things for you all, but it's just the version I had thought of - it's easily adaptable to other sorts of opening objects.
First of all, let me say that I really dig the idea of Manny. Someone pointed out that just how slenderman is ostensibly an outside force that is attacking one's home or interior/safe space, Manny is the opposite: something from within a space normally considered safe, and that instead of escaping him by withdrawing further into one's familiar and safe setting, to the point of being a recluse, one goes mad as their safe spaces are eroded from the inside out. Someone else mentioned the connection of teeth to dreams about anxiety: this is important, I feel, because teeth, being part of one's mouth (interior space) are something we normally regard as stable. So this gives a certain edgy creepiness to the idea of finding teeth all over one's house.
But still, though Manny is a good idea, I don't think he is a strong idea on par with slenderman. Slenderman is an alien with powers which are never fully determined, meaning that if you do something to try and defeat him, you never really know what he's gonna pull out of his bag of tricks to thwart you. However, the idea of Manny is that of a beast, albeit a really sneaky one. Still, it's not hard to imagine taking a bat to it and killing it. That's why I feel that the fear behind Manny should come from inside. He's creepy because he may or may not exist. Creepy things happen, but that sense of forboding as you open a door is never REALLY met with a foul deformed beast. And without this manifestation to attack, you can't externalize Manny. The teeth thing is tantalizing because however much creepiness you derive from finding a tooth in your house, you can't do anything about it. You can throw out the tooth, but the fact remains that it was there, and you can't unthink that. Removing doors in your house is the most off-track way I can think of to defeat a monster, but in this case it's the ONLY way, because you can't find the monster in the flesh.
I feel that a good part of Manny's persona is also the mentality of seeing smiling people, because that's not a monster, that's something twisted inside you reading deeply into something normal. Nothing is really out of place, you don't NEED to think that it's creepy, yet you do. It's almost as if you're becoming Manny, or if he is inside you. Clicking noises, teeth, smiles, all so normal, yet it's like watching The Ring and being stared shitless by a television with static. The connection has been made.
The idea of a blog espousing these connections is really good, but I feel that it should differ from the marble hornets method, because when you look at marble hornets, it's a horror blog, not some random person's blog which happens to detail strange occurrences and terrifying monsters. The marble hornets videos supposedly are about some guys making a movie, but they're so focused on the monster (even from the beginning) that you know that, real or not, they're MEANT to scare you. If people make videos about Manny, it should be 6 minutes of trying to renovate a hosue, and then 10 seconds of some weird guy in the background, followed by three more minutes of house renovation (for example). It shouldn't look like it's meant to be scary, because like I have been saying, Manny isn't an outside force/monster, he's almost a representation of an internal tendency to see things in a creepy light. Later on, attention can be paid to him, but not before he's earned his dues as a derivation of something normal, something that exists in all of our lives. I'm less scared of marble hornets because I've never had the experience of seeing an eight foot tall dude in the shadows, or having missing memories of a video-taped event. That shit is NOT typical of my life. If that happened, I'd be very justified in freaking out about it.
Marble hornets is alright, but something like Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' scares me shitless because, let's face it, who hasn't inadvertently caught their neighbors doing weird shit? Rear Window is a dude seeing some other dude doing fairly normal stuff, and yeah, he ends up (spoilers) having killed some dude, but up until most of the way through the movie, you don't really KNOW that. Marble hornets, you know from the get-go that there's something supernatural going on, as a fact. If fear of the unknown is scary, I can't think of anything scarier of not even knowing if there's something to be scared of, for sure. At least if you know that something weird is certainly occuring, you can do something about it without seeming unjustified. This is why lots of horror movies end up having their characters refuse to talk to outside soruces for no apparent reason, or for some very transparently fake reason. The beauty of Manny is that you can tell people you've been seeing odd smiles on complete strangers, and feel like things are behind doors, but no one's gonna be like 'yo get the guns, we're gonna hunt this thing down'. This creates the helplessness that is at the base of lots of horror stories.
I like how Cedar describes the house on the other side of his bedroom door as 'loading wrong' when everything goes topsy turvy, because I can't help but think of Manny in terms of the special infected from Left 4 Dead - can't spawn in your line of sight.
I like the door thing very much, it's a delicious subversion of many peoples natural instinct to feel safer when doors are closed - especially creepy ass closet doors. That doors are literal 'portals' is really strong thematically I feel, and I'm also for sticking hard and fast to Manny's requirement to enter from behind one. I like consistent rules and I think when you get down to it there is a lot of stuff which could be considered a sealed entry way, especially if you go with the fantasic visual of Manny squirming out of any place big enough for his head. Stuff like the shoebox jump scene or powerbreaker box could hammer home how impossible a task it is to really remove any means of entrance when you start getting lax with the definition of 'door'.
I'm also very keen on the idea of the protaganist moving into this doorless house and not understanding why. I think it's a very useful little horror trope to have an unseen character who encountered the horror before the start of the story - it gives you a great way to lay down some groundwork for the rules of the universe without having to make your main character figure it all out on camera, which can be hard to do realistically and often feel contrived. Later on the main character can easily make sense of the clues left behind by the previous occupant.
Also the idea that the previous occupier either succumbed or went mad helps set the tone I think, this guy obviously knew more and was better prepared and he still didn't make it out, what chance do you have? I think this kind of thing is used to great effect in House of Leaves and Marble Hornets (though I haven't watched a lot of the latter).
And obviously it's horror 101 that the unseen is scarier, but when the time does come to show Manny I like the idea of our protaganist installing, say, a heavily fortified door with a frosted glass panel in his bathroom (maybe even just a peephole or porthole?) - perhaps he's been pushed to the brink and begins experimenting, whether he wants to find out what is stalking him or just see if he's gone mad I don't know. Anyway perhaps he turns the light on and closes the door, but when he checks back later the light is off so that whatever we do see of Manny is distorted and shrouded in darkness. Just the frame, the large mishappen head and the glint of teeth. I'm thinking maybe he can't or doesn't choose to appear behind doors with clear glass panels - although that's just a contrived rule because I think you want to avoid getting a clear look at this thing.
This does need it's own thread I feel, the possibly made up scary stories are getting swallowed by the conclusively made up scary story!
Also I feel it goes without saying we need to have someone with a graphically realistic toothface costume break into Arch's house and lie in wait in his bathroom, to be filmed with hidden cameras for extra authenticity.
A severed samurai head buried in central Tokyo has struck fear and awe in the hearts of locals for over 1,000 years.
The head — supposedly buried in the Otemachi district — belongs to Taira no Masakado, a rebellious warrior who led an insurgency against the central government in the 10th century. At the height of his power, Masakado proclaimed himself emperor — an act that aroused the wrath of the government and ended in his decapitation. The samurai failed to become ruler of Japan, but his severed head has remained a persistent source of trouble for over 1,000 years.
Here is a brief history of the head.
903 – 940 AD: Taira no Masakado was born and raised in eastern Japan. After leading a minor rebellion and assuming control of eight provinces in northern Kanto, Masakado declared himself the new emperor of Japan. The established emperor, based in Kyoto, responded by putting a bounty on his head. Two months later, Masakado was killed in battle. His decapitated head was transported to Kyoto and put on public display as a warning to other would-be rebels.
Strangely, Masakado’s head did not decompose. Three months later, it still looked fresh and alive, though the eyes had grown more fierce and the mouth had twisted into a horrifying grimace. One night, the head began to glow, and it lifted into the air and flew off in the direction of Taira no Masakado’s hometown.
The head grew weary on the long flight home, and it came to rest in the village of Shibasaki (present-day Otemachi, Tokyo). The villagers picked up the head, cleaned it, and buried it in a mound at Kanda Myojin shrine.
950: Ten years after the head was laid to rest, the burial mound began to glow and shake violently, and the ghost of a bedraggled samurai started to make regular appearances in the neighborhood. The frightened locals offered special prayers that seemed to put the spirit to rest.
1200~: At the beginning of the 13th century, a temple belonging to the powerful Tendai Buddhist sect was built adjacent to Kanda Myojin shrine. This apparently upset the spirit of Masakado, and the people in the area were stricken by plague and natural calamities as a consequence.
1307: Nearly a century later, a priest from an Amida Buddhist sect — which took a more liberal, accessible approach to Buddhism than the Tendai sect — built an invocation hall here and tended the shrine of Masakado, thus easing the spirit’s anger.
1616: Kanda Myojin shrine, which had elevated Masakado to deity status, was moved to a new site to make room for the mansions of the feudal lords stationed in Edo. The burial mound and headstone were left behind in the garden of one of the mansions.
1869: After the fall of the feudal system, the Meiji government constructed their Finance Ministry building next to the burial site. The mound and headstone were left untouched.
1874: The government issued a formal declaration condemning Masakado as having been an “enemy of the emperor.” His deity status at Kanda Myojin shrine was revoked.
1923: The Great Kanto Earthquake and the ensuing fires all but destroyed the mound and stone monument. The Finance Ministry building burned to the ground. Before rebuilding, the ministry excavated the grave site in search of the skull, but found nothing. They decided to erect a temporary building on the premises.
1926: Building over the burial site turned out to be a terrible decision. Finance minister Seiji Hayami died suddenly of illness, and 13 other ministry officials met similar fates over the next two years. Many workers became ill or were injured in mysterious accidents on the premises. People believed that Taira no Masakado had cursed the new building.
1928: The ministry removed part of the structure covering the burial site and began holding annual purification rituals. At first there was great enthusiasm for the rituals, but interest faded over the years.
1940: A fire sparked by lightning burned down the Finance Ministry building and several other government offices in the Otemachi district. The day was remembered as being exactly 1,000 years after the death of Taira no Masakado. The old earthquake-damaged stone monument was rebuilt, and the site was rededicated to the samurai rebel. The Finance Ministry moved, and the land around the burial site became the property of the Tokyo municipal government.
1945: After World War II, US occupation forces seized control of the property and began to clear the land to create a parking lot. Progress was hindered by a series of suspicious accidents. In one accident, a worker died next to the grave when the bulldozer he was driving flipped over. After local officials explained the significance of the burial site to the US forces, they decided to leave part of the parking lot unfinished.
1961: Control of the property was handed back to Japan, and the parking lot was removed. Purification rituals were conducted, and the burial site was once more dedicated to Taira no Masakado. But when new buildings were constructed next to the burial mound, workers again fell ill. A figure with disheveled hair reportedly began to appear in photographs taken in the area. In an attempt to calm the spirit, representatives from local businesses started to pray at the burial site on the 1st and 15th of each month.
1984: In response to public pressure following the broadcast of an NHK television drama based on the life of Taira no Masakado, his deity status at Kanda Myojin shrine was reinstated.
1987: A string of freak accidents and injuries occurred during the filming of Teito Monogatari (“Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis”), a historical fantasy whose villain seeks to destroy Tokyo by awakening Masakado’s spirit (watch the movie trailer). To prevent accidents on the set, it is now common practice for TV and movie producers to pay their respects at the burial site before bringing Taira no Masakado to the screen.
In the more than 1,000 years since Masakado’s head fell from the sky, Tokyo has grown into the world’s largest metropolis and the area around the burial site has become the financial center of Japan. But to this day, local business people remain wary of the power of the head in their midst, and the surrounding companies take great pains to keep Masakado’s vengeful spirit in check. Supposedly, no office worker in the vicinity wants to sit with their back toward the burial site, and nobody wants to face it directly.
Hey I have a request: I think in one of the previous threads, somebody posted a short film about this dude that was renovating his house, and there was something about the French doors he was installing that was... off, and it kind of escalates from there. That one scared the poo outta me (moreso than There Are Monsters). Anybody remember the link? I think the actors may have been Australian? Maybe I made that up.
It's loading way slow for me. Apparently it was on Atom Films but has since been taken down for whatever reason, this is the only site I could find streaming it.
brorstein on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
Hey I have a request: I think in one of the previous threads, somebody posted a short film about this dude that was renovating his house, and there was something about the French doors he was installing that was... off, and it kind of escalates from there. That one scared the poo outta me (moreso than There Are Monsters). Anybody remember the link? I think the actors may have been Australian? Maybe I made that up.
It's loading way slow for me. Apparently it was on Atom Films but has since been taken down for whatever reason, this is the only site I could find streaming it.
Lesson Learned: When your home seems to be entering shadowy pocket dimensions do not enter them without a squad of backup
Was it me or did the pot to the head come across more comedic than terrifying?
That was pretty hilarious at the end.
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DeadfallI don't think you realize just how rich he is.In fact, I should put on a monocle.Registered Userregular
edited March 2010
I liked that samurai head story.
In high school history class we learned about a Japanese Emperor who, during war, would give his prisoners the chance to "redeem" themselves by marching on the front lines and slitting their throats in front of the enemy.
We watched the accompanying program on DvD, and were witness to a foggy battlefield, one side cautiously marching forward. Then suddenly hundreds of prisoners (actors) walked confidently forward from the mist, took their sword and slashed it across their own throats. Some of the blood even sprayed onto the enemy army, which apparently caused several retreats throughout this particular war.
Creeped me right the fuck out, but damn that was a fun class.
I've read through pretty much every one of these threads each time they crop up. Usually late at night before going to bed...bad times.
Anyway I thought I would actually contribute something for once.
Around mid 2001 I was just about to finish high school. The area where I lived (Wales) basically consists of pockets of dense population and then miles and miles of dramatic countryside with winding, lonely roads interconnecting everything. One of my friends families had a house about 2-3 miles outside of the town where we all went to school. It was a royal pain to get to without transport but the walk was awesome once you got out of the built up area, commanding views from the road out over the ocean on one side and hills and forests everywhere on the other. Traffic was always fairly busy as it was the main road in the area so even at night it was never creepy.
Once you gotten far enough out of town my friends house was off about half a mile down a side road that ran inbetween a big set of hills and the bottom of the valley, in which there is a small farm. The road itself is bordered on either side by a big wall and a big hedge so you can't see either side and there are no streetlights like there are on the main road. One night in summer we were all over at his house enjoying a barbecue and so on, fooling around in the back garden. It had gotten pretty late before I had decided it was time to head home, around 2 or 3 in the morning I think.
I had walked this on my own before at similar times (looking back I realise what a bloody fool I was for doing so but at the time thought nothing of it). Luckily my friend was having none of it and insisted on coming, so we bid farewell and the two of us set off for the couple of hours walk home. I mentioned before about the big hedge etc, anyway, the hedge was on the left as we were making our way back to the main road. On the wall side about half way down the road there are a few houses dotted into the side of the hill. We heard a car coming toward us so we walked into the drive of one of the houses to avoid being run over.
The car passed us and we were about to start walking again, when we both just stopped dead again after taking a couple of steps. I suddenly felt tense and had no idea why, me and my friend just turned to each other with confused looks on our faces. Then, from what sounded like right on the other side of the hedge across the road was a really loud scraping noise. The only way I can describe it is the sort of noise a shovel makes when digging through heavy grit or coarse soil and oh god it was loud, did I mention it was loud? We both just looked at each other, mouths agape for about 30 seconds as this noise just continued in the same spot. Now I have never been much of an athlete but I am sure we cleared that last two hundred and fifty metres to the main road pretty sharpish.
Still have no idea what it was, at the time the instant reaction was basically "Someone is burying a body across the hedge, run, run quite fast". Being farmland I suppose it might have been cattle or something, but the fact that it was just the same noise over and over in the same position. Maybe it was a farmer fixing fence posts? In the middle of the night...with no lights...
I've got a couple of great stories, this thread seems to be a little derailed, but I'll post them as long as it lasts.
The first one is something that happened to my dad before I was born. It's somewhat of a ghost story... and I do have a couple of true ghost stories to share later as well. I'll post another tomorrow.
This happened at my cottage, which I should mention is haunted by the previous owners son (I forget his name, I'll ask my dad tonight and update tomorrow). A bit of history:
He drowned just out front of the cottage while working on an old outboard boat motor. This was the kind that you had to wrap the cord around the starter (I'm not good with engines, don't know the technical term) each time you tried to pull it. When he finally started it, the boat jerked forward and he fell onto the open engine, which gored his chest open and tossed him into the water. It was a very traumatic death. The owner put the place up for sale shortly thereafter.
Unfortunately, I've never had any real experiences with the ghost. He disappeared shortly after my dad took me as a baby to the cottage for the first time, but has recently came back. The closest thing I've seen is my dog perking up suddenly, wagging her tail and tracking something around the room, sometimes getting up and trotting around the room merrily. He's very benevolent. My dad says all he does really is say "Hello." from behind you in a really deep voice. Sometimes he'll give you a bear hug. He isn't limited to the cottage as my dad says he's gotten a "Hello." outside on the driveway.
Anyway onto the story.
This took place before I was born. My dad was in his late 20's (I'll edit the exact details later), took place approximately in the mid 1970's. He woke up in the middle of the night totally awake and aware. Something felt wrong, like there was an intruder. My mom woke up from his movement, he told her to be quiet and stay in the bedroom.
At this point I should mention my dad was a cop.
He crept out of bed, staying low. He tells me that he somehow just knew where to look, like he was being guided. He moved to the back of the cottage and peaked out the back window. It was pitch black outside, no moon. The back of the cottage is overlooked by a hill that elevates as high as the roof of the cottage, which is a low lying bungalo with no basement. There is a small retaining wall maybe three feet tall preventing the hill from eroding into the cottage and a short, 45 degree incline onto a flat expanse which we park cars. On that hill he saw the tip of a cigarette light up which illuminated the silhouettes of two figures.
There is NO reason why ANYONE should be on our property. Yes, we've got neighbours on either side of us, but we're all on lakefront property. Nobody would bother with hanging out on the top of our driveway. We're 45 minutes from the nearest town as well.
Now during this time my dad was working undercover, into some heavy shit. I'll leave it at that, but the circumstances set his imagination off and he immediately thought the worst. He crept back into his bedroom and started putting on some black clothes, strapped on his service pistol, put on a bandoleer of shotgun shells and picked up a sawed off shotgun he kept under his bed. His plan was to dive out his bedroom window, sneak up around the men and take them down. Each side of the property is lined with trees and considering it was a moonless, starless night, it wouldn't have been hard for him to get up behind them.
My mother begged him not to go the whole time he was strapping up. He gave into her pleading, realizing that if there were others out there he'd be leaving her in a very dangerous situation. He barricaded the bedroom door and stayed up until dawn. When it was light enough, he checked outside and didn't see anyone. Checking around the property he found footprints all up and down our driveway, at least 4 individual sets. On the hill where he saw the two silhouettes overlooking his property were several cigarette butts and footprints leading up the driveway and eventually car tracks.
He swears to this day that it was the ghost that woke him up... and that if my mom wasn't there that night, events would've played out quite differently. As awesome of an action movie that scenario could've been, I'm glad he didn't dive out that window.
So basically, your dad owes his life to a ghost (for waking him up) and the wife (for changing his mind.)
Yeah, anyone who has Steven Segal for a father surely must have more stories.
Fixed.
The Samurai story is pretty freaky especially because the Japanses Shinto system pretty much allows for any schmuck to become a deity if they're in the right place at the right time.
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I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
Yeah, anyone who has Steven Segal for a father surely must have more stories.
Fixed.
The Samurai story is pretty freaky especially because the Japanses Shinto system pretty much allows for any schmuck to become a deity if they're in the right place at the right time.
in this case it's less "right place, right time" and more "Let's deify this guy so his vengeful spirit doesn't kill us"
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Nice avatar, Mr. Cumberdale.
Thank you muchly.
The victim starts removing all the doors from his house, and then suddenly goes silent (like the Caver story). Via some other source, we discover that the house was visited a few weeks later, and all the doors had been removed...except for the bathroom door, which is still on its hinges and standing wide open.
That fucks with my head somethin' fierce.
Also, do you ever use a room at night with the light on and then expect to see the street lit silhouette of someone in the window when you turn the light off? Someone could watch your shadow from the window and be hidden by your light.
The first one is something that happened to my dad before I was born. It's somewhat of a ghost story... and I do have a couple of true ghost stories to share later as well. I'll post another tomorrow.
This happened at my cottage, which I should mention is haunted by the previous owners son (I forget his name, I'll ask my dad tonight and update tomorrow). A bit of history:
He drowned just out front of the cottage while working on an old outboard boat motor. This was the kind that you had to wrap the cord around the starter (I'm not good with engines, don't know the technical term) each time you tried to pull it. When he finally started it, the boat jerked forward and he fell onto the open engine, which gored his chest open and tossed him into the water. It was a very traumatic death. The owner put the place up for sale shortly thereafter.
Unfortunately, I've never had any real experiences with the ghost. He disappeared shortly after my dad took me as a baby to the cottage for the first time, but has recently came back. The closest thing I've seen is my dog perking up suddenly, wagging her tail and tracking something around the room, sometimes getting up and trotting around the room merrily. He's very benevolent. My dad says all he does really is say "Hello." from behind you in a really deep voice. Sometimes he'll give you a bear hug. He isn't limited to the cottage as my dad says he's gotten a "Hello." outside on the driveway.
Anyway onto the story.
This took place before I was born. My dad was in his late 20's (I'll edit the exact details later), took place approximately in the mid 1970's. He woke up in the middle of the night totally awake and aware. Something felt wrong, like there was an intruder. My mom woke up from his movement, he told her to be quiet and stay in the bedroom.
At this point I should mention my dad was a cop.
He crept out of bed, staying low. He tells me that he somehow just knew where to look, like he was being guided. He moved to the back of the cottage and peaked out the back window. It was pitch black outside, no moon. The back of the cottage is overlooked by a hill that elevates as high as the roof of the cottage, which is a low lying bungalo with no basement. There is a small retaining wall maybe three feet tall preventing the hill from eroding into the cottage and a short, 45 degree incline onto a flat expanse which we park cars. On that hill he saw the tip of a cigarette light up which illuminated the silhouettes of two figures.
There is NO reason why ANYONE should be on our property. Yes, we've got neighbours on either side of us, but we're all on lakefront property. Nobody would bother with hanging out on the top of our driveway. We're 45 minutes from the nearest town as well.
Now during this time my dad was working undercover, into some heavy shit. I'll leave it at that, but the circumstances set his imagination off and he immediately thought the worst. He crept back into his bedroom and started putting on some black clothes, strapped on his service pistol, put on a bandoleer of shotgun shells and picked up a sawed off shotgun he kept under his bed. His plan was to dive out his bedroom window, sneak up around the men and take them down. Each side of the property is lined with trees and considering it was a moonless, starless night, it wouldn't have been hard for him to get up behind them.
My mother begged him not to go the whole time he was strapping up. He gave into her pleading, realizing that if there were others out there he'd be leaving her in a very dangerous situation. He barricaded the bedroom door and stayed up until dawn. When it was light enough, he checked outside and didn't see anyone. Checking around the property he found footprints all up and down our driveway, at least 4 individual sets. On the hill where he saw the two silhouettes overlooking his property were several cigarette butts and footprints leading up the driveway and eventually car tracks.
He swears to this day that it was the ghost that woke him up... and that if my mom wasn't there that night, events would've played out quite differently. As awesome of an action movie that scenario could've been, I'm glad he didn't dive out that window.
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Okay. That one creeped me the hell out. It didn't help that as I was reading the last two pages, I kept hearing a click-click-click-click from the other side of my office. Stupid aluminum cans settling in the recycling bag.
As an aside, I've been having some writer's block on my current novel project. I'd definitely be willing to help out here where needed.
Edit: Oh, and the breaker box reminds me: next to my own breaker box, there are a bunch of dirty bootprints on the wall all around it. The drywall guys were walking on that sheet before they put it up, and we never bothered to clean it. It's a little creepy sometimes, walking into your garage and seeing bootprints on the walls and ceiling.
Have them out with a friend in a public place, somewhere where all the doors are glass and see-through, so that there's no way that Manny can be hiding behind it.
Have the victim talk about the weird shit that's going on at his place, about how he's recording his daily routine now, trying to figure out how exactly this is occurring. The exchange should give information but feel natural at the same time, and in any case it isn't the pull of the video.
What needs to occur is while they are shopping around, the victim (and camera operator) spots something odd out of the corner of their eye - it's some sort of door or container that spontaneously opens a bit - in my mind they are browsing shoes and you just barely see the lid of a shoebox jump a little - like something is tapping on it inside, experimentally. (I'm no mechanical wizard, but even I could figure out how to re-purpose some sort of RC car mechanism or similar to achieve such an effect.)
Anyway, the vic will freak out and the friend will ask what's up and the friend will go over and, despite protests of the vic, will open the shoe box to reveal that there's nothing but shoes inside (a quick camera tilt is all that's needed to ensure the device is removed before the reveal - or to swap boxes).
But... while their attention is focused on the open shoe box, another box of shoes in the background should jump a bit. This is not noticed by them - it should be a "oh shit" that the viewer spots.
The shoebox thing might be a bit of an extreme take on the Manny hiding behind closed things for you all, but it's just the version I had thought of - it's easily adaptable to other sorts of opening objects.
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But still, though Manny is a good idea, I don't think he is a strong idea on par with slenderman. Slenderman is an alien with powers which are never fully determined, meaning that if you do something to try and defeat him, you never really know what he's gonna pull out of his bag of tricks to thwart you. However, the idea of Manny is that of a beast, albeit a really sneaky one. Still, it's not hard to imagine taking a bat to it and killing it. That's why I feel that the fear behind Manny should come from inside. He's creepy because he may or may not exist. Creepy things happen, but that sense of forboding as you open a door is never REALLY met with a foul deformed beast. And without this manifestation to attack, you can't externalize Manny. The teeth thing is tantalizing because however much creepiness you derive from finding a tooth in your house, you can't do anything about it. You can throw out the tooth, but the fact remains that it was there, and you can't unthink that. Removing doors in your house is the most off-track way I can think of to defeat a monster, but in this case it's the ONLY way, because you can't find the monster in the flesh.
I feel that a good part of Manny's persona is also the mentality of seeing smiling people, because that's not a monster, that's something twisted inside you reading deeply into something normal. Nothing is really out of place, you don't NEED to think that it's creepy, yet you do. It's almost as if you're becoming Manny, or if he is inside you. Clicking noises, teeth, smiles, all so normal, yet it's like watching The Ring and being stared shitless by a television with static. The connection has been made.
The idea of a blog espousing these connections is really good, but I feel that it should differ from the marble hornets method, because when you look at marble hornets, it's a horror blog, not some random person's blog which happens to detail strange occurrences and terrifying monsters. The marble hornets videos supposedly are about some guys making a movie, but they're so focused on the monster (even from the beginning) that you know that, real or not, they're MEANT to scare you. If people make videos about Manny, it should be 6 minutes of trying to renovate a hosue, and then 10 seconds of some weird guy in the background, followed by three more minutes of house renovation (for example). It shouldn't look like it's meant to be scary, because like I have been saying, Manny isn't an outside force/monster, he's almost a representation of an internal tendency to see things in a creepy light. Later on, attention can be paid to him, but not before he's earned his dues as a derivation of something normal, something that exists in all of our lives. I'm less scared of marble hornets because I've never had the experience of seeing an eight foot tall dude in the shadows, or having missing memories of a video-taped event. That shit is NOT typical of my life. If that happened, I'd be very justified in freaking out about it.
Marble hornets is alright, but something like Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' scares me shitless because, let's face it, who hasn't inadvertently caught their neighbors doing weird shit? Rear Window is a dude seeing some other dude doing fairly normal stuff, and yeah, he ends up (spoilers) having killed some dude, but up until most of the way through the movie, you don't really KNOW that. Marble hornets, you know from the get-go that there's something supernatural going on, as a fact. If fear of the unknown is scary, I can't think of anything scarier of not even knowing if there's something to be scared of, for sure. At least if you know that something weird is certainly occuring, you can do something about it without seeming unjustified. This is why lots of horror movies end up having their characters refuse to talk to outside soruces for no apparent reason, or for some very transparently fake reason. The beauty of Manny is that you can tell people you've been seeing odd smiles on complete strangers, and feel like things are behind doors, but no one's gonna be like 'yo get the guns, we're gonna hunt this thing down'. This creates the helplessness that is at the base of lots of horror stories.
I like the door thing very much, it's a delicious subversion of many peoples natural instinct to feel safer when doors are closed - especially creepy ass closet doors. That doors are literal 'portals' is really strong thematically I feel, and I'm also for sticking hard and fast to Manny's requirement to enter from behind one. I like consistent rules and I think when you get down to it there is a lot of stuff which could be considered a sealed entry way, especially if you go with the fantasic visual of Manny squirming out of any place big enough for his head. Stuff like the shoebox jump scene or powerbreaker box could hammer home how impossible a task it is to really remove any means of entrance when you start getting lax with the definition of 'door'.
I'm also very keen on the idea of the protaganist moving into this doorless house and not understanding why. I think it's a very useful little horror trope to have an unseen character who encountered the horror before the start of the story - it gives you a great way to lay down some groundwork for the rules of the universe without having to make your main character figure it all out on camera, which can be hard to do realistically and often feel contrived. Later on the main character can easily make sense of the clues left behind by the previous occupant.
Also the idea that the previous occupier either succumbed or went mad helps set the tone I think, this guy obviously knew more and was better prepared and he still didn't make it out, what chance do you have? I think this kind of thing is used to great effect in House of Leaves and Marble Hornets (though I haven't watched a lot of the latter).
And obviously it's horror 101 that the unseen is scarier, but when the time does come to show Manny I like the idea of our protaganist installing, say, a heavily fortified door with a frosted glass panel in his bathroom (maybe even just a peephole or porthole?) - perhaps he's been pushed to the brink and begins experimenting, whether he wants to find out what is stalking him or just see if he's gone mad I don't know. Anyway perhaps he turns the light on and closes the door, but when he checks back later the light is off so that whatever we do see of Manny is distorted and shrouded in darkness. Just the frame, the large mishappen head and the glint of teeth. I'm thinking maybe he can't or doesn't choose to appear behind doors with clear glass panels - although that's just a contrived rule because I think you want to avoid getting a clear look at this thing.
This does need it's own thread I feel, the possibly made up scary stories are getting swallowed by the conclusively made up scary story!
Arch doesn't own any guns does he?
It woke me up out of a sound sleep and it's so painful it's making my eyes numb. Think about that for a minute.
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mouth all infected? eyes starting to go numb? i think your starting to become manny
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I started this I guess I'll have to end this.
Give me about 20 minutes and I'll have everything sorted out.
It's up.
[EDIT]
Nevermind... found it:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtzl2_the-french-doors_shortfilms
*shudder*
It's loading way slow for me. Apparently it was on Atom Films but has since been taken down for whatever reason, this is the only site I could find streaming it.
It's also on youtube.
Part One
Part Two
(The're the first hits if you search Youtube for 'The French Doors')
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So what you're saying is
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That was pretty hilarious at the end.
In high school history class we learned about a Japanese Emperor who, during war, would give his prisoners the chance to "redeem" themselves by marching on the front lines and slitting their throats in front of the enemy.
We watched the accompanying program on DvD, and were witness to a foggy battlefield, one side cautiously marching forward. Then suddenly hundreds of prisoners (actors) walked confidently forward from the mist, took their sword and slashed it across their own throats. Some of the blood even sprayed onto the enemy army, which apparently caused several retreats throughout this particular war.
Creeped me right the fuck out, but damn that was a fun class.
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Anyway I thought I would actually contribute something for once.
Around mid 2001 I was just about to finish high school. The area where I lived (Wales) basically consists of pockets of dense population and then miles and miles of dramatic countryside with winding, lonely roads interconnecting everything. One of my friends families had a house about 2-3 miles outside of the town where we all went to school. It was a royal pain to get to without transport but the walk was awesome once you got out of the built up area, commanding views from the road out over the ocean on one side and hills and forests everywhere on the other. Traffic was always fairly busy as it was the main road in the area so even at night it was never creepy.
Once you gotten far enough out of town my friends house was off about half a mile down a side road that ran inbetween a big set of hills and the bottom of the valley, in which there is a small farm. The road itself is bordered on either side by a big wall and a big hedge so you can't see either side and there are no streetlights like there are on the main road. One night in summer we were all over at his house enjoying a barbecue and so on, fooling around in the back garden. It had gotten pretty late before I had decided it was time to head home, around 2 or 3 in the morning I think.
I had walked this on my own before at similar times (looking back I realise what a bloody fool I was for doing so but at the time thought nothing of it). Luckily my friend was having none of it and insisted on coming, so we bid farewell and the two of us set off for the couple of hours walk home. I mentioned before about the big hedge etc, anyway, the hedge was on the left as we were making our way back to the main road. On the wall side about half way down the road there are a few houses dotted into the side of the hill. We heard a car coming toward us so we walked into the drive of one of the houses to avoid being run over.
The car passed us and we were about to start walking again, when we both just stopped dead again after taking a couple of steps. I suddenly felt tense and had no idea why, me and my friend just turned to each other with confused looks on our faces. Then, from what sounded like right on the other side of the hedge across the road was a really loud scraping noise. The only way I can describe it is the sort of noise a shovel makes when digging through heavy grit or coarse soil and oh god it was loud, did I mention it was loud? We both just looked at each other, mouths agape for about 30 seconds as this noise just continued in the same spot. Now I have never been much of an athlete but I am sure we cleared that last two hundred and fifty metres to the main road pretty sharpish.
Still have no idea what it was, at the time the instant reaction was basically "Someone is burying a body across the hedge, run, run quite fast". Being farmland I suppose it might have been cattle or something, but the fact that it was just the same noise over and over in the same position. Maybe it was a farmer fixing fence posts? In the middle of the night...with no lights...
So basically, your dad owes his life to a ghost (for waking him up) and the wife (for changing his mind.)
Whoa, that whole ghost thing kinda blows my mind.
No really, did Frank Castle remarry?
Fixed.
The Samurai story is pretty freaky especially because the Japanses Shinto system pretty much allows for any schmuck to become a deity if they're in the right place at the right time.
in this case it's less "right place, right time" and more "Let's deify this guy so his vengeful spirit doesn't kill us"