
From Bartleby.com: H.G. Wells – A Short History of the World – Illustrations

From Bartleby.com: H.G. Wells – A Short History of the World – Illustrations
Nightmare on Elm Street III is one of my favorite horror movies, and I love this spooky behind-the-scenes image with Freddy, Patricia Arquette and a decapitated prop head.

Check Out 45 Behind the Scenes Shots from the ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ Franchise!
Today in 1981, David Cronenberg’s Scanners premiered!
One of my favourite moments in horror cinema, well, in cinema in general.

“Photographs of loved ones taken after they died may seem morbid to modern sensibilities. But in Victorian England, they became a way of commemorating the dead and blunting the sharpness of grief.”

“On some occasions eyes would be painted on to the photograph after it was developed, which was meant to make the deceased more lifelike (left) while other times death was more obvious.”
From Taken from life: The unsettling art of death photography
I recently learned that Dublin, Ireland, has some interesting mummies that can be visited. I knew about bog bodies that were discovered around the island, but I didn’t know that Dublin holds creepy bodies from ages past.
One is of a cat and rat that were trapped in an organ pipe in the 1860s at Christ Church Cathedral.

The placard reads:
Possibly our most famous residents, our cat and rat were trapped in an organ pipe in the 1860s and became mummified. They were made famous by James Joyce, when he writes in Finnegan’s Wake, “… as stuck as that cat and mouse in that tube of the Christchurch organ …”
Another is a collection of noble families that were found when their coffins naturally broke open over time under St. Michan’s Church.

Bram Stoker is thought to have visited the vaults in the crypt below St. Michan’s and possibly to have found inspiration there for at least a few of the scenes in his classic Dracula.
Sources:
Cat and Rat – Oddities of Christ Church Cathedral
St. Michan Mummies – St. Michan’s Church
This behind-the-scenes photo from The Exorcist is perfectly creepy.

The skeletal Japanese ghost is phenomenal (#5 at 6 minutes). Wow.
Norwegian-born Belle Gunness immigrated to the United States in 1881. A series of suspicious fires and deaths mostly resulting in insurance awards followed. Belle also began posting notices in lovelorn columns to entice wealthy men to her farm, after which they were never seen again. Authorities eventually found the remains of over 40 victims on her property, but Belle disappeared without a trace.
“She had killed 42 people. She would feed them a meal, poison their coffee and hit them with a meat chopper, alternating between burying the victims in shallow graves and feeding their remains to the hogs.”
Watch the following video for more gruesome facts about Belle Gunness’s devious crimes and murders:
Source for synopsis: biography.com – Belle Gunness
