Category: creepy
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Danse Macabre
A detail from an 18th-century oil painting depiction of the Dance of Death -
Memento Mori: Victorian Death Photos
“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
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Irish Mummies
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 -
BHS: The Exorcist
This behind-the-scenes photo from The Exorcist is perfectly creepy.
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10 Scariest Home Videos Uploaded Online
The skeletal Japanese ghost is phenomenal (#5 at 6 minutes). Wow.
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True Crime: Hell’s Belle Gunness
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
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Medieval Macabre
* Isis gathering Osiris’ body parts *
Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes
15th Century -
Captain Kirk / Halloween Mask
She Blogged By Night has a great post about the history of the Mike Myers mask from Halloween, A Very Brief History of a Very Famous Mask. I like these pics, in particular. Happy Halloween!
Original 1975 catalogue page for the “Star Trek” masks 
1978
The Devil's Muse 