What makes a good haunted house? It is the haunted? Is it the house? Or is it the ghouly friends we make along the way?

Whatever the case may be, having scares at this time of year is normal. If you can't make it. to your own haunted house or (in my case) too scared to go, check out our virtual haunted house. 

If you move around the cobwebby boxes in the attic, what do you uncover? A ghost! Specifically in Western culture, ghosts are spirits that have separated from the recently deceased. The idea that a person's spirit could live on after that person had passed had started early in human history. Because of this belief, many places have been called “haunted” because of these lingering spirits. 

What makes a ghost? Some early Egyptian tales say that ghosts were spirits that were not given offerings by family members. These spirits would haunt or inflict illness or disaster. In the Hebrew Bible, ghosts were a sign of the occult. In Classic Greek literature, ghosts were departed souls, but had no physical entanglement to the living. However, the Romans believed that ghosts lingered around burial grounds and caused illnesses. Causing illnesses was a viable affliction for a long time (until pretty modern times). Medieval Europe had tortured souls and demons which made up their spirit system. In a more modern time, ghosts are said to be a person who had came to an extreme end of their life, had a hard life, and/or has a reason to stick to the mortal world. That…and they need to say BOO as well.

You hear a laughter coming from the kid's room…You go in but no one is in there. You look around. Something doesn't feel right. Something…Feels like it is looking at you. The doll on the shelf slumps over by itself…

Haunted dolls are a common feature in scary movies. You can find them in haunted museums behind glass cages. You can find them on eBay. But what makes them so creepy? 

Well, the fear of dolls is called pediophobia. The fear of humanoid objects is called automatonophobia. And the fear of puppets is called pupaphobia. All of these components are inter-related in the creepy factor of scary dolls. There is not a lot of scientific data or even historical data on haunted dolls (imagine that). Dolls have been around for thousands of years. The uneasiness feeling can come from just the historical weight of that specific doll (that's usually what I feel) or what people call the “uncanny valley”. 

The uncanny valley is the upsetting feeling that people get when facing something that is almost human like. 

You shut the light off in the bathroom. You close your eyes. You say the magic phrase three times… It's supposed to be a sleepover joke…isn't it? Will you open your eyes to find out?

The name Bloody Mary could be taken from a couple people. Consensus for most say that the lore comes from the Mary Tudor, the daughter of King Henry VIII. Mary was the first woman queen of England. She had gotten the nickname because of her upbringing. Since her father had cut the country's ties with the Catholic Church in order to get divorced (and married and divorced and married….). He made the country Protestant. Mary was a staunch Catholic. When she became queen, she attempted to revert England back to its Catholic ways. Many of those who were not Catholic were punished as heretics, and she was given that moniker. 

You are in the living room. The TV is on. Something bangs on the window. What was that? When you go look, something human shaped throws itself into the glass and breaks it, crawling into the room. What is that? It keeps grabbing at your skin, trying to bite at your arms! What is that?

Zombies have gained popularity in culture in recent years. Zombies can be traced back to Haitian folklore where lore describes a deceased person is revived by necromancy and made slaves. This particular folklore was greatly influenced by the enslavement of Haitian people at the time. After 1929, zombies came into popular American culture as the undead. Sometimes they were seen as a product of death itself. Sometimes they were seen as a product of something transmittable or spreadable. 

You are starting to get hungry, so you head to the kitchen. Before you get in the room, you hear a weird noise. Perplexed, you walk in and all of the cabinet doors are open. You think that's odd and go to shut all the doors. Once all the doors are shut, the kitchen table starts floating…

Poltergeist is simply called a “noisy spirit” in German folklore. They are often called a tireless spirit full of mischief and have violent, physical touch and like to move doors, cabinet doors, create smells, and levitate furniture. 

You look outside in the dark. Something is standing there. It looks… to big to be an animal? Does it have…claws? The full moon peaks out from behind the clouds and you see them…

In lore, werewolves are people who have some ability to change into a wolf creature. In these (non-hunky) stories, the creatures are out on the prowl to hunt people and are controlled by blood-lust.

Some historians say that werewolves started way back in the story of The Epic of Gilgamesh. Werewolves pop up in Greek and Nordic mythology as well. In some stories, the human part and the spirit part are two different objects once the person transforms. Sometimes they are the same. Sometimes, according to lore, you can tell a person is a werewolf because of their hair, teeth, or nails. Sometimes the werewolf looks like a normal wolf. Sometimes they are not. 

To transform into a werewolf, one lore says that one simply puts on a wolf pelt while another has a magic salve. The indication that a physical transformation seems to come in at a later time in the werewolf lore, entirely. However, if you wanted to be cured of your lycanthropy, sometimes there is a cure. Greeks and Romans believed that simply exhausting the werewolf should do the trick. This would leave the creature exhausted in unable to turn into a wolf or harm another person. Medieval Europe had three options: wolfbane, surgery, or exorcism. In Sicily, they believed in striking the werewolf in the head with a knife. In general, there was a belief if piercing the werewolf in the hand with a nail. And some Germans believed if one would simply call out the person's Christian name three times, they will be cured. 

There is a knock at the door. It is at night and kind of late, but you open it anyway. There is a person standing on your doorstep. They say something to you and ask if they could come in. You don't feel like you have a reason to say no…so you let them in. They smile, and now you see they, oddly, have pointy teeth.

The modern idea of a vampire dates back to the 18th century and is largely located in European folklore. The fear of vampires grew to be so great, that public executions were executed because of the accusations of being a vampire. 

Folklore at the time had the relating idea that vampires looked bloated and could be red or darker in color (because of being dead and because of the blood that they drank). They slept in coffins (being undead), and their hair, nails, and other features may be overgrown because of the fact of being undead.

To make a vampire, some stated that if an animal jumps over a body of a recently deceased person, they would become part of the undead. Some were said to be made by witches. To not become a vampire became a great worry for many. Many people buried their loved ones upside down or planted special plants in order to keep their bodies to be either possessed by the vampire or to be made undead. To be protected against a vampire was also important. Garlic played a key feature early on and continues to be a key feature in the modern folklore. As vampires are seen as the undead, crosses, crucifixes, and sacred ground are all bad for vampires. As vampires are seen to not have souls, they cannot use mirrors or are sometimes seen as afraid of them. And, as many modern vampires still carry with them, they cannot come into a home without being invited. 

Want to learn more? Check out our Halloween guide page for more spooks and scares!