Whether rooted in true stories or ed down as cautionary tales, some folklore never leaves. Sometimes it becomes twisted into modern myths that still invoke fear today, or into some really unsettling horror movies. Today, genres like folk horror are more present on the big screen, with hit horror films like The Witch.
While the former is based on both Scandanavian and German rituals and folklore, The Witch is inspired by pagan folklore and the Salem Witch Trials. From modern terrors like Slender Man to old tales of The Hookman, horror movies have been bringing these scary stories to life for decades.
Black Christmas (1974)
Often called the first slasher movie, Black Christmas takes place in a sorority house as a group of sorority sisters is picked off one by one after receiving threatening phone calls. One of horror's first "final girls," Jess, is increasingly suspicious as the girls around her go missing, but the terror truly begins when it is revealed that the phone calls are coming from inside the house.
While there have been two remakes of the horror classic, the original Black Christmas fully embodies the urban legend, "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs." But instead the movie twists the tale by following a group of sorority sisters. Unlike other films that have adapted this trope, the identity of Black Christmas's killer remains unknown, amplifying the fear in the slasher flick.
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Sleepy Hollow, blends horror and romance while capturing the legend of the Headless Horseman. Unlike Irving's story, the movie's Ichabod Crane is not a schoolmaster, but a police constable investigating murders in the haunted town of Sleepy Hollow, a real-life village in New York that one can visit today.
Based on Washington Irving's story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", about a ghost rider who haunts the roadway carrying his own head. According to The New York Society, the folktale is potentially rooted in historical truth, and some believe "the Headless Horseman was based on an actual Hessian soldier who was decapitated by a cannonball during the Battle of White Plains, around Halloween 1776."
The Burning (1981)
This underrated slasher flick came around during the time of classic horror films like Friday the 13th, but The Burning is loosely based on the urban legend of "Cropsey." In the movie, a summer camp counselor is pranked, burned, and then exacts murderous revenge on the campers responsible for his disfigurement.
While somewhat like the origin of Jason Vorhees, "Cropsey" is actually based on the true story of the Staten Island Boogeyman. Starting as a cautionary tale similar to "The Hookman," Cropsey was a monster used to frighten kids from straying too far from home. According to The Lineup, the killer was "an escaped mental patient with a hook for a hand who hunted children and dragged them back to the tunnel system." But an actual killer in Staten Island, Andre Rand, was considered the real Cropsey.
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (2019)
Adapted for the screen from the children's story collection penned by Alvin Schwartz, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark features multiple scary stories, many of them stemming from folklore or urban legends. One extremely frightening story, "The Red Spot", is a nightmare-inducing urban legend that dates back to the 1980s, with the publication of The Mexican Pet: "New" Urban Legends, a short story collection written by American folklorist, Jan Harold Brunvand.
His story, "The Spider Bite", is said to have influenced Schwartz's version, but even it stems from earlier myth. As both Brunvand's and Schwartz's tales go, a woman goes on vacation and is bitten by a spider, then the bite grows and grows until out of the boil comes a swarm of tiny spiders, hatched from eggs laid under her skin.
The Mothman Prophecies (2002)
The Mothman Prophecies is an unsettling horror film about a giant moth/human hybrid. When a grieving reporter is mysteriously pulled to a small town in West Virginia, he learns of disturbances and sightings of a moth-like creature and believes it to be a terrible omen and harbinger of doom.
Based on an actual myth, The Mothman Prophecies is adapted from a book written by John Keel after actual s of a massive "moth man" in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1966. According to Den of Geek, after over 100 sightings of The Mothman were reported, "wildlife biologist Dr. Robert L. Smith postulated the creature was a sandhill crane." Both the book and the movie connect the creature to the collapse of the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River in 1967.
When A Stranger Calls (1979/2016)
In both the original film and the remake of When A Stranger Calls, a babysitter faces one of horror cinema's creepiest phone calls, and as the infamous line goes: "The call is coming from inside the house." The insidious cat and mouse game between the babysitter and the killer has since been reimagined in various other horror movies, like Scream.
The common horror trope stems from an urban legend that has been shared at slumber parties for decades, called "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs." But there may be some truth to the story. According to Medium, the origin is "believed to be a murder that happened in the town of Columbia, Missouri in March 1950." In the unsolved case, a young babysitter, Janett Christman, was assaulted and murdered after making a phone call for help.
Slender Man (2018)
After Slender Man follows a group of girls who try to conjure up the Slender Man. When one of them goes missing, they start to think the online monster may actually be real.
Unlike most folklore, "Slender Man" is a modern urban legend crafted and fueled by the internet. During a Photoshop horror contest, "Victor Surge" created the idea of Slender Man with two photos showing a group of kids with a creepy, faceless man in a suit-and-tie hovering in the background. He captioned the images as being from the late 1980s, and when the winning photos started spreading rapidly online, he birthed a contemporary urban legend.
The Witch (2015)
The folk horror film, The Witch, brings together reality and folklore of the 17th century in a psychological horror about a Puritan family banished from the church and living in the New England wilderness. With a stark setting and historical accuracy, director Robert Eggers examined the madness and self-destruction of a family cursed by demonic forces.
Blending both old New England folklore and Pagan belief, The Witch pulls from actual s of the Salem Witch Trials. In an article with Time, witch expert Katherine Howe discusses other historical elements in the film, such as "minor hardships attributed to witches" and "the threat perceived in the nearby wilderness." Eggers spent years researching 17th century New England, with the determination to deliver a realistic and frightening film.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
best summer horror movies by taking the cautionary tale of "The Hookman" and combining it with slasher-horror tropes. In the 90s cult classic, four friends are reunited after they receive an accusatory note in reference to a hit-and-run where they supposedly killed a man. In classic slasher form, they are subsequently stalked and murdered by a fisherman with a hook.
Notorious for being a scary campfire story, "The Hookman," or "The Hook," has been recreated in multiple movies. As the urban legend goes, a strange noise draws a young couple from their car and they encounter an escaped mental patient with a hook for a hand. Some believe the legend is related to the “Texarkana Moonlight Murders” in 1946.
Candyman (1992/2021)
Originally based on Clive Barker's story, "The Forbidden," Candyman kills to perpetuate his legend and spread fear. After chanting his name in the mirror, he appears with a hook shoved in the stump of his hand. The latest version of Candyman, written by Jordan Peele, is a sequel to the classic supernatural slasher flick.
Each variation combined elements of urban legends "The Hookman" and "Bloody Mary" but Candyman is different from other folklore-inspired movies because the villain becomes an urban legend in the movie, and the same myth also exists outside of the film. According to Bloody Disgusting, "[the story] carries the same cautionary spirit found in many traditional African American folk tales, exposing a darker side to plantation-era America."
