It’s Halloween 2016!
A time in the year when ghosts and ghouls come to haunt streets, while witches and wolves prowl around homes. If you’re a lover of all things weird, scary, or supernatural, this is that ONE night you can live out your fantasies. Today, there are plenty of ways to celebrate this holiday: from campfires, Halloween parties, good old trick-or-treating, to movie marathons. Just take your pick.
But not everyone agrees on the concept of a ‘fun Halloween’. Some folks would prefer to spend their time in front of their laptops or mobile phones. But just because this is their way of ‘fun’ doesn’t mean they should miss out on the Halloween spirit. In fact, the Web is a great resource for scary and utterly bizarre stories from around the world.
Want to get into the mood early? Check out these five websites guaranteed to give you chills.
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1. Creepypasta.com
This website is known as the granddaddy of everything relating to horror. The term ‘creepypasta’ is in essence taken from ‘copypasta’, a word used to mean web content that has become viral through constant copy-pasting online. Although the site seems to have been around for a long time, it gained plenty of attention in 2010 when The New York Times created a short article about it.
But an incident in 2014 gave it notoriety, when two young girls stabbed one of their friends due to influence from a fictional character from the site. Creepypasta.com came under fire, but the administrators simply reminded the online community about ‘drawing the line between fiction and reality’. Fair enough.
The website contains TONS of creepy short stories and other user-generated content. Some have even taken these shorts and re-posted them on other sites like Pinterest (keyword: scary). If you’re looking for a spooky tale to kick off your Halloween 2016, try the classic “Where Bad Kids Go”.
2. Reddit.com – No Sleep
You’re probably already familiar with Reddit, an online community with more sub-groups (subreddits) than you dare to discover. But perhaps one of their most popular content comes from subreddit No Sleep: a place where users can share ‘original horror stories’.
The catch is that you won’t really know whether it’s true or not. The moderators are strict on rules, and the suspension of disbelief is crucial to ensuring everyone has a great time on the site. Become a member and share YOUR own spooky tale. You can also vote your favorites.
Tired of cliché ghosts and demons? This story about Japan’s ‘hikyo’ stations would surely make you think twice about getting on trains – especially if they’re secluded from civilization. After several hours in Reddit’s No Sleep, you may want to wash your mind off of horrific images, so check out the real deal of Japan’s Hikyo Stations at this website.
3. Trulydisturbing.com
Unlike previous recommendations, this one isn’t focused on gore or creepy tales. However, this website does feature some interesting news and tidbits about disturbing movies, games, events, and American urban legends. This is a second website from Editor-in-Chief, Paul Metcalf, who also created Pissed Off Geek.
Trulydisturbing.com is a cool site to visit for your Halloween 2016 night of solitude because you’ll never know what you’ll find. One thing’s for sure though: this is for the horror fan in all of us. For starters, read up on their take on Hell’s Bridge in Michigan and the legend of Elias Friske.
Now, whether you’ll believe in that or not, you’ll have the entire night on Halloween to mull over it.
4. Scaryforkids.com
Although the domain name may read innocent enough, don’t be fooled! This website is filled with scary stories, videos, urban legends, games, and images. They’re told in a very simplistic manner, so perhaps that’s why the site is named so. However, we do NOT recommend this for little ones!
While navigating the site, you’ll see familiar stuff like ‘Candyman’ and haunted house movies. Everything’s well-categorized, so you won’t have trouble finding what appeals most to you. One of their more popular pages is about scary Japanese urban legends. The introduction tells of an old Japanese practice of telling ghost stories in a room with 100 candles. As one tale ends, a candle is extinguished. The room would grow darker and darker, until the final candle is put out.
Creepy, but awesome. This is definitely something you should add to your Halloween 2016 list of scary websites to visit for the night.
5. Listverse.com – Creepy and Bizarre
Sometimes, you just want something short and sweet to give you the shivers. When the other websites feel like a chore to visit, check out Listverse’s category for the creepy and bizarre. They pride themselves in producing only the best content, with credible sources to back it up. Now while most stories should be taken with a grain of salt, they can still be entertaining on a night when you can’t go trick-or-treating.
Listverse is all about the Top Ten’s (i.e. 10 Intensely Creepy True Stories To Keep You Awake, 10 Bizarre Cases Of Corpse Smuggling, 10 Wicked Creatures From Native American Folklore, you get the picture), so they’re a very handy resource for these kinds of list posts. Aside from spooky Halloween material, you’ll also find Sci-fi mystery articles and random weird stuff (e.g. 10 Bizarre Beauty Pageants from The Past).
You may want to begin your adventures with their recent post on ‘Intensely Creepy True Stories’. Remember: you’ve been warned, so enter at your own risk.
Halloween 2016 Begins!
Think of these websites as our modern version of ghost stories around a campfire. While we can’t roast marshmallows, our screens provide a safe haven away from bear threats and mosquitoes. That is until, you turn off the lights.
That’s when they come out, you know.
