As kids, at one point in our lives we all dare each other to go into a bathroom with the lights off and the door closed and call out the phrase bloody-Mary five times while staring into the mirror. Once this is completed, you are supposed to see a disgusting, blood red-eyed woman ready to devour your soul. Most of us (at least me and every other kid I knew) stopped once we got to four. We don't want to risk it or take the chance that this silly urban legend is true. Logically, you can debunk this myth because your eyes, once it becomes dark and you stare at something long enough (a la your reflection) your eyes will begin to distort what you are seeing. Well, now that we've cleared that up, let's all collectively go into our bathrooms and put an end to this spook story....Yep, I am still firmly planted on my couch a safe distance from the bathroom.
I don't fuck around with urban legends. Now, I realize I just wrote a piece last night exclaiming that I am not afraid of ghosts, mainly because I don't believe in them. However, it doesn't mean I want to test those waters. Just because I like to eat doesn't mean I like to cook.
Even though I am skeptical of the existence of ghosts, I still have a great respect for spirituality and stories. A popular story we were told to as kids was the existence of Goat-Man. Yep, this is the urban legend of my child-hood. A half man-half goat thing. Apparently it was kind of like a minatour, in that it's head was that of a goat, it had the four legs of a goat, but than the torso of a human, with arms. Apparently, Goat-Man stalked the woods of the Kettle Moraine area, looking for lost hikers. Goat-Man had discovered the taste of man flesh, and it decided that it would eat oats no more. He particularly enjoyed snacking on teenagers because their meat was tender and juicy.
Now obviously this is just blatantly ridiculous. This myth, and I can't be exactly sure on the origins, but it comes across as a tale you tell to high school kids so they don't get any ideas of going camping for the weekend and attempt to lose their virginity (Jesus parents are bad about talking to their kids about sex). However, this story wasn't relayed to me by just my parents, nor did it just happen to be made vocal at a point when I was hanging out with girls. No, this story was told to me as a child, by I want to say my dad and uncles. I always thought they were kidding, but my best friends dad spoke about it, and another friends dad. When we got to high school, and if we ever roamed Ridge Run Park, we would always laugh about the Goat-Man stories, because they were pounded into our brains as kids. But I always suspected in the back of our minds, at least in mine, we were on the lookout for the creature. Logic dictated there was no such thing, and especially nowadays with the internet able to disprove any sort of legend, that urban legend doesn't stand the test of time very well. I mean Goat-Man, it would have been found by now, or dead. But I suppose the existence of the Lock Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and Werewolves aren't very plausible either (apparently, and I know people who firmly believe this shit, werewolves exist in Delevin, WI).
But there's a problem with ghost stories and urban legends in our society today, with our technology and ability to document and share knowledge with each other on massive levels, we disrespect these stories, and become obsessed with making them make sense. Whether it's to find proof or disprove, we are starting to step over boundaries and cross barriers we may not know we are crossing, just to prove something.
1992's Candyman was an excellent example of this. The film begins with grad student Helen (Virginia Madesen) working on a thesis with her partner Bernidette (Kassi Lemmons) about an urban legend of a fellow named The Candyman. Apparently if you say his name five times in the mirror and than turn off the light he will greet you from behind and than, with a hook for a hand, split you in two from groin to gullet (Much more intense than that whole Bloody Mary mularky).
There are a number of unsolved murders going on in the Cabrini Green Projects in Chicago, and many people are exclaiming the Candyman is responsible. Helen is not a believer in the myth and thinks the Candyman is just something made up by the real killers to strike fear into the hearts of the people. She disbelieves so much that she decides to take on the Candyman challenge and say the name five times in mirror.
Once she does, she opens a dimension she never thought possible and the real Candyman has come for her, but not before he causes some carnage on innocent people.
It's a great movie and story, paced very well based off a story by Clive Barker. The settings are decrepit and derelict and give the film an extremely gritty realness. Tony Todd, who plays the Candyman does a superb job of giving an extremely calm, violent, and malicious presence to the character. He is not horrifying to look at, but when he is on screen, he commands a respect and fear you would get from any other horrifying boogeyman.
The movie was taken from a Clive Barker story. Candyman like Hellraiser, tell stories of evil fairy tales, the kinds of stories that you wish were just fictional and had no possible way of coming true. There the types of stories that get lost over time, or only told to kids as a scare tactics, but there is validity to them (in Hollywood at least), and consequences when the stories are not kept alive and the respect is not shown.
That's why I have a problem with the information age so ready to prove or disprove ghosts or urban legends. Yes, they exist for a reason, whether it was to create mass fear among a culture, or to warn people about dangers, but the stories had to start somewhere. I'm afraid that if we continue to dig and go further into realms of the unknown, our quest for knowledge and are desire for truth will lead us down paths we as an entire society are not ready to face. Or worse, open a portal so evil that us skeptics (that is the word I am going to choose for myself from now on) will be eating our words in a fiery domain.
One of the reasons why the Candyman didn't just off Helen right away, was because she took from him his power, his believers. There are a lot of people that believe that we give ghosts powers by our belief or antagonizing them. The Candyman needed to make people believe in him again, which is why he frames her for murders, and sets up an elaborate ending for the both of them (I just realized this, but this was also a plot device that was used in Freddy vs. Jason....yep)
So, whether or not we believe in spooks or urban legends, maybe it's best we don't fuck around with the whole bloody marry thing.
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