Killer in the backseat

The Killer in the Backseat (also known as High Beams) is a common, car-crime urban legend well known mostly in the United States and United Kingdom. It was first noted by folklorist Carlos Drake in 1968 in texts collected by Indiana University students. Legend goes a woman who is driving and being followed by a strange car or truck. The mysterious pursuer flashes his high beams, tailgates her, and sometimes even rams her vehicle. When she finally makes it home, she realizes that the driver was trying to warn her that there was a man (a murderer, rapist, or escaped mental patient) hiding in her back seat. Each time the man sat up to attack her, the driver behind had used his high beams to scare the killer, in which he ducks down. In some versions, the woman stops for gas, and the attendant asks her to come inside to sort out a problem with her credit card. Inside the station, he asks if she knows there's a man in her back seat. (An example of this rendition can be seen in the 1998 episode of Millennium, "The Pest House".) In another, she sees a doll on the road in the moors, stops, and then the man gets in the back. Interpretations of the story: The story is often told with a moral. The attendant is often a lumberjack, a trucker, or a scary-looking man: someone the driver mistrusts without reason. She assumes it is the attendant who wants to do her harm, when in reality it is he who saves her life. In popular culture: -The 1998 film Urban Legend begins with this scenario. -John Carpenter's 1978 film Halloween has the character Annie Brackett killed when she enters the car and the killer Michael Myers sneaks up from behind the back seat and slashes her throat. -The first segment, "Terror in Topanga," of the 1983 film Nightmares is a depiction of this legend. -An episode of the detective series Jonathan Creek, "The Coonskin Cap", begins with a version of this legend, except that instead of a killer inside the car, the pursuing driver is trying to alert the woman that there is a body tied to the back of her car. -In a 1998 episode of Millennium, "The Pest House", Frank Black chases a doctor from a mental hospital after one of its patients escapes into the back of her car and tries to kill her. When she pulls over at a gas station, the attendant saves her by taking her inside. -The 2003 Tamil film from India, Whistle, begins with this scenario. -The story is featured in the television show Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction. -The story is featured in an episode of The Simpsons when Otto tells Lisa the legend as a bedtime story. In his version, the victim is chased by another car that keeps ramming her vehicle, and she drives off the road into the woods and loses the other car. She is then killed by an axe-wielding maniac who had been hiding in her backseat. -In the 2015 episode of Scream Queens, Ghost Stories, Chanel #5 (played by Abigail Breslin) is driving and a truck starts honking at her and using his high beams. When she pulls over at a petrol station, he tells her about the Red-Devil (the murderer), lurking in her back seat but then he is stabbed by it while #5 makes her escape.

Offended

Last summer I nearly got 2 family members to come to a why I believe. My mom was like "don't be offended if they say no". I'm like "why would I be offended? This is amazing they're possibly considering it."

The Hook

The Hook or The Hookman is an urban legend about a killer with a hook for a hand attacking a couple in a parked car. The story is thought to date from at least the mid-1950s, and gained significant attention when it was reprinted in the advice column Dear Abby in 1960. It has since become a morality archetype in popular culture, and has been referenced in various horror films. Legend goes a young couple parking at a lovers' lane. The radio plays while they make out. Suddenly, a news bulletin reports that a serial killer has just escaped from a nearby institution. The killer has a hook for one of his hands. For varying reasons, they decide to leave quickly. In the end, the killer's hook is found hanging from the door handle. Different variations include a scraping sound on the car door. Some versions start the same way, but have the couple spotting the killer, warning others, and then narrowly escaping with the killer holding onto the car's roof. In an alternate version, the couple drive through an unknown part of the country late at night and stop in the middle of the woods, because either the male has to relieve himself, or the car breaks down and the man leaves for help. While waiting for him to return, the female turns on the radio and hears the report of an escaped mental patient. She is then disturbed many times by a thumping on the roof of the car. She eventually exits and sees the escaped patient sitting on the roof, banging the male's severed head on it. Another variation has the female seeing the male's butchered body suspended upside down from a tree with his fingers scraping the roof. In other versions the man does return to the car only to see his date brutally murdered with a hook imbedded in her. The origins of the Hook legend are not entirely known, though, according to folklorist and historian Jan Harold Brunvand, the story began to circulate some time in the 1950s in the United States. According to Brunvand in The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings, the story had become widespread amongst American teenagers by 1959, and continued to expand into the 1960s. The first known publication of the story occurred on November 8, 1960, when a reader letter telling the story was reprinted in Dear Abby, a popular advice column: Dear Abby: If you are interested in teenagers, you will print this story. I don't know whether it's true or not, but it doesn't matter because it served its purpose for me: A fellow and his date pulled into their favorite "lovers lane" to listen to the radio and do a little necking. The music was interrupted by an announcer who said there was an escaped convict in the area who had served time for rape and robbery. He was described as having a hook instead of a right hand. The couple become frightened and drove away. When the boy took his girl home, he went around to open the car door for her. Then he saw—a hook on the door handle! I will never park to make out as long as I live. I hope this does the same for other kids. —Jeanette Literary scholar Christopher Pittard traces the plot dynamics of the legend to Victorian literature, particularly the 1913 horror novel The Lodger by Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes. Though the two narratives have little in common, he notes that both are built upon a "threefold relationship of crime, dirt, and chance... Such a reading also implies a reconsideration of the historical trajectory of the urban legend, usually read as a product of postmodernist consumer culture." Interpretations of the story: Folklorists have interpreted the long history of this legend in many ways. Alan Dundes's Freudian interpretation explains the hook as a phallic symbol and its amputation as a symbolic castration. Swedish folklorist Bengt af Klintberg describes the story as an example of "a conflict between representatives of normal people who follow the rules of society and those who are not normal, who deviate and threaten the normal group." American folklorist Bill Ellis interpreted the maniac in The Hook as a moral custodian who interrupts the sexual experimentation of the young couple. He sees the Hookman's handicap as "his own lack of sexuality" and "the threat of the Hookman is not the normal sex drive of teenagers, but the abnormal drive of some adults to keep them apart." Influences on film: The Hook legend has most often been depicted and referenced in horror films. Its prevalence, according to film scholar Mark Kermode, is most reflected in the slasher film, functioning as a morality archetype on youth sexuality. In Meatballs, Bill Murray's character retells the Hook legend to campers around a campfire. He Knows You're Alone opens with a film within a film scene in which a young couple are attacked by a killer while in a parked car. The slasher film Final Exam opens with a scene in which a couple are attacked in a parked car, and later, a student is murdered in a university locker room with a hook.[ Campfire Tales, an anthology horror film, opens with a segment retelling the Hook legend, set in the 1950s. I Know What You Did Last Summer features a killer stalking teenagers with a hook; at the beginning of the film, the central characters recount the Hook legend around a campfire. Lovers Lane, is a slasher film featuring a killer who murders teenagers at a lovers' lane with a hook.

happy

i'm super happy. i passed my exams, i got to "hang out" with friends the last couple days and am excited to see my family over the holidays. yay

Friend

I ran into a friend from church today. I helped her out and she'd "entertained" me for a half hour. Or as I call it kept me busy. She felt bad she had to "ditch me". Again I'm fine as my mom's work wasn't that far. Plus I wanted to get coffee

Bun

My hair is in a bun. Its nice since I can tie it up and its out of my face.

freaked out

what i would've done if a friend and i kissed. especially since i like his brother.

i can't believe it

many people in my family are super interested in my religion despite me thinking it was a cult a few years ago. also many are interested in the temples as well as the baptisms for the dead. wow. i'm glad they're accepting of it somewhat but not accepting a baptism quite yet

bipolar weather

in Maryland winter and spring are often bipolar. meaning it could be "spring" 1 day and then "winter" the next.

Cookies

My visiting teachers gave me cookies but accidentally dropped it off at the wrong home

california and hawaii

2 places i'm visiting over the holidays that i love. i love California since i have family over there as well as i just love the huge state. i love Hawaii because it's a tropical paradise.

anxiety

i've got fear of the unknown caused by my anxiety disorder. my family has no idea suffer an anxiety disorder. it's common enough that there's a Wikipedia page dedicated to the subject. my panic this time around is my blood sugar being super high and being yelled at before i have a chance to explain myself, which explains that.

take life as it comes and work with what i got

my philosophy is I've got to take life as it comes and work with what I've got. i never intended to join the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints ever but i did. I've also got to work with what I've got. I've inherited scoliosis and diabetes from my mom. now I've got to "work" with those limitations.

gah why me?

my family is so into my religion but i don't think they'll be baptized. the reason i think they're into it is because the holy spirit is softening their hearts. yay my family is having their hearts softened. why me?

blue

my favorite color at this point in time

blind

i'm nearly blind without my glasses. i needed a guide dog for the first few months but i was able to get around eventually. when i was being baptized i needed a "guide dog" again since i didn't know where i'm going and i could barely see.

hot cocoa

i'm going to make some hot cocoa. i need something warm before bed and it's tasty.

coffee

a no-no in the church i go to but something that "helps me feel the spirit". my brother and i have an interest in coffee and despite me lying to the fact that i'd stop drinking coffee on my interview I've cut down significantly. especially since it induces back pain.

sit with me

a friend sat with me despite me being comfortable sitting solo.

sad

a friend was sad i didn't have a dance recital for my dance class despite it being intro to dance. i would've LOVED a dance recital.