St. George’s Church, Czech Republic
From the makers of Paranormal Activity comes the St. George’s Church.
This 14th century church sat neglected in the village of Lukova, Czech Republic for four decades. The church was abandoned in 1968 when its roof collapsed, because the townspeople refused to return to it because they mistook shoddy construction for a bad omen. Nary a living soul entered its broken doors until Jakub Hadrava, a local artist, was asked to creatively creep it up.
Hadrava came up with an exceptionally unnerving way to bring in tourists that involved the creation and conservative smattering of ghost statues made from plaster and the dreams of dying children, which he strategically sprinkled about its rows of pews so as to maximize their spooky potential.
It’s pretty cool to think that one artist could single-handedly transform a church that easily qualified as something to be torn down before it could become a gate to hell, but that’s what happened. Now it’s making buku bucks for the village, which can now afford to renovate it. As one local put it, “It’s certainly hair-raising, let’s hope it will continue to be cash-raising too.”