Editorials
10 Terrifying Folklore Creatures From Around the World
When it comes to monsters in horror, there is usually some kind of background or urban legend surrounding the creatures that has its base in real world tales. Movies about Bigfoot didn’t invent the creature. Rather, it was the other way around. The story of Bigfoot roaming the countryside has long fascinated people, so it only made sense to have films about such a creature.
While the films often do a good job of portraying the strange creature we’re being made aware of, oftentimes it is the real story that is far more unsettling and eerie. That’s why I ventured into the world of folklore monsters and I found 10 examples that I think are perfect for the horror audience!
Check them out below and then let me know in the comments about some of the creatures from your neck of the woods!
Nykur – Iceland
Thrándur Thorarinsson (Source)
A shapeshifting creature that most often took the form of a strangely shaped horse, the Nykur’s method of dispatching its victims was to lure them into mounting it, whereupon it would ride into a lake and drown its unfortunate rider. To defend yourself, you had to yell its name or make the sign of a cross over its rear. The former would send the creature back into the water (sans the rider) while the latter would allow it to be ridden like a normal horse.
A local superstition is that the Nykur is also associated with ice, particularly the sound of it cracking on a lake. When these cracks would appear, the accompanied sound would be said to be the neighing of the Nykur, according to Orkneyjar.
Wendigo – Canada
Hydrallon (Source)
A staple of the beliefs of Algonquin-speaking peoples, the Wendigo is a creature that is humanoid yet monstrous in appearance. It is the embodiment of greed and voracious appetite as it is always on the hunt for more to eat, delighting in its taste for human flesh. Perfect for this time of the year, the Wendigo is often associated with winter and the cold. It looks like it is decaying and it is said that what lips it has are tattered, desiccated, and peeled back.
To defeat a Wendigo, there are three suggested methods. The first requires fire, as it will melt the creature’s icy heart. The second states that you must use a large amount of silver to purify the creature. This can be done with bullets, much like with a werewolf. The final method comes from an Ojibwe tale where a hunter simply stabbed the Wendigo in the head multiple times to kill it. Sounds like the third option is what most of us would have to fall back upon should we find ourselves face-to-face with a Wendigo.
Manananggal – Phillipines
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The first of two creatures on this list from the Phillipines, the Manananggal is a blood-sucking witch-like creature that has a penchant for tearing itself in half at the abdomen, flying into the night in search of sleeping pregnant women, and then using a tongue-like proboscis to eat the hearts of their fetuses. To defend yourself from such a creature, you can use daggers, sunlight, or a buntot pagi (a whip that is made from the tail of a stingray).
Additionally, if you can smear the upper torso with garlic, salt, or ash, then it will be unable to rejoin with its lower half and will be vanquished by the sunrise.
Mylings – Sweden
Max Magnus (Source)
This Scandinavian creature is as tragic as it is haunting. The Mylings are the souls of unbaptized children who are unable to move on after their death. They are forced to roam the world in an attempt to find someone who will bury them in a graveyard, allowing their spirit the opportunity to move on. However, this is not easy for the one that becomes burdened with this task.
What happens is that a Myling will jump on the back of a traveler during the night, demanding that the wanderer carry them to the closest graveyard. Although the Myling are children, their spirits are said to be large and heavy. Each step towards the graveyard sees them grow heavier, to the point that the person carrying them could very well sink into the ground. And should the wanderer fail to take another step, the Myling becomes enraged and will kill the wanderer only to roam the countryside looking for another unfortunate soul.
Black Annis – Leicestershire, England
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If you’ve seen the Ridley Scott fantasy film Legend, then just imagine Meg Mucklebones and you’ll have a good idea what Black Annis (also known as Black Angus) looks like. Described as a witchy crone, she has blue skin and iron nails and a fondness for eating children. She lives in a cave in Dane Hills in Leicestershire, which she is purported to have carved herself with her clawed hands.
Her joy comes from wandering the local countryside and finding unsuspecting children or lambs, slaughtering them, and tanning their skins, which she wears around her waist. To this day, she is a warning from parents to children. “If you misbehave, Black Annis will get you in the night!”
Bukavac – Slavic Region
Phantos (Source)
Much like the Icelandic Nykur, the Bukavac lives in the water of lakes and rivers. Described as a six-legged beast with large, twisted horns, it leaps from the water onto anything living and strangled them to death. The Pathfinder RPG states that they have a massive roar that can stun its intended meal. Additionally, they describe it as a large creature that is 11-ft long and can weight two tons.
Chupacabra – Central and South America
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First spotted in Puerto Rico, the Chupacabra has become an urban legend of epic proportion in a relatively short time. First spotted in 1995, it has since been seen through Central and South America as well as various parts of the United States, although more so in the Southwest. It doesn’t attack people, preferring instead to drain livestock of every drop of blood via three punctures to the chest. As with every urban legend, no actual evidence has been found but there are theories that what people are seeing are canids that have been afflicted with mange.
An interesting tidbit is that the original interpretation of what a Chupacabra looks like was based on Sil from Species. In August of 1995, Madelyne Tolentino stated that she saw the creature and that she believed it to be the Giger-designed alien. She even stated in her report to the police, “It was a creature that looked like the chupacabra, with spines on its back and all… The resemblance to the chupacabra was really impressive. [Source]”
Loch Ness Monster – Scotland
Perhaps the most famous of all folklore monsters, Nessie is said to live in Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands, not far from Inverness. Her rise to popularity came in the early 20th century and since then people have been flocking to those waters to see if they can get real, provable evidence that such a creature does in fact exist.
Described as a sea serpent, Nessie is thought to be over 20 ft. long and can bring her head, which is said to be rather small, up to 4 ft. out of the water. Throughout the years, there has been no photograph, video, or recording of the Loch Ness Monster that has been enough to confirm its existence. However, that hasn’t stopped anyone from looking. Instead, it has only fueled the fire and any new photograph sparks interest and intrigue.
Jersey Devil – New Jersey, United States
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The Jersey Devil has a rather interesting origin story, one that involves the Devil himself. Back in the early/mid-18th century, Mother Leeds (thought to be Deborah Leeds), a supposed witch, found out that she was pregnant with a 13th child. Convinced that this 13th child was the son of the Devil, she bore him only to find that he was normal in all respects. However, he quickly turned into a hooved beast with wings. He killed the midwife and flew out the chimney, vanishing into the nearby woods.
The Jersey Devil mostly kills livestock and farm animals, although it is known to sometimes kill children. The remains of these animals are found scattered about. Furthermore, it supposedly has the ability to dry up a cow’s milk by simply breathing on it.
The Jersey Devil hoax has such a following that in the early 60’s, the merchants of Camden, NJ offered a $10,000 reward for the creature, stating that they would build a zoo enclosure for it. That reward is still unclaimed.
Aswang – Phillipines
Ubermonster (Source)
Similar in some ways to the Manananggal, the Aswang differs in a few ways. For example, it is a shapeshifter that lives during the day as a citizen of the town where it commits its atrocities. Often mild-mannered and meek, the Aswang can often make friends with its neighbors, who have no idea what kind of creature they are dealing with. And while they also enjoy the hearts (and livers) of unborn fetuses and infants, they are known to replace their victims with makeshift dolls, almost like they are covering their tracks. While each Aswang description varies, there are those who say that some are so thing that they can hide themselves behind a bamboo tree and not be noticed.
As mentioned before, the Aswang can become friendly with those around it. And should it end up marrying a human, their mate will turn into an Aswang.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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