Haunted Hollywood brings together more than two dozen stories about historic landmarks, theaters, watering holes, hotels, and houses that are haunted by movie stars, television personalities, and other celebrities.

    No one studies fear quite like Margee Kerr. A sociologist who moonlights at one of America's scariest and most popular haunted houses, she has seen grown men laugh, cry, and push their loved ones aside as they run away in terror. And she's kept careful notes on what triggers these responses and why. Fear is a universal human experience, but do we really understand it? If we're so terrified of monsters and serial killers, why do we flock to the theaters to see them? Why do people avoid thinking about death, but jump out of planes and swim with sharks? For Kerr, there was only one way to find out. In this eye-opening, adventurous book, she takes us on a tour of the world's scariest experiences: into an abandoned prison long after dark, hanging by a cord from the highest tower in the Western hemisphere, and deep into Japan's mysterious "suicide forest." She even goes on a ghost hunt with a group of paranormal adventurers. Along the way, Kerr shows us the surprising science from the newest studies of fear -- what it means, how it works, and what it can do for us. Full of entertaining science and the thrills of a good ghost story, this book will make you think, laugh -- and scream.

    Villagers--mainly young women--suffered from unseen torments that caused them to writhe, shriek, and contort their bodies, complaining of pins stuck into their flesh and of being haunted by specters. Believing that they suffered from assaults by an invisible spirit, the community began a hunt to track down those responsible for the demonic work. The resulting Salem Witch Trials, culminating in the execution of 19 villagers, persists as one of the most mysterious and fascinating events in American history. Historians have speculated on a web of possible causes for the witchcraft that stated in Salem and spread across the region-religious crisis, ergot poisoning, an encephalitis outbreak, frontier war hysteria--but most agree that there was no single factor. Rather, as Emerson Baker illustrates in this seminal new work, Salem was "a perfect storm": a unique convergence of conditions and events that produced something extraordinary throughout New England in 1692 and the following years, and which has haunted us ever since. Baker shows how a range of factors in the Bay colony in the 1690s, including a new charter and government, a lethal frontier war, and religious and political conflicts, set the stage for the dramatic events in Salem. Engaging a range of perspectives, he looks at the key players in the outbreak--the accused witches and the people they allegedly bewitched, as well as the judges and government officials who prosecuted them--and wrestles with questions about why the Salem tragedy unfolded as it did, and why it has become an enduring legacy. Salem in 1692 was a critical moment for the fading Puritan government of Massachusetts Bay, whose attempts to suppress the story of the trials and erase them from memory only fueled the popular imagination. Baker argues that the trials marked a turning point in colonial history from Puritan communalism to Yankee independence, from faith in collective conscience to skepticism toward moral governance. A brilliantly told tale, A Storm of Witchcraft also puts Salem's storm into its broader context as a part of the ongoing narrative of American history and the history of the Atlantic World.

    A “spirit photographer,” William Mumler took portrait photographs that featured the ghostly presence of a lost loved one alongside the living subject. Mumler was a sensation: The affluent and influential came calling, including Mary Todd Lincoln, who arrived at his studio in disguise amidst rumors of séances in the White House.Peter Manseau brilliantly captures a nation wracked with grief and hungry for proof of the existence of ghosts and for contact with their dead husbands and sons. It took a circus-like trial of Mumler on fraud charges, starring P. T. Barnum for the prosecution, to expose a fault line of doubt and manipulation. And even then, the judge sided with the defense — nobody ever solved the mystery of his spirit photography. This forgotten puzzle offers a vivid snapshot of America at a crossroads in its history, a nation in thrall to new technology while clinging desperately to belief.

    Examines Dracula as a cultural icon, describing his transformation from a fictional character in Bram Stoker's novel to a figure that has pervaded popular culture.

    But for every celebrity psychopath who’s gotten ink for spilling blood, there’s a bevy of all-but-forgotten homicidal fiends studding the bloody margins of U.S. history. The law gave them their just desserts, but now the hugely acclaimed author of The Serial Killer Files and The Whole Death Catalog gives them their dark due in this absolutely riveting true-crime treasury. Among America’s most cold-blooded you’ll meet   • Robert Irwin, “The Mad Sculptor”: He longed to use his carving skills on the woman he loved—but had to settle for making short work of her mother and sister instead.   • Peter Robinson, “The Tell-Tale Heart Killer”: It took two days and four tries for him to finish off his victim, but no time at all for keen-eyed cops to spot the fatal flaw in his floor plan.   • Anton Probst, “The Monster in the Shape of a Man”: The ax-murdering immigrant’s systematic slaughter of all eight members of a Pennsylvania farm family matched the savagery of the Manson murders a century later.   • Edward H. Ruloff, “The Man of Two Lives”: A genuine Jekyll and Hyde, his brilliant scholarship disguised his bloodthirsty brutality, and his oversized brain gave new meaning to “mastermind.”   Spurred by profit, passion, paranoia, or perverse pleasure, these killers—the Witch of Staten Island, the Smutty Nose Butcher, the Bluebeard of Quiet Dell, and many others—span three centuries and a host of harrowing murder methods. Dramatized in the pages of penny dreadfuls, sensationalized in tabloid headlines, and immortalized in “murder ballads” and classic fiction by Edgar Allan Poe and Theodore Dreiser, the demonic denizens of Psycho USA may be long gone to the gallows—but this insidiously irresistible slice of gothic Americana will ensure that they’ll no longer be forgotten.

    Antonia Fraser called it "a grisly read and an engrossing one."

    their doctors."It was the dog who found me."Such is the stark confession launching the harrowing scene that begins The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls as Emilie Autumn, a young musician on the verge of a bright career, attempts suicide by overdosing on the antipsychotics prescribed to treat her bipolar disorder. Upon being discovered, Emilie is revived and immediately incarcerated in a maximum-security psych ward, despite her protestations that she is not crazy, and can provide valid reasons for her actions if someone would only listen.Treated as a criminal, heavily medicated, and stripped of all freedoms, Emilie is denied communication with the outside world, and falls prey to the unwelcome attentions of Dr. Sharp, head of the hospital's psychiatry department. As Dr. Sharp grows more predatory by the day, Emilie begins a secret diary to document her terrifying experience, and to maintain her sanity in this environment that could surely drive anyone mad. But when Emilie opens her notebook to find a desperate letter from a young woman imprisoned within an insane asylum in Victorian England, and bearing her own name and description, a portal to another world is blasted wide open.As these letters from the past continue to appear, Emilie escapes further into this mysterious alternate reality where sisterhoods are formed, romance between female inmates blossoms, striped wallpaper writhes with ghosts, and highly intellectual rats speak the Queen's English.But is it real? Or is Emilie truly as mad as she is constantly told she is?The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls blurs harsh reality and magical historical fantasy whilst issuing a scathing critique of society's treatment of women and the mental health care industry's treatment of its patients, showing in the process that little has changed throughout the ages.Welcome to the Asylum. Are you committed?

    This study examines vampire lore in fantastic detail, constituting a record of folk beliefs unequaled in its sheer scope and depth. It features all the apparatus of an academic work, including footnotes and references to rare source documents, and it addresses such issues as how vampires came into existence, vampirish behavior, vampire-like ancient myths, and vampires in modern literature.

    But we dug a little deeper and found all kinds of local legends, bizarre beasts, surprising cemeteries, and uncovered the best kept secrets from all over the Bay State. Our state certainly celebrates more than just tea parties, the Red Sox and Patriots; folks from Massachusetts cherish their weird history too. Our brave and valiant author, Jeff Belanger, toured the state with camera and notepad in hand as he waded through cranberry bogs and trudged up the Berkshires to uncover the state's odd and offbeat. If it's unusual or unexplainable or fantastic, and in the Bay State, you'll find it all here in Weird Massachusetts. See how the world's biggest elephant now fits into a peanut butter jar and why it brings good luck to students, listen for those unexplained booms in Nashoba, discover the hidden secrets at Wizard's Glen and Altar Rock, escape from the Sea Witch and the Cape Cod Mermaid, check out the Museum of Burnt Food, or eat an apple from one of Isaac Newton's famous apple trees';but whatever you do, don't pick up a red-headed hitchhiker on Route 44. With so many places named after the devil, it's a wonder we're not called the Devil State or the Witch State, but see for yourself at the Witch Museum, dedicated to educating the public on what witchcraft was, and is today; for the really daring, unlock some of the spooky secrets at the Houghton Mansion or stay a night at the Concord's Colonial Inn. Look out for the Pukwudgees, circle around haunted trees in cemeteries, and enjoy one of the longest-named lakes in the world, or try climbing Dighton Rock and unravel the messages in its centuries-old carvings. It's all here. It's all weird and it's all in Massachusetts. A brand-new entry in the best-selling Weird U.S. series, Weird Massachusetts is packed with all that great stuff your history teacher wouldn't teach you. So get ready to join our author on his great adventure. It's a journey you'll never forget!

    Along the way, you'll take a ferry ride with Aeneas to Hades, across the river Acheron; meet the Devil as imagined by a twelfth-century Irish monk - a monster with a thousand giant hands; wander the nine circles of Hell in Dante's Inferno and witness the debates that raged in Victorian England when new scientific advances cast doubt on the idea of an eternal hereafter. Drawing upon religious poetry, epics, theological treatises, stories of miracles and accounts of saints' lives, this fascinating volume of hellscapes illuminates how Hell has long haunted us, in both life and death.

    In this book, antebellum estates, house museums, long-conquered forts, and restored townhouses are visited with a noted psychic investigator in order to learn what it is like to live and work in these places today. The result is some seventy stories, skillfully interwoven with the heritage of the area's colorful past, and illustrated with over thirty photos and sketches by local artists. Incidents of precognition, extrasensory perception, deja vu and possible reincarnation are included in this personal and highly readable account of a search for the deeper meaning of life and death through psychic experience.

    Be Very Afraid.From ghosts, vampires, and zombies to serial killers, cannibalistic hillbillies, and haunted Japanese videocassettes, How to Survive a Horror Movie shows how to defeat every obstacle found in scary films. Readers will discover:- How to Perform an Exorcism - What to Do If You Did Something Last Summer - How to Persuade the Skeptical Local Sheriff - How to Vanquish a Murderous Doll - How to Survive an Alien Invasion - How to Tell If You've Been Dead Since the Beginning of the Movieand much, much more. Complete with useful instructions, insane illustrations, and a list of 100 important films to study, How to Survive a Horror Movie is essential reading for prom queens, jocks, teenage babysitters, and anyone employed by a summer camp.

    This book is the result of long hours spent poring over data and descriptions from a variety of sources, including microfilms of eighteenth-century illustrations from the National Diet Library in Tokyo, in order to bring you detailed information on almost 50 of these amazing creatures for the first time in English.Illustrations, created by the talented Tatsuya Morino, detail the potential appearance of each yokai. Alongside each illustration is a series of "data points," with each yokai's significant features at a glance—especially handy for any potential close encounters.Yokai Attack! will surely convince you that Japan's tradition of fascinating monsters is a long one—yet far from being history.Together with Yurei Attack! and Ninja Attack!, Yokai Attack! is the last guidebook to Japan you'll ever need.

    The result is a travel guide of sorts, but to the kind of places voyagers will never find on their everyday maps. Instead, it’s chock full of the local legends, crazy characters, cursed roads, abandoned sites, and bizarre roadside attractions. So come along and visit such unique spots as Midgetville, explore long-empty insane asylums, and go through forgotten tunnels—but keep in mind that the maniacal Bunnyman just might be hiding out in one of them. Some of what’s out there is disturbing, some of it's hilarious, but all of it is unforgettably…weird.