The Top 7 Most Terrifying Places on Earth
Scott Hallam
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In The Houses October Built, our heroes are in search of the most extreme and terrifying haunted Halloween attractions they can possibly find. In honor of the Blu-ray and DVD release of the film this week, we’ve done some research of our own and sought out The Top 7 Most Terrifying Places on Earth.
Horror movies are one thing. We start them, cover our eyes when things get too scary, and after approximately 90 minutes, we’ve survived the experience. But reality is something else. Mother Earth is home to some insanely frightening places. We’ve spanned the globe to find some real doozies to bring you The 7 Most Terrifying Places on Earth.
Some honorable mentions (and believe us… just because they didn’t make the Top 7 list doesn’t mean you want to book a family vacation to these places) include The Door to Hell in Derweze, Ahal Province, Turkmenistan, where a fire has been burning for nearly 45 years; the Gomantong Caves in Borneo, Malaysia, which are absolutely loaded with guano, bats, and cockroaches; and the ultimate suicide magnet, The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the world’s foremost suicide location. Bobby Mackey’s Music World in Wilder, Kentucky, is known as the world’s most haunted nightclub and a gateway to Hell (sounds like our kind of place!). And we can’t forget Leap Castle, arguably the most haunted location in Ireland.
Now, on to…
The Island of the Dolls (Isla de las Munecas), Mexico
The Island of the Dolls is dedicated to the soul of a young girl who drowned under mysterious circumstances. Don Julian Santana Barrera found the girl and was unable to save her. Soon after, he found a doll floating in the river and hung it in a tree as a tribute to the girl. Later he hung more dolls, and as his life went on, he continued to hang dolls amongst the island. Upon his death, the island became a tourist attraction where others seeking a unique escapade could venture, and many brought their own dolls to hang. The result of all this doll (and doll appendage) hanging is an island completely populated by numerous creepy visages slung from trees wherever you look. Want proof? Check out the unsettling images below of the dolls and Mr. Unsettling himself, Don Julian Santana Barrera.
Snake Island (Ilha da Queimada Grande), São Paolo, Brazil
This one is for all you Ophidiophobiacs out there. That’s right… if you have a fear of snakes, then the aptly named Snake Island in Brazil is not a place you’d want to visit. Home to an endemic snake species named the Golden Lancehead Viper (one of the most venomous snakes on Earth), Snake Island is a veritable wriggling nightmare. With an area of just 430,000 square meters, the island may seem small, but with estimates of the snake population being anywhere between 1 and 5 snakes per square meter, you can see how this location would be normally shunned as a vacation retreat. And the result of a bite from one of these beauties? Check this out: Symptoms include swelling, local pain, nausea and vomiting, blood blisters, bruising, blood in the vomit and urine, intestinal bleeding, kidney failure, hemorrhage in the brain, and severe necrosis of muscular tissue. That’s a bad day. No wonder the Brazilian Navy has banned travel to the island.
Sedlec Ossuary, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
The Sedlec Ossuary is a Roman Catholic chapel situated under the Cemetery Church of All Saints in Sedlec, which is actually a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic. This particular ossuary contains the bones of somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 people. If that wasn’t disturbing enough, many of the bones of these said 40-70k people have been arranged in amazingly artistic shapes. It’s like the most morbid art gallery you could possibly imagine. With a pile of bones, many coming from the Black Death and the Hussitte Wars, 19th-century Czech woodcarver and carpenter František Rint was given the task of dealing with the remains; and he created things such as a chandelier, garlands, pier, and monstrances, as well as Rint’s own signature, constructed purely out of human bones. Whoa.
Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo (Catacombe dei Cappuccini or Catacombs of the Capuchins), Sicily, Italy
The Capuchin burial catacombs in Sicily would make anyone uneasy about going to visit their lost loved ones as approximately 8,000 mummified bodies adorn the hallways of this structure. Monks from the monastery dehydrated bodies on ceramic pipes and washed them with vinegar, embalming some and sealing others in glass cabinets. Originally just monks were interred in the catacombs, but eventually it became chic to be laid to rest in the Capuchin Catacombs, and others were entombed there as well. Relatives would visit the bodies and maintain them in damn-near lifelike condition and keep the place running through donations. But if the donations dried up, your loved one went from the prime viewing area onto the shelf, until payment resumed. In the 1920’s Rosalia Lombardo was one of the last to be entombed in Capuchin, and the preservation of her body was amazing. The picture below was taken in 1982. She died in 1920.
Aokigahara Forest, Mount Fuji, Japan
Also known as the Suicide Forest or the Sea of Trees, Aokigahara actually has signs posted at the entrance, in both Japanese and English, urging those entering with suicidal thoughts to reconsider and think about the finer things in life. The suicide numbers in Aokigahara (with hanging and drug overdose being the top preferred methods) are staggering with 247 attempts (57 successful) in 2010 alone, and that is a pretty standard number regardless of the year. The forest is thought to have a demonic association and is also eerily quiet. Due to the extreme thickness of the trees and the absence of much wildlife, Aokigohara is a very quiet forest, adding to the chill in the environment. Whether it be the call from a demon or just mob mentality, the fact is that something is calling people to end it all in Aokigahara. What it is will remain a mystery.
Poveglia Island, Italy
The origins of the nightmares for Poveglia Island began when it was used to quarantine plague victims during the Roman Era, and then again when the Black Death came rolling through Europe. The bodies were piled and burned, and later, as paranoia grew, anyone even suspected of being infected was sent to the island and burned amongst a pile of corpses. Estimates put the body count at around 160,000. If this wasn’t enough, in a pure stroke of genius, it was decided to turn the existing buildings on the island into an insane asylum. Nothing better than housing the criminally insane on an island infamous for tens of thousands of deaths. One doctor went off the deep end and began to attempt to cure insanity via crude lobotomies. (Are there any two words more chilling together than “crude lobotomies“?) This doctor eventually flung himself from a bell tower, supposedly overcome by the spirits of the island. In 1968 the asylum was shut down, and the island is currently off-limits.
The Corpse Tunnels of Waverly Hills Sanatorium, Kentucky
And finally, we travel to Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Kentucky. Many of you may be familiar with this allegedly uber-haunted building that was used as a place to house tuberculosis victims from 1910 to 1962. It’s been featured in every major ghost hunting program. With death numbers ranging from an almost impossible 63,000 to a more believable 8,000, the fact of the matter is, no matter what number you decide is true, a goddamn lot of people died in Waverly Hills. But even creepier than the sanatorium itself is the legendary tunnel below. It was a 500-foot long conveyance that ran below the building with steps on one side to allow employees access without having to walk a dangerous hill outside and a motorized cart on the other side to bring goods into the building. Unfortunately, once the death rate got higher, the motorized cart was used to transport the dead to a hearse waiting at the bottom to remove it discreetly away from the eyes of other patients in the hopes not to lower morale further. (Could morale actually have gotten any lower at Waverly Hills?) Thus they became known as the Corpse Tunnels of Waverly Hills.
Look for The Houses October Built on DVD and Blu-ray tomorrow, January 6th.
Synopsis:
Beneath the fake blood and cheap masks of countless haunted house attractions across the country, there are whispers of truly terrifying alternatives. Looking to find an authentic, blood-curdling good fright for Halloween, five friends set off on a road trip in an RV to track down these underground Haunts. Just when their search seems to reach a dead end, strange and disturbing things start happening and it becomes clear that the Haunt has come to them…
