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The Hook
The Hook, or The Hookman, is an urban legend about a killer with a pirate-like hook for a hand attacking a couple in a parked car. In many versions of the story, the killer is typically portrayed as a faceless, silhouetted old man wearing a raincoat and rain hat that conceals most of his features, especially his face. 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 The basic premise involves a young couple cuddling in a car with the radio playing. Suddenly, a news bulletin reports that a serial killer with a hook has just escaped from a nearby institution. For varying reasons, they decide to leave quickly. In the end, once they get back to the woman's house, the killer's hook is either found hanging from the door handle or embedded into the door itself. Di ...
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Urban Legend
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family member, often with horrifying, humorous, or cautionary elements. These legends can be entertaining but often concern mysterious peril or troubling events, such as disappearances and strange objects or entities. Urban legends may confirm moral standards, reflect prejudices, or be a way to make sense of societal anxieties. Urban legends in the past were most often circulated orally, but now can also be spread by any media. This includes newspapers, mobile news apps, e-mail, and most often, social media. Some urban legends have passed through the years/decades with only minor changes, in where the time period takes place. Generic urban legends are often altered to suit regional variations, but the lesson or moral remains majorly the same. Or ...
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Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Rayner Lowndes (née Belloc; 5 August 1868 – 14 November 1947), who wrote as Marie Belloc Lowndes, was a prolific English novelist, and sister of author Hilaire Belloc. Active from 1898 until her death, she had a literary reputation for combining exciting incidents with psychological interest. Four of her works were adapted for the screen: '' The Chink in the Armour'' (1912; adapted 1922), '' The Lodger'' (1913; adapted several times), ''Letty Lynton'' (1931; adapted 1932), and '' The Story of Ivy'' (1927; adapted 1947). ''The Lodger'' was also adapted as a 1940 radio drama and 1960 opera. Personal life Born in Marylebone, London and raised in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France, Belloc was the only daughter of French barrister Louis Belloc and English feminist Bessie Parkes. Her younger brother was Hilaire Belloc, whom she wrote of in her last work, ''The Young Hilaire Belloc'' (published posthumously in 1956). Belloc's paternal grandfather was the ...
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Shrek The Halls
''Shrek the Halls'' is an American Christmas computer-animated comedy television special that premiered on the American television network ABC on November 28, 2007. The thirty minute Christmas special was co-written and directed by Gary Trousdale and produced by DreamWorks Animation. Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and Antonio Banderas reprise their roles from the feature films. This Christmas special takes place between '' Shrek the Third'' and ''Shrek Forever After''. As with the other ''Shrek'' animations, this television special was based on the 1990 children's book '' Shrek!'' by William Steig. Plot Shrek is quietly living in the swamp with his family when the Christmas season arrives. Under Donkey's urging, Shrek reluctantly promises Princess Fiona a special Christmas surprise. Shrek goes to the local bookstore in Far Far Away to try to find a present for Fiona, but since he does not know what Christmas is all about, the shopkeeper gives Shrek a copy of ''Christma ...
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Bill Murray
William James Murray (born September 21, 1950) is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his deadpan delivery. He rose to fame on ''The National Lampoon Radio Hour'' (1973–1974) before becoming a national presence on ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1977 to 1980, where he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series. He starred in comedy films including '' Meatballs'' (1979), ''Caddyshack'' (1980), ''Stripes'' (1981), ''Tootsie'' (1982), ''Ghostbusters'' (1984), ''Scrooged'' (1988), ''What About Bob?'' (1991), '' Groundhog Day'' (1993), '' Kingpin'' (1996), ''The Man Who Knew Too Little'' (1997), '' Charlie's Angels'' (2000), and ''Osmosis Jones'' (2001). His only directorial credit is ''Quick Change'' (1990), which he co-directed with Howard Franklin. Murray's performance in Sofia Coppola's '' Lost in Translation'' (2003) earned him a Golden Globe and a British Academy Film Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He has frequentl ...
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Meatballs (film)
''Meatballs'' is a 1979 Canadian comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman. It is noted for Bill Murray's first film appearance in a starring role and for launching the directing career of Reitman, whose later comedies include ''Stripes'' (1981) and ''Ghostbusters'' (1984), both starring Murray. The film was the highest-grossing Canadian film of all time in the United States and Canada, winning the Golden Reel Award. It is the first of six film collaborations between Murray and Harold Ramis and several sequels, of which only '' Meatballs III: Summer Job'' (1986) had any connection to the original. Plot Tripper Harrison leads a group of new counsellors-in-training (CITs) at Camp North Star, a cut-rate summer camp located in Ontario, and leads practical jokes on camp director Morty Melnick, mainly by taking Melnick from his cabin late at night so that he awakens in unusual places. Rudy Gerner, a lonely boy whose mother died about a year earlier, is sent to summer camp by his workaholi ...
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Comedies
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term originated in ancient Greece: in Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing '' agon'' or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old". A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses wh ...
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Dick Tracy's Dilemma
''Dick Tracy's Dilemma'', released in the United Kingdom as ''Mark of the Claw'', is a 1947 American action film based on the Dick Tracy, 1930s comic-strip character of the same name created by Chester Gould. Ralph Byrd stars as Dick Tracy, reprising the role after Republic Pictures's 1937 ''Dick Tracy (serial), Dick Tracy'' serial film, serial and its three sequels. Preceded by ''Dick Tracy vs. Cueball'', the film is the third installment of the Dick Tracy#Early feature films, ''Dick Tracy'' film series released by RKO Radio Pictures. The follow-up to ''Dick Tracy's Dilemma'' was ''Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome'' (1947), the fourth and last entry in the RKO series. Dick Tracy, the character next made the move to television. The program ran for 39 episodes in the 1950–1951 season. Ralph Byrd may well have played Dick Tracy in further adventures had he not died unexpectedly, of a heart attack, on August 18, 1952, at age 43. Plot Ruthless killer Steve Michel is known to the public a ...
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Film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound and, more rarely, other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it. Recording and transmission of film The moving images of a film are created by photography, photographing actual scenes with a movie camera, motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of computer-generated imagery, CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects. Before the introduction of digital production, series of still imag ...
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Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark
''Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark'' is a series of three collections of short horror stories for children, written by Alvin Schwartz and originally illustrated by Stephen Gammell. In 2011, HarperCollins published editions featuring new art by Brett Helquist, causing mass controversy amongst fans of Gammell. Subsequent printings have restored the original Gammell art. The titles of the books are ''Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark'' (1981), ''More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark'' (1984), and ''Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones'' (1991). The three books each feature numerous short stories in the horror genre. Author Schwartz drew heavily from folklore and urban legends as the topic of his stories, researching extensively and spending more than a year on writing each book. Acknowledged influences include William Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, Mark Twain, Joel Chandler Harris, Bennett Cerf and Jan Harold Brunvand. The first volume was published in 1981, and the books ...
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Children's Literature
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's literature can be traced to traditional stories like fairy tales, that have only been identified as children's literature in the eighteenth century, and songs, part of a wider oral tradition, that adults shared with children before publishing existed. The development of early children's literature, before printing was invented, is difficult to trace. Even after printing became widespread, many classic "children's" tales were originally created for adults and later adapted for a younger audience. Since the fifteenth century much literature has been aimed specifically at children, often with a moral or religious message. Children's literature has been shaped by religious sources, like Puritan traditions, or by more philosophical and scienti ...
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Horror Fiction
Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society. Prevalent elements of the genre include ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, the Devil, witches, monsters, extraterrestrials, dystopian and post-apocalyptic worlds, serial killers, cannibalism, cults, dark magic, satanism, the macabre, gore and torture. History Before 1000 The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore ...
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Short Stories
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century. Definition The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components as in a novel, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel or novella/short novel, authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques. The short story is sometimes referred to as a genre. Determining what exactly defines a short story has been recurrently problematic. A classic definition of a short story i ...
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