''Candle Cove'' is an online

creepypasta Creepypastas are horror-related legends that have been shared around the Internet. Creepypasta has since become a catch-all term for any horror content posted onto the Internet. These Internet entries are often brief, user-generated, paranormal ...

horror story written by web cartoonist and author

Kris Straub The kris, or ''keris'' in the Indonesian language, is an asymmetrical dagger with distinctive blade-patterning achieved through alternating laminations of iron and nickelous iron (''pamor''). Of Javanese origin, the kris is famous for its dist ...

. The story centers on a discussion of the titular fictional children's television series on an

Internet forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...

. Straub has stated that he was inspired to write the creepypasta after reading an article in ''

The Onion ''The Onion'' is an American digital media company and newspaper organization that publishes satire, satirical articles on international, national, and local news. The company is based in Chicago but originated as a weekly print publication on ...

'' entitled "Area 36-Year-Old Still Has Occasional ''

Lidsville ''Lidsville'' is Sid and Marty Krofft's third television show following '' H.R. Pufnstuf'' (1969) and ''The Bugaloos'' (1970). As did its predecessors, the series combined two types of characters: conventional actors in makeup taped alongside pe ...

'' Nightmare". Straub's story quickly became popular, inspiring numerous YouTube videos and fan fictions. In 2015, Straub self-published ''Candle Cove'' in a collection of short stories entitled ''Candle Cove and Other Stories''.

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media ...

commented that ''Candle Cove'' differed from other creepypastas in that while most creepypasta have an "anonymous folkloric quality", ''Candle Cove'''s originated from a known source and author. The story was adapted for the first season of the Syfy anthology series '' Channel Zero'', which aired in 2016. Additionally, Straub began the spin-off YouTube series ''

Local 58 ''Local 58'' is a horror web series created by cartoonist Kris Straub. The series is a spin-off of Straub's ''Candle Cove'' creepypasta.Broodhollowand then in the ''Local 58'' episode "Show for Children." While the series does not appear to h ...

'', centered around strange broadcasts from the fictitious public access television channel where ''Candle Cove'' originally aired.

Synopsis

The story is told in the format of a thread on the fictional "NetNostalgia Forums", where a group of users discuss an unusual low-budget children's television show, ''Candle Cove'', that they all remember watching on Channel 58 in the

Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area The Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area is a metropolitan area in the Appalachian Plateau region of the United States. Referred to locally as the “ Tri-State area”, and colloquially as "Kyova" (Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia), the regi ...

when they were children in the early 1970s. The show is about a young girl named Janice, who imagines herself to be friends with

marionette A marionette (; french: marionnette, ) is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a marionettist. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed ...

pirates. As the users continue to reminisce, they begin to recall more disturbing details about the show, such as a character known as the "Skin-Taker" (a skeleton pirate who wears clothing made out of children's skin) and an episode that consisted entirely of the puppets flailing and screaming while Janice cries. The story ends with a user stating that he recently asked his elderly mother in a nursing home if she remembered the show; she responds that every time the user claimed that ''Candle Cove'' was on, there was only

static Static may refer to: Places *Static Nunatak, a nunatak in Antarctica United States * Static, Kentucky and Tennessee *Static Peak, a mountain in Wyoming **Static Peak Divide, a mountain pass near the peak Science and technology Physics *Static el ...

on the screen.

History

"Candle Cove" was originally published by

in 2009 on his

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wi ...

ichorfalls.com, under a

Creative Commons license A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...

. The website hosted Straub's horror stories about the fictional town of Ichor Falls. In a 2011 interview, Straub told ''Kindertrauma'' he got the concept of "Candle Cove" from a satirical ''

Onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onio ...

'' article titled "Area 36-Year-Old Still Has Occasional ''

'' Nightmare". Like other

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

for horror stories circulated around the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

fans promptly copied and pasted "Candle Cove" across numerous

internet forums An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...

and websites. It was posted on creepypasta.com and the Creepypasta Wiki, the two largest repositories, as well as sites such as

4chan 4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, cooking, weapons, television, ...

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, and horror.com. On some forums, fans recreated the story's exchange as if it actually occurred.

Television adaptation

In 2015 the

SyFy Channel Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi Channel, later shortened to Sci Fi; stylized as SYFY) is an American basic cable channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. Lau ...

announced their intent to adapt the ''Candle Cove'' story as the first season of a newly announced series, ''Channel Zero''. The season, named after the creepypasta, expands on the story and centers on a child psychologist who has returned home in order to investigate the 1980s disappearances of his brother and other children. ''Channel Zero: Candle Cove'' stars Paul Schneider and Fiona Shaw, and premiered on October 11, 2016.

Reception

Will Wiles of ''

Aeon The word aeon , also spelled eon (in American and Australian English), originally meant "life", "vital force" or "being", "generation" or "a period of time", though it tended to be translated as "age" in the sense of "ages", "forever", "timele ...

'' wrote that ''Candle Cove'' was "among the best creepypastas out there" and a good example of using the forum format as a storytelling method. Adi Robertson of ''The Verge'' praised the creepypasta, stating that it was "a perfectly dark spin on our nostalgia for the half-remembered stories of our childhood, that realization that the things we liked as kids were much, much creepier than we thought."

References

Bibliography

External links

Original story

2011 interview with Straub
on ''Kindertrauma'' {{Urban legends 2009 short stories Fakelore Fictional television shows Horror fiction Horror short stories Internet memes introduced in 2009 Urban legends Web fiction Works adapted into television shows Works by Kris Straub Creepypasta