The Hook

For this week's episode, we're going down the spooky October path of urban legends in the US and looking at the legendary Hook! How does this monster connect to teenage abstinence? Are him and the Candyman from movie fame related at all? Find out this week!

Transcript

INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

I’m back from my little trip to Paris, which was good fun, although very wet and rainy! Whilst I didn’t think I’d be happy to be home in the UK, I am very happy to be back with my cats and Diablo.

DESCRIPTION:

We’re going into the realm of urban legends again this week, which is one of my favourite types of monster to cover - and we’re going to the US for this one too with the infamous Hook man or The Hook. 

Before we start, this episode is a bit spookier than usual and definitely a bit more gory in terms of story, so if you’ve got little ones listening to this - I’d recommend skipping this one for now til they can process horror, because boy, I can tell you urban legends really screwed my small brain when I was a kid. 

So The Hook is described as an urban legend, and so often referred to as a spirit or some kind of supernatural entity is humanoid, with the face of an old man with a white beard, wearing a long raincoat and hat, with one of his hands replaced with a shiny silver hook. He is always described as an older man, but we never see any facial features and is usually only seen as a silhouette.

He is a merciless killer of teenagers, and his only motivation is to kill as many as possible - this is because he has a mental health issue according to legend, but is most likely because he is a psychopath. He doesn’t have any powers, other than appearing in places that he probably couldn’t have by usual means, and he’s ruthless in his pursuit for blood. 

Unlike his popular movie counterpart, the Candyman, who I might cover as a fun fictional one at some point, he cannot be summoned in the mirror by calling his name three times - we are talking about two different entities here.

This urban legend comes from the US, and we don’t know exactly what state - but it’s definitely the one that you’re in MWAHAHA.

This monster will just rock up with his hook, sometimes he’s depicted as an amputee with a hook hand, in other tellings he just uses a hook as a weapon - but either way, he’s pretty skilled at using it. And why teenagers for his victims? Well they’re the perfect audience for horror movies of course - but in all seriousness, there are some proper theories about this and we’ll go into them later on. 

So let me tell you the legend of the Hook man. It starts with a rainy night, a young couple canoodling in the car with the radio playing. Suddenly, a news bulletin comes on”a serial killer with a hook has just escaped from a nearby institution, stay in your homes”. The woman sees a silhouette of a man with a hook hand watching them, the man leaves the car to confront a figure who isn’t there, returns to the car and finds his date butchered.

There are a couple different versions of this, one is that instead of a lover’s lane situation, the couple run out of petrol or their car breaks down, then when the man is out of the car, the woman turns on the radio to get the bulletin and then hears a thumping on the roof, the man’s severed head. In another version, the woman sees the man's butchered body suspended upside down from a tree with his fingernails scraping against the roof. 

But there are a whole load of variations to this story, they usually end up with either or both party members murdered, or they get away with the killer on the roof of the car, or disguised as police in some cases. 

I think the most horror movie-esque one is when a young couple’s car breaks down and the man then decides to head off on foot to find someone to help with the problem while the woman stays behind in the car. She then falls asleep while waiting and wakes up to see a hideous person looking at her through the window. Luckily, the car is locked, so the person can't get inside. But to the woman's horror, the person raises both of his arms to reveal that they are holding her date's severed head in one hand, and the car keys in the other. The fate of the woman is never revealed. SPOOOKKYYY

But anyway you tell it, there are a load of similarities - lovers, hook hands, cars and grisly murder. Because we don’t really know much about the man himself, we don’t know if it’s ever an escaped mental patient or a vengeful ghost, so we have no idea what he does outside of this, which makes writing a podcast episode about him a bit tricky.

ORIGIN:

But to talk about the complete opposite of tricky, the etymology is beyond self-explanatory, Hook man - English, because it’s a man with a Hook for a hand, I don’t know what else to tell you here.

Now let’s be clear before we kick off the origin segment - this is an urban legend, there has never been any evidence behind the Hook man existing as its own entity, and I’m just doing the lord’s work by spreading the story even more - so just to preamble everything, this is just a spooky story figure, I’m not telling you about a real life serial killer that I’m putting down to a mythical monster. 

Interestingly though, with both cryptids and urban legends, we naturally assume that they are much younger in terms of history - however, this one is a bit older and it’s actually been around since the 1950’s and 60’s. This rumour started spreading in the early 50’s, and eventually made its roots in American folklore by 1959. 

According to historians, the first written mention of the Hook was within a ‘Dear Abby’ column in 1960, which was kind of an agony aunt column in a newspaper. I have the extract which is great;

Dear Abby: If you are interested in teenagers, you will print this story. I don't know whether it's true or not, but it doesn't matter because it served its purpose for me: A fellow and his date pulled into their favourite "lovers lane" to listen to the radio and do a little necking. The music was interrupted by an announcer who said there was an escaped convict in the area who had served time for rape and robbery. He was described as having a hook instead of a right hand. The couple became frightened and drove away. When the boy took his girl home, he went around to open the car door for her. Then he saw—a hook on the door handle! I will never park to make out as long as I live. I hope this does the same for other kids. —Jeanette

But how did this whole thing start going round in the 50’s in the first place? Well unfortunately, this is where it goes into real life a little. In 1946, there was a spate of murders in lovers lanes in Arkansas and Texas called the Texarkana Moonlight Murders, where 4 people were killed in the middle of the night, and the person responsible was never found. Following that in the late 60’s, the Zodiac Killer was doing the same thing in California and again, was never caught. So there is definitely a real life fear and experience historically of someone killing teenagers at these places, just never with a hook specifically.

Why do we think the Hook was created? Definitely by these teenagers who were most likely attempting to scare others, but also by their parents. In the 50’s and 60’s, when everyone was getting down to party and discovering freedom of their bodies for the first time in forever, teenage sex was seen as a massive issue and coming up with a monster in popular makeout spots was a perfect way to keep your child abstinent. 

In more modern examinations of the legend, there are theories that the hook hand relates to castration or as a phallic symbol of some kind. It might also link back to the risk of teenage sex, as a driver to keep them apart due to Hook man - BIll Ellis, a great American folklorist said and I quote “the threat of the Hookman is not the normal sex drive of teenagers, but the abnormal drive of some adults to keep them apart.”

The myth does come up within media often still to this day, and recently in 2012, there was an infamous 4chan revival of the telling that was written in such broken English that it became a meme on its own. I’ll share the post on my socials, but I’m also going to read it out the best I can now because I think it’s hysterical. 

Man & girl go out to drive under moonlight. They stop at on at a side of road. He turn to his girl and say;

“Baby, I love you very much.”

“What is it honey?”

“Our car has broken down. I think the engine is broken. I’ll walk and get some more fuel”

“Ok. I’ll stay here and look after our stereo. There have been news report of steres being stolen”

“Good idea. keep the doors locked no matter what. I love you sweaty”

So the guy left to get full for the car, after two hours the girl say “where is my baby, he was supposed to be back by now.” then the girl here a scratching sound and a voice say “LET ME IN”

The girl doesn’t do it and then after a while she goes to sleep. The next morning she wakes up and finds her boyfriend still not there. She gets out to check and man door hand hook car door.

This absolutely knocked me when I first read it, and every time I think of it now - I have a little giggle to myself. There are also a couple of other memes like this that are based on urban legends that are very funny, as well as dramatic readings of all of them which are pretty good too. But people remember this meme, and so the Hook Man lives on! 

Moving onto other mythical comparisons, I’m going down the urban legend path here - and because of that, I’m going to talk about the Kuchisake-Onna, who I covered not too long ago - a Japanese urban legend who corners you in a dark alleyway and asks if you think she’s beautiful with a giant glasgow smile on her face, either way you’re not really getting out without being maimed in the very least. But another wrong place, wrong time kind of monster. 

Slenderman even is a good one to compare this to, another urban legend, but one that is 100% fictional as I covered in his episode, but something that just gets you whilst you’re out in the woods - to keep you out of the woods, a nice and simple MO like our monster this week.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto modern media, there’s a load of Hook themed monsters and myths around, but I’ve also included urban legend stuff here too.

For art, I’d recommend looking at independent art this week, because of course, it is an urban legend - so there’s not any portrait art of it like our traditional myth monsters. There are some really cool bits for this one though!

In movies, we have; Candyman, Lovers Lane, Meatballs, Dick Tracey’s Dilemma, Peter Pan, Hook, Final Exam, He Knows You’re Alone, Shrek, The Thief and the Cobbler, Eight Crazy Nights, Adventures in Babysitting, The Hobbit, Campfire Tales, Godzilla, Evil Dead 2, Inspector Gadget, James Bond, Tangled, Jennifer’s Body, Smoke, Puppet Master, The Mummy, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Battal Gazi, Urban Legend, Saw, Cannibal Girls & The Ring.

For TV, we have; Supernatural, Millennium, Designing Women, Doctor Who, The Muppet Show, CSI, MythBusters, Lost Tapes, 1000 Ways to Die, Urban Legends, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, Truth or Scare, Law & Order, Diary of the Wimpy Kid, Scrubs, Freaky Stories, Beetlejuice, Witchblade, Justified, Psych, Community, 30 Rock, Spongebob Squarepants, Kamen Rider, Young Hercules, The Simpsons, South Park, The Venture Bros, Charlie the Unicorn, Homestar Runner, American Horror Story & Nightmare Tales.

In video games, we have ones such as; Persona 2 & 4, Fear the Moon, Shin Megami Tensei, Touhou Project, Wick, Campfire Legends, Warcraft, Urban Rivals, Witchkin, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Five Nights at Freddy’s, Epic Mickey, Final Fantasy Rebirth, Pirate Hunters, Late Rites, Psychonauts, Beard Blade, Monkey Island & The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night.

My book recommendation this week is for Urban Legends: Strange Tales and Unsolved Mysteries from Around the World by James Proud or An Illustrated History of Urban Legends by Adam Allsuch Boardman for some spooky urban legends - and they are a bit spookier than I’d usually recommend.

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think he existed?

No, quite simple on this one. It’s an urban legend and we all know these are designed to frighten people, and whilst I’d love to meet someone who has a hook hand, I can’t say that it’s a common thing over here in the UK. 

The closest I’ve seen to that is the attachment hooks you can get for prosthetics, but they’re not like Captain Hook hands are they!? I think this is a really good example of a teenage prank that you would see get a proper deep dive in something like American Horror Story, or really anything by Ryan Murphy who loves directing things like this. And in fact, he DID do something similar in American Horror Story: 1984 and Freak Show, and the character in both is played by the same guy, so I guess if you like that kind of show, knock yourself out.

That’s not to say I don’t love an urban legend monster, because I really do - two of my absolute faves are Bloody Mary and the Kuchisake-Onna. But I love both of these monsters because of their link to femininity, the Hook is definitely one I love because of the 80’s slasher vibes that I get from it, he really gives me a Freddy Kruger feel to him ya know.

But what do you think? Did the Hook target teenagers or naive kids summoning him in mirrors? Let me know on Twitter!

OUTRO: 

I’ve loved covering this one and I’ve been super excited to write about it - not to say that I don’t find this one really creepy, because you’re definitely not going to catch me trying to summon this bad boy. 

Next week, we’re heading back onto home turf in Britain and heading to the Cornish countryside for some pesky Pixies! Get ready to cast immobulus on these little pests next Thursday!

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube, Threads and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk, including some very cool merchandise - you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.