The Hook
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The Hook, or the Hookman,[1] 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.[2] It has since become a morality archetype in popular culture, and has been referenced in various horror films.
Legend
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 is broken down. i think the engine is broken, ill walk and get some more fuel." "ok. ill 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.
Origin
The origins of the Hook legend are not entirely known, though, according to folklorist and historian Jan Harold Brunvand, the story began to circulate some time in the 1950s in the United States.[1] According to Brunvand in The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings, the story had become widespread amongst American teenagers by 1959, and continued to expand into the 1960s.[3] Snopes writer David Mikkelson has speculated that the legend might have roots in real-life lovers' lane murders, such as the 1946 Texarkana Moonlight Murders.[2]
The first known publication of the story occurred on November 8, 1960, when a reader letter telling the story was reprinted in Dear Abby, a popular advice column:
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 favorite "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 become 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[2][4]
Literary scholar Christopher Pittard traces the plot dynamics of the legend to Victorian literature, particularly the 1913 horror novel The Lodger by Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes.[5] Though the two narratives have little in common, he notes that both are built upon a "threefold relationship of crime, dirt, and chance... Such a reading also implies a reconsideration of the historical trajectory of the urban legend, usually read as a product of postmodernist consumer culture."[6]
Interpretations
Folklorists have interpreted the long history of this legend in many ways. Alan Dundes's Freudian interpretation explains the hook as a phallic symbol and its amputation as a symbolic castration.[7]
Swedish folklorist Bengt af Klintberg describes the story as an example of "a conflict between representatives of normal people who follow the rules of society and those who are not normal, who deviate and threaten the normal group."[8]
American folklorist Bill Ellis interpreted the maniac in The Hook as a moral custodian who interrupts the sexual experimentation of the young couple. He sees the Hookman's disability as "his own lack of sexuality" and "the threat of the Hookman is not the normal sex drive of teenagers, but the abnormal drive of some adults to keep them apart."[9]
In popular culture
A version of the story by author Alvin Schwartz appears in the 1981 collection of short horror stories for children Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.[10]
In film, the Hook legend has occasionally appeared: in a 1947 film Dick Tracy's Dilemma. fictional Detective Dick Tracy pursues a murderous killer with a hook for a hand; the killer with a hook theme has also appeared in comedies; In Meatballs (1979), Bill Murray's character retells the Hook legend to campers around a campfire.[11] In Shrek the Halls (2007), Gingy tells an alternate version of this legend to his girlfriend Suzy in his flashback. The story has, however, most often been depicted and referenced in horror films.[12] Its prevalence, according to film scholar Mark Kermode, is most reflected in the slasher film, functioning as a morality archetype on youth sexuality.[13] He Knows You're Alone (1980) opens with a film within a film scene in which a young couple are attacked by a killer while in a parked car.[14] The slasher film Final Exam opens with a scene in which a couple are attacked in a parked car, and later, a student is murdered in a university locker room with a hook.[15] Campfire Tales (1997), an anthology horror film, opens with a segment retelling the Hook legend, set in the 1950s.[16] I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) features a killer stalking teenagers with a hook; at the beginning of the film, the central characters recount the Hook legend around a campfire. The Candyman films of the '90s, as well as its 2021 Jordan Peele update, is centered around this legend as well.[17] Lovers Lane (1999) is a slasher film featuring a killer who murders teenagers at a lovers' lane with a hook.[18]
The story has also appeared in various television programs; "The Pest House" (1998), the fourteenth episode of season 2 of the TV series Millennium, opens with a murder similar to that of the urban legend. Season 1, episode 7 of the TV show Supernatural features a hookman as the villain. It is the first story in the first episode of Mostly True Stories?: Urban Legends Revealed. The Canadian animated anthology series Freaky Stories (1997) has a segment in its first season based on the Hook, set in the 1950s.[19] The story is referenced in "The Slumber Party" episode of Designing Women.
A parody of the Hookman is used in SpongeBob SquarePants, season 2, episode 16: "Graveyard Shift" in which Squidward, in an attempt to scare SpongeBob out of his wits while they are working at night, tells a made-up horror story of the "Hash-Slinging Slasher" – a dark, faceless figure donning a raincoat who has a rusty, old spatula in place of a hand.[20]
The Hookman is also used as a plot device in season 3, episode 5 of Community: "Horror Fiction in Seven Easy Steps".
The story has also received a resurgence in popularity on the internet following a retelling of it on 4chan that became an internet meme, due to it being written in broken English with several humorous errors, most notably its abrupt ending where the entire twist ending is rendered simply as the phrase "Man door hand hook car door" which has since become what this version of the story is referred to as.[21]
See also
References
- ^ a b Brunvand 2003, p. 49.
- ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference
snopeswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Brunvand 2003, pp. 49–50.
- ^ Brunvand 2003, pp. 48–49.
- ^ Pittard 2011, pp. 188–189.
- ^ Pittard 2011, p. 188.
- ^ Brunvand 2003, pp. 50–51.
- ^ Brunvand 2001, pp. 200–201.
- ^ Ellis 1987, pp. 31–60.
- ^ Dietsch, T.J. (30 October 2015). "11 of the scariest stories to tell in the dark". geek.com. Archived from the original on 4 October 2016. Retrieved 11 July 2019.
Another widespread urban legend from the 80s and 90s, "High Beams" follows the misadventures of a young woman who seems to be in danger from the man driving the truck behind her car.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ Koven 2007, p. 101.
- ^ Koven 2007, pp. 112–114.
- ^ Koven 2007, p. 113.
- ^ Everman 2003, p. 122.
- ^ Armstrong 2003, p. 113.
- ^ Koven 2007, p. 192.
- ^ Koven 2007, p. 104.
- ^ Harper 2004, p. 123.
- ^ de Vos, Gail (2012). What Happens Next? Contemporary Urban Legends and Popular Culture. ABC-CLIO. p. 11.
- ^ TV Guide - The 100 Best Spongebob Squarepants episodes
- ^ Trevor J. Blank; Lynne S. McNeill (2018). "Introduction: Fear Has No Face: Creepypasta as Digital Legendry". Slender Man Is Coming Creepypasta and Contemporary Legends on the Internet. Louisville, Colorado: Utah State University Press. pp. 12, 13. ISBN 9781607327813.
Bibliography
- Armstrong, Kent Bryon (2003). Slasher Films: An International Filmography, 1960 Through 2001. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-786-41462-8.
- Brunvand, Jan Harold (December 17, 2003). The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
- Brunvand, Jan Harold (2001). Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-1-59884-720-8.
- Brunvand, Jan Harold (2004). Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid: The Book of Scary Urban Legends. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-32613-0.
- Ellis, Bill (1987). "Why Are Verbatim Transcripts of Legends Necessary?". In G. Bennett, P. Smith and J. Widdowson (ed.). Perspectives on Contemporary Legend II. Sheffield Acad. Press. ISBN 978-1-850-75118-2.
- Everman, Welch D. (2003). Cult Horror Films: From Attack of the 50 Foot Woman to Zombies of Mora Tau. Citadel. ISBN 978-0-806-51425-3.
- Harper, Jim (2004). Legacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies. Critical Vision. ISBN 978-1-900-48639-2.
- Koven, Mikel (2007). Film, Folklore, and Urban Legends. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-810-86025-4.
- Pittard, Christopher (2011). Purity and Contamination in Late Victorian Detective Fiction. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-754-66813-8.
Further reading
- Brunvand, Jan Harold (1994). The Baby Train and Other Lusty Urban Legends. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-31208-9.
- De Caro, Frank (2008). An Anthology of American Folktales and Legends. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-765-62129-0.
