Top 10 Horror Movies

It's almost time for Halloween! And me being the "Scream Queen" I am, I'm willing to share my top 10 favorite horror movies with you so you can binge watch them as well!

10. Carrie (Both versions, new and old)

While the older version could be named the best version by some, and it is the one that I grew up with, I think the new version did a wonderful job at remastering the old one. It didn't seem to change anything about it, only add to it, and the special effects are a million times better now than they were in the 70's.

In the new version, we get to see a little deeper into the relationship between Carrie and her mother, which is a very important relationship... I mean, it's basically the reason she goes all "Carrie" on everyone. And even though you can't replace the original cast, the new cast does a brilliant job as well. It's definitely a new classic. Hey, go a head and watch them back to back and let me know which one you think is the best. I know, it's hard to decide.

Scare rating: 6/10


9. Paranormal Activity Movies

Once again, say what you will, but these movies brought about a whole new genre of horror. It took what The Blair Witch Project did in the 90's (handy-cam horror) and ran with it. I recently watch the Blair Witch Project, because at 10, it was terrifying, and I noticed that you never even see the Blair Witch. NOT ONCE. Actually, the only thing you really ever see is people freaking out and some guy standing in a corner of some old house at the end. There's nothing scary about that movie, except the unknown and shear panic. Well, and the fact that people actually believed that this was real found footage. Brilliant, really, for the creators at least. These movies however, let you see what is caught on tape when you aren't looking. The story line is pretty good, and I love how all the movies tie in together. There were several times during all of these films where I nearly jumped out of my seat.

Scare rating: For all movies in series - 7/10

8. V/H/S & V/H/S/2

Ahhh, once again, the handy-cam genre at it's best. These movies, like the Paranormal Activity movies, were super inexpensive to make, yet to stories are so good that you kind of forgive the bad CGI. I think the first Paranormal Activity only cost around $1000 to make, and made over, what, millions at the box office. Pretty smart, I'd say. You just can't beat good story lines. And with the V/H/S movies, you get great ones.

Each movie is compiled of 4-6 short stories, which I love, and one larger story to tie them all in. Granted, some of the stories are poop, but it's worth it to get to the good ones. And even the bad ones were good ideas, maybe just poorly executed. Either way, they are worth a watch. I ended up buying both of them because I loved them so much. I think you will, too.

Also, each story within the movies were written and directed by different people, which is awesome, because you get stories from different creative minds and aspects on different subjects, as well as different actors and actresses in each one. So that's pretty cool.

Scare rating: V/H/S - 7/10, V/H/S/2 - 7/10




7. The Amityville Horror (Both Original & Remake)

Here's another original/remake like Carrie. The original scared the ever loving crap out of me, but as I get older, the special effects just don't do it anymore, even though the story is wonderfully gruesome. I mean, it's based on the true story of a guy who killed his whole family, even his young siblings, with a shotgun while they slept, yet not one of them woke up. That's odd enough. I mean, if a shotgun goes off in my house, you better believe I'm going to wake up, let alone 5 shotgun blasts. That's just crazy.

But adding to the story, like in Carrie, didn't work out with the remake this time. They should have just left the story alone and focused on the super awesome CGI they couldn't wait to use. The whole bit about the Native American burial ground... was stupid. The story didn't need it. At all.

Scare rating: Original - 8/10, Remake - 7/10.

6. The Exorcism of Emily Rose

This is one of those movies that still scares the crap out of me today. I can't watch it alone, nor can I barley stand to watch it with someone if the lights are off. This movie makes me super paranoid. The Exorcist and The Rite come in close behind this one for your possession movies for sure.

This one however, pretty much pits the law/science against religion. It's brilliant, because I love me a legal drama and horror, and this movie is pretty much "Law & Order: Exorcism", which I would definitely watch in place of any overworked Law & Order series right now, no matter how much I love them.

The effects are wonderfully scary and the actress who plays Emily Rose (who is also on Dexter) is probably the best actress I've ever seen. It's a shame I haven't seen her in many other horror films, because I would watch them just to see her acting again.
Scare rating: 9/10.

5. Mama

Okay, like dolls, I also can't handle creepy kids. Maybe those things go hand in hand, but either way I hate it. Usually, you put a doll or creepy kid in it and I'm out. Someone who loves me must beg me to see it with them, and then they have to hold my hand the whole time. I don't know why I feel this way about dolls and kids... Maybe Child's Play has something to do with it. And I still haven't seen Children of the Corn. Not. Going. To. Do. It.

But, Joey talked me in to seeing this one, and it even scared the crap out of him. The CGI was okay, you can usually scare me with over-extended jaws, as well, which is what they went for here. And it worked.

Scare rating: 8/10.



4. The Conjuring

So, once again with the creepy dolls... this movie starts out focusing on Annabelle, which is now a full on movie of it's own. I have NOT seen it yet. Dolls, man. But if it's anything like The Conjuring, it will scare the crap out of me.

This movie has a very 1970's feel, which is why I love it so much. It feels like it could have been made right along side the original Amityville Horror.

It was well written, well shot, and based on true stories. you can't go wrong.

Scare rating: 8/10.




3. Sinister

Creepy kids, man.

This one has a true crime writer moving into murder houses in order to write about them. I'm a horror writer, and I would never EVER do this. The house next door, maybe. I mean, we never hear about people dying who were in the house next door...

This one was pretty creepy. Scare rating: 9/10.









2. Stanley Kubrick's The Shining

Absolutely brilliant screen adaptation. You never know if Jack is really seeing ghosts, or if he's just going crazy. This have been one of my favorite movies for a very long time, and I don't see anything else taking it's place. Actually, I think #1 and this movie share a spot for my favorite.

Scare rating: 9/10 because of the human condition.










1. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Oh, my favorite zombie movie ever made! And you should know how much I love zombies... I have written 2 novels about them, and had a zombie wedding! Zombies are my favorite because it all comes down to the people still living, not the zombies themselves. What are people capable of when there is no law, no government, no one to tell them what's right from wrong. Will they stay human... in more ways than one? Would you be the kind to kill or be killed? Would you be Rick or would you be The Governor? That's what makes zombie tells so fantastic. You think you know what people will do, but they always surprise you. You think you know someone, but then they betray you. And then you throw race eating zombies in the mix. How will you survive?

And this movie probably has the best opening of any movie I've ever seen. I actually just watched it again last night, and it's still an awesome movie. And I love the ending. No spoiler alerts here, but I'll just say that it's one of the most well made zombie movies to date. It's only followed closely by a TV show - The Walking Dead, of course. And you HAVE to have zombies in your horror movie line-up, so make it a good one.

Scare rating: 8/10

Other Noteworthy movies: World War Z, Shaun of the Dead, The Haunting in Connecticut, Psycho, Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil, Jaws (I'm still terrified of the Ocean), Night of the Living Dead, Evil Dead, The Birds, Cabin in the Woods, Zombieland, The Fly (Probably the most graphic movie I've ever seen, and that's saying something), The Exorcist, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Misery, Poltergeist, Scream, 1408, Nightmare on Elm Street (the first and third), The Rite, and Oculus.

The Upcoming movies Annabelle, Dracula Untold, and Ouija (not The Ouija Experiment. That was poop.) looks pretty promising. Let's hope they are good and not poopy crap.

10 Creepiest Places on Earth: Part 2

Continued from Part 1. Again, these are all my opinion. I grew up with horror movies, and horror being my favorite genre in just about anything - you could call me a "Scream Queen" of sorts, because if it scared me, it's doing pretty good. I hope to do more top 10s in the future, and this will include movies, music, games, etc. But for now, let's get back to the top 10 creepies places!

5. The Plague Fortress of Saint Petersburg

The city of Saint Petersburg has seen its fair share of horror, from bloodthirsty czars to full-on Nazi sieges. A metropolis with millions of people and a long history, it is no surprise that the city has some dark secrets lurking within its murky underbelly. Sorry, did I say "lurking"? I meant "proudly on display." Because the first shit you see when you enter Saint Petersburg from the sea is a bona fide horror citadel. Fort Emperor Alexander I is a heavily fortified island just off the coast of the city, greeting visiting ships with the kind of middle finger only an ominous, dark structure with 103 gun ports can provide.

The innards of Fort Alexander are a textbook example of the sort of balls-out creepiness that would make the Scooby-Doo gang haul ass at the first creaking door. Its interior design features claustrophobic dungeon corridors, rusty, maze-like iron stairs, and the ghostly huddle of tortured souls, filling your ears with Slavic whispers of the terrifying experiments they were subjected to.

Walk down the lower stairs. You will somehow find yourself on the upper ones, escape impossible.

Because of course there were terrifying experiments. Fort Alexander's ghastly appearance is by far the least threatening thing about it. The place has another, far more widespread name: The Plague Fort. When the late 19th century decided to smack Russia with a sackful of pestilence, the officials took a look at Fort Alexander and decided it would make a mighty fine place for a secret laboratory where their mad scientists could poke at the disease.

Science!

All those creepy corridors and cellars became the playground of old school Russian science dudes from an organization called the Institute of Experimental Medicine, and this was their typical Tuesday:

Now you know what a "plagued camel" looks like.

The actual point of the Plague Fort's research was to produce a vaccine, which the scientists secreted from the lymph of various huge animals (such as horses and, interestingly, camels) with all the lack of kindness and comfort Russian medicine could offer. Still, the work was extremely dangerous: People on the island kept catching the disease (entirely by accident, we're sure).

The Plague Fort operated until 1917, when the freshly Sovieted country took one look at that shit, decided it was too creepy for even them, and promptly shut it down.

4. The Abandoned Takakonuma Greenland Park, Japan

This picture starts off creepy. Is that a doll? We all know how I feel about dolls...

Takakonuma Greenland Park in Japan today stands abandoned not only by people, but also by joy, hope and the foolish belief that life ends in anything but lightless hollow death.

The amusement park first opened in Hobara in 1973 but abruptly closed only two years later. Some say it was because of poor ticket sales, but local lore insists the park was forced to shut down after its rides were responsible for a number of accidental deaths.

Accidental Death?! Who the crap would get on this thing in the first place?!

I don't know for certain because there's virtually no official information available on Takakonuma, a fact which, when paired with the images below, arouses no suspicion of any kind.

What I do know for certain is that the park opened again in 1986 (again, the year of my birth... weird) and remained operational for 13 years, at which point it closed down for good. Nowadays, the derelict attractions stand there alone in the middle of nowhere, gathering rust and being slowly consumed by the encroaching forest.

The trees here are nourished by souls.

By the way, I mean that "middle of nowhere" part literally, as Takakonuma can no longer be found on any official maps. It just isn't there.

In addition to willing itself off of charted Japanese territory, Takakonuma seems to occasionally will itself out of existence entirely with a thick fog that periodically rolls in and completely swallows up the park, providing excellent cover for anyone with a monster mask to Scooby-Doo the living shit out of hapless wanderers. This is provided they can stomach the radiation, seeing as Takakonuma is located just a few dozen miles north from Fukushima, whose nuclear power plant had a spectacular meltdown in the wake of a tsunami.

Really, it would be insulting if you came here and weren't eviscerated by ghosts.

3. The Bird Suicide Grounds of Jatinga

In Assam in northeastern India sits the quiet little village of Jatinga, population 2,500. At first glance, it might not seem like much, but the village has become a real hit with visitors who fly in to Jatinga all the time during the monsoon season. Many of them just drop in and never leave, completely falling for the place. What I'm getting at here is that birds smash themselves to death in the streets of Jatinga.

This is an extraordinarily tactless sign.

For reasons that are still not fully understood (though almost certainly involve the Thuggee cult and the theft of a sacred stone), around September and October a whole bunch of birds just come plunging down from the sky to their deaths.

The most bizarre part of it all, however, is how precise the whole thing is. The "suicides" always occur between 7 and 10 p.m. and only around a specific mile-long, 200-yard-wide strip of land. The process has gone on like clockwork for roughly the past 100 years. So far, 44 species of migratory birds have been identified as part of the phenomenon, which I reiterate is something scientists still can't fully explain. Some have blamed it on the village's lights, claiming that they confuse the birds and cause them to crash (which would make sense if Jatinga were the only place in the world that had lights, but research indicates this is not actually the case). Other, more sense-making theories suggest the presence of weird magnetic fields and very specific weather conditions, but there's still nothing that the science community fully agrees on.

While that debate continues, the government of Assam is planning to cash in on the suicides by setting up viewing platforms where tourists can enjoy watching a bunch of wild animals brutally killing themselves for no conceivable reason. That seems legit. 

2. Winchester Mystery House

Thanks Google Maps. Now I don't have to go there myself.

In San Jose there is this house. It is a gigantic, sprawling 160-room complex designed like a maze, with mile-long hallways, secret passages, dead ends, doors opening to blank walls and staircases leading to the ceiling.

It's the work of Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune. In the late 19th century, deeply saddened over the death of her husband and daughter, she visited a Boston medium who told her she was haunted by the spirits of all the victims of Winchester rifles. She needed to make peace with them by... always be building a house. As in, never stop building a house, or else she will die. What a nice thing to say to someone who has just lost her family. There is no way this could end with Sarah building a real life version of the Addams Family household.

Yup. That totally opens from the inside and you could totally walk right out of it to your death.

In 1884, Winchester started construction of her new San Jose mansion, which has gone on non-stop for 38 years right until her death. Despite modern contractors taking about that much time to put in the wooden paneling in your kitchen, the Winchester mansion eventually grew so big you could, in all seriousness, get lost in it. And getting lost was the idea, the crazy twists and turns and dead ends were intended to confuse the ghosts. Sarah was kind of a jerk like that.

But pissing off vengeful spirits was just one of the many architectural choices for the mansion. The entire Winchester Mystery House was decorated with a constant spiderweb motif - which Sarah believed had some spiritual meaning - and everything from the hooks on the walls to candle holders has been arranged around the number 13, supposedly for good luck. Yeah... for someone trying to free herself from ghosts, Winchester did everything but sacrifice a baby goat to Satan to assure her house will be haunted.

1. Aokigahara Forest, Japan 

Aokigahara is a forest at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan that makes The Blair Witch Project forest look like Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood. It probably has something to do with all the dead bodies scattered around.

What Niagara Falls is to weddings, Aokigahara is to suicide. How many suicides does it takes for a place to get that reputation? A dozen? Fifty? What if I told you that there could be anywhere from 50-100 suicides per year here? Yes. I said PER YEAR. And the suicides have been taking place for hundreds of years, but it has only been in the last 75 that the rate has increased from around 30 per year to the now almost 100 per year. Do I have your attention now? So, why all the suicides? Well, no one is really sure. Some people think that it's because of the high standards the Japanese set for themselves, others believe that the forest itself pulls people mindlessly in. Whatever the reason, it is definitely my number one creepiest place on Earth. And just so you know, I'm sparing you the most graphic pictures... because even as a horror fan, they gross me out. You can Google those on your own time.

The "Sea of Trees" is one of the most dense forests in the world, which is weird all in itself because this forest has grown right on top of the solidified magma of the last Fuji eruption around 1707. With those two things combined, Aokigahara is a dangerous place to trek because of the uneven ground and underground caves, and with the roots of the trees covering them, you never know where you're stepping. Yet, there are hiking trails - which you would be smart to stick to, and only during the day.

Annually, local law enforcement and volunteers - hundreds of them - go out into the forest to retrieve bodies, and never once returning without at least one. Most often, people hang themselves, but bodies have been recovered from other means of suicide as well, namely overdoses. Because of the forest being so dense, bodies can remain unfound for years, and the local authorities have stated that there are possibly hundreds of undiscovered bodies at any given time, no telling how long they have been there. Something else kind of creepy - around 30 % of the bodies are found with this book close by.

The Complete Manual of Suicide.

Some say that it wasn't until after the publishing of this book - inside it states the Aokigahara is the "perfect place to die" - that the suicides started, but that myth has been debunked since the earliest suicides have been recorded dating back to the 1700's. In those days, which were of drought and famine, the strongest of the family would carry the weakest (usually the elders) out into the forest and leave them do die - or the weak would do it themselves for the sake of the family- sacrificing them to the Forest Demon in order for him to let them survive another year. At least there was reasoning back then, even it if was a horrible and creepy one.

Besides bodies and homemade nooses, the area is littered with signs displaying such uplifting messages like "Life is a precious thing! Please reconsider!" or "Think of your family!"

By the way, if an entire dark forest full of hanged corpses wasn't bad enough, a few years ago some people noticed that a lot of the dead in Aokigahara probably had cash or jewelry on them. Thus began the proud Japanese tradition of Aokigahara Scavenging where people are running around the Death Forest, looking for dead guys to loot. Also, you may be asking yourself what they do with all the bodies they find. Well, they have a couple buildings they take them to... and just kind of stack them on top of each other. Even the police are creeped out by it, and having to have at least one night guard to sit INSIDE the building with them, the police play rock - paper - scissors to see who has to do it. We all know the Japanese love their ghostly tales, and it's said that if no one sits with the bodies at night, they will get up and start walking around, oh yeah, and screaming uncontrollably until someone living - who apparently has balls of steel - becomes their nightly companion. They believe that this will happen until they get a proper burial, but there are so many bodies, and some are so badly decomposed that it's hard to identify them, so they remain in the buiding until they are identified... or they decided to have a mass burial?

I think I'm going to leave you with a little creepy math.

Japan's population is about 127,817,277. (This is all of Japan.) 26 people in every 100,000 commit suicide per year. That's roughly 32,000 suicides per year, around 100 of which (confirmed) take place at Aokigahara. Compare that to it's murder rate - 1 person per every 100,000. 

And if for some reason you feel the need to continue to get your creep on with the suicide magnet places of Earth - here you go.

Top 10 Creepiest Places on Earth: Part 1

With Halloween right around the corner, and me having been super sick lately - and because of that, I probably won't be able to get out to any parties this year - I have decided to do a couple top 10s for you. I'm starting with the top 10 creepiest places (in my opinion) on Earth.

10. The Sedlec Ossuary - The Church of Bones

The Sedlec Ossuary is a small Roman Catholic chapel, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic. The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people, whose bones have in many cases been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel. The ossuary is among the most visited tourist attractions of the Czech Republic, attracting over 200,000 visitors yearly.

Four enormous bell-shaped mounds occupy the corners of the chapel. An enormous chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body, hangs from the center of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vault. Other works include piers and monstrances flanking the altar, a large Schwarzenberg coat of arms, and the signature of Rint, also executed in bone, on the wall near the entrance.

Chandelier full of bones?! It's probably totally fine...

This macabre style of interior design was the work of Czech woodcarver Frantisek Rint who, for some reason, was hired to organize the church's extensive skeleton collection.

I realize this is the Czech Republic and all, but it has been, like, 30 years. Surely Poltergeist was released out there already. Like, maybe last year or something? Why are they still playing with human bones as if they were Satan's Lego blocks and making them sit through Mass every single day for almost 140 years now? On the Tempting Fate scale, the only thing worse would be to start using some of the skulls as ceremonial mugs or chamber pots.

At this point, does it really surprise anyone that the church became the inspiration for Dr. Satan's lair in the Rob Zombie movie House of 1000 Corpses?

9. San Zhi Resort

What do you get when you cross a series of abandoned, rusting, futuristic UFO-shaped buildings with a series of mysterious deaths covered up by the government? How about the ghost town-slash-tourist resort of San Zhi, located just outside Taipei.

The exclusive San Zhi resort in Taiwan was supposed to be the destination for bored, rich folk who always wondered what it would be like to live inside an over-sized hockey puck. Construction of Pod City started around the 80's but was quickly shut down after a series of mysterious on-site fatal accidents. There is actually very little official information on San Zhi. We can't even confirm how many people died there or if they screamed something about eyeless children eating their souls. The whole thing is shrouded in secrecy.

Currently, most of the information on the complex comes from the locals who - what a surprise - refuse to go near the damn thing. And thus the abandoned 90 pods just stand there, waiting for anyone foolish enough to wander in.

Come on dude, this place looks totally legit.

Wait a second... abandoned resort town in the middle of nowhere, mysterious deaths, lack of any official information... where have we seen this before? OH -

How about our nightmares?

And speaking of Silent Hill...


8. Prypiat

A whole lot of you just got deja vu looking at the above picture. Specifically, those of you who have played Call of Duty 4, as there is an entire level that takes place there. If you thought the idea of a completely silent, abandoned, radioactive city was typical video game apocalyptic fantasy, you were wrong.

Prypiat is in the northern Ukraine and once housed the workers and scientists of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant. Founded in the 70's, it held as many as 50,000 people. Then in 1986 - the year of my birth, according to a footnote in the official Soviet records, there was a small malfunction in the Chernobyl reactor, so for safety reasons the city was evacuated.

Since then, Prypiat has been desolated, its buildings decaying, the giant Ferris Wheel just standing there all alone with nobody to ride it. The city actually had an entire amusement park for the families of the Chernobyl employees. Because when you are living next to a nuclear reactor which was outdated even by 1986 Soviet standards, the only thing on your mind is bumper cars.

The city is located in what is known as the Zone of Alienation, the 30-kilometer radius directly affected by the Chernobyl "minor technical difficulty" over 20 years ago. Despite that, Prypiat is now opened to the public because the radiation levels have apparently went down significantly over the years. We guess we have a different view on radiation than the government of Ukraine. They obviously have a scale for it, while we consider any radiation a very bad thing.

Aside from the inherent risk of getting bit by a radioactive slug and becoming the lamest superhero ever, there is another reason why you will never see us among the tourists occasionally visiting Prypiat.

The freaking nursery. We told you this was a place built for families and wouldn't you know it, they have a nursery, which according to certain claims is currently paved with baby shoes and abandoned dolls. I don't do dolls. At All. Or abandoned things too well. So, Prypiat is basically an abandoned radioactive ghost Soviet baby amusement park.

And - of course - you've probably all seen the horrible movie The Chernobyl Diaries based on the town by now. (Spoiler Alert!)

I can say that I understand why they went with radioactive deformed murderous people... but maybe I was just hoping for zombies, possibly made by radioactivity. I don't know... I feel like I'm ALWAYS hoping for zombies. Just me?

7. Kings Park Psychiatric Center

Yes, it's hard to do one of these articles without putting one or two closed asylums on the list -- hell, you can't find an abandoned mental hospital that doesn't look like its halls echo with the howls of the damned. So I've taken the time and liberty to find the creepiest of the creepy for you.

That brings us to Long Island, New York, where you'll find the closest thing we have to a real life version of Arkham Asylum. The abandoned Kings Park Psychiatric Center - or, as they called it, the Lunatic Farm - is just the kind of place where you could imagine deranged clowns and animal-theme villains roaming the halls. It almost has a Season two American Horror Story feel... but without the aliens. That was just stupid.

Least necessary sign ever.

The idea behind the first version of the site in 1885 was rather noble. Instead of the nightmarish Tim Burton wet dream that it became, the Suffolk County facility was supposed to provide a rural breath of fresh air where patients could go relatively unconfined.

Even now, it gives off that "unrestrained lunatics" aura.

There was just one problem: As the Big Apple chewed on its residents' sanity, the asylum just kept filling with patients, and as their numbers grew, the staff's goodwill toward them faded. By 1954, Kings Park had essentially become the overcrowded madhouse prison it had been specifically created to fight against. In fact, with 9,300 patients, the 125-room building, 800-acre asylum was actually bigger than the neighboring town. Because nothing bad could ever come of keeping over 9,000 criminally insane people just one shanked prison guard away from overrunning downtown New York.

Some days, they ran out of applesauce. Bloodshed ensued.

Today, the complex stands in a state of abandon, partially reclaimed by nature, and, if you believe in ghosts, completely reclaimed by the vengeful spirits of its patients - especially the ones from its most lobotomy and electro-shock-therapy-happy era. People report sightings of ghostly sobbing maidens, sudden temperature drops, and poltergeist activity. There are even rumors of hidden torture chambers in its many underground tunnels. Who are we to argue?

Oh, did we mention that the place has its own graveyard? Well, it does. And yes, it's said to be haunted by a ghost that chases trespassers away.

Hundreds of bodies, but the gravedigger laid one plaque and then fled.

Although the various terror buildings of Kings Park are technically restricted from the public, spelunkers routinely demonstrate they're easy as shit to get into. Here's how they look from the inside:

Meanwhile, the area itself serves as an unofficial extension of a nearby state park, routinely allowing unassuming weekend hikers to accidentally stumble into their worst nightmares.

6. Picher, Oklahoma

Here's one for ya, Okies - and it's right in our backyard. Today, Picher is known as the Tar Creek Superfund site and is considered uninhabitable, although a few holdouts remain. It is one of, if not the worst, industrial environmental disaster in the United States, and one of very few industrial exclusion zones on the planet. Other notable examples are Fukushima and Pripyat/Chernobyl - one of which we discussed earlier. Yes, we have a Chernobyl in our own backyard.

From 2000 to 2010, Picher’s population dropped from over 1,600 residents to twenty. The town was destroyed by the mining industry and here's why:

Picher was a huge mining town. Most of the residents worked in these mines and the mines itself is what kept the city alive. When mining, the waste, known as “chat,” was disposed of in huge mounds right on the ground, creating huge artificial hills. The chat is toxic, and the fine grains from the chat piles blow all over town, settle on everything and people breathe them in. So this was health problem number one. Not only were the people who worked down in the mines exposed, but now so was the whole town.

Second, when it rains, runoff from the chat piles gets into the local water supply, as does water from abandoned mineshafts where there are no longer any pumps to keep them from flooding, and the town water becomes hazardous to drink. So pollution of the water is health problem number two.

Lastly is the undermining of the town. The lead and zinc mined in this area was gathered from huge caverns excavated underground by the miners. It was later found the mines had been excavated so close to the surface that tree roots could be seen on the roof of the caverns in some cases. But why did they undermine the town so harshly? Because Picher was one of the largest suppliers of lead for WWI and WWII, and they wanted as much as they could get out of it. Portions of Picher collapsed into massive holes which had compromised the ground. Health issue number three comes by possibly falling to your death or being sufficated by one of these sink holes. That would suck.

Here's one of Picher's sink holes caused by mining to close the the surface.

 In 2006, the Army Corps of Engineers determined 86% of Picher’s buildings were dangerously undermined and subject to collapse. Therefore, the town was evacuated. Most of the townspeople relocated, but some, who had made the place their family home for generations refused to move. I'm still not 100 percent sure how some of these people could live here without the functionality of the town itself, and then all the health problems on top of that. Who would want to stay? There were major buyouts offered to the people who remained, some tripling what their homes were worth, but they still refused to leave.

If that weren't bad enough, in 2008 an F4 tornado hit Picher and damaged 150 homes. Most of the homes were vacant from the evacuation, but like I mentioned above, some people remained. When the tornado took their homes, the insurance companies and the state itself refused to rebuild their homes because the town had already been declared unsafe to live in, they wouldn't condone people living in it. So those people who refused that triple buy out lost everything with the tornado, and most had to leave with their tail tucked between their legs. And still, some remain, but live in rubble.

Is this the church from The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 2? Yeah, I think it is...

I'm sorry, but to me, abandoned anything is creepy. There's a reason it's abandoned, ya know! Just don't mess with it!

Also, here's a short video from CNN - and the town was featured on Life After People as well. You can find that on Netflix.