Thursday, June 2, 2011

The Screaming Tunnel

I was watching The Dead Zone, the Cronenberg movie, and I saw the scene where Christopher Walken's character, Johnny Smith, decides to start helping the sheriff with the murders in Castle Rock. They go through a tunnel where someone was murdered, and I found the tunnel to be extremely visually striking. I googled "tunnel from the Dead Zone" only to find out that it is a landmark in Niagara Falls, Ontario, known as "The Screaming Tunnel". Here is the legend, taken from the Niagara Falls Public Library website:

 "The haunting of the Screaming Tunnel is one of Niagara Falls’ most enduring legends. Located off Warner Road, the tunnel runs under the railway tracks that link Niagara Falls to Toronto and New York City. The tunnel is made of rough-cut stone and measures 16 feet high by 125 long. Around 1982, Canadian movie director David Cronenberg chose the tunnel as the setting for a brutal murder scene in his horror movie The Dead Zone. According to local legend, over a century ago, a farm house located just past the south entrance to the tunnel caught fire one night. A young girl, her clothes engulfed in flames, fled screaming from the house. She ran through the tunnel in an attempt to extinguish her garments but collapsed and died on the tunnel floor. A variation of this story has the girl set ablaze in the tunnel by her enraged father when he learned his wife had won custody of their children during an nasty divorce battle. Another version tells of a young girl who was raped inside the tunnel and her body burned to cover the evidence. All these stories allege that if you stand in the middle of the dark tunnel at midnight and light a match, the flame will go out and a girl’s screams will be heard."


Here is a picture of the tunnel, also from the library's web site:

Whoever came up with tunnels, anyway? They're too scary.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Stand

Stand in the place where you are....

Now face north....
Think about
Teddy bears and wonder why
You haven't before