Does anyone know of or recall ever hearing about any legends/mythological stories/spooky tales about snowmen? I’m not referring to “abominable snowmen” (i.e. bigfoot kin), but rather unnatural and mysterious snowfolk of the “Frosty the Snowman” variety. I researched this topic for several hours yesterday but all I came up with was that a mystery writer once wrote a book in the 1940s in which some crazy killer person hides a corpse inside a snowman, which isn’t what I was generally looking for (and no, that “Jack Frost” movie about the killer snowman isn’t what I had in mind either).
Perhaps this is an unusual place for such a discussion, but with the many literary-minded folks who frequent this forum I was hoping someone may have at some time been exposed to such myths/legends/stories, which surely must be floating around somewhere.
Basically I’m just looking for inspiration as I try to brainstorm some ideas for a story about some sort of (at this point) rather stereotypical “ancient evil/twisted cult/supernatural powers” story in which snowmen will play a prominent part that could plausibly form the basis of an IF project. I’m envisioning a scenario in which the protagonist crashes his/her car during a blizzard on a desolate country road, and while trying to find somewhere to get warm comes across a remote motel where some great drama has evidently occurred. The rooms and surrounding creepy woods are full of murder and suicide victims, and next to each corpse someone has built a small snowman. A nearby trail leads to an old shack in the woods where a haggard witch-type lady recently lived, and next to a well in her yard is a large snowman. The protagonist will be given some reason to go down the well, leading to some caves where some epic Lovecraftian hijinks and supernatural struggles will ensue and in which snowmen will play a prominent role. I’m thinking one twist may be that the snowman idols weren’t intended for evil purposes at all, but that the protagonist must assemble some quest objects into a snowman avatar to help fight the ancient evils encountered at the end of the story.
That’s about all I’ve come up with so far, which is why I’m looking for some legends or other stories to explore for further inspiration. Has anyone ever heard of such tales? My project, if it proceeds, will likely be only for my own private use so if anyone else would like to use this general idea as well they should feel free to do so.
This may not be exactly what you’re after, but I believe Supernatural had a few episodes about effigies or statues coming alive (I believe one was a scarecrow, hearkening back to old legends of the Wicker Man persuasion). Those episodes were all centred on the idea of a very potent supernatural being (a god, generally) which would on certain holy days be able to enter a prepared and sanctified vessel. See Episode 11 in season One of Supernatural for a nice enough take on it.
True, the classical snowman isn’t that scary. But what if the Snowman familiar to us is just a benign echo of something far older and nastier, sort of like the difference between Disney and the old Brothers Grimm tales? I suspect there might be something useful there, so long as you avoid falling into the trap of 80’s B movies like The Leprechaun or The Wish.
I looked this up, and it sounds like it was an interesting program (you were referring to a British television series from the late 1970s?). I’ll read some more about it. Speaking of British horror, does anyone recall the name of an English film from the 1970s or early 1980s in which a man, his wife, and their daughter move into an old house near a wooded area and ominous supernatural events ensue? For example, the little girl would hear the voices of children calling her to come play in the woods every time she walked past the area, and I believe these spirits of the woods took her in the end. Sadly I don’t remember any of the actors in the film, but I do remember enjoying it very much and finding it profoundly spooky.
I was indeed thinking along these lines. Perhaps I’ll look through my collection of Arthur Machen stories for something that could be adapted; if you’re not familiar with this author, his work is very disturbing in a way that isn’t even attempted these days. In general I think in these contexts it’s best to leave unexplained mysteries…mostly unexplained to the audience, although as author one must of course understand what’s going on for oneself in order to form a coherent story.
I’ve always thought Leprechaun: In Space was a very entertaining film, although sadly not nearly good enough to make up for the later disgrace of Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood.
Oh. Um. Not so much. I’m talking about the American TV series from 2005 (ish). It’s quite good, though occasionally prone to a few “monster of the week” episodes, and on rewatching it I’m actually convinced it’s solid all the way through (despite the odd stinker, but you get those everywhere).
Argh… in all honestly, I’m close to a functional illiterate when it comes to horror movies.
Oops, I looked that up and it sounds like a somewhat successful program (I stopped watching television about fifteen years ago, and don’t know much about what’s happening with it these days). It does sound like an interesting program, and I’ll check out some on-line episode synopses.
In this case I was kidding, so take my word for it when I say there’s no need for anyone to ever waste any time catching up on the Leprechaun series. In fact the only good thing that ever came from that whole series of films was that it provided Warwick Davis with his vehicle to stardom–had it not been for the six “Leprechauns,” we likely would never have been given the privilege of seeing his haunting performance for the ages as the dinner-plate-throwing homicidal topside of a menacing Master/Blaster-esque duo in Skinned Deep [size=50](yet more esoteric movie references, sorry)[/size].
The only thing that comes to mind is the Calvin and Hobbes story arc where his snowmen came alive and tried to kill him. It stands out in my mind as pretty good, in how it plays with a child’s imagination and provokes a surprisingly real feel of terror. Not sure what dates it ran from, but I know it’s in the book “Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Snow Goons”:
Is it perchance The Watcher in the Woods, featuring Bette Davis very late in her career, and Lynn-Holly Johnson in what is probably the worst performance I have ever seen in a movie?
In Spenser’s “Faerie Queene”, a witch creates an imitation of her son’s wife out of snow and brings it to life. I don’t know the story beyond that, though.
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I haven’t worked much more on this idea as I’ve been busy with another project, but it’s still floating around in the back of my mind for me to come back to someday.
@linger
Anything with a title like “Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Snow Goons” is worth checking out just on general principles alone. I’ll take a look at that.
@matt w
That’s not it, but thank you for the good guess. I’m thinking the movie I was wondering about had Oliver Reed (or someone who looks like Oliver Reed), but that must be wrong because his wikipedia and imdb entries don’t mention anything like the movie I was trying to recall.
@zarf
That sounds interesting. I’ll take a look at it as I’m not very familiar with that work.
Thanks for tip, kangyutai. I often hire escorts (because, like, I don’t have a girlfriend and stuff) and I’ve always yearned to theologize with them after we “take care of bidness,” but the working girls in my area don’t seem very versatile in their interests. Just the other day for example, after spending three or four minutes demonstrating the wide range of my herculean sexual prowess with a young lady from the local escort service, I told her that while playing Pac-Man I often have holy visions that the little dots are people and that Pac-Man is eating their souls as he whooshes through the mazes. I asked her what she thought these visions mean in the context of the prophecies of Ezekiel, but for some reason she quickly just counted her money and rushed out the door without even bothering to put her shoes back on.
Therefore as a kindred spirit who values both theological discussion and escort services as much as I do, I respect your opinion a lot. Your recommendation that New York call girls really satisfy means a lot to me, and I am now planning to move to New York as soon as my parole ends in order to spend some quality time with these fine ho’s.
That’s one of the best responses to spam I’ve seen.
As for this evil snowman stuff, I haven’t heard any stories about it. But I do remember being afraid of the song Frosty the Snowman as a kid. I remember thinking, “Who says that the magic in the old silk hat they found was good magic? What if it was a trick? And he ran away from the traffic cop!”
This probably stems from the fact that as a kid, I thought that the abominable snowman was made completely of snow. “What’s abominable?” I asked my parents. “Bad,” they said. :mrgreen:
Thanks, Hoais. I’m glad at least one other person around here has a sense of humor.
[i](–To save time, I’ll go ahead and make the Anticipated Official Community response right now:
We’ll be glad to gleefully giggle like a gaggle of little girls as soon as you post something that’s actually funny, Endosphere.–)[/i]
I’m not actively working on the snowman story right now, but I’d like to come back to it in the future. I’m usually a fairly effective researcher, and was therefore very surprised that I couldn’t turn up any lore, fiction, or other accounts of even slightly menacing snowfolk (horror-parody like the Jack Frost movies don’t really count). Surely if there are people who are afraid of clowns, there must be people who are afraid of snowmen and have presented their fears to others in writing, art, film, etc–or at least publicly discussed the matter on the Art Bell/Coast-to-Coast radio program.
I think it’s difficult to place snowfolk in a sinister context due their generally innocent modern associations with things like childhood fun and Frosty, so your reflexive suspicion of Frosty was an interesting observation. I can see your logic–surely any creature with its face permanently disfigured into a broad artificial grin (Frosty the Snowman, Barney the dinosaur, Nancy Pelosi the hag) is up to no good.
That abominable snowman thing was always confusing for me too. If he’s part of the Bigfoot clan, why not just call him Bigfoot? And it’s not like the abominable snowman generally prefers snow, either. He lives high up in the mountains, which are only coincidentally snowy due to their altitude. Wouldn’t it be better to call him the abominable mountain man, to distinguish him from his forest-dwelling cousins? Another thing to consider is–what if there’s only one Bigfoot dude? Maybe because of all that heavy fur rural Arkansas gets too hot for him in the summertime, so he migrates to a snowy mountain top for six months out of the year to cool off. Therefore referring to him by a different name during that time only serves to foment unnecessary hysteria about humanity being overrun by these monstrous creatures, by making the Bigfoot population appear much larger than it actually is. This convention of calling Bigfoot “the abominable snowman” may actually be part of a larger Bigfoot propoganda campaign, an attempt by the hairy one to use psychological warfare to intimidate humanity.
For the benefit of posterity let the record show that in the elapsed time between my posts to this thread dated 2 April 2010 and 27 June 2010, an alleged peddler of alleged shady dealings calling himself “kangyutai” posted an alleged advertisement for an alleged escort service (allegedly based in New York) that was interlaced (in a rather vapid yet slightly endearing manner) with a brief alleged sermon allegedly expounding some obscure theological principles of the Christian religion. My post of 27 June 2010 was offered as facetious response to said message. On or about 1 July 2010 the original message under consideration was deleted by the forum staff (likely a shrewd decision under the circumstances).
In reality although I may at various times have maintained an intimate personal relationship with a woman who may or may not have formerly been employed by an alleged escort service, any such former association as may or may not have existed on her part occurred prior to our initial time of acquaintance; moreover to my knowledge I have never actively retained the services of any firm engaged in any enterprise even tangentially related to escort services. Furthermore I presently have no intention of moving to (or even visiting) the state of New York under any forseeable circumstances. Finally, I am not currently subject to any term of parole or other court-ordered supervision of my activities.
Much more importantly, in regard to any alleged notion that I occassionally entertained ominous metaphysical musings while playing Pac-Man I would like to categorically state that I presently have no recollection of any such contemplations; nor, on the advice of counsel, would I be disposed to discuss any such ominous metaphysical contemplations of Pac-Man if they had in fact occurred.
And now back to the discussion of evil snowfolk: I had an interesting new thought about this concept. What if, amidst the depths of World War II, Adolf Hitler had authorized research into a top-secret super soldier program involving the animation of snowy creatures who would subsequently be trained in the martial arts by operatives from his Japanese allies? These Nazi Snowman Ninjas could be accidently rediscovered by ill-fated partying teenagers and accidently set free after spending decades hidden in snow-cone machines at an abandoned mountain-top skiing resort, after which the snowfolk would naturally seek to wreak havoc upon an unsuspecting world. I think there could be a story in there, perhaps a sequel to the snowfolk idea I originally presented (once Marketing steps in on the sequel project, any artistic credibility the original may have had will of course be obliterated in the quest to cash in on all residual evil snowman hype, so I may as well plan ahead).
I got your sinister snowman right here. (Sound, really quite squicky cartoon violence, complete incomprehensibility to anyone who hasn’t already been following for the past 413 days, though the next page will at least tell you which one is Snowman.)
Ooh, that’s pretty . After looking at the flash short I played the first twenty or so moves of “Homestuck.” While it does have its rustic charms, I don’t think I’ll give up Zak McKracken (or even Jessica Plunkenstein and the Dusseldorf Conspiracy–which at least had yodelling and llamas) for it. Any chance you could very grossly summarize how the stir-crazy armless boy got out of his room and got mixed up with the weird gang of billiard-ball fetishists present in the groovy clip you linked to here?
Sorry though, it doesn’t really count as substantially snowman-related (but at least you’re trying).
If there are any movie producers reading this thread, I am now seriously thinking we can make this Nazi Snowman Ninja thing work as next year’s summer blockbuster. Imagine the universal appeal of:
[size=150]Twelve Hot Women[/size] versus the [size=150]Nazi Snowman Ninjas[/size]
I’m thinking we could give it a retro style, sort of like the early episodes of the old Lynda Carter Wonder Woman television program–but with a smokin’ original soundtrack by Lady Gaga. It’s like a license to print money.
Well, it starts off a little slow (as a matter of pacing) before it explodes into pure awesome insanity. You didn’t get to the music yet, did you?
Well, not in any way that makes sense. I think the shortest version is that the fellow who winds up with the cigarette holder in his eye is an alternate-universe version of the main villain of the story, created when a bunch of suspiciously humanoid aliens played their own session of the video game that John is eagerly awaiting, though perhaps I should also point out that the sexy number 8 lady was supposed to be the main villain but some of John’s friends got hold of a hack (mod? I’m not really a gamer) that bugged things up a little, and also that the billiard-ball folk all seem to be the products of a time-traveling demon that was summoned up by a particularly tricky code, which was only supposed to run on the end of the universe, except it didn’t matter because, you know, time travel. Which is odd, because the billiard-ball folk seem like relatively nice people, except for the one who goes around sticking cigarette holders in people’s eyes.
Ah, of course–the old time-travelling demon ploy . I didn’t play far enough for any soundtrack to start (I stopped right before fiddling with the instant messenger program for the third time), but I may go back to Homestuck based on the synopsis you gave. At the very minimum it can’t be any worse than Davy Jones C’est Mort (note: unless you’re planning to play all the games on that page, don’t bother with this on its own); I find that having generally low expectations of everything means I seldom have to experience disappointment.
So the boy’s name has to be “John”? That’s pretty funny in itself–I thought there was a problem when I couldn’t type a name for him. It’s reminiscent of the scene/fact/fiction/whatever (they’re all the same thing) from that movie Man in the Moon where the comedian guy whose name I can’t recall wanted to disrupt the vertical stabilization signal of his tv special, because it would be funny for millions of viewers to simultaneously get up and try to adjust their televisions in the mistaken belief that something was wrong with their equipment. I appreciate that kind of fly-in-the-ointment humor, but not everyone does. I remember having a conversation with someone about that particular movie wherein I was trying to explain why the lounge-singer character was funny, but their reaction was very similar to that of the tv executives in the film when the comedian dude was explaining why disrupting the television signal would be funny. Mr. Diderot was mistaken when he (apocryphally) mused:
as any such drama at high noon would just be a warm-up for a struggle against the bureaucrats–the sort of person whom (apocryphally) Oscar Wilde may have generally had in mind when he stated:
An important thing that I forgot to tell you is that this is mostly a webcomic pretending to be a game, rather than a game. Some of the pages have interactive Flash thingies, but pretty much you click the links to go forward.
(In previous MS Paint Adventures the commands came from reader suggestions, to some extent, and I think that was going on a little at the beginning of Homestuck, but by now the reader-author loop has become more complicated in a way that I don’t understand, although it definitely involves the forums. One thing the author mentioned is that there are so many readers now that someone is bound to suggest the thing he was going to do anyway. “John Egbert” and other similar things were reader suggestions, though.)
“Jack Frost” movie about the killer snowman isn’t what I had in mind either).
. After looking at the flash short I played the first twenty or so moves of “Homestuck.” While it does have its rustic charms, I don’t think I’ll give up 
. I didn’t play far enough for any soundtrack to start (I stopped right before fiddling with the instant messenger program for the third time), but I may go back to