Wikipedia

The Hook

For other uses, seeHook (disambiguation).

The Hook,orthe Hookman,[1]is anurban legendabout a killer with apirate-likehook for a handattacking a couple in a parked car.

Illustration of an unidentified man with a hook for a hand approaching a car
Illustration depicting the Hookman approaching a 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 columnDear Abbyin 1960.[2]It has since become a moralityarchetypein popular culture, and has been referenced in various horror films.

Legend

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The basic premise involves a young couple cuddling in a car with the radio playing. Suddenly, a news bulletin reports that aserial killerwith a hook has just escaped from a nearby institution.[3]For varying reasons, they decide to leave quickly. In the end, once they get back to the woman's house, the killer's hook is either found hanging from the door handle or embedded into the door itself. Different variations include a scraping sound on the car door. Some versions start the same way, but have the couple spotting the killer, warning others, and then narrowly escaping with the killer holding onto the car's roof. In another version, the woman sees a shadowy figure watching the couple from nearby. The man leaves to confront the figure, who then suddenly disappears. Thinking that his date just imagined it, the man returns to the car only to see that the woman has been brutally murdered with a hook.

In an alternate version, the couple drive through an unknown part of thecountrylate at night and stop in the middle of thewoods,because either the man has to urinate, or the car breaks down and the man leaves for help. While waiting for him to return, the woman turns on the radio and hears the report of an escapedmental patient.She is then disturbed many times by a thumping on the roof of the car. She eventually exits and sees the escaped patient sitting on the roof, banging the man's severed head on it. Another variation has the woman seeing the man's butchered body suspended upside down from a tree with his fingernails scraping against the roof. In another version of this variation, he's hanging right side up and either his blood is dripping on the roof or his feet are scraping against the roof. In other versions, the man does return to the car only to see his date brutally murdered with a hook embedded in her. Other tales have the woman leaving the car when her date doesn't come back, only to see his mutilated body (either on the car's roof, nailed on a tree, or just a few short steps away). As she starts to panic, she runs into the maniac and is also killed. In another variation of the story, the woman is discovered by police. While being escorted to safety, she is warned not to look behind her. When she does so, she sees the grisly aftermath of the man's murder.

A similar legend recounts that a young couple are heading back from a great date when their car breaks down (either from running out of fuel or a malfunction). 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.[2]

Origin

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The origins of the Hook legend are not entirely known, though, according to folklorist and historianJan Harold Brunvand,the story began to circulate some time in the 1950s in the United States.[1]According to Brunvand inThe 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.[4]Snopeswriter David Mikkelson has speculated that the legend might have roots in real-lifelovers' lanemurders, such as the 1946Texarkana Moonlight Murders.[2]

The first known publication of the story occurred on November 8, 1960, when a reader letter telling the story was reprinted inDear 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 littlenecking.The music was interrupted by an announcer who said there was an escaped convict in the area who had served time forrapeandrobbery.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][5]

Literary scholar Christopher Pittard traces the plot dynamics of the legend toVictorian literature,particularly the 1913 horror novelThe LodgerbyMarie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes.[6]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 ofpostmodernistconsumer culture."[7]

Interpretations

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Folklorists have interpreted the long history of this legend in many ways.Alan Dundes'sFreudian interpretation explains the hook as aphallicsymbol and its amputation as a symboliccastration.[8]

Swedish folkloristBengt af Klintbergdescribes 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."[9]

American folklorist Bill Ellis interpreted the maniac inThe Hookas 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 normalsex driveof teenagers, but the abnormal drive of some adults to keep them apart. "[10]

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A version of the story by authorAlvin Schwartzappears in the 1981 collection ofshorthorror storiesforchildrenScary Stories to Tell in the Dark.[11]

Infilm,the Hook legend has occasionally appeared: in the 1947 filmDick 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 incomedies;inMeatballs(1979),Bill Murray's character tells the Hook legend to campers around a campfire.[12]InShrek 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 inhorror films.[13]Its prevalence, according to film scholarMark Kermode,is most reflected in theslasher film,functioning as a moralityarchetypeon youth sexuality.[14]He Knows You're Alone(1980) opens with afilm within a filmscene in which a young couple are attacked by a killer while in a parked car.[15]The slasher filmFinal Examopens 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.[16]Campfire Tales(1997), an anthology horror film, opens with a segment retelling the Hook legend, set in the 1950s.[17]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.TheCandymanfilmsof the 1990s, as well as its 2021Nia DaCostaupdate, are centered on this legend as well.[18]Lovers Lane(1999) is a slasher film featuring a killer who murders teenagers at a lovers' lane with a hook.[19]

The story has also appeared in varioustelevision programs;"The Pest House"(1998), the fourteenth episode of season 2 of the TV seriesMillennium,opens with a murder similar to that of the urban legend. Season 1, episode 7 of the TV showSupernaturalfeatures a hookman as the villain. It is the first story in the first episode ofMostly True Stories?: Urban Legends Revealed.The Canadian animated anthology seriesFreaky Stories(1997) has a segment in its first season based on the Hook, set in 1963.[20]The story is referenced in "The Slumber Party" episode ofDesigning Women.The Hookman is used as a plot device in season 3, episode 5 ofCommunity:"Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps".

Aparodyof the Hookman is used inSpongeBob 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.[21]

The story received a resurgence in popularity on the internet following a retelling of it on4chanthat became aninternet meme,due to it being written inbroken Englishwith several humorous errors, most notably its abrupt ending where the entiretwistis 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.[22]

See also

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References

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  1. ^abBrunvand 2003,p. 49.
  2. ^abcdMikkelson, David (2 December 1998)."The Hook:An escaped killer interrupts a young couple's make-out session".snopes.com.Retrieved11 July2019.
  3. ^Brunvand 2004,p. 15.
  4. ^Brunvand 2003,pp. 49–50.
  5. ^Brunvand 2003,pp. 48–49.
  6. ^Pittard 2011,pp. 188–189.
  7. ^Pittard 2011,p. 188.
  8. ^Brunvand 2003,pp. 50–51.
  9. ^Brunvand 2001,pp. 200–201.
  10. ^Ellis 1987,pp. 31–60.
  11. ^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.Retrieved11 July2019.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.
  12. ^Koven 2007,p. 101.
  13. ^Koven 2007,pp. 112–114.
  14. ^Koven 2007,p. 113.
  15. ^Everman 2003,p. 122.
  16. ^Armstrong 2003,p. 113.
  17. ^Koven 2007,p. 192.
  18. ^Koven 2007,p. 104.
  19. ^Harper 2004,p. 123.
  20. ^de Vos, Gail (2012).What Happens Next? Contemporary Urban Legends and Popular Culture.ABC-CLIO. p. 11.
  21. ^TV Guide - The 100 Best Spongebob Squarepants episodes
  22. ^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.ISBN9781607327813.

Bibliography

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Further reading

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