List of Crap #75: Top 50 Ghosts Countdown

[Tripe]

Wow I forget how long a career Alice Krige has had, must rewatch that.

Also, the overlook is spooky, especially if one is reading the novel while manning the night-desk of a hotel. Good reading choices me!

[Raven]

Number 41a

Ghost of Christmas Present (modern)

(23 points on 1of 12 lists. Top Vote #3 Raven)

The more modern Ghost of Christmas Present is a woman dressed as a pixie who delighted in beating up sleazy media mogul Frank Cross, while at the same time, showing him events of his friends, family and acquaintances in order to convince him to become a better person.

It is unclear what relation this newer ghost might have to the original ghost, except that they play similar roles in trying to convince a cruel person to become more sympathetic and empathetic towards other people.

Malevolence
6/10
Not evil, but very violent and delights in it.  Still, it is for a higher purpose… mostly.

Spookiness
2/10
She only gets an extra point because you will be afraid she will learn that the calls are coming from inside the house.

Here's a pic

[Johnny Unusual]

 

Number 38

Miss Jessel and Peter Quint

(23 points on 2 of 12 lists. Top Vote #11 Tripe)

In life, Miss Jessel and Peter Quint were employees at a Bly House in Essex.  Miss Jessel was a housekeeper, while Peter was a valet.  The two had a sexual relationship and it is believed that Peter may have molested several members of the household, including a boy named Miles.  It is recorded with certainty that Miss Jessel and Peter Quint had spent a lot of time with Miles and his little sister Flora before their passing.  The cause of death for both is vague, though some have said that Peter died in a car accident involving an icy road.

Years later a governess (who name has yet to be determined) became the guardian of the two children who were seemingly abandoned by their uncle.  Overtime, the governess sees two figures on the ground of Bly House that she does not recognize.  The governess, after hearing stories from the current housekeeper, becomes convinced that these are the ghosts of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint.  She also believes that the children are aware of this and are keeping it from her.

At one point, the governess confronts Flora about her relationship with Miss Jessel, which causes a schism between them.  Flora is taken to her uncle by the housekeeper, leaving the governess with Miles.  As they are talking, the governess sees Peter Quint’s ghost and tries to convince Miles that he is free from the ghost’s power.  However, she soon finds that he had died in her arms.

 Malevolence
8/10
The motivations of these spirits are not exactly clear, but whether by intent or accident, the ghosts had done serious damage by killing one child and almost driving another mad.

Spookiness
5/10
Though they look like normal people, they have an aura to them that gives others an unnerved reaction.

[Johnny Unusual]

Number 37

Starscream

(23 points on 2 of 12 lists. Top Vote #6 Pak Man)

In life, Starscream was a transformer (a robotic alien) and a former scientist who joined a faction of rebellious robots called the Decepticons (led by a transformer named Megatron) with gusto after the loss of his friend Skyfire. He quickly decided that the Megatron's leadership was old and outdated, and that he was the one who should be in charge. Cue nine million years of backstabbing, treachery, cowardice, coups and general disobedience, which continued when the war moved from Cybertron to Earth. In fact, it was Starscream's refusal to listen to Megatron that kept the war going, when a petty parting blast that he delivered to the Autobot's (the Decepticons’ enemy) crashed starship jostled the body of Autobots leader Optimus Prime into the path of Teletraan I's restoration beam. Starscream's scheming was a constant throughout the Earth-based conflict between the Autobots and Decepticons, and it culminated in his expulsion from the Decepticon ranks, following which he created the Combaticons to serve as his personal army, only to have them turn on him, forcing him to rejoin Megatron's ranks.

Even in death, Starscream was unstoppable. Following Megatron's climactic battle with Optimus Prime in 2005, Starscream set his commander's battered body adrift in space and promptly appointed himself the new Decepticon leader. In the midst of a grandiose coronation ceremony, however, Megatron returned, recreated as Galvatron by the power of the giant transformer Unicron, and promptly blasted Starscream to ashes. Surprisingly, Starscream's lifeforce persisted as a ghost, which continued to bedevil the Transformers, even across the gulf of time.

Sometime after his death, the ghost of Starscream confronted exiled Decepticon Octane to help take revenge on  Galvatron.  Eventually, he possesses other Decepticons in secret, still scheming against Galvatron right under his nose (or nose-like area).  Eventually he teams with a disabled Unicron in order to gain a new body, but his body is destroyed and his ghost is shot into the void.  Eventually, he ends up travelling through time to ancient Earth and tries to control the also-time lost descendants of the Decepticons, known as the Predacons by possessing one of their own, only to be blasted into space once more, vowing revenge.

Malevolence
9/10
He would probably put himself at a 10, but still, he is a solid 9.

Spookiness
2/10
He’s evil, but he’s not particularly scary.  He does have that high pitched voice, though.

[Johnny Unusual]

 

Number 36

The Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future

(24 points on 1 of 12 lists. Top Vote #2 Pak Man)

The Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future is a crazy robot who claims that he is the Ghost of Christmas Past. He first shows up in New Jersey in the house of a man named Carl Brutananadilewski (in February) and tells Carl "what Christmas was like" when Carl was eight, in which he was made to eat carpet by his father and his house was destroyed by robots and lasers (Carl remembers eating carpet, but not the robots and lasers). He then proceeds to fill Carl's pool with elf blood as an excuse to tell Carl and his neighbors Frylock, Master Shake and Meatwad about the original Santa Claus, an ape named "Sir Santa of Claws", and elves from Mars. He has a penchant for telling drawn-out stories such as this with absolutely no factual basis or consistency. He says that the only way for Carl to get rid of the blood is for Carl to have sex with the Great Red Ape in Space. Carl eventually gets rid of him by selling his house to musician Glenn Danzig, who buys the house specifically for the blood, and whom the Ghost can't stand.

He may be related to the robot Turkatron, who once claimed to be the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future but was later discovered to be a defective toy from the present. Still, the Cybernetic Ghost and Turkatron have the same voice and same penchant for telling convoluted stories. He says he has something to do with Sigourney Weaver and that he survived the "Quickening of the Dragonoids". He is a becomes a member of the failed revenge-based organization Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday...

In fact, it is later discovered that he is a robot created by a mad scientist named Dr. Weird and that the Ghost doesn't know anything about the past and future, and instead randomly strings words together.  However, despite this revelation, it is hard to claim that he is not a ghost due to his unexplained supernatural powers.

He later fell in love with an alien named Oglethorpe.

Malevolence
4/10
He’s more of an annoyance than a threat, but he is an incredibly persistent annoyance.

Spookiness
1/10
He's a robot duck skeleton.  David Lynch could sell that as terrifying but this doesn't work.

[Johnny Unusual]

Ha!  Technically, I got to fix that, but I wish I didn't

[Johnny Unusual]

 

Number 35a

Ammeline Hamstring

(visual approximation)

(25 points on 1 of 12 lists. Top Vote #1 Tripe)

Ammeline Hamstring, also known as 'Goodie' Hamstring was a witch from Lancre, the Ramtops in the Discworld. She was Mort's first "collection" as Death's apprentice. She had a grey cat.

As with all Discworld magical practitioners, she knew in advance when her death would be and again would be personally visited by Death (or had a right to be anyway) so she had time to prepare.
When Mort arrived she was an elderly lady with a hooked nose wearing a grey woolen dress. After Mort cut the line connecting her soul to her body, she realised it was no longer bound by the body's morphic field, and with much more control than most people her soul's form settled into the shape of her "inner self". Her hair unwound itself from its tight bun, changing colour and lengthening, her body straightened up. Wrinkles dwindled and vanished, and her dress turned into something green and clingy.
Rather than go on to an afterlife, she remained at her home, intending her spirit to get thinner and spread through the forest.

Malevolence
?/10
Sorry, I’ll edit the correct information in when someone tells me, but based on what I read, there’s no reason to think that she is in any way malevolent

Spookiness
5/10
Well, she is a witch.

[Johnny Unusual]

 

Number 35b

The Blair Witch

(25 points on 1 of 12 lists. Top Vote #1 Stethacantus)

The Blair Witch is a legend in Burkittsville, Maryland, commencing with a woman named Elly Kedward who, after being accused of witchcraft, was tried, found guilty, and then banished into the Black Hills Forest where the townspeople left her, hanging from a tree, to succumb to the elements. Although her precise fate was never determined, it is assumed she died from exposure. However, in 1786, Elly's spirit returned and manifested itself into the area.

In March 1886, an eight-year-old girl named Robin Weaver was out in the Black Hills Forest when she got lost and met a woman, whose feet, according to Robin, "did not touch the ground." She was initially frightened, but then she came to trust the old woman, who acted in a seemingly generous manner, and she followed the old woman deep into the wood to an old, abandoned house, which she entered. Robin followed the woman and entered the house, and followed the woman down to a basement down in the bowels of the house. The old woman said she would depart, and left promising to return. Hours passed, as Robin sat in the basement, afternoon faded into evening. Robin grew more and more frightened: she had been feeling a growing feeling of evil ever since she stepped into the basement. As she pictured herself all alone in the woods, which were becoming swamped in the darkness of the evening, Robin stood up and found a window in the basement, through which she squeezed herself and then ran through the darkening woods, and out of the woods completely, racing back to Burkittsville, to which she returned safely. A search party was organized for her before she returned home. After they noticed that the search party did not return to the village, another was organized to look for them. They found the first search party close to Coffin Creek. All of them were brutally murdered and thrown into the shape of a star. Their organs and reproductive systems in the center of the star. On their bellies, feet, and hands were carvings indicating witchcraft. The second search party ran back to the village to gather weapons. When they came back, the bodies were gone, but evidence of the murders were still there. Robin, after leaving the woods, claimed to feel an evil presence about the area.

Published in 1879, and following the hysteria which the people of Burkittsville had spread about Elly Kedward, The Blair Witch Cult, is an allegedly true story revealing all the evil acts of the Blair Witch and her despicable actions against the people of Blair, Maryland. This book is meant to be written in blood and has a faded green cover, and reveals some surprising facts about the Blair Witch, such as that she is not only confined to the Burkittsville woods - she apparently ventured into Blair itself to attack, kill and harm citizens. It also revealed other mysterious aspects about Elly Kedward; such as that the river supposedly ejaculated some remains of her victims, and many of her most mysterious acts in the documentary The Blair Witch Project, are revealed, as The Blair Witch Cult reveals "She controlled the animals of the forest: even the trees seemed to do her bidding." 

In late 1940, a hermit named Rustin Parr began abducting children from Burkittsville, having been previously ordered by the evil spirit of Elly Kedward to walk into Burkittsville and take the first group of children he found. He accomplished this by promising candy to the children. As Rustin was already being driven mad by the spirit of Elly stumbling about the woods at night and chanting foreign phrases in his sleep, this was an easy task for him to accomplish. He took the children back to his secluded house and brutally disembowelled them, just as Elly Kedward had done with the search party, with the exception of Kyle Brody. The Blair Witch commanded Parr to go to town and announce what he had done. Rustin followed out this order and he walked into town, claiming "I'm finally finished." Initially no-one knew what he meant, but the police ventured into the woods, seeking his abode, and found the seven corpses of the children in the cellar. They removed them, taking them into Burkittsville, and this revelation tore up the community. The citizens of Burkittsville proclaimed Rustin Parr guilty as charged, and desired to have him executed. Parr did not deny anything - he confessed to the last degree, informing the authorities of Burkittsville that he was merely doing what an old woman dressed in black had told him to do. Parr was convicted and later executed.

Eileen was the youngest of her siblings in one of the first families of settlers in Burkitsville, Maryland in 1824. A year after the founding of the town, at the time when the crops came in, the town held the first annual Wheat Harvest Picnic near Trappy East Creek. During the picnic, Eileen wandered off towards the water and drowned. Eleven eye-witnesses claimed to have seen a ghostly white hand reach up, out of the water and pull her down.

The creek was searched, but Eileen's body was never recovered. Several days later, the creek mysteriously became clogged with oily bundles of sticks. Rendering the water useless for thirteen days.

Malevolence
10/10
She’s mean.  Like, “make you stand in the corner” mean.

Spookiness
10/10
This is based entirely on the reactions of others.

[Johnny Unusual]

 

Number 33

The Lonesome Ghosts

(25 points on 2 of 12 lists. Top Vote #11 Malt Dismal and Stethacantus)

The Ajax Ghost Exterminators are hired by telephone to drive out four ghosts from a haunted house that has long been abandoned. Unbeknownst to them, they were hired by the ghosts themselves, who are bored because nobody has visited the house they had long been haunting (they had scared all the locals away, as one ghost puts it: "Guess we're too good!"). They wish to play tricks on the living, and do so through a series of inventive, annoying pranks.

The exterminators arrive, enter and announce themselves, but there is nobody to receive them. Mickey decides they should get to work anyway, and the three split up to hunt the ghosts individually. The exterminators are toyed with at every turn; Mickey is driven upstairs and tries to open a door, which opens in a splash of water. Donald, meanwhile, is whacked with a wooden board and is scared away by the sounds of banging chains and dishes. Goofy, in a bedroom, becomes tangled in a dresser and stabs his own rear with a pin, mistaking his blue pants for a ghost. In the end, the three exterminators accidentally become covered in molasses and flour, making them look like ghosts and consequently scaring the actual ghosts out of the house in a panic. The ghost hunters stand victorious, having driven the spirits out of the house, although not exactly certain how. Donald smugly assumes the ghosts fled in capitulation to their superior tactics.

Malevolence
5/10
They aren’t evil but they love nothing better than to pull mean pranks on the living.

Spookiness
2/10
They are actually pretty adorable.  But in the right light, those smiling faces could be creepy.

[Malt]

I love that this is number 33.

[Johnny Unusual]

 

Number 32

The Ghost of Christmas Past

(27 points on 2 of 12 lists. Top Vote #8 Malt Dismal)

The Ghost of Christmas Past was the first of the three spirits that haunted the miser, Ebenezer Scrooge in order to prompt him to repent. It showed him scenes from his past that occurred on or around Christmas, in order to demonstrate to him the necessity of changing his ways, as well as to show the reader how Scrooge came to be the person he was and his particular dislike for Christmas – most of the events which negatively affected Scrooge occurred around the Christmas holiday season.

The Ghost of Christmas Past appears to Scrooge as a white-robed, androgynous figure of indeterminate age. It had on its head a blazing light, reminiscent of a candle flame, and carried a metal cap, made in the shape of a candle extinguisher. Dickens describes the Ghost of Christmas Past only as “it”, and gives a curious description of it "being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away."

Malevolence
1/10
This one is pretty benevolent.  Plus, free trips through time.

Spookiness
1/10
It’s also pretty unspooky.  Also, you can be rid of it with a giant candle snuffer, which is rare but still makes it seem unthreatening.

[Johnny Unusual]

 

Number 31

Rowland and Paine, the Dead Boy Detectives

(28 points on 2 of 12 lists. Top Vote #6 Johnny Unusual)

Edwin Paine was murdered at his boarding school in 1916, after which he went to Hell, where he was stalked by an unseen menace through a long corridor for several decades. In December of 1990, Hell was emptied of its residents due to Lucifer’s abdication. As a result of this, the boarding school was overrun by the souls of its past teachers and pupils who have escaped Hell. Charles Rowland was the sole living student at the school during these events, as all the other students had gone home for the holidays. A few of the teachers who stayed behind were supervising him, but one by one they fell victim to various horrors. Paine aided Rowland in avoiding most of the dangers, such as a murderous gang of students. Ultimately, however, Rowland did not survive. He next appeared as a ghost and decided to forego going to the afterlife with Death in preference for prospective future adventures with Paine.

After rejecting the afterlife, the boys spent time studying the school's library books and films (mostly children's adventure fiction) in the hopes of learning how to become detectives. In their first case, they were hired by a young girl to discover what happened to the children of a small British town ("Flaxdown") who have all disappeared.  Later, they were briefly seen tracking down the magician Tim Hunter whilst he was hiding out at one of the Inns Between the Worlds, but were captured and supposedly returned to Death's domain by a coachman - although the coachman actually promised to allow them to escape as he didn't force any spirit to return to death against its will.

The boys continue to solve mysteries to this day.

Malevolence
2/10
They are good kids, basically.

Spookiness
1/10
They are pretty unthreatening and friendly.

[Johnny Unusual]

That's it for tonight everyone!  The next 10 will go up tomorrow!

[ScottotD]

Number 31

Rowland and Paine, the Dead Boy Detectives

(28 points on 2 of 12 lists. Top Vote #6 Johnny Unusual)

This looks pretty cool.

[Johnny Unusual]

Yeah, the issue of Sandman they were first introduced in was great and I love the idea of making them ghost detectives, but up till now, there hasn't been a REALLY interesting story with them in that role.  They are getting a new series though, so I'm hoping that will change.

But I love the idea that these are kids who use their undead time every kid wishes they could: playing around and solving crimes.