CREEPYPASTAS: JEFF THE KILLER

A creepypasta is a horror story created by regular people -just like you and me- with the only idea of SCARING the reader. It can be fictional as well as based on true stories...the one you are about to read was taken from real life. 

Jeff the Killer is one of the best known worldwide creepypastas and, once, one of the biggest serial murderers. This is the reason why we decided to tell his story.

His real name is Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, the story begins when he and his family move to a new home because the father had been offered a job with a good salary. 

One day, when Jeff and his brother Liu were waiting for the bus, suddenly they are surprised by three boys on skateboards (these would have been 11 years old; they were only a year younger than Jeff and Liu). 

At that time one of the guys takes Liu’s wallet. Jeff threatens them and tells the boy to return the wallet to his brother. The guy pulls a knife and just before using it, Jeff breaks his wrist and takes the knife, the other two guys tried to escape but Jeff reaches them. He attacked, leaving one stabbed in the shoulder and the other one with a big punch in the stomach that breaks him down. 

Jeff sees the bus was coming and takes his brother and run. 

The next day, Jeff gets up from his bed and goes into the kitchen where he meets his angry mother and two police officers accusing him and Liu of assaulting three boys. Jeff, having no evidence that he was defending himself, confesses he had attacked the boys and his brother had nothing to do with it. But then Liu took a knife and put it in front of the cops, showing his bruises and saying he was to blame. 

Jeff tried to help him but the policemen believed Liu’s story and took him prisoner. 

During the following days Jeff and his parents just felt sadness and loneliness. 

One morning, Jeff's mother wakes him up saying he had to go to the birthday party of the son of Jeff’s neighbors. He was depressed for his brother and refuses to go but his mother made him forget about Liu and go anyway. 

Angrily, Jeff takes the most elegant clothing he had (which consisted of black trousers, a shirt and a white hooded sweatshirt) and went with his parents to the party. When he arrived, he only saw adults talking and some kids playing cowboys. Jeff thought one of the kids was staring at him, as asking him to play. He refuses because he believes he’s too old to play childish games. But the boy kept staring and finally asked him to join the game. 

He gave in and took a toy gun and started shooting at the children. 

For the first time in many days he had fun and was happy, but that happiness did not last long because the same guys who had assaulted Jeff and Liu crashed the party to get back at Jeff with knives and guns. Jeff fought with all his might and managed to kill two of the boys but during the fight, he ended bathed in chlorine and alcohol and very hurt, and when Jeff could not fight anymore, the third boy set him on fire. 

Jeff ends in the hospital, wearing a cast and his body covered in bandages. His mother told him that there were a lot of witnesses at the party and that there was a huge possibility of Liu being released. He was happy and hoped to see his brother soon. 

During the following days, Jeff’s recovery was almost complete. When the day came to take off Jeff’s bandages, his family was very nervous and did not know how his body after catching fire. When the doctor removed the bandages, his mother started screaming with fright and his father looked at Liu, shocked and terrified. Jeff gets up and looks in the bathroom mirror. He said: 'Perfect, this face shows WHO I TRULLY AM' and starts laughing nonstop. The worried mother asked the doctor what had happened and the doctor said 'it must be the anesthetic we gave him, but if it continues that way, bring him in to run some psychological tests' 

That night the mother was out of bed after hearing strange noises coming from the bathroom. When she looked in the room, he saw his son Jeff with a smile carved from ear to ear and black eye burns. The frightened mother asks who had done that and Jeff answers 'After a while smiling, my face started to hurt, so I carved a smile to always see my own beautiful face'

Then, his mother asked about the burns in his eyes. He replied 'After watching myself for a while my eyes started to shut down so I burnt my eyelids to always see my beautiful face' 

At this point the mother runs to her room to tell her husband Jeff had gone mad and wanted to kill them and they should do something. 

Liu, after hearing the screams, wakes up but -being so tired- goes back to sleep just before closing his eyes and seeing Jeff completely covered in blood. 

Liu tried to scream but his brother covered his mouth and just before stabbing him, he says 'GO TO SLEEP'

This is a true story. Nobody ever knew what happened to Jeff…he might still be out there. 

Hans Fritzler, Micaela Cruz and Camila Monteros – 3rd Year

A HISTORY OF HORROR FILMS: PART II

1950 - 1970

Throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s British producer Hammer struck exposing high quality movies as  The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) , Dracula (1958) and The Mummy (1959). The star directors of that time were the English Terence Fisher and the American Roger Corman, who specialized in low-budget films, based on stories by the writer Edgar Allan Poe. 

The beginning of the Cold War gave place to new ways of seeing horror in cinema and films like Gojira / Godzilla ( 1954) by Ishiro Honda came to light.

In the 60s , George Andrew Romero had premiered the Night of the Living Dead, film that gave birth to another theme : that of zombies. These, like the werewolf or vampires, are part of folk tradition and the oldest folk tales. The contemporary horror, however, both in literature and film, deals with the zombies without any romanticist shade, trying to achieve in the reader or viewer -through the raw expression of his cannibal monstrosity- an effect of ancestral pure terror.

From the 70's we found two remarkable films. The Exorcist by William Friedkin (1973) is considered by many critics the scariest movie in the history of cinema; the same goes for that infamous Jaws (1975) by Steven Spielberg. 

A new topic was used in this decade: paranormal powers. This was perfectly demonstrated in Carrie (1976), based on the novel of the same title by Stephen King, who later entered the psychological terror with Dressed to Kill (1980). 

Then, the mixture of horror and science fiction literature by Lovecraft reappears with an excellent film called Alien (1979).

1980 - 1990

In the 80s, movies of "teen horror" became fashionable, addressed to that one group in particular. Friday the 13th by Sean S. Cunningham began a series of films in which the manager is a wild terrifying murderer operating in the dark. They were followed by A Nightmare on Elm Street another one signed by Wes Craven. Prom Night (1980), Terror Train (1980), Bloody Valentine (1981), Happy Birthday to Me (1981), The Slumber Party Slaughter (1982), Sleepaway Camp (1983), Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), The Day Aprils Fool (1986), Devil Doll (1988), and Clownhouse (1989) all explored the same theme.

Other notable films of the decade were The Shining (1980) by Stanley Kubrick; The body (1981) by Sidney Furie; The Thing (1982) by John Carpenter; Poltergeist by Tobe Hooper; Re-Animator (1985) by Stuart Gordon; Hellraiser (1987) by Clive Barker. The Canadian David Cronenberg hit it again with The Fly (1986, a remake of the 50s version) and Dead Ringers (1988). The film that would close a decade of the best adaptations on the work of novelist Stephen King is Pet Sematary by Mary Lambert (1989).

The 90's brought lots of horror movies, like Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994); the production of the Canadian science fiction Cube (1997), powerful and innovative in its theme; the aforementioned Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola (1992), and the great success among teenagers Wes Craven's Scream (1996) and its sequels; besides I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) parodied in Scary Movie (2000, Keenen Ivory Wayans). 

The New Zealander Peter Jackson (trilogy The Lord of the Rings) had opened with the spectacular -although parody- entitled Braindead (1992) and Bad Taste (1987) . Indian-born director M. Night Shyamalan, gave us the original The Sixth Sense (1999), which has also been compared with the chilling Others by Alejandro Amenabar.

2000's

The 2000s were a quiet time for the genre. Horror films began to be based on sales rather than on creating original stories . The extended version of The Exorcist and blockbusters like Final Destination (2000) -which includes 4 years following- sequels-, Jason X  (2001) and Freddy vs. Jason (2003) were launched. The Jeepers Creepers series also succeeded . Films like Hollow Man, The Orphan, Wrong Turn, Cabin Fever and House of 1000 Corpses helped bring the genre back to qualifications restricted in theaters. Comic book adaptations such as Blade, Constantine (2005) and the Hellboy (2004) series also became box office hits. Adaptations of video games like Doom (2005) and Silent Hill (2006) also had a moderate box office success , while the Van Helsing (2004) and Underworld series had a huge box office success .

Style web videos featuring Slender Man became popular on YouTube in the beginning of the decade. Horror has become prominent on television with The Walking Dead, American Horror Story and The Strain. Many popular horror films have had successful television series made, like Psycho spawned Bates Motel, The Silence of the Lambs spawned Hannibal; while Scream and Friday the 13th both have television series in development. 

Horror cinema has grown since its very first movie came out. Nowadays, we can find frightening films for everyone, even on television. Some people think that old scary movies were better than today´s movies. We believe that times have changed and that we can find excellent cinematographic productions even today. Here are our top movies. Enjoy!

• The Amityville Horror (1979)
• Mama (2013)
• Carrie (1976)
• Friday the 13th (1980)
• Rosemary's Baby (1968)
• The Sixth Sense (1999)
• The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
• The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)
• The Blair Witch Project (1999)
• Scream (1996)
• The Exorcist (1976)
• Psycho (1960)
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
• The Ring (2002)
• Paranormal Activity (2007)
• Insidous (2010)
• Grave Encounters (2011)

Nadia Palaziol, Iara Stendler, Ignacio Penzotti and Melina Estaras - 4th Year

DO TEENAGERS READ?

It's not strange to hear adults saying that 'the habit of reading is lost' and that 'teenagers are always using computers and mobile phones but NEVER pick up a book'. We bet you know what we are talking about, whether you are a teen or a grown up. 

But, is this really true?

To find out, we asked students in our school if they ever read. If that was the case, we asked what they read and how or where. 

Here's what we came up with.

What do teenagers read?

According to our questionnaire, most adolescents read these four genres:

Horror

Horror novels are genres of literature, which are intended to, or have the capacity to frighten, scare, or startle their readers by inducing feelings of horror and terror.

It's usually supernatural, though it can be non-supernatural. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears of a society. 

The genre of horror has ancient origins with roots in folklore and religious tradition focusing on death, the after life, evil, the demonic and the principle of ‘the thing’ embodied in the person. These were manifested in stories of beings such as witches, vampires, werewolves and ghosts.

Fan-fiction

The term fanfiction or fan fiction, often abbreviated to fanfic or fic, refers to works of fiction written by fans of a literary or dramatic work (film, novel, tv show, video game, anime...). In these stories the character, situations and environments described in the original of the author's own creation are used and new roles for these are developed. 

This kind of reading, often leads to writing: it's one of the most important sources of inspiration for teenagers to start writing their own stories. 

Romance

The romance novel or romantic novel is a literary genre. Novels of this type of genre fiction place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an 'emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending'. There are many subgenres of the romance novel including fantasy, historical, science fiction and paranormal.

According to the Romance Writers of America, the main plot of a romance novel must revolve about the two people as they develop romantic love for each other and the work to build a relationship. Both the conflict and the climax of the novel should be directly related to that core theme of developing a romantic relationship, although the novel can also contain subplots that do not specifically relate to the main characters` romantic love.

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginative content such as futuristic settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes and extraterrestrial life. It usually eschews the supernatural, and unlike the related genre of fantasy, its imaginary elements are largely plausible within the scientifically established context of the story. Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a 'literature of ideas'.

Where do teenagers read?

When people say we don't read, they may be actually wrong. Teenagers are used to reading in a very different way, far from traditional books. We might be reading in a bus, right next to you, but you think we are checking our phones or social networks. 

PDF

If you are looking for a particular book, all you have to do is Google the title up, generally followed by 'PDF'. When the results appear, you click on the site chosen and download the file. You can do this in your tablet, mobile phone, ipod and laptop -among others-. 

Wattpad

You must log in to an account in Wattpad via Internet or by downloading the application. Once done, you can follow your favourite writers to see all their publications. All novels or stories you find here are adaptations, none will be original except the stories created by users (you can also do it) and add to 'your library' what you want to read. In each text you have the option to rate and comment freely.

Facebook

This might be news for a lot of people, but you can also read books on Facebook. There are lots of FB pages that upload fanfics and stories written by several users. All you have to do is click on the album and you will find the consecutive chapters under the pictures. 

So, next time you hear someone say that 'teenagers don't read anymore', remember our words...WE STILL READ!!

Brisa Gómez and Florencia Migliavacca - 3rd Year

A HISTORY OF HORROR FILMS - PART I

Horror is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's primal fears. Inspired by literature from authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, horror films have for more than a century featured scenes that startle the viewer. The macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes; as a result they may overlap with the fantasy, supernatural, and thriller genres.

Horror films often deal with the viewer's nightmares, hidden fears, revulsions and fright of the unknown. Plots within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage, commonly of supernatural origin, into the everyday world. Prevalent elements include ghosts, aliens, vampires, werewolves, demons, gore, torture, vicious animals, evil witches, monsters, zombies, cannibals, and serial killers. Conversely, movies about the supernatural are not necessarily always horrific.

Since this is one of the most popular genres among cinemagoers, we decided to investigate about famous films from the moment of its invention to the 1950’s.

1890-1920s 

The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of the silent shorts created by the film pioneer Georges Méliès in the late 1890s, the best known being Le Manoir du Diable, which is sometimes credited as being the first horror film. Another of his horror projects was 1898's La Caverne maudite. Japan made early forays into the horror genre with Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei, both made in 1898. In 1910, Edison Studios produced the first film version of Frankenstein, which was thought lost for many years. Edison's version of Frankenstein followed the 1908 film adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the first of many film adaptations of Stevenson's 1885 novel, in a slue of other literary adaptations including the works of Poe, Dante, Shakespeare and many other authors. This trend instilled a macabre element intro these early films and made it synonymous with the horror film genre. 

The second monster to appear in a horror film: Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, who had appeared in Victor Hugo's novel, Notre-Dame de Paris (1831). Films featuring Quasimodo included Alice Guy's Esmeralda (1905), The Hunchback (1909), The Love of a Hunchback (1910) and Notre-Dame de Paris (1911). 

German Expressionist film makers, during the Weimar Republic era and slightly earlier, would significantly influence later films, not only those in the horror genre. Paul Wegener's The Golem (1920) and Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (also 1920) had a particular impact. 

The first vampire-themed movie was made during this time: F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. The Man Who Laughs (1928), based on the Victor Hugo novel of the same name, released by Universal Studios shows the influence German Expressionism had on early American horror films. 

Hollywood dramas used horror themes, including versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Monster (1925) both starring Lon Chaney, the first American horror movie star. Other films of the 1920s include Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde (1920), The Phantom Carriage (Sweden, 1920), The Lost World (1925), The Phantom Of The Opera (1925), Waxworks (Germany, 1924), and Tod Browning's (lost) London After Midnight (1927) with Chaney. Another great film from this period is, also a Browning/Chaney collaboration, The Unknown (1927). These early films were considered dark "melodramas", the word "horror" to describe the film genre would not be used until the next decade after Universal Pictures released Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931). These films were grouped in with melodramas because of their stock characters and their emotion heavy plots that focused on romance, violence, suspense, and sentimentality.

The trend of inserting an element of macabre into these pre-horror melodramas was continued into the 1920s. Directors known for putting a large amount of macabre into their films during the 1920s were Maurice Tourneur, Rex Ingram and Tod Browning; many of his works have already been mentioned above. The Magician (1926), a Rex Ingram film, provides one of the first examples of a "mad doctor" and it is said to have had a large amount of influence on James Whale's version of Frankenstein. The Unholy Three (1925) starring Lon Chaney and directed by Tod Browning is a great example of Browning's use of macabre and shows his own unique style of morbidity. Browning remade the film in 1930 as a talkie which also starred Chaney and it became the actor's only sound film.

The Terror (1928) was the first horror film with sound.

1930s–1940s

During the early period of talking pictures, the American Movie studio Universal Pictures began a successful Gothic horror film series. Tod Browning's Dracula (1931), with Bela Lugosi, was quickly followed by James Whale's Frankenstein (also 1931) and The Old Dark House (1932), both featuring Boris Karloff as monstrous mute antagonists. Some of these films blended science fiction with Gothic horror, such as Whale's The Invisible Man (1933) and, mirroring the earlier German films, featured a mad scientist. These films, while designed to thrill, also incorporated more serious elements. Frankenstein was the first in a series which lasted for many years, although Karloff only returned as the monster in Bride of Frankenstein (1935). The Mummy (1932) introduced Egyptology as a theme for the genre.

Other studios followed Universal's lead. Tod Browning made the once controversial Freaks (1932) for MGM, based on "Spurs", a short story by Tod Robbins, about a band of circus freaks. Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Paramount, 1931), was remembered for its use of color filters to create Jekyll's transformation before the camera. Michael Curtiz's Mystery of the Wax Museum (Warner Brothers, 1933), and Island of Lost Souls (Paramount, 1932) were all important horror films.

With the progression of the genre, actors were beginning to build entire careers in such films, most especially Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

Frankenstein (1931)

After Lugosi turned the part down, screen legend has it that Boris Karloff was plucked from obscurity in the studio canteen to play the Monster. Studio executives thought his character was so peripheral to the movie that they did not even invite him to the premiere, yet it is his lumbering, pathetic creation that is now synonymous with Frankenstein. James Whale, still numbered amongst the best horror directors of all time, directs with great attention to both spectacle and detail.

The Mummy (1932)

The Tutankhamen Exhibition toured the world in the 1920s and 1930s, and the concept of Egyptologists suffering the effects of an ancient curse was part of contemporary urban legend. Audiences were fascinated by the concept of 3000 year old remains, and the Ancient Egyptians' rituals that ensured immortality. The film, which may seem overly slow-moving to modern viewers, introduced the concept of the desert escape and terrible, ancient evil to movie audiences. 

The main action takes place in Cairo (or the Universal backyard’s version of that city) and revolves around a mummy who is brought to life by the accidental reading of a spell. He then hunts down the reincarnation of his lost love, only to be thwarted, and reduced to the dust from whence he came. The storytelling is slow and atmospheric, and, as with all Karloff characters, the monster is imbued with a sense of tragedy. Its influence can be seen in assorted films like The English Patient (The Mummy revolves around a similarly tragic love story) and... um... Stargate.

The reboot of the franchise in the 2000s focuses more on blockbuster action sequences, but it's interesting to note that both Clive Barker and George A. Romero were attached to the project as directors at some stage. It would have been interesting to see this property regenerated as low-budget horror rather than a multi-million dollar special effects festival.

Camila Fernández, Micaela Rolle and Belén Rivera Tola - 4th Year

URBAN LEGENDS: THE WEREWOLF

Urban legends are mythological stories that are based on stories than allegedly happened. They are based on urban characters, as the name implies.

The most famous are the Werewolf, the Whiner and the Phantom of the Opera, among others. 

Today we will focus on the scary story of the Werewolf.

The Werewolf

The legend began in the north of Europe when the XVIth century started, and expanded over the continent orally. At that time, hungers were regular and the cattle were very important. Then, the legends started to grow because wolves also attacked woman and children.

The most famous case was in 1573 when the people said that they had frequently seen a wolf-man that had caught several children without seeing them again. 

On the 9th of November a farmer rescued a girl from the jaws of a werewolf. It escaped but some people thought they recognized Griller Gainer, a peasant, in the monster’s face. Six days after the disappearance of a 10 year old boy, Gainer was arrested for being a werewolf and put in prison because he had killed and devoured children. 

Gainer was burnt alive on the 18th of January, 1574.

The Werewolf in Argentina

In our country, this monster is famous in Entre Rios, Corrientes and Misiones. 

The story says that on Tuesdays or Fridays with full moon, the seventh male son transforms into a werewolf. 

With features of a dog and man, it starts with a bad felling, for example a headache. After that, the animal looks for loneliness, stays on the ground and rolls 3 times. He gets up with red eyes and big legs and arms and it doesn’t stop until daylight.

The werewolf is popular because it was the first urban legend that appeared. It became famous because it was used by parents to scare their children and convince them to behave correctly.

Nowadays, modern children are not scared of this legend. However, the idea of using a ‘horror story’ to change their bad attitudes is as old as the werewolf itself.

Camila Monteros, Micaela Cruz, Hans Fritzler and Pablo Contreras - 3rd Year