Hook Man

The Hook Man or simply The Hook is an urban legend about a enigmatic killer with a pirate-like hook for a hand attacking a couple in a parked 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.

Appearance[]

he Hook killer is shrouded in mystery, but he has an appearance that makes him recognisable within the legend, he appears as an old man with a beard, and a raincoat and rain hat, much like that of a fisherman, he has a hook for one hand. His face is never seen and he is at most only seen as a silhouette.

Legend[]

Story[]

The basic premise involves a young couple cuddling in a car with the radio playing. Suddenly, a news bulletin reports that a serial killer with a hook has just escaped from a nearby institution. 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 the country late at night and stop in the middle of the woods, 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 escaped mental 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.

Origin[]

When it comes to urban legends, the story of the Hook Man is probably the most well known. To paraphrase the story. A young couple are making out at a lover's lane, which is a secluded spot where people park for intimate encounters. They turn on the radio and hear a report about an escaped killer from a local mental institution. This killer uses a hook to murder his victims, which replaces one of his missing hands. The girl feels uneasy and asks to go home. The boy instead wants to stay and continue their frisky behavior. Finally, the girl demands to leave for their own safety, to which the boy angrily agrees. He suddenly speeds away from the lover's lane. Upon arriving at the girl's home to drop her off, they discover a bloody hook hanging from one of the car's door handles. Multiple variations of this tale have been told around campfires and at Halloween parties for decades. Yet, I got to thinking. Where did this urban legend actually come from? Is it based on an actual event? Turns out, the Hook Man is real... sort of.

The tale has circulated since at least the mid 1950's. Since then, the story has grown and been drastically inflated to make it seem extra frightening. In reality, there have indeed been many incidents where couples making out at lover's lanes were murdered. The first series of widely reported lover's lane murders are the Texarkana Moonlight Murders. They took place during the late winter and early spring of 1946 in Texarkana, a moderate size city which rests on the border between Texas and Arkansas. Throughout the ordeal, a total of eight people were attacked by a murderer referred to by the media as the Phantom Killer. Of the eight, five were murdered by the Phantom. The killer has never been identified and probably passed away without anyone knowing what he or she did. The Texarkana Moonlight Murders drew national attention at the time. Nearly every newspaper and radio news service in the United States spread the details about the murders. The killer had a clear modus operandi. They would only attack very late at night on lover's lanes or in secluded make-out spots, typically three weeks apart. A .32 pistol was used in all but one of the murders.

In the decade after the Moonlight Murders, the Hook Man story started to crop up. Most literary and social experts credit the Hook Man as a cautionary tale initiated by parents whom wanted to encourage their children to abstain from sexual activity. Essentially, if adults could scare their kids into believing a story about a violent serial killer attacking people on lover's lane, they'd avoid such a scenario. As the story entered the public consciousness, teenagers then told it to each other and expanded upon the narrative -- the legend of the Hook Man was born! The urban legend would grow and evolve from one group of people to the next, much like a spreading virus. As the years progressed, other similar murders helped stoke the proverbial fire. Examples include the unsolved 1990 Houston Lover's Lane murders and the notorious Zodiac Killer.

Trivia[]

The Hook Man urban legend still lives to this day.
The Hook Man is an inspiration for Benjamin Willis in "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and is considered one of the most famous urban legends of all time.
The Hook Man is also the primary inspiration of Hash-Slinging Slasher in SpongeBob SquarePants, a fictional vengeful spirit that Squidward told in a story to freak SpongeBob out. Interestingly, both of them replaced their hands with sharp object. However, the difference Hash-Slinging Slasher replaced his hand with spatula.