Listening 33 – Listen for specific words

An “urban legend” is a story that is often creepy or sensationalistic and which may or may not be true. These stories are retold by many people, picking up different along the way. Urban legends usually propagate by word of mouth, which is now by email and social media. They have even inspired the creation of and TV shows aiming to debunk them.

However, there are a striking number of traditional urban legends that have their in reality. One such story is about events in a horror film for real on set. A prominent example of this is The Exorcist, a film about the demonic of a 12-year-old girl, which suffered a number of mysterious problems during its filming.

Linda Blair, who the afflicted young girl in the movie, was injured as her safety harness inexplicably failed, and a large fire (one of during filming) destroyed much of the set. In addition, two of the film’s actors died prematurely shortly after filming – all this despite the director a priest to give a blessing and reassure the cast. The problems continued during the later production of the prequel, when the two both experienced the same disturbing visions!

Outside of Hollywood, perhaps one of the most gruesome urban legends is the one where you and your loved one check into a motel. You are getting in bed when you begin to notice a noxious odor coming from somewhere in the room. You check the to see if the smell is coming from the drain or toilet, and imagine that there might be a dead under the floorboards. But you’re too tired to to the motel staff, so you make do and drift off to sleep – and all the while, a dead body lies decomposing beneath your mattress.

This is a horrible notion, and even is the fact that it has actually happened on multiple occasions in the U.S. in a number of different cities! One of the “corpse under the bed” incidents is from 1982, involving three men who ran a operation together. Two of them decided to kill the third, so they fed him a   containing cyanide while staying in a motel.

The poison apparently took too long to its desired effect, and the two criminals, impatient to the deed, strangled their victim and hid the body under the bed. It was found four days later – after several other guests had in the room. They had all put up with the foul smell, but no one – not even the staff – had bothered to look under the bed.

So next time you hear an urban legend, make sure to check the facts before it on – but remember, there’s a slim that it might be true!