The Hook, or the Hookman, is an urban legend about a killer with a pirate-like hook for a hand

The Hook, or the Hookman, is an urban legend about a 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.

The story is thought to date from at least the mid-1950s, and gained significant attention when it was reprinted in the advice column Dear Abby in 1960. It has since become a morality archetype in popular culture, and has been referenced in various horror films.

LEGEND
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
The origins of the Hook legend are not entirely known, though, according to folklorist and historian Jan Harold Brunvand, the story began to circulate some time in the 1950s in the United States. According to Brunvand in The...

LINK TO ARTICLE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hook

TAGS: The Hook, Urban legends, American legends

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