10 Horror Movies Inspired By Creepy Urban Legends
8. Spiders Can Lay Eggs In Your Face - Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark was born from the books of the same name. Penned by Alvin Schwartz, the short story collections were heavily influenced by folklore, crafted with extensive research into his chosen topics and bought to life with sinister illustrations that made for nightmarishly plausible reading.
The film takes its share of these stories to highlight, but the most scarring - both mentally and physically - comes in the form of The Red Spot. Faithful to its source, we see a young woman bitten on the face by a spider, with the resulting spot left behind actually containing hundreds of baby spiders that burst out and render her insane from shock.
The story is one that dates back decades, to the 60s in fact, in Europe, and one often brought up to scare those travelling abroad, albeit completely scientifically inaccurate (thank god). It's likely drawn from the 1842 short story by Jeremias Gotthelf, titled 'The Black Spider,' in which the a woman is kissed by the devil on the cheek and is punished for not upholding a deal by spiders popping out intermittently from the same spot, before she herself is turned into one.
There really is no nice outcome for this poor woman, is there?