12 Terrifying Ghost Stories From Around The World
4. The Oil-Covered Malaysian Monsters (That Are Still At Large!)
The Orang Minyak are a weird one, and considering we've already done Botan Dr, that's saying a lot. Literally meaning "oily man" in Malay, this legend was passed down through generations and popularised in the 1956 film Sumpah Orang Minyak (The Curse of the Oily Man). In it, the orang minyak was a mortal man cursed to walk the Earth until he could win back his lost love, and was helped along the way by the Devil. But only if the orang minyak worshipped him and raped 21 virgins within a week.
Those are the sorts of deals the Devil makes, we guess. Which is creepy enough, but in the sixties people starting spreading stories of these violent spirits stalking the area around several Malaysian towns, causing a mass panic has also led to unmarried women, typically in student dormitories, borrowing men's clothes to give the impression to the orang minyak that they weren't virgins. A bit like Cherry Falls, only terrifying and at least semi-real.
Because sightings of the Orang Minyak didn't stop then, and in fact have become even more common in the 21st century. In 2005, multiple cases were reported of sexual predators covered in oil roaming around, armed with knives, and in 2012 residents of a village in Gombak claim to have been plagued by one such spirit.
So the creature may have some basis in reality, which - even if he's not actually a ghost - is still totally bone-chilling.