#2 To Appear Headless While Taking A Photo, Known As "Horsemaning", Was A Popular Way To Pose In The 1920's
The Old School Creepy subreddit has been around since 2014, which means that it has invited people to share disturbing vintage pictures for more than a decade now! In this time, it managed to gather a community of 81K members—all fans of the creepy and spooky.
Bored Panda was lucky enough to get in touch with its moderators, who kindly agreed to tell us more about it.
"The subreddit was created for people who enjoy the eerie feeling of old photos. Unlike modern horror, old pictures can be creepy in a more subtle way—through strange expressions, outdated fashion, or imperfections in the photo itself," told us moderator TheOddityCollector.
#4 Glazed Earthenware Rookwood Vase Featuring An Image Of A Skeleton, American, 1891
#5 Martin Laurello, The Only Man Who Could Rotate His Head A Full 180 Degrees, 1930s
Its other moderator, nicknamed Seryan_Klythe, said that what fascinates them about disturbing vintage images the most is the fact that they were taken in the time of pre-technological standards and bare-bones inventions. "The world was different and saw things differently too. The fascination is part of understanding what was creepy to someone then was simplistic and played more with their blunt fascination to take things at face value or without the use of high-sophistication gimmickry."
#7 A Boy On Krampus Shoulders During A Parade, Mitterndorf, Austria, 6th Of Dec 1949
#8 Behind The Scenes Of Max Reinhardt's 1935 Adaptation Of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
#9 Stills From The Very Druggish Children’s Show “H.r. Puffnstuff” From 1969
Indeed, when people were taking postmortem photos with their loved ones, they weren't thinking that they were doing something morbid—they were just trying to capture a simple photo they could remember them by in the future.
When postmortem photography was popular, deaths were a frequent occurrence, which meant that many people, especially children, didn't have a photo taken of them while they were alive. So their relatives would usually take one after their passing.
#11 Actor Reggie Nadler Who Played The Vampire Kurt Barlow In Salem’s Lot, With Effects Mask From The Movie
#12 A Boy Named Rich Bundy In A Family Photo With His Brother, Ted, Before That Infamous Older Brother Was Caught
Having a trinket of a deceased loved one definitely wasn't a new thing by then. People would cut locks of hair from the dead and put them into lockets and rings or create death masks from wax. However, attitudes towards them and post-mortem photography have changed as our view of death has evolved.
Our comfort with corpses decreased as the funeral industry appeared, the government removed post-mortem care from family members, and hygiene and modern medicine helped people live longer.
#14 Photographed In 1880, Myrtle Corbin Was Born A 'Dipygus', Having Two Separately Functioning Pelvises And Four Legs. She Married And Had Five Children
What fascinates moderator Oddity Collector the most about old unsettling pictures is that they are able to show us a world that’s familiar but different. "The way people dressed, the way photos were taken, and the way time has changed them all add to the mystery. Some images weren’t meant to be scary, but they feel that way now, which makes them even more interesting."
#16 A Colorized Photo Of Grigori Rasputin With The Last Empress Of Russia And Her Five Children In 1908
When asked what makes these pictures creepy in particular, moderators mention a mix of things: its focus, the subject, the color/mood, the original intent, strange expressions, and outdated medical or funeral practices. "Some photos have mistakes, like double exposures, that make them look ghostly without meaning to," said TheOddityCollector.
