Born in small-town Italy in 1893, Leonarda Cianciulli had led a hard and tragic life - but her friends and neighbors in Correggio, Reggio Emilia knew her as a kindly woman and a good neighbor. Naturally, they were all shocked when she was arrested for luring three local women to their violent deaths. Axe Murder March finishes with a bang (a whack?) as we find out why Cianciulli is known as the Soap-Maker of Correggio, and explore whether her murders really were, as she claimed, motivated by huma...
Mar 28, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 167
This week, we finish our two-parter on the rise of the Norwegian black metal scene and the leaders of the pack, Mayhem, as the culture descends into edgelord-on-edgelord crime - first with a series of arsons across Norway, and eventually spinning into the inevitable end of chaos and murder. Experience such real-life characters as Varg Vikernes, black metal musician and out-and-proud white supremacist-turned murderer; Euronymous, the (still-young) godfather of the Norwegian black metal scene and ...
Mar 21, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 166
In the early 1990s, a series of crimes rocked the historically peaceful country of Norway. Churches were burned, home-grown terrorist plots were revealed, and arrests were made. Then, the murders came. This rash of crime all stemmed from one seemingly-innocuous source: Norwegian black metal bands and their fans. It seemed like these musicians were trying to out-edgelord each other, and no band pushed harder for the title of "Most Evil" than the fathers of Norwegian black metal, Mayhem, led by th...
Mar 14, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 165
The raison d'etre for our whole series on Hannibal and the Punic Wars is here this week, and that's very bad news for 50,000 Roman soldiers. After being beaten and humiliated by Hannibal for two years straight, the Romans came out swinging in 216 BC with the largest army the Republic had ever raised. Nearly 100,000 men chased the Carthaginian army to the small town of Cannae, which would become the site of the greatest military disaster in Rome's history - and one of those times and places in hi...
Feb 22, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 164
Welcome back to the dusty horrors of ancient warfare, in part 2 of our rapidly expanding series (well, to 3 episodes, anyway) on Hannibal and the Second Punic War! It's 218 BC, and Hannibal just marched a whole army across the Alps to surprise the Romans in Italy. The next move is Rome's, and they've got all the wrong ones. We step into the shoes of Roman infantry as tens of thousands of our buddies are slaughtered on the field at the Trebia and Lake Trasimene, before Fabius the Delayer steps in...
Feb 15, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 163
Sean has the podcast reins for two weeks of HANNIBAL. No, not the cannibal - the Carthaginian general who made himself the worst nightmare of the Roman legions. Take a trip with us back to the third century B.C., where new horrors wait around every corner - from children sacrificed to ancient gods, to sieged cities starving behind their walls, to armored men tumbling off high alpine peaks. Oh, and a crapload of elephants. Settle in for next week, because Hannibal is saving the worst for the Roma...
Feb 08, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 162
This week, Carrie takes us on a trip back to the 1930s Mississippi Delta with the mysterious story of Robert Johnson, American blues icon and “first ever rock star.” Johnson has long been identified with the legend that he, desperate to become an incredible guitarist, went down to the crossroads one dark night and sold his soul to the Devil for musical glory. Did Johnson really make some kind of Faustian bargain with Satan himself? If not, how did he go from no-talent blues wannabe to musical vi...
Feb 01, 2024•59 min•Ep. 161
Since at least the 16th century, the English counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex have told stories of "Black Shuck", a ghostly black dog who appears as an omen of death. But ol' Shuck isn't the only spectral hound going around portending doom in the British Isles! In this episode, Sean takes us on a tour of Black Dog stories from folklore all over England and Great Britain, and tries to get to the bottom of how the best boys got stuck with such a creepy rap. Along the way we get lost in 19th ...
Jan 25, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 160
On Christmas Eve, 1945, a mysterious fire burned the home of George and Jennie Sodder to the ground. George, Jennie, and four of their children escaped the blaze. The five remaining Sodder children, aged 5 to 14, were not so lucky. However, no remains - of any of the five Sodder children who were lost that night - were ever found. As the years went on, it became clear there was a conspiracy of silence surrounding the Sodder case in their town of Fayetteville, West Virginia. Had George Sodder pis...
Jan 19, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 159
Perhaps the most notorious carnival sideshow performer of all time, Grady Stiles Jr. is known to history as Lobster Boy. Born with severe ectrodactyly, a genetic condition that left him unable to walk and with forked, two-fingered hands, Grady followed his father into the family business playing to the crowds in traveling carnival sideshows. But as he got older, and had a family who he would also pull into the carnival circuit, a lifetime of resentment and hard drinking boiled over into violence...
Jan 11, 2024•54 min•Ep. 158
Hello Scary Squad! We apologize for not getting a new episode out this week - we both came down with pretty rough illnesses in the post-Christmas week. Sean wanted to hop on and give this little update, so you wouldn't think we'd left you in the dust of Christmas past! We hope you've had a lovely New Year, and can't wait to get back to it next week (don't worry - this isn't an extended hiatus!). See you a little further into 2024! ________________________________________ Connect with us on socia...
Jan 04, 2024•3 min
In lieu of taking a total holiday break, we've instead brought you a post-Christmas treat: an interview with local author Patrick Scalisi and illustrator Valerie Ruby-Omen regarding their recent book release Connecticut Cryptids: A Field Guide to the Weird and Wonderful Creatures of the Nutmeg State ! Pat and Val discuss what inspired them to compile the stories of Connecticut Cryptids into this extraordinary field guide, which includes tales like that of the Grench, the Black Dog of Hanging Hil...
Dec 28, 2023•1 hr 15 min
With the Christmas holiday upon us for those who celebrate, we’re indulging a spooky new tradition with the Ain’t It Scary Holiday Special! Last year, Sean and Carrie presented competing casts for the modern classic, “Ain’t It Scary? Saves Christmas.” This year, having run out of original IP during the writer’s strike, we set out to remake 1988 Christmas classic Die Hard with a cast cobbled together from some of the freakiest and most festive characters we’ve covered in the last three years. Wil...
Dec 21, 2023•59 min
This week we tiptoe around the border between worlds, in an episode dedicated to fairy photography! Taken between 1917 and 1920 by two young girls, the Cottingley Fairy photographs seem to depict tiny, dance-happy fairies (and, in one weird case, a sneaky gnome) playing with the human children. Over the decades the Cottingley Fairy pictures have fascinated many fans of the occult - most famously Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who would dedicate a surprising portion of the 1920s ...
Dec 14, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 157
More than 10,000 people (and, honorarily, one dog) have been made Catholic saints in the more than 2,000 years that the religion has existed - and in all that time, there are bound to be some crazy stories along the way. Inspired by the holiday season, reformed Catholics Carrie & Sean go through some of the wildest backstories of the saints this week, including tales of stigmata, possible fraud, religious ecstasy, incorruptible remains, holy relics, and a wide variety of absolutely brutal de...
Dec 07, 2023•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 156
Our two-part jaunt into murder, madness and 19th century elections continues (and ends) this week, as Sean finishes the heartbreaking tragic story of the death of James Garfield — followed by the slapstick comedy romp that was the trial of Charles Guiteau. Convinced he was destined to play a role in history and spurned in his several half-assed attempts to earn it, Guiteau turned his efforts toward eliminating the man most emblematic of the system that rejected him...and also waved his arms arou...
Nov 30, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 155
James Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881, just a few months into his tenure as 20th President of the United States. The man who shot him, Charles Guiteau, was a lifelong loser who had previously tried his hand at (manic) street preaching, lawyering and insurance sales - and who had made James Garfield a sworn enemy without the President ever giving him a second thought. In this first of a two-part series, we learn about the lift and times of the incredibly annoying Mr Guiteau, and introduce James...
Nov 23, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 154
Inspired by a viral video on TikTok, Carrie takes us on a journey underground this week into the spooky history and unsolved mysteries of the Paris Catacombs, the world's most famous ossuary - or final resting place - of human skeletal remains. From the hygienic horrors that forced Parisians to relocate their centuries of dead beneath the streets of the City of Lights to those who have wandered into the hundreds of miles of uncharted tunnels branching off of the ossuary and disappeared, we take ...
Nov 16, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 153
After 50 more episodes since our 100th celebration (and over 150 episodes of the show total!), it's time for another clip show — this time with favorites submitted by you, our wonderful listeners! From the Gaslight Queen herself, Lizzie Borden, to the tawdriest of Jack the Ripper suspects, we revisit some of the silliest and/or most show-encapsulating moments of our giggly & gruesome last 50 episodes! ________________________________________ Connect with us on social media: Facebook: www.fac...
Nov 09, 2023•1 hr 11 min
1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street introduced the world to Freddy Krueger, the besweatered slasher who kills teenagers in their dreams. But Wes Craven says he based his most iconic creation on a real-life horror: a plague of young men dying in their sleep, seemingly during nightmares, that hit the U.S. in the late '70s and early '80s. Where did these victims come from? How did they die? What exactly gave Craven the inspiration to create one of the most recognizable horror characters of all time? A...
Nov 02, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 152
As Ain't It Scary 's spooky season tour comes to a close, we're giving you a sneak peek of what we've been talking about all October with this episode chock full of colonial-era ghost stories! Join us for an hour of ghost ships, George Washington's sexy (?) phantom-about-town, and a big oopsie regarding some lost bones. Trick or treat, everyone! ________________________________________ Connect with us on social media: Facebook: www.facebook.com/aintitscary Twitter: @aintitscary Instagram: @ainti...
Oct 26, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 151
To mark the 150th episode of the podcast (OMG), we're going back to one of our earliest subjects! At the very start of the pod we investigated the Halloween urban legend of the stranger poisoning trick or treat candy, and how the tale actually originated in the true-life crime of Ronald Clark O'Bryan, the "Real Candy Man" who killed his son with a poisoned Pixy Stick for insurance money. This time around, we're looking into another Halloween-related urban legend: Bloody Mary. The Bloody Mary urb...
Oct 19, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 150
First published in 1897, Bram Stoker's Dracula laid the foundations for what would become horror fiction, and set up most of the vampire tropes you know on one fell swoop. Crosses and sunlight? That's a Stoker. Bat transformation? That's a Stoker. Sleeping in dirt from your homeland? You know that's our guy Bram. So what better way to cap off our bloodthirsty trilogy of vampire episodes than with a look at the inspirations for - and lasting impact of - everyone's favorite count who's a dirty dog...
Oct 10, 2023•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 149
The second week of this spooky season's vampire series stars Erzsebet AKA Elizabeth Bathory, the famed Blood Countess of Hungary! Born in 1560 to one of Hungary's wealthiest families, Elizabeth made herself even more powerful through marriage and soon was soon owner of a personal estate the size of a small country. But rumors of the Baroness's cruel tendencies and baroque tastes spread through the countryside, until she was arrested and imprisoned for the remainder of her life on dozens of charg...
Sep 28, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 148
We're more than halfway through September, and in this house that means it's basically Halloween! Sean kicks off our spooky series on vampires with a look at the man who gave his name to the most famous vampire of all: Vlad Tepes Dracula, AKA Vlad the Impaler. While the 15th century Wallachian noble wasn't an undead monster, he was certainly...bloodthirsty, to say the least. Join us this week for backstabbing, drama and gore worthy of Game of Thrones as Vlad and his dad fight for control of thei...
Sep 21, 2023•1 hr 38 min•Ep. 147
Here we are: the end of the line for the Manson Family. This week, we bring our epic series on the Manson Family Murders to an explosive conclusion with the August 9th killings of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, the retaliation murder of Shorty Shea (and possibly lawyer Ronald Hughes), the capture of the Family during a ranch raid, and the final sensational trial that made Charlie Manson, the Manson girls and "Helter Skelter" household names. We also give a bit of a "where are they now" for the Fami...
Sep 14, 2023•1 hr 13 min
And here we are. The infamous murders of August 8th, 1969, where 5 people - some famous - would meet horrific ends at the hands of the Manson Family, directed by Charlie to create "copycat murders" to lessen the heat on the real killer, Bobby Beausoleil, and hopefully spring him from jail before he could rat on Charlie to the cops. But it's not just about the deaths. It's about the lives - and this episode, we take a deep dive into the too-short lifetimes of the 5 people killed at 10050 Cielo Dr...
Sep 07, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 145
This week, the horror of Helter Skelter begins on part 4 of our Manson Family deep-dive with the lesser-known murder of the Family's first official victim, former friend Gary Hinman. We explore the circumstances leading to the powder keg-like situation the family was in, and how it all exploded into violence when Charlie decided that the money required to fund the Family's flight to Death Valley was basis enough for murder. Caught up in the Family's madness was innocent victim Gary Hinman, who w...
Aug 31, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 144
In week 3 of our Manson saga we travel with the Family to the worn-down Western movie set of Spahn Ranch, where Charlie and co set up shop and begin their descent further into shared cult madness - separated from their loved ones, fully dependent on Charlie, hungry, overworked, and addled out of their minds on constant LSD consumption. It's a potent cocktail, ready to explode in the California heat...and boy, will it ever. When The Beatles' White Album is released, the darkness at the Ranch coal...
Aug 24, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 143
"Cease to exist, just come and say you love me Give up your world, come on you can be, I'm your kind, I'm your kind, and I see..." This week, we take a tour through the epicenter of the hippie movement right at the peak of the Summer of Love, when Charlie Manson finally leaves prison and makes his way to the Haight-Asbury neighborhood of San Francisco. There, he sows the first seeds of what would become the Family cult, attracting his first followers with a blend of pop culture sermonizing and t...
Aug 17, 2023•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 142
