Between two compelling brothers, battles versus good and evil, tons of gore, and enough drama and guest stars to rival Law & Order, Supernatural pretty much has it all. Viewers tune in for everything from the brotherly dynamic to the humor, for Castiel’s latest antics and the explanation for how the Winchesters will live to see another day.
But let’s be honest: many of us live for those monsters. Sam and Dean are excellent, and there are plenty of interesting arcs to follow, but some fans just live for that monster of the week format. Many of these monsters actually hail from urban legends, some of which are famous to the areas in which Sam and Dean visit on the show, making the lore that much more satisfying to see on screen.
Bloody Mary
If you’ve gone to a slumber party as a teenager in America, chances are that you’ve tried this gruesome ritual with your friends. Chanting “Bloody Mary” three times in a dark mirror, sometimes with a candle present, depending on the version of the urban legend you know, is supposed to summon the titular woman.
In Supernatural, not only does the monster of the legend actually exist, it will end you if you summon it as some unfortunate slumber party goers found out the hard way. Writers creatively used mirrors in both her legend and demise as Sam and Dean went on a mirror-smashing spree to take her out.
Crossroad Blues
An urban legend about American blues singer Robert Johnson speculates that the man sold his soul for the ability to sing songs like “Cross Roads Blues,” which is where the Supernatural episode with the same title gets its name. Many other legends about demons, selling souls and stealing souls exist, but this one was a pretty specific example.
The show didn’t stop there, though. It blended another urban legend in: the bad omen of the black dog, which has been used in everything from Sherlock Holmes to Harry Potter. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, since it’s an English legend.
Hook Man
From the popular children’s book Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark to Bill Murray’s Meatballs film, the hook man is one of the most famous urban legends. It often tells of a couple parked for a romantic interlude when they hear the story of an escaped convict who happens to have a hook on the radio. The scared girl hears noises on the car and wants to go home; her date, irritated, finally acquiesces, and once they reach their destination they see a hook hanging from the car door!
It has so many wonderful elements of horror to it, so it’s no wonder that Supernatural utilized the urban legend in the seventh episode of the first season. Like many urban legends, it had its own Supernatural twist with a much more gruesome scenario.
Wendigo
Miners in the second episode ever of Supernatural were plagued by the evil Wendigo, but the urban legend of this creature, which has persisted in Canada, dates back to Algonquian folklore. Native Americans considered the creature to be a mythical man-eating forest beast who plagued regions around the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Coast.
On the show, a bear was first blamed before the Winchesters stepped in to recover missing hikers. It turned out that the creature had been plaguing the area for over 20 years, so it was fortunate that the brothers were able to take it out with a flare gun.
Roadkill
One of the most gripping episodes of Supernatural dealt with a ghost who lived the same day, year after year, not knowing she was a ghost. It was incredibly scary and heartbreaking once she realized her fate, and it was also based on the urban legend of the ghostly hitchhiker.
This legend probably exists in every state. Many towns have the story of the girl who died on the way to prom or the sad teen who crashed his car in a depressed state, only to haunt the roads, often on the anniversary of their death, thumbing for rides to disappear later. While the guilt-ridden woman of this story wasn’t exactly hitchhiking, the tone of her sad tale fits with the trope.
Skin-Walkers
Remember the time Sam and Dean dealt with an entire group of dogs who lived with humans as pets, only to be revealed as skin-walkers later? These werewolf cousins were actually inspired by a legend found in Navajo culture regarding a witch who can transform into animals. It’s a nefarious creature, not a healer but one that will cause harm.
The legend has become an urban one, spreading into pop culture and media. Many collections of children’s scary stories, like J.B. Stamper’s Night Frights, contain the urban legend. The big reveal often occurs when the creature, in human form, clutches a wounded hand or foot that matches the injury dealt to the monster in animal form.
Lamia
The legend of the lamia, a screaming humanoid monster, hails from Greece, and readers of Joseph Delaney’s supernatural horror series The Last Apprentice, also known as the Wardstone Chronicles, might recall how troublesome the creatures can be.
In the show, lamia take on the seductress monster trope in order to devour their victims, as we saw in season six’s “Weekend at Bobby’s” episode. In Greek mythology, it was simply another tragic victim of Hera’s, a woman who turned into a monster after the queen of the gods destroyed her children. Both versions had a taste for flesh, although the Greek lamia was said to consume children. In Supernatural, they are just some of the many children of Eve.
Haunted Movie
The episode “Hollywood Babylon” pokes fun at the popular urban legend of the haunted movie set. It’s also a play on the haunted theater, opera house or other entertainment venue that is often plagued by the restless spirit of a cast or crew member who met an untimely demise and is stuck on location forevermore. Many movies, from The Wizard of Oz to Three Men and a Baby, have fantastic haunting stories, and no matter how often they are proven to be untrue, they still persist as beloved urban legends.
In this episode, the Winchesters discover that it’s a summoning spell attached to the script to blame for the hauntings of the studio. They go undercover as a part of the crew to handle this one.
Rawhead
While the actual term “Rawhead” isn’t used as frequently in folklore and urban legends, its cousins Bloody Bones, Tommy Rawhead and yes, the boogeyman are all much more well-known. Rawhead is an old English urban legend, a child-stealing water demon known to even occupy staircases inside homes. There’s also the movie Rawhead Rex.
During the first season of the show, Sam and Dean begin episode 12 by hunting a Rawhead, which they say must be offed by using electricity. They don’t really go into much detail about the creature’s lore other than that, leaving fans to speculate about this monster of the week. An old English rhyme explains it better:
Rawhead and Bloody Bones
Steals naught children from their homes
Takes them to his dirty den
And they are never seen again
Woman In White
It was the episode that started it all. Part “ghostly hitchhiker” urban legend, part Mexican folklore based on the “La Llorona” legend, which the show Grimm also covered, the “Woman in White” is one of the show’s most beloved monsters. Not only was she scary and a formidable creature for the brothers to take down, but her kids creeped us out, too.
As with the other urban legends that the show has covered, the story varies, often with a ghostly woman who drowned her children in order to be with her lover. In the Supernatural twist, the woman haunts the highway, taking out unsuspecting men who are unfaithful to their partners while she avoids going home to face the ghosts of her children.
