The Cursed Video

Three friends were having a sleepover. They were big horror fans and wanted to rent a movie to watch that night. The get in one girl's car and drive to the nearest rental store. However, they find it closed for the night. They travel all over town, but all the rental places were closed. They eventually get near the edge of town and find one store open.

The three girls parked the car and ran inside, excited. The store looked like it was on its last leg but the posters showed it specializes in horror films. They browsed the shelves. Nothing grabbed their fancy, so they went to the counter to ask the clerk, an elderly woman, what she recommend. The clerk said she might have something that they would like in the back.

The clerk went into the back of the store, leaving the three friends alone. They then noticed a VHS video tape on the counter. There was nothing indicating the title of the movie. It looked dirty and dusty. Just as they were about to pick it up, the clerk returned and stopped them, saying that it wasn't appropriate for them. She then went back to the back of the store, saying that she had the perfect movie for them.

While the clerk was in the back, one of the friends put the unmarked movie into her purse. When the clerk returned, they rented the movie recommended by clerk and left.

Once they were back at the house, the girl pulled the tape out of her purce. She persuaded her friends to watch it. They thought, "What's the harm?" so they put it in.

The entire house went dark. It wasn't a power outage because the television was still going. At first, there was static, but an image soon started to play. It was of a woman, tied to a stake and surrounded by a mob of angry men and women. They were shouting and spitting on her. Then, they lit the thatch at her feet.

People were screaming "Burn the witch!" and "This is punishment for practicing black magic!" and more. All the while, the woman laughed manically. When the flames had reached so high that thy licked her face, the woman yelled out a curse, saying that those who witnessed her death would die in two days.

Then, the screen went black. It freaked the girls out. They drove back to the store, but there was no building there, just an empty lot. They drove back home and went to bed.

Two days later, all three girls were found dead. One was found floating in her pool, her body completely chared. The second girl was found burned in the middle of a park. The last girl was found in a furnace.

The police thought it strange that all three died on the same day. They thought it might have been spontaneous combustion, but nothing around the bodies was burned, not even a small string.

Out behind one girl's house, the police found a trash can. Everything inside had been burnt. Well, all except for an unmarked video tape, which was somehow unaffected by the flames.

Some say that this urban legend inspired the director/writer of The Ring (original Japanese movie, Ringu) for the movie the ghost uses to kill whom so ever watched it.

UPDATE: This tape can now be found in DVD and Blu-ray formats, so be careful at your local Redbox.

UPDATE 2: If you go to a video streaming platform and see a white box with no information, it might be the Cursed Video, now on Netflix and Hulu.