I remember watching Candyman at a sleepover I hosted when I was little.  My friends and I decided to test the movie’s premise by speaking the name ‘Candyman’ 5 times in the mirror in the bathroom.  (Spoiler Alert: He didn’t show.)

My aunt came over when we were in the middle of it, and being an inquisitive individual, she asked, “What the hell are you doing?!  What were you going to do if he showed up? Die?”

I guess we hadn’t thought that far ahead.

But being idgit kids, we played these games over and over and over.  And being an idgit adult, I decided to play a few tonight, just for the sense of nostalgia.  Here are my favorite deadly games from yesteryear:

Bloody Mary

Not this.

I really don’t think I need to explain this one, but just in case you’re a mole person that just escaped your hatch, you basically speak the name “Bloody Mary” three times in front of a bathroom mirror in the dark and she appears to kill you, or hurt you, or read you a scary story or something.

So I went to my bathroom, turned the lights off, and said the magic words.  She was a no-show.  But then I decided to pee while I was in there and found out I had started my period. Success?

Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board

This one probably needs very little explanation.  A group of kids surround a kid who is lying on the floor.  Each kid puts two fingers under the lucky kid on the floor and chants “light as a feather, stiff as a board” repeatedly until the kid magically floats off the floor.  Just good old-fashioned witchcraft at its finest, folks.

Well, as you can tell from the description above, you need more than a few people to do this one, but I improvised by getting my husband and dog involved.  Since my dog doesn’t have fingers, she got to be the lucky one on the floor.

And she was not having it.

We attempted to do the chanting and the lifting, but she just wiggled around until we gave up.  I mean, we were able to lift her, but it wasn’t really in the spirit of the game.

Concentrate

We’d do this one while waiting in lines in elementary school.  Two people play.  One pounds lightly on the other’s back while chanting “Concentrate. Concentrate. Concentrate on what I’m saying. People are dying. Children are crying. Concentrate. Concentrate.”  Not awkward at all.

Anyway, creepy verses follow that have corresponding hand movements for effect.  You can check out this link for the full thing.  Afterward, the kid not chanting is supposed to open her eyes and find out how she’s going to die according to whatever colored door she sees.  Makes sense, right?

My husband took a bit of convincing because, for some reason, he didn’t want to know how he was going to die.  Go figure.  He didn’t really have to worry about anything.  I couldn’t get through it.  It’s actually really weird to chant something to someone’s back, even  if that person is your spouse.

Ouija Board

Um…no.  Not touching this one.  The closest I’m getting to these is this tin of mints I bought at Spirit Halloween last year.

If you want to play around with this one again, be my guest.  But fair warning:

Do you want demons?  ‘Cause that’s how you get demons.

Well, it was fun walking down memory lane, but it really made me realize how little boundaries children have…and how dumb they can be.  Like, what were we going to do with Candyman if he showed up?