horror

UNION J singer Jaymi Hensley has paid tribute to his beloved fiancé Olly who tragically died last year – marking their anniversary.

Former X Factor star Jaymi Hensley, 35, who rose to fame as a member of boyband Union J, marked the sad occasion with heartfelt words.

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The singer’s world was turned upside down following the death of his partner, hairstylist Olly Marmon, 33, who fell more than 30ft from their hotel suite in Northamptonshire in August 2024.

The happy couple had been in a relationship since 2009 and got engaged in 2014.

The grieving star penned a tear-jerking post on Instagram and wrote: “For 14 years this was the happiest day of my year, every year without fail!

“Our anniversary! The day you made me the man I am today by saying yes to being my boyfriend!

“To say this day, for the past two has been pretty much unbearable would be an understatement! (sic).

“Today was supposed to be our 1st wedding anniversary, our 16th anniversary together and today it just feels like the year mark from the day I laid you, my beautiful boy, to rest!

“I don’t know how I’ve survived without you! You were without a shed of doubt the best thing that has and will ever happen to me!

“The glue that held us all together. I want you to know on this day that it will always be our anniversary, I will always be yours!

“In all of our years together I only have one regret – I’m not sure many people can say they only have one in a relationship as long as ours!

“It’s that I couldn’t fulfil yours and my dream of making it down the aisle!“

He continued: “The day you officially became mine. I always laugh at me swearing at all our friends taking the p** making smooching sounds lol.

“The best day of my entire life and always will be! I love you Oliver more than anyone has ever loved another person!

“Until I’m in your arms again I will never be complete or whole, but I will for you live as much as I can!

“I’m trying not to get too upset writing this because it’s taken more of me than I thought I had this past year to even survive but I can’t help it.

“I miss you, I miss me, I miss us, our life. I miss the life we were robbed of!

“I know you were only loaned to me for 15 incredible years but I wanted and still want more!

“One thing I had never felt since the day you walked into my life was lonely, but now it me all I feel (sic).

“There are so many wonderful people around me, but I said it before, the 8 billion people on this planet couldn’t patch the hole you’ve left in my heart, even a fraction!“

He concluded: “I love you my beautiful boy! Ever thine, even mine, ever ours. 24 XXIV. Happy anniversary.”

Jaymi was one of the founding members of Union J in 2012 – formerly known as Triple J. 

The singer starred in the ninth series of The X Factor alongside contestants George Shelley, JJ Hamblett and Josh Cuthbert.

The foursome came fifth in the competition, which was eventually won by solo singer James Arthur – beating Rylan into fifth, in the same series as Ella Henderson.

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The old stage at West Hollywood’s Roxy Theatre looks as small as ever to Tim Curry. Back in 1974, the actor spent nearly a year strutting across its boards in fishnets and a snug corset as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the flamboyant, sexually ravenous mad scientist of the musical comedy “The Rocky Horror Show.”

Witnesses to that run of performances still marvel at the spectacle of Curry’s nightly entrance, as he marched from the lobby on a long catwalk, his high heels at eye level with the audience. He would then cast aside his Dracula cape to sing a personal theme song, “Sweet Transvestite.”

“It’s actually really nice to be here because it was another home for me,” says Curry, 79, looking up at the empty stage inside the Sunset Strip nightclub. “It became my stomping ground. I had to appear as though I owned it — and I kind of did.”

At the end of that same year, Curry was back home in England to shoot the feature film version, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” a rock ’n’ roll send-up of old sci-fi and horror B-movies that became both a cult classic and a vibrant symbol for sexual freedom. It is the original midnight movie and is now being feted around the world for its 50th anniversary with a second life as the longest continuous theatrical release in cinema history.

Tim Curry, center, as Frank-N-Furter in 1975’s “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

(John Jay Photo / Disney)

The role changed Curry’s career forever, and he will be part of some of those celebrations, beginning with a screening of a newly restored 4K version of the film, along with a panel Q&A, at the Academy Museum on Friday.

At the time of the film’s original release in 1975, it tapped into a cultural zeitgeist that mixed glamour and androgyny, akin to the era’s glam-rock movement led by David Bowie. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” ultimately found a cult of fans who gathered for weekly midnight screenings in costume as the movie’s outlandish characters, performing as a “shadow cast” in harmony with the film onscreen.

“It was part of the sexual revolution, really,” says Curry. “Experiment was in the air and it was palpable. I gave them permission to be who they discovered they wanted to be. I’m proud of that.”

Since a stroke in 2012, the actor has been in a wheelchair and most of his work has been in voiceover. He did appear on camera in a 2016 remake of “Rocky Horror” for television, this time as the criminologist. But it was as the lascivious, self-confident Frank-N-Furter that Curry made history.

On this afternoon, he is dressed in black, auburn hair slicked back. In the Roxy’s lobby is a portrait of Curry in character as the mad doctor in pearls. It was a role he originated in London, on the tiny stage upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, where it first became an underground sensation.

“Even for the time, there was a lot of courage that went into that performance,” remembers Jim Sharman, who directed Curry in the original stage productions in London and Los Angeles and then onscreen. “Tim himself was actually a kind of quiet intellectual offstage, but onstage he really knew how to let it rip.”

Curry, center, in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

(Disney)

With a story and songs written by actor Richard O’Brien, who also played the skeletal, sarcastic Riff-Raff, “Rocky Horror” begins with a young couple caught in a rainstorm who approach a mysterious castle in search of shelter and a phone.

Played by then-unknowns Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick, the couple find Frank-N-Furter is hosting a convention of partying aliens in formalwear from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy Transylvania.

The mad doctor is also anxious to show off his latest experiment, the creation of a perfectly formed male, a personal plaything of chiseled muscles and blond hair, as he sings “I Can Make You A Man.” The scene leaves an impression.

“He takes no prisoners — it’s his world and you just happen to live in it,” Curry says with a smile of his Frank-N-Furter. “He doesn’t leave much air in the room. And I enjoyed that because it was so not like me, really.”

Notably, the film shares a 50-year anniversary with “Jaws,” and Curry remembers someone at 20th Century Fox placing newspaper ads that year for “Rocky Horror” with the film’s glossy red lips image and words promising, “A different set of jaws.”

“Jaws,” of course, was a record-breaking summer blockbuster, but as the longest-running theatrical release of all time, “Rocky Horror” really has no competition in terms of impact. It helped establish a culture for midnight movies in open-ended rotation, from David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” to Paul Verhoeven’s “Showgirls.”

At the customary hour of midnight, the restored 4K film will be premiering across the country this weekend, with special screenings and Q&As on Oct. 4 at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and Oct. 15 at the Grammy Museum. The film will then be rereleased on Blu-ray on Oct. 7, with a reissue of the official soundtrack album on Oct. 10.

Also landing in time for the celebration is a new documentary, “Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror,” directed by Linus O’Brien, son of “Rocky Horror” author and composer Richard O’Brien. The 90-minute film explores the making of the movie, the original stage musical and the decades of fan culture that followed.

“When a work of art survives this long, it’s working on many different levels,” says the younger O’Brien, who was a toddler on the set. “You want to live in that house and have those naughty experiences. [People] will be talking about it long after we’re all dead.”

The “Rocky Horror” journey from underground theater to feature film began after Los Angeles music impresario Lou Adler saw the show during a trip to London. Known as a manager and record producer (Carole King’s “Tapestry”), Adler was shaken from his jet lag, instantly recognizing “Rocky Horror” as a potential attraction for his recently opened L.A. club, the Roxy. Within two days, Adler signed a deal to host its U.S. premiere.

At the Roxy, the show was an immediate sensation, fueled by Curry’s wildly charismatic performance. Opening night brought out a crowd that included Jack Nicholson, John Lennon and Mick Jagger. L.A. Times theater critic Dan Sullivan compared Curry to various Hollywood grande dames (Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, among them).

“It was one of the great parties of all time,” Adler recalls during a video call from his home in Malibu. “The acceptance was unbelievable.”

Talk of turning the stage musical into a movie soon followed and a deal was made with 20th Century Fox, with producers Adler and Michael White guaranteeing delivery on a modest budget of about $1 million.

“I don’t know if 20th Century Fox ever understood the film,” Sharman says with a laugh, in a video call from Australia. “They might’ve been relieved that it was going on a low budget and being made on somebody’s lunch money.”

It was the first feature film for many of them. But Adler and White insisted on keeping the stage musical’s creative team together, including Sharman, costume designer Sue Blane and production designer Brian Thomson. With Curry firmly in the lead role, most of the cast members were drawn from the London production. Joining them were American actors Sarandon, Bostwick and singer Meat Loaf.

“I adored her,” Curry says of Sarandon. “She was a witty girl and so beautiful, and a real actress, I thought. You could tell that she had something.”

He also became friends with Meat Loaf, who appeared in the small but impactful role of Eddie, bursting out of a freezer on a motorcycle long enough to sing the manic “Hot Patootie, Bless My Soul.” In 1981, Curry hosted “Saturday Night Live” and appeared with Meat Loaf in a skit that had the actors selling “Rocky Horror” memorabilia. (Curry is still irritated by that one: “Dreadful.”)

Lou Adler, photographed at the Roxy in West Hollywood in 2023.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

“When the movie was a definite thing, there were several big stars who wanted to play the part,” Curry remembers. “Mick Jagger wanted to play it and he would’ve done a great job if you saw ‘Performance.’ But [director Sharman] said he wanted me to do it. I don’t think the studio was happy that he turned down Mick.”

Though Sharman was a very experienced stage director, he had made only one previous film, a 16mm feature called “Shirley Thompson vs. the Aliens.” For “Rocky Horror,” he says he was aiming for “a dark version of ‘The Wizard of Oz.’” He was also inspired by old B-movies and German Expressionism along with lessons learned from the stage. Interior scenes were shot at the old Hammer horror films’ Bray Studios just outside London.

“The reason we don’t have great anecdotes from the shoot is we didn’t have time for anecdotes,” adds Sharman. “It was shot in five weeks.”

Bostwick, appearing in one of his first film roles, remembers, “It felt like a very low-budget but colorful, bright and inspiring musical. You knew from the moment you were around the sets and costumes and lighting and makeup and camera people that they were at the top of their game.”

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” evolved in some subtle but meaningful ways in its transition from the stage. For the live performances, Curry did his own makeup. “In the theater, I made it look a lot more amateur, deliberately, like he wasn’t good at it but was making a brave attempt and didn’t care much,” Curry says with a laugh. “In the play, it was just a lot trashier.”

For the film, French makeup artist Pierre La Roche was recruited to refine Frank-N-Furter’s exterior. La Roche had previously worked with Bowie during the Ziggy Stardust era.

“He was indeed very French,” says Curry, campily. “He was brilliant.”

An early sign of the challenges the movie would face arrived at an early screening of the completed film for Fox executives. Curry was there with Adler. “You could touch the silence at the end,” recalls Curry. “It wasn’t a very alive audience. There was really no reaction at all.”

Fox also hosted a test screening in Santa Barbara. The audience was a local mix of retirees and university students, and many of the older filmgoers began heading for the exit, until the theater was nearly empty.

But as Adler and a young Fox executive named Tim Deegan sat on the curb outside, they also met young people who were excited about the film. Adler credits Deegan for finding the “Rocky Horror” audience in an unexpected place: indie theaters at midnight.

Its second life began at the Waverly Theater in New York, where it began evolving into a happening that was both a movie and a theatrical experience. At the time, Curry happened to live within walking distance of the Waverly.

“It was a sort of guaranteed party,” he says of any potential moviegoer. “And if he didn’t bring a date, he could perhaps find one.”

On a recent weekend at the Nuart Theater in West L.A., barely five miles away from the Roxy, it’s approaching midnight and the lobby is filled with fans and volunteer shadow performers in “Rocky Horror” drag. Appearing as Frank-N-Furter is Kohlton Rippee, 32, already in his heels and makeup.

Like many here, he sees the film as both an outlet and a connection to a found family — a way “to see aspects of themselves represented in ways that they don’t see from traditional media. It’s like, ‘Oh, I can see myself in this and find this weird community to be around.’”

Bostwick first heard of the film’s second life from others and word trickled in that his every appearance onscreen was met with an affectionate callback from the crowd: “Ass—!” He didn’t see the phenomenon himself until later at the Tiffany Theater on Sunset.

“What do they say, that Disneyland is the happiest place on Earth? I’ve always thought that a Friday and Saturday night at a theater at midnight was the happiest place on Earth,” the actor says of the many raucous screenings he’s witnessed. “Everybody was just having a ball.”

After Walt Disney Co.‘s 2019 acquisition of 20th Century Fox, it turned the House of Mouse into the unlikely steward of “Rocky Horror.” Back in 1975, nothing could have been further from the Disney brand than a rock ’n’ roll musical about a cross-dressing scientist. That year, Disney released “The Apple Dumpling Gang.”

“I guess Walt is kind of revolving in his grave,” Curry jokes.

Even so, Adler says Disney has been a good partner on “Rocky Horror” and is supporting the multiple official anniversary events. “Walt was a breakthrough guy,” the producer notes. “He broke through and made a mouse a hero. So, in a way, he had his own Frank-N-Furter.”

Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza City has obliterated families, flattened homes, and stretched hospitals to breaking point. As Palestinians flee with nowhere safe to go, children are collapsing from exhaustion and rescue workers are still trying to save people from the rubble.

DINERS who were rushed to hospital after an “excruciating” meal suspect one ingredient was the cause of their torment.

After tucking into a family meal at the Dosa Kingss eaterie in Sale, Manchester, on September 6, 11 diners had to be treated by medics.

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A massive emergency response was sparked by the incident with fire crews, police and paramedics called to the chaotic scene.

Customers inside the restaurant became violently unwell after eating some of the food on offer and have now blamed one ingredient for the disastrous dinner.

The incident sparked a Greater Manchester Police investigation.

Two of the 11 diners suffered severe reactions to the food and had to be hospitalised while several others were treated inside the restaurant.

Police said a number of people were treated for “minor reactions” to the dodgy food.

One of the lines of inquiry being probed blames yams for the diners illness.

Some types of the root vegetable can contain toxins that can be harmful if undercooked.

It is believed to have been part of one of the dishes served from the restaurant’s set menu.

The exact cause of the violent reaction to the food has yet to be confirmed.

One diner, Amrita Kapadia, who was dining with her young son and her family at the restaurant, was among the customers served the food.

She said the Aviyal, which is a thick stew of mixed vegetable, contained yams.

Amrita was one of the two diners to be hospitalised after the meal made her feel like she was “chewing glass.”

She claims the food left her suffering a severe reaction with her mouth and throat burning.

She was unable to speak following the “frightening” ordeal and said it felt as though she had been “stung by bees.”

Amrita told Manchester Evening News: “The table next to us started complaining that something was stinging or spicy in their mouths.

“The restaurant folks brought them water and, while that was going on, two of us at our table of five had the same dish at the same time, which was a mixed vegetable dish called Aviyal.

“As soon as we ate it, we had this stinging sensation in our mouths. It was like chewing glass, it was excruciating. It felt like I had been stung by bees it was just so painful.

“We couldn’t taste anything and our tongues went bizarre. The sensation travelled to our gums, cheek and throats.”

Before her own situation deteriorated further, Amrita instructed her son, who thankfully avoided any serious reaction to the food, to stop eating immediately.

Diners began to call 999 and ask for paramedics to be sent as they began to lose the ability to speak and felt paralysed.

The harrowing ordeal left diners with increased heart rates, dizziness, pain and swelling.

Amrita was hospitalised for four hours after she was given two shots of adrenaline that did nothing to combat her extreme symptoms by paramedics.

She received a form from Trafford Council to complete detailing what each member of the party had consumed.

Police remained at the scene for hours after the incident as their investigation got underway.

The scale of the emergency response sparked fears of a serious gas leak which was quickly ruled out by the probe.

Dosa Kingss posted a brief statement on social media following the chaos.

It reads: “Dear valued customers, due to unforeseen circumstances, we are temporarily closed.

“We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and truly appreciate your understanding and support. We look forward to serving you again.”

A spokesperson for GMP previously stated: “At around 12.40pm today (6 September), we received a report of people becoming unwell at a restaurant on Northenden Road, Sale.

“Emergency services quickly attended and several people were treated at the scene for minor reactions. Enquiries into the incident are currently ongoing.”

French Haute-Savoie has mountains, a glacier and… melted cheese, says Alastair McNeill, who was shocked to see the state of the famed glacier that sits among the peaks

When Dr Victor Frankenstein visited Evian in the French Alps, it did not end well with his young bride dramatically killed by the monster on their wedding night. However, my recent visit to the town passed without incident.

Today’s Evian, famed for its world-renowned mineral water, exclusive resort and superb location on the southern shores of Lake Geneva, bears no resemblance to the fictional world of Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel.

The small town burst on to the world stage when its spring was discovered in the late 18th century and its apparent health-giving properties were celebrated. Since then, Evian has been a favourite haunt of the rich and famous, and played host to the G8 summit in June 2003.

OPINION

READ MORE: Baggage handler caught launching luggage like Olympic athlete

Today the luxury Evian Resort can boast a clientele that has included Liverpool FC and Germany’s 2016 football team.

Set in 47 acres of lush greenery, it comprises no less than three hotels: the four-star Ermitage and La Verniaz, and the pièce de résistance, the palatial five-star Hotel Royal. My room in Hotel Ermitage had a fantastic view over the resort and the lake where a ferry links Evian to Lausanne in Switzerland.

It was decorated with a pop of colour, its bathroom replete with L’Occitane toiletries.

Later on, the terrace restaurant La Table was a delightful spot for an alfresco dinner. I enjoyed the pea tartlet as a starter followed by wild garlic risotto accompanied by red Savoy wine and praline dessert.

Fine dining can be enjoyed in a number of resort restaurants including Michelin-starred Les Fresques. There is also an organic kitchen garden, 18-hole golf course and academy, tennis courts, spas, swimming pools – including an infinity pool – and free kids’ club (from babies up to teenagers).

A remarkable feature of the estate is the theatre. La Grange au Lac, within a forest, constructed entirely from wood in the style of a Russian Dacha which hosts a range of cultural events during the year.

And a must-see is the Cachat spring – where the Evian water phenomenon originated – sited within an ornate Art Nouveau porch. Don’t forget to bring your own bottle to taste the refreshing water – it’s taken around 15 years to filter through Alpine rocks.

Visitors can use the free Edwardian funicular railway which serves the town and resort.

Taking a break from the high life, I headed out to the great outdoors of the Haute-Savoie region. One of the highlights was a visit to the Mer de Glace (sea of ice) glacier above Chamonix.

It was here the monster pursued Dr Frankenstein “advancing towards him with superhuman speed” and “bounding over crevices in the ice”,

Now global warming has made today’s glacier a modern horror story. It has been receding at an alarming rate. Since the mid-19th century it has lost more than 1.5 miles in length – and 560ft in depth since the 1990s.

To get there I took the Montenvers mountain railway from Chamonix. The glacier, the longest in France, lies 985ft below the mountain railway station. From there a cable car took me downhill before a further descent on foot along metal gangways and steps to the entrance of an ice cave.

Once inside there is a plunge in temperature. Lights guided me around tunnels of thick ice creating an eerie blue light. It was a fascinating experience to view such a force of nature up close, especially since shrinkage continues at pace and it remains under threat.

Glaciers on the slopes of Western Europe’s highest mountain Mont Blanc (15,766ft) are visible from the town of Chamonix itself. From the outdoor pool at my hotel in the town, the four-star Les Aiglons, the captivating sight of the Bossons glacier was clearly visible.

Like Chamonix, nearby Saint- Gervais-les-Bains is served well by mountain transport. It can be reached using a gondola cable car (Le Valléen) as well as an inclined lift (L’Ascenseur Des Thermes) from the famed thermal baths (Les Thermes) beneath the town.

The story of the conquest of Mont Blanc is told at Saint-Gervais’ mountaineering museum which is housed in the 13th century Maison Forte de Hautetour. It highlights the first woman to climb Mont Blanc, Marie Paradis in 1808, and the famous Saint-Gervais mountain guide company.

There are also displays of mountain equipment and clothing down the centuries, photographs, and footage of a recent climb of Mont Blanc showing the high Alps in all their grandeur.

And I got to check out the Bon Voyage exhibition at La Cure beside the town’s striking baroque church. The classic vintage posters currently on display date back to early 20th-century Alpine tourism.

A great mountain stop at any time of year is the ski resort of La Clusaz nestled in the Aravis range. During the summer months hiking and mountain biking replace winter sports. It also home to the soft cheese Reblochon which has received the accolade of quality geographic area accreditation.

I stayed in the stylish Hotel St Alban with its eye-catching book-lined walls in the reception and dining areas.

Its spa with swimming pool, sauna and ice room was a welcome opportunity to rest and relax. A group of us ate out at the village’s La Ferme restaurant which specialises in raclette, the tasty Alpine culinary favourite which, unlike fondue, involves scraping melted cheese on to potatoes and other vegetables.

Along with some more red Savoy wine, we rounded things off with dessert and the spirit Génépy made from Alpine flowers. The amount of cheese consumed could have led to some monstrous dreams, but I woke untroubled and refreshed the next morning.

From La Clusaz the historic and picturesque town of Annecy is a short journey by car.

But an alternative approach by motorised boat across the azure waters of Lake Annecy offers a rewarding vista of the surrounding mountains and shoreline dotted with mansions and castles, including the imposing medieval Chateau de Menthon-Saint-Bernard which stands on a commanding position overlooking the lake.

In just four days my visit had packed in some of the many gems of Haute-Savoie – a mountain glacier experience with truly breathtaking landscapes, history and culture, excellent food and drink, as well as a luxury resort and spa hotels.

Looking back I had to conclude it was certainly one monster of a trip.

Book the holiday

• Flights to Geneva are available from Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Gatwick, Heathrow, Leeds Bradford, London City, Luton, Manchester, Newcastle and Stansted.
• Rooms at the Hotel Ermitage at the Evian Resort in Evian-les-Bains, Haute-Savoie, start at £420 a night. evianresort.com
• More info at hautesavoiemontblanc-tourisme.com

A BRITISH grandad has revealed how he was shackled to a wife-and-child killer during his horror months locked up by the Taliban.

Peter Reynolds and his wife Barbie, 76, were arrested in February and dragged through ten different jails in Afghanistan, sometimes held in cages and sometimes split apart, with weeks spent in solitary confinement.

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Peter, who spent his 80th birthday behind bars instead of celebrating with his family in the US, told The Sunday Times: “We felt huge powerlessness.

“We were told we were guests. But when I was taken to court, I had my ankles and hands cuffed together with murderers and rapists.”

At one point, the grandfather found himself shackled to a man who had murdered his own wife and three children.

Peter and Barbie were finally freed this week, flown out on a Qatari aircraft and back to Heathrow on Saturday, where they reunited with their family after months of agony.

The couple’s release came after months of behind-the-scenes mediation led by Qatar, whose diplomats in Kabul arranged medication, doctors and calls with their family.

Footage showed the pair smiling as they finally boarded a flight out of Afghanistan.

They had lived in Afghanistan since 2007, running a community project called Rebuild.

They were among the few foreigners who chose to remain after the Taliban seized back power four years ago, settling in the mountainous Bamiyan region — better known for the giant Buddhas destroyed by the regime in 2001.

The couple, who first married in Kabul in 1970, insisted they had lived peacefully for years without trouble from the authorities.

Barbie described watching her husband struggle into a police truck with his hands and ankles chained as the “worst moment.”

The pair endured months of solitary confinement, a basement cell with no windows, and illness from “oily and salty” prison food.

Meals were scarce and left them sick. Barbie, who suffers from anaemia, grew weaker by the day.

Peter, who has a heart condition, often went without the beta blockers he relies on after a mini-stroke last year.

He is believed to have suffered a silent heart attack while in custody.

At one stage they were transferred to the Taliban’s intelligence HQ and locked in an underground cell, cut off from sunlight and phones.

UN human rights experts later warned their health was deteriorating so rapidly that they were at risk of “irreparable harm or even death.”

The couple insist they had done nothing wrong.

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The Taliban later claimed they had “violated Afghan laws” but gave no details.

And a search of their home and staff turned up nothing.

They were originally detained alongside their American friend Faye Hall, who was freed in March after a court order.

But the Reynoldses remained locked up for another five months with no explanation.

At one point, relatives back in Britain said they were “pretty frustrated” after repeated pleas to Taliban officials went ignored.

Back in Britain, the couple are exhausted but jubilant.

Barbie wants salad and Marmite, while Peter wants baked beans.

But most of all, they want time with the grandchildren they feared they’d never hug again.

“It is a mystery how or why we have been released,” said Peter.

“There’s a lot to process. I’m looking forward to listening to our family’s narrative of all that has unfolded in the last eight months.”

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CHRISTIAN ERIKSEN has said that his defibrillator implant is “just part of me now” as he admitted that he only remembers it is there during airport security checks.

Eriksen, 33, collapsed on the pitch during Denmark‘s opening game against Finland at the delayed Euro 2020 tournament in 2021.

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The former Manchester United midfielder suffered a cardiac arrest and needed life-saving resuscitation on the pitch.

He was later fitted with a defibrillator implant (ICD) before returning to football with Brentford and then United in 2022.

Now Eriksen has signed for Bundesliga side Wolfsburg, having been let go by Man Utd at the end of the season, and has opened up on how he rarely thinks about his heart condition these days.

Speaking at his official presentation for Wolfsburg on Friday, the Dane discussed how setting off alarms when going through airport security body scanners is his only reminder of the incident.

He said: “I only have to go past the scanner and undergo a separate check. That’s all. There are no restrictions. Nothing.

“I have never felt anything since then. It is just a part of me now – nothing strange or sad.”

Eriksen went on to explain that he won’t delve into the details of what happened until after his career is over.

He added: “[I’m happy to] be seen as a footballer again, and not as the guy who had this moment at Parken [Stadium].

“I will only talk in detail about it after my career – it is something very personal.”

Eriksen, who was approached to join Wrexham this summer, could make his debut for Wolfsburg this weekend in a league clash with Borussia Dortmund.

He leaves Man Utd having made over 100 appearances in which he helped the club win both the FA Cup and the League Cup.

And despite the turbulent few years at Old Trafford, Eriksen had nothing but positive things to say about his time in Manchester.

He said: “Personally, I had a great time being at United. When I came back to football with Brentford, getting the chance to play against United was a massive thing.

“I also think I proved myself as a footballer at United. I had a really great time, and my family loved it there, and I’m sure we still have a lot of friends from our time there.

“I had a good time at the club, but it was a strange time because there was a lot of stuff going on at United.

“The focus and the perception of the club from the outside world is a bit different sometimes to how it really is.

“There are some lovely people at the club who are really working hard and trying their best, but it does not always go your way.”

GABRIEL GUDMUNDSSON dropped an absolute clanger by heading past his own keeper Karl Darlow in stoppage time to gift Fulham victory.

The Swedish defender, under no real pressure, conspired to nod a Ryan Sessegnon corner into his own net.

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It is one of the most baffling own goals you will see.

That moment of madness cost Leeds what would have been a well deserved point.

But they can only blame themselves for not taking their chances.

They still have only managed one goal this season — a Lukas Nmecha penalty in the 1-0 win against Everton.

It is worry that they have not scored in open play in 360 minutes of Prem football — and is why the German boss has been crying out for reinforcements in the forward line.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin was only able to head straight at Bernd Leno when he met a lovely Brenden Aaronson cross.

While Sean Longstaff cracked the crossbar with a shot from distance — and Aaronson himself had an angled effort kept out by the Fulham keeper.

Fulham record-signing — £34.6million man Kevin — started on the bench after joining from Shakhtar on transfer deadline day and did not come on until the final 14 minutes.

And he almost scored a stunner when his long-range shot was kept out by Darlow.

Wilson — who had been linked with a move to Leeds during the summer — was the only change made by Silva from their last game at Chelsea, coming in for Tim Castagme.

Calvert-Lewin made his first Leeds start as Farke opted to make five changes from the goalless draw at Newcastle before the international break.

In came Ethan Ampadu, Aaronson, Anton Stach, Noah Okafor and Darlow.

Leeds had a huge chance to move in front when Calvin-Lewin managed to find himself unmarked to meet a superb Aaronson cross — but he was only able to head straight at Leno.

Neither side had got into a proper rhythm.

The visitors were looking to get the ball up quick towards their frontmen but Fulham were comfortably dealing with that approach.

But the Cottagers were struggling to create anything to trouble Darlow — who was making his first Prem appearance in almost four years with first-choice Lucas Perri injured.

Noah Okafor played a couple of nice stepovers before the ball fell to Stach but his effort was charged down.

Jayden Bogle charged down the right flank and attempted an ambitious effort from an angle but it was deflected out for a corner.

Leeds were denied going in front on the stroke of half-time when Longstaff left fly from 25 yards after running on to a Calvert-Lewin header.

 header but his effort clipped the top of the bar.

And Fulham keeper Leno denied the visitors going in front at the start of the second half.

With torrential rain and even hail lashing down on Craven Cottage Aaronson’s angled effort was kept out.

And then Kenny Tete and Calvin Bassey both slid in to block Okafor, who looked set to pull the trigger 15 yards out.

Bogle also saw an effort charged down after he was allowed to run forward without being challenged.

Darlow then made a fantastic save to keep out a curling Wilson effort that was destined for the top left corner.

That was to be Wilson’s last action as he was hauled off by Silva along with Josh King, who were replaced by Emile Smith Rowe and Adama Traore.

Fulham had been controlling the ball well without making many inroads.

And they finally got the crowd off their seats.

First Gabriel Gudmundsson was turned by Alex Iwobi and Joachim Anderson’s cross was met by Muniz.

But his downward header was kept out by Darlow.

Then Smith Rowe burst through before his shot was pushed on to the post by Darlow.

Finally Silva opted to throw on Kevin with 14 minutes left.

And he almost brought the house down with a ripper that Darlow tipped over.

But then came Gudmundsson’s moment of madness to give Fulham victory.

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GIANLUIGI DONNARUMMA was spared his blushes by the referee following an awful clanger while playing for Italy tonight.

The Manchester City new boy, 26, is in line to make his debut against rivals United this Sunday.

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The 6ft 5in stopper will be hoping to shake off his blunder from tonight, having nearly gifted Israel a shocking opener.

Barely five minutes into tonight’s contest Manor Solomon, who recently joined Villarreal on loan from Tottenham, swung in a corner.

The situation seemed harmless enough, with the ball looking likely to sail into Donnarumma’s grasp.

Inexplicably, however, the former Paris Saint-Germain star punched the ball into his own net.

Donnarumma was bailed out by the referee, however, who deemed Israel defender Stav Lemkin to have fouled him, despite contact appearing to be minimal.

Seeing the incident on social media, one fan branded City’s new boy: “the new Onana of the EPL”.

While a second claimed: “In these situations here in the Premier League, they’ll eat Donnarumma alive.”

A third claimed: “Donarumma doing what Donnarumma does.”

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And another added: “Donnarumma in the premier league will make hatewatching man city 10x funnier.”

Following their let off, Italy did go behind via Manuel Locatelli‘s own goal on 16 minutes.

Gennaro Gattuso’s side levelled through Moise Kean just before half-time, only for Dor Peretz to reclaim Israel’s lead seven minutes after the break.

Italy subsequently turned the game on its head in the following six minutes, courtesy of a second for Kean and a Matteo Politano strike.

City signed Donnarumma in a £26million deal on transfer deadline day.

The giant keeper is set to replace James Trafford as No1, following the ex-Burnley ace’s difficult start to the campaign.

After Donnarumma’s arrival, City allowed long-term stalwart Ederson to depart for Fenerbahce.

The Etihad new boy is set to make his debut against Man Utd this weekend.

Ruben Amorim‘s side could also have a new man between the sticks, following Senne Lammens’ £18m arrival from Royal Antwerp.

Andre Onana is set to join Turkish side Trabzonspor on loan, although Altay Bayindir could potentially keep his place ahead of Lammens this weekend.

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It’s the year for horror and “The Conjuring: Last Rites” was no exception. Its opening weekend tipped the genre over $1 billion in earnings for this year’s domestic box office.

The horror sequel raked in $83 million domestically in 3,802 theaters, making it the third-highest domestic opening for a horror movie, behind “It” and “It: Chapter Two.” It’s now the largest horror opening internationally, with $104 million in earnings outside of North American theaters.

The film also broke records for the “Conjuring” universe, securing the biggest opening weekend in the franchise. The movie’s performance is a testament to the franchise’s success in producing classic horror movies since the first film released in 2013, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for the data firm Comscore.

“Audiences know when they go in to see ‘The Conjuring,’ the minute this scary, ominous music comes up with the Warner’s logo, you know you’re in for a wild ride,” Dergarabedian said.

The film has received mixed reviews from critics, carrying a 55% on Rotten Tomatoes and a “B” CinemaScore.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga return to the big screen in the ninth installment of “The Conjuring” as the paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who attempt to vanquish a demon from a family’s home.

“Last Rites” also handed Warner Bros. Pictures yet another opening weekend box office win, becoming the distributor’s eighth No. 1 debut win this year and the studio’s seventh film in a row to debut with more than $40 million domestically.

The movie’s opening weekend numbers are nearly double that of other successful horror movies this year, including Zach Cregger’s August sleeper hit “Weapons,” “Final Destination: Bloodlines” and “Sinners” — all of which are Warner Bros. releases.

“It just shows how arguably more than any other genre, horror has stood the test of time,” Dergarabedian said. “That’s because there’s nothing quite like seeing a horror movie in a darkened room full of strangers.”

The horror genre last crossed the $1-billion mark in 2023. Meeting that threshold this early in the year is unprecedented, Dergarabedian said, “because usually you need a full year of horror movie box office to bank that much cash.”

Upcoming horror films like “Black Phone 2” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” are likely to boost that number, Dergarabedian said.

“Last Rites” blew past other titles at the box office this weekend. Disney’s filmed version of “Hamilton” landed in second place with $10 million domestically. The film was “perfect counterprogramming” to “Last Rights,” Dergarabedian said.

The rest of the top spots were taken by several holdover titles. “Weapons” secured third place during its fifth weekend, bringing in $5.4 million in earnings in North American theaters. The movie’s debut partner, “Freakier Friday,” took fourth place with $3.8 million.

The crime caper “Caught Stealing,” which debuted last weekend, rounded out the top five with $3.2 million in domestic earnings.

Luna writes for the Associated Press.

Michael Zervos embarked on a trip around the world, visiting 195 countries in 499 days and asking hundreds of people exactly the same question – what was the happiest day of your life?

A man who has visited every country in the world found two places in particular to be scary and unwelcoming.

Three years ago Michael Zervos embarked on a trip around the world, visiting 195 countries in 499 days and asking hundreds of people exactly the same question – what was the happiest day of your life?

Earlier this year the Greek-American globetrotter returned to Detroit, his goal of reaching all 195 countries in the shortest time ever completed. He stopped the clock at just under 500 days.

The former movie maker was not just motivated by the glory of becoming the speediest nation-visiting completist but also by a desire to understand what makes people tick in different parts of the world. He recently sat down with the Mirror to share some of his insights into what makes people happy in different places.

Do you have a travel story to share? Email [email protected]

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While Michael stresses that his rapid means of travelling meant he only got a quick glimpse into the cultures of the countries he visited, his insights remain fascinating.

As quick as he is to find positives in the destinations he visited, two places stood out to him as unwelcoming and a little unnerving.

“I had a bad experience in Liberia. I took a picture of a government building. There was no sign to say you couldn’t do it. It turned out to be a money-making scheme. I refused to pay, and they took me to jail,” Michael explained.

It wasn’t just the run-in with the authorities that left a bad taste in the mouth in the West African country. He also endured a more general feeling of unease when exploring.

“Some moments felt surreal. I’d enter a street market, and waves of people would turn to you like, ‘You don’t belong on this street, why are you here?’ Thousands of people would turn to you, and they’d stop what they’re doing. There was a sensation in the back of your neck where something was amiss,” Michael continued.

Another place that left Michael a little shaken was Stabroek Market in Guyana’s capital, Georgetown.

“The locals warned me not to go. It is one of those warehouse-style markets. Drugs are traded openly, and there is sex work as well. As soon as I walked in, it was like a horror movie. There was this guy at the end of the aisle. These deep, dark pockets were obscuring his face. He was staring at me, and he was staring at me. I went down the other aisle, and he followed me. My intuition was to go somewhere else,” Michael recalled.

The UK Foreign Office backs up Michael’s intuition, warning tourists from visiting the market.

“Crime levels are high, and police capacity is low. There are frequent armed robberies, hold-ups, carjackings and other violent crimes, often involving two or more attackers. Passers-by can get caught up in gunfire even if they are not targets because police are armed and shoot back,” the government body warns.

“Muggers can attack in broad daylight, often holding their victims at gunpoint or knifepoint. They may target tourists, particularly if those that show obvious signs of wealth.”

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Tiger Bay and Albouystown in Georgetown; Sophia, south Georgetown; Buxton; Agricola and Stabroek Market area are highlighted as areas “where robberies are a daily occurrence”.

Although the experiences unsettled him, Michael is keen to focus on the many positive aspects of the places he visited. One of his favourite countries to visit, and one of the most surprising, was Madagascar.

“The people, food, arts, and geography, everything was just a little outside what you might expect from mainland southern Africa. You’ve got rich biodiversity from having an isolated island where the flora and fauna are pretty different,” Michael explained.

“The faces of the people are extremely interesting, often very authentic smiles and expressions. They are beautiful to photograph. What you see is what you get. They are straightforward and earnest.”

Michael particularly enjoyed asking people in Madagascar what the happiest day of their life is. He has since turned these answers, and those he collected in other countries, into videos posted on his Instagram page.

“It’s like getting life unfiltered there. Even in the city, which isn’t that common, the language is interesting, and the food is unlike anything you’d find in the area. It’s a mix of Indonesian and Indian food, with high levels of spice, fried food, croquettes, and fritters with interesting green, earthy vegetal flavours.”

When it comes to European countries that particularly stood out, Liechtenstein was a surprise hit.

“People call it really boring, but I found it lovely. It’s a city-state nestled in the Alps. When I arrived, they were celebrating the beginning of Lent, a madigra-type thing. There were bands dressed in blue all over the place, playing music late into the night. People were offering me beers. I went to a local theatre and watched a film festival about extreme sports,” Michael said.

THE first child victim of the Minneapolis Catholic school shooting has been named as eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel.

Fletcher was one of two children killed during mass at Annunciation Catholic School on Wednesday as his father paid a heartbreaking tribute.

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In a heartbreaking statement dad Jessie said: “Fletcher loved his family, friends, fishing, cooking, and any sports that he was allowed to play.

“While the hole in our hearts and lives will never be filled, I hope that in time, our family can find healing.”

The devastated father added that Fletcher was “on the path to becoming to a wonderful young man”.

Sick lone gunman Robin Westman, 23, fired over 100 bullets at defenseless kids and teachers in the horror attack.

He later turned the gun on himself before police could arrive.

Jessie didn’t say Robin’s name as spoke today but instead referred to him as a “coward”.

He blamed him for taking away Fletcher’s loved one’s ability to “hold him, talk to him, play with him, and watch him grow”.

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THIS is the horrifying moment an OAP drives the wrong way down FOUR different motorways in a single day.

The 81-year-old man from Spain‘s capital Madrid caused multiple accidents during his erratic streak and was later arrested.

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Dashcam footage shows other drivers swerving into the next lane to avoid a head-on collision.

The oblivious motorist can been hugging ploughing down the fast line – in the wrong direction – hugging the central reservation.

The driver ditched directions at around 12:45pm on August 14, when he decided to make a U-turn at the toll on the M-12 motorway.

He then entered the M-11 going against the traffic.

After trundling on for 2.2 miles, the inevitable happened and he smashed into an oncoming car.

Both vehicles were damaged in the head-on collision, but the driver was apparently unphased and set off again.

Later on, around 6:25 pm, he entered the A-5, driving towards Madrid in lanes meant for traffic heading to Badajoz for around 6km.

One car was forced off the road by his oncoming vehicle, resulting in two minor injuries and damage to the vehicle.

At around 7:34 pm, he was detected driving the wrong way again – this time near kilometre 16 of the A-6 motorway.

Despite heading towards Madrid in lanes reserved for traffic to La Coruña, there were miraculously no accidents on this stretch.

Cops went round to this house last Tuesday with alleged evidence of his crazy spree.

The aging motorist is now facing four counts of reckless driving.

Authorities have requested an assessment to declare him unfit to drive, which could lead to the suspension of his licence.

One social media user vented: “Honestly, at this point, you might as well suggest him as Fernando Alonso’s teammate next season.

“What are all these older people thinking, putting everyone else’s lives at risk?

“And this isn’t even an isolated case. The driving age limits really need to be rethought.”

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TWO Brits have died after a family flipped their car in a horror highway crash in Turkey.

The family were visiting their hometown of Aksaray in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey when the tragedy unfolded.

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Two members of the family died in the horror smash and three others were rushed to hospital.

The car was travelling on the Aksaray-Ankara highway when the driver lost control of the vehicle.

The motor smashed into the central median before rolling over.

Four members of the same family, the driver, his wife and their two children were rushed to hospital.

An elderly man, also in the car at the time of the horror smash, lost his life.

The drivers wife tragically passed away in hospital some time later despite the best efforts of doctors.

Police, gendarmerie and medical crews raced to the scene after receiving reports of the smash.

The four injured individuals were raced to Aksaray Training and Research Hospital in ambulances.

Doctors battled to save the lives of the young children and their parents.

Turkish authorities said an investigation into the accident is ongoing.

The family were reportedly from England and were in Turkey to visit family.

Turkish authorities said the driver lost control of the vehicle before the tragedy.

Local media claimed the family were on their way to visit the drivers father in law.

The Sun has contacted the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office for comment.

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A GUNMAN killed his former wife’s new partner and her mum outside a hotel before turning the gun on himself in a horrifying shooting.

The shooter also left his ex-wife seriously injured in the terrifying attack in Naples, Italy.

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Two victims were found on the road outside a hotel, while the third victim died from their injuries in hospital.

The 69-year-old gunman reportedly shot and killed his ex-wife’s partner, 48, and her 63-year-old mum, who was a Ukrainian national.

He then reportedly chased and shot his ex-wife, 42, who was also of Ukrainian origin.

She is currently at the Rizzolo hospital in Lacco Ameno.

The attacker was also rushed to hospital after he turned the gun on himself, and died later.

The shocking attack took place on Saturday at around 6:30pm on the island of Ischia in the Cuotto area in Forio.

Local cops said the area is still cordoned off while they continue to investigate the circumstances of the attack.

State police and volunteers are helping with the investigation.

The shocking attack comes after a shooting left a mobster’s niece dead in a nightclub as part of a suspected mafia war last year.

Antonia Lopez, 19, was reportedly killed as scores were being settled between gangs involved in drug trafficking and extortion.

The young woman was gunned down at Bahia nightclub in Puglia, Italy, as Michele Lavopa, 21, allegedly sought to kill a different man – Eugenio Palermiti, 21.

Lavopa handed himself into police after his mother convinced him to and confessed, La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno reported.

He has now been charged with voluntary homicide, quadruple attempted homicide, and possession and carrying of a firearm.

The three involved were all scions of different criminal gangs, with Lopez pals with target Palermiti.

And in 2021, two young brothers were killed by a crazed shooter, with the boys holding their father’s hand as they died.

David and Daniel Fusinato, aged five and 10, were shot while playing in the street in the Italian town Ardea, near Rome.

Their grandmother, Sonia di Gennaro, said the boys’ dad – Domenico – was with them until the very end.

She told Italian newspaper La Stampa: “They died holding their father’s hand.

“The ambulance arrived too late, it took half an hour.”

Glacier National Park, Mont. — JOHAN looked up. Jenna was running toward him. She had yelled something, he wasn’t sure what. Then he saw it. The open mouth, the tongue, the teeth, the flattened ears. Jenna ran right past him, and it struck him — a flash of fur, two jumps, 400 pounds of lightning.

It was a grizzly, and it had him by his left thigh. His mind started racing — to Jenna, to the trip, to fighting, to escaping. The bear jerked him back and forth like a rag doll, but he remembered no pain, just disbelief. It bit into him again and again, its jaw like a sharp vise stopping at nothing until teeth hit bone. Then came the claws, rising like shiny knife blades, long and stark.

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Johan and Jenna had been on the trail little more than an hour. They had just followed a series of switchbacks above Grinnell Lake and were on a narrow ledge cut into a cliff. It was an easy ascent, rocky and just slightly muddy from yesterday’s rain.

Johan took some pictures. Jenna pushed ahead. It was one of the most spectacular hikes they’d taken on this trip, a father-daughter getaway to celebrate her graduation from high school. There were some steps, a small outcropping, a blind turn, and there it was, the worst possibility: a surprised bear with two yearling cubs.

The bear kept pounding into him. He had to break away. To his right was the wall of the mountain, to his left a sheer drop. Slightly behind him, however, and 20 feet below the trail, a thimbleberry and alder patch grew on a small slope jutting from the cliff. As a boy growing up in Holland, Johan had roughhoused with his brother and had fallen into bushes. He knew it would hurt, but at least it wouldn’t kill him.

So like a linebacker hurtling for a tackle, he dived for that thimbleberry patch. The landing rattled him, but he was OK. His right eye was bleeding, but he didn’t have time to think about that. Jenna was now alone with the bear.

She had reached down to pick up the bear spray. The small red canister had fallen out of the side pocket of his day pack, and there it was, on the ground. But she couldn’t remove the safety clip, and the bear was coming at her again. She screamed.

“Jenna, come down here,” he yelled.

She never heard him. She was falling, arms and legs striking the rocky cliff, then nothing for seconds before she landed hard.

The bear did hear him, however. It looked over the cliff and pounced. Johan had never seen anything move so fast in his life. He tucked into a fetal position. The bear fell upon him, clawing and biting at his back. His day pack protected him, and his mind started racing again.

His daughter didn’t have a pack. He always carried the water and snacks. If the bear got to her, it’d tear her apart.

He turned, swung to his right and let himself go. Only this time there wasn’t a thimbleberry patch to break his fall. It was a straight drop to where Jenna had landed, and instead of taking the bear away from her, as he had hoped, he was taking the bear to her.

JOHAN Otter lived with his wife, Marilyn, and their two teenage daughters in a two-story home in a semirural neighborhood of Escondido, Calif. He worked as an administrator at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla. He ran in marathons and bred exotic birds. He knew the love of his family, success at his job, good health. At 43, he had dreams of a long and happy life. But dreams are often upended. Johan knew this, and whenever possible, he tried to distance himself and his family from risk.

It was Aug. 25, 2005. Seven days earlier, Johan and Jenna had packed up the family pickup truck and driven north through Nevada and Utah. In September, she would begin her freshman year at UC Irvine. Hiking was their special bond. He was a runner, she was a dancer; they both were in good shape for the trail, and it wasn’t unusual for Marilyn and Stephanie, their younger daughter, to stay home.

Johan Otter, top photo at Logan Pass in Glacier National Park on Aug. 24, 2005. A day hike that he and his daugther Jenna took. “My last day with hair,” Otter said. Bottom photo shows Jenna Otter in of the last photos taken by Johan Otter before being attacked by a Grizzly bear on the Grinnell Glacier Trail in Glacier National Park, Montana.

(Jenna Otter)

Johan and Jenna checked into a motor lodge on the east side of Glacier. Johan was eager to experience the wildness of the park, and the first night he did. A black bear, just outside the lodge.

For millenniums, bears have lurked on the periphery of everyday life, dark shadows just beyond the firelight. On this continent, they have been our respected competition and greatest threat. Even though close encounters with bears, especially grizzlies, are rare, they trigger a conditioned response, a reflex of fear and flight that is seldom called upon in modern life. Sometimes we get away. Sometimes we can’t.

But most of all, bears inspire a deep fascination. Johan remembered how, as a boy, he would go with his family on vacations to Norway and how his parents, his brother and he had always wanted to see a bear. The curiosity never left him. Three years ago, during a trip to Canada with the family, he and Stephanie saw a cub. Marilyn and Jenna stayed back.

On this trip to Glacier, they had an ambitious hiking schedule, and they were disappointed when it rained their first full day. They contented themselves with driving to various sights. The next day was beautiful. The sun cut through scattered, misting clouds. Johan was eager to get out on the trail before anyone else. It was 7:30 a.m.

The path wound through a lush carpet of thimbleberry, beargrass and lilies growing beneath a mix of Engelmann spruce and Scotch pine. They skirted Lake Josephine, and in less than an hour, Johan and Jenna were above the tree line. Surrounding peaks were lightly dusted with snow. At one point Johan spotted a golden eagle trying to catch a thermal. They talked loudly, just as you’re supposed to do in bear country. Jenna was trying to figure out how she could be both a dancer and a doctor. He wondered if he’d be able to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

As they made their way along the southern flank of Mt. Grinnell, a glacier-carved cliff that rises nearly 3,500 vertical feet from the valley floor, they fell silent, lost in the sounds of the wind and the water, the beauty of the moment. Ahead of them were the Gem and Salamander glaciers. A ribbon of water cascaded into the forest below. A river flowed into the turquoise stillness of Grinnell Lake.

Penstemon, columbines and fireweed bloomed amid the low-lying alder scrub. They passed through Thunderbird Falls, a landmark on the trail where a stream often pours from the cliff above onto a platform of flat stones. Today it was only wet and slippery, but the drop-off was unforgiving.

(Doug Stevens / Los Angeles Times)

TEN minutes past the falls, they ran into the bear. In a matter of minutes, they had all tumbled 30 feet down a rocky V-shaped chute, landing on a ledge beneath the trail. Jenna had scrambled away, and the grizzly was on top of Johan.

The attack had just started, and it had been going on too long. He grabbed the bear by the fur on its throat. The feeling of the coarse hair, as on a dirty dog, was unforgettable, and for a moment the animal just stared at him, two amber-brown eyes, its snout straight in his face. It showed no emotion, no fear, no anger. There were just those eyes looking down at him.

Johan considered fighting. He reached to his left for a rock. A piece of shale, it crumbled in his fist. He tucked his knees to his chest and tried to cover his head.

The bear bit again and again on his right arm. So this is what it feels like to have your flesh torn, he thought, still trying to comprehend the attack. He tussled about, trying to avoid greater injury.

“Aaagh,” he screamed.

Now the bear was tugging on his back. It felt as if someone were jumping up and down on him, and he found himself growing angry. Throw it off the mountain. If only he could throw it off the mountain.

He felt a sharp pressure on the top of his neck and his head. The bear was biting into his skull, chewing into the bone. This could be it, he thought. This could be his death, and his right hand was useless. He could not push the bear away.

If only this were a movie or one of those old episodes of “Bonanza” he used to watch on TV. He’d be a stuntman, and they’d stop shooting any time.

But this was real. He’d die if he didn’t make another move, so he rolled and fell again, sliding 20 feet down the slope to a small ledge and then over that and onto a narrow shelf. Right foot, left foot. He landed on his feet. He was lucky he stopped. He wouldn’t have survived the next long straight drop.

He was silent. The bear stood above him, unable to reach him. It felt good to be left alone. Water flowed down his back. Cold water. He’d fallen into a small stream, runoff from yesterday’s rain.

Jenna heard the bear panting as it came closer to where she lay beneath the branches of a low-lying alder. She felt woozy from her fall. She had a knot on her head. Her back ached, and her ankle was bleeding.

She tried to stay tucked in, but when the bear got close to her face, she had to push it away. It nipped at the right corner of her mouth, at her hair, her right shoulder. Each bite was quick, followed by a slight jostle.

Her screams split the morning silence like an ax.

Source: National Park Service. Graphics reporting by Thomas Curwen

(Thomas Suh Lauder/Los Angeles Times; Photo by Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

JOHAN pressed himself against the mountain. There was no room to sit or lie down. He heard Jenna, but he couldn’t do anything. He would remember the sound as the worst he had ever heard, and then there was nothing. All was still.

He was wet and dirty, soaked with blood and starting to shiver. The attack had lasted at most 15 minutes. He looked at his right arm and saw exposed tendons. His medical training as a physical therapist told him no major nerves or arteries had been cut. They can sew that together, he thought, and that, and that.

Then he touched the top of his head and felt only bone. He stopped exploring. It was enough to know that his scalp had been torn off. His neck hurt. He wondered if something was broken.

He couldn’t see out of his right eye. He reached up. It was full of blood and caked over. Was his eyeball hanging out? No, it was still in place. He carefully parted his eyelids. The sweet turquoise stillness of Grinnell Lake shimmered nearly 1,500 feet below him. He could see. He was relieved.

“Jenna,” he eventually called out.

“Dad.”

She had played dead, and the bear had moved on. She assessed her injuries. A bite on her shoulder as deep as a knuckle. Lower lip torn down to her chin. Hair caked with blood.

Her father’s voice was the best sound she’d ever heard.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

“I’m OK. How are you?”

“I’m bleeding a lot.” He thought of his own injuries and of his daughter’s appearance. “How’s your face? Did it get you?”

“Just my mouth.”

“And your eyes?”

“They’re fine.”

He could tell by the sound of her voice that she was OK. Thank you, God.

He gazed up into the sky above Mt. Gould on the far side of the valley. He thought of the people he knew who were dead. His mother and father. Thank you, Mom, and thank you, Dad, for being an energy that he could draw on. Somehow it made him less afraid.

And thank you, Sophie. She was a patient of his, an 80-year-old woman who had died last year. They had grown close as Johan worked with her. She would complain — I’m going to die, she’d say — and he’d tell her to be quiet. You’re not going to die, Sophie. And to think he nearly had.

And thank you, Steve, his father-in-law, Marilyn’s dad, who had become his own dad in a way.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Then he called back to Jenna. “It got me kind of bad.”

It was the only time he told her how he felt. After that, he turned stoic. No complaining. No despairing. He knew his dad would have reacted the same way. He chalked it up to being Dutch: You take care of yourself and your children. Jenna would do the same.

Together, unprompted, they began to call out.

“Helllp.”

“Helllp.”

GLACIER National Park straddles the Continental Divide. Popularly thought of as North America’s Switzerland, famous for its snowy peaks, alpine meadows, rivers and lakes, the park attracts nearly 2 million visitors each year. On the east side of the park, the Grinnell Glacier Trail is one of the most popular day hikes.

“Helllp.”

Johan knew he couldn’t stand here much longer. He took off his day pack and camcorder. His digital camera was gone, lost in the chaos. He pulled a jacket out of his pack and put the hood over his head. The night before, he’d read a book about bear attacks: how a woman in Alaska had stopped the bleeding of her scalp by covering her head. He also thought it might be easier on Jenna or anyone else who might happen to see him.

He wanted to climb to the ledge above. He didn’t know how he’d carry his pack and camcorder. Then it came to him, what they say on airplanes. Leave your luggage and take care of yourself. It made sense. He clambered and crawled off the narrow shelf and up to the ledge. He felt dizzy, so he sat down.

Johan and Jenna alternated their calls. Jenna had decided to stay where she was. She too was dizzy and uncertain of her injuries. Perched on the side of the mountain, about 75 feet apart, they looked down into the valley. Their cries disappeared in the vast open space. It was windy and cold, and the quiet seemed unreal after the intensity of the attack.

“Helllp.”

Then Jenna called out. “Dad, the boat just got to the dock. I see people getting off.” It was a water taxi that ran a regular service across Lake Josephine.

Johan knew that with the arrival of the boat, hikers would soon be streaming along the trail and their shouts would be heard. He was tired. He stopped yelling and tried not to think about how badly injured he was. Nothing a little surgery can’t fix, he told himself. Besides, he was alive, and his daughter was fine.

Amid the isolation and the cold, he grew sore and stiff and numb. Lying down, sitting up, nothing helped. Forty-five minutes later, he heard Jenna talking with someone. She called to him. “Dad, there are people here now. They’re getting help.”

Still it seemed like forever. Then Johan saw a man cutting through the bushes and sliding down toward him. The man’s eyes were wide open. The expression said everything.

“Are you OK?” the man asked.

“Do you see a camera?” Johan replied.

Jim Knapp was surprised by the question, but very little was making sense.

Knapp and his wife had started their hike that morning a little past 8, well ahead of the water taxi. After an hour on the trail, they heard what sounded like a coyote or a hawk or some animal being attacked. Then there was more, and it sounded human. They started running. Someone must have fallen or sprained an ankle.

Knapp told Johan he would look for the camera, but his attention was focused on the injured man before him. It was the most gruesome sight he had ever seen.

Blood covered Johan’s face. His arms and legs oozed blood. His voice and sentences were jerky and repetitive. He reminded Knapp of Dustin Hoffman in “Rainman,” and with his sweat shirt pulled up over his head, he looked like Beavis in an episode of “Beavis and Butthead.”

“Jenna’s OK,” Knapp said, as he began to get a sense of Johan’s injuries. He noticed the day pack — but no camera — on the shelf beneath them, and he climbed down to retrieve it. Inside were a sweat shirt and four water bottles. He covered Johan and tried to make him drink. He took off his T-shirt and wrapped it around a deep gash on Johan’s leg. He laid out some nuts and a granola bar and took some water up to Jenna.

Then Johan saw a girl. She was sliding down to him. Her name was Kari.

Kari Schweigert and Heidi Reindl had been car-camping in Glacier. They were just starting on an 11-mile hike when they ran into Jim Knapp’s wife, running down the trail, screaming for help.

Then there were two teenage boys. Johan couldn’t keep track of everyone, but one of the boys — the one who wore a beanie — did get his camera. It was the camcorder, and Johan was glad to see it. He was also glad that people were finally getting there, but he felt bad for them. He knew stumbling upon a bear attack — and finding him as bloody as he was — couldn’t be easy for them. A fall or a sprain, sure, but a bear attack? He tried to tell himself that it would be OK. He tried to console himself. If he and Jenna had not been attacked, then these other hikers would have.

What can we do, everyone asked. How can we help?

The rock at the back of his head felt like it was digging into his skull. He squirmed about. He wanted them to help him sit up, but they didn’t want to. They were worried about his neck.

Then he’d have to do it himself. He simply wanted to sit up, have a drink of water and then maybe lie down again.

But he was fading.

Grinnell Glacier at Glacier National Park

(Ryan Herron/Getty Images/iStockphoto)

VOICES told him that help was on the way, only he was losing interest. He didn’t want to deal with any of this anymore. It was all too much: wondering how they’d get him and Jenna off the mountain; wanting to be cleaned up from the dirt and sticky blood; saddened that their trip was ending this way.

Kari Schweigert sat beside him, talking. Her curly hair was tied back in a ponytail. She was in a tank top; Johan was wearing her jacket. He was shaking and numb with cold.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“The pain is OK,” he said. “I’d just like to take a nap.”

Then she started to move in closer to him. She knew he was cold. She said she wanted to warm him up. She angled around him and covered his abdomen and chest with her body, her legs off to a side.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked. He didn’t want her to get covered with blood; it would be impossible to wash out.

She couldn’t cover him completely, but she did shield him from the wind. It was a moment he would never forget. How strange, he thought, to be hiking along on this trail one moment, thinking about running in a marathon, and then suddenly not being able to walk, being so dependent upon strangers, and now this girl so close to him, so tender and different from the savagery of the attack.

His mind kept going back to Jenna. Everyone told him that she was not as badly injured as he was. He felt guilty. Why had he wanted to go hiking here? Why wasn’t he a better parent?

Schweigert kept talking to him. She told him not to fall asleep. It made sense. He knew he’d lost a lot of blood, and he knew he was in shock. The wash of voices and movement of people around him, once reassuring, began to blur.

A park ranger and a dozen hikers were on the trail above them. The ranger radioed a report on Johan and Jenna’s status to the ranger station at Many Glacier, where an incident commander was assembling a rescue team.

A few of the hikers peered over the edge.

“Do you need anything?” they yelled.

“More jackets.”

Someone tucked one under Johan’s head.

His neck felt broken.

“WHAT’S your name?”

“Johan Otter.”

“Where are you?”

“Glacier National Park.”

“What time of day is it?”

“Late morning.”

“What happened?”

“Bear attack….”

The name badge said Katie. She wore the green and gray uniform of the park service. She had slid down the slope, balancing a medical kit and a shotgun in her hands, and once she determined that he was alert and oriented, she started dressing his wounds.

Katie Fullerton had pulled into the Many Glacier parking lot expecting just another summer day. Then she heard about the attack. She and another ranger were ordered to get to Johan and Jenna as soon as possible. Since opening in 1910, Glacier National Park has had only 10 bear fatalities, and they were enough.

The incident commander at Many Glacier had put a call out for additional rangers, some stationed on the west side of the park, 70 miles — a two-hour drive — away. A helicopter, chartered from Minuteman Aviation, would ferry those rangers to the site of the attack and would be used to shuttle equipment and personnel up to the mountain.

Whup, whup, whup.

Katie Fullerton looked up. At 9,000 feet, the white chopper had negotiated a U-shaped notch in the Garden Wall, a narrow filigree of stone crowning the Continental Divide. As it drew close, it circled, looking for a place to land. Johan and Jenna Otter could not have fallen in a less accessible place.

Three hours had passed since the attack, and Johan’s metabolism was slowing down. The blast of adrenaline triggered by the attack was long gone; the 15-minute torrent of thought and reaction had dissipated in a miasma of pain, discomfort and boredom. Why was the rescue taking so long?

Crashing mentally and emotionally, he knew he needed to stay warm and awake. Gusts of wind ghosted along the cliff; temperatures shot from warm to freezing as clouds drifted beneath the sun. Hikers on the trail were tossing down energy bars, water and more outerwear. A ranger was talking on the radio.

A second ranger crouched beside Johan. He had arrived with nearly 50 pounds of gear, including a life-support pack with IV fluids, medications and an oxygen tank, and he began cutting away Johan’s jackets and clothing. He introduced himself as Gary, Gary Moses. Johan appreciated his calm and confident manner.

Moses explained that the plan was to place Johan and Jenna on litters, have them lifted up to the trail and then carried down to a landing zone, where the chopper would take them to the Kalispell Regional Medical Center in Kalispell, Mont., in the Flathead Valley on the west side of the park.

Rangers on the trail set up a belaying system. They knew they had to move fast. Moses took Johan’s vitals. His blood pressure was 80 over 30, his pulse 44, his temperature dropping.

Moses prepared an IV line. Johan tried to lie still, but he was shivering uncontrollably. Then he heard something. It was Katie Fullerton; she was crying. The sound startled him at first.

“Do you want to stand down?” Moses asked his fellow ranger.

She shook her head.

Johan was glad. She had worked hard to make him comfortable and safe.

This was her first season as a patrol ranger, her first major trauma. Just last year, she’d been collecting user fees, and she had grown up near the park. She and her family had hiked these trails. This could just as easily have been her father.

Her tears reminded Johan how grave his situation was.

THE helicopter was making a second landing, and all Johan could think was: Hurry up. A second medic had joined Moses and Fullerton.

“How’s Jenna?” It was his steady refrain.

“There’re people with her.”

Moses and the other medic put a C-collar around Johan’s neck and got ready to insert a urinary catheter. Johan reminded them about a scene in “Seinfeld” in which an embarrassed George Costanza is caught naked and complains about “shrinkage.” They burst out laughing, and Johan relaxed a little. This is who he was: not just a bloodied man but someone always there with an easy line, ready to lighten the mood, to give to others.

Moses reassessed the rescue plan. It had taken nearly an hour to find a vein and get the IV started. Carrying Johan out, lifting him to the trail and then down to the helicopter landing zone was going to be too traumatic, and the afternoon was getting on.

He thought a helicopter could lift Johan directly off this ledge, in a rescue known as a short haul. It would be quicker but riskier. Still, he didn’t see any way around it. He radioed in his recommendation. The incident commander agreed. They called in the rescue helicopter operated by the hospital in Kalispell.

As they waited, Johan remembered an Air Force chopper that had crashed during a rescue on Mt. Hood little more than three years earlier. Everything — the foundering, the dipping, the rolling down the slope in a cascade of snow — had been televised on the evening news.

It made him nervous.

“Am I going to die?” Johan asked.

“You’re not going to die up here,” the second medic said.

RED against the blue sky and white clouds, the short-haul helicopter was easier to spot than the Minuteman.

“Hear that?” Gary Moses looked out over the valley. “That’s the sound of your rescue.”

Pilot Ken Justus adjusted the foot pedals and hand controls to bring the Bell 407 closer to the cliff. Travis Willcut, the flight nurse, sat next to him, calling out positions, monitoring radio traffic. Jerry Anderson, a medic, dangled 150 feet beneath them on a rope with a red Bauman Bag and a body board at his waist.

Piloting a helicopter at moments like this is like pedaling an exercise bike on the roof of a two-story building while trying to dangle a hot dog into the mouth of a jar on the ground. Lying on his back, Johan watched.

The IV had kicked in. Though stiff and still cold, he was wide awake and in no pain. Anticipation was everything, and he remembered feeling a little afraid. He hated roller coasters and worried about his stomach.

“You’ll have the best view of your life,” Moses said, hiding his worry. He knew getting Anderson in would be tricky. Because helicopters can’t cast sharply defined shadows on steep terrain, pilots flying short-haul missions have trouble judging closing speeds and distances.

Johan Otter is airlifted from the Grinnell Glacier Trail with medic Jerry Anderson, after being attacked by a grizzly bear and her two cubs in Glacier National Park, Montana on August 25, 2005. Johan tumbled down a steep chute about 75 feet where he almost died.

(Heidi Reindl)

Anderson, dangling at the end of the rope, had a radio in his helmet. He was using it to direct Justus lower and closer to Johan. Abruptly, the radio died.

“I’m at your 11 o’clock position, a mile out,” Moses broke in with his radio, once he understood the problem. “Half mile, 12 o’clock.”

“Do I need to come up or down?”

“Up about 10 feet.”

Then just as Justus got closer, he caught Anderson’s shadow on the ledge and set him down about 20 feet to the right of Johan. The other rangers shielded Johan from the rotor wash and dust.

Anderson unhooked himself. Justus moved the helicopter away. With the rangers’ help, Anderson slid the body board beneath Johan and strapped the Bauman Bag around him. He waved Justus back in.

“We’re ready to lift.”

“Roger, ready to lift.”

Johan couldn’t tell when he was off the ground. Dangling with Anderson beside him, 150 feet beneath the helicopter, all Johan would see was Anderson’s face, the blue sky and the belly of the chopper. The wind whistled around him.

“Woo hoo!” The hikers and rangers on the mountain started cheering and clapping.

With Johan and Anderson still beneath him, Justus accelerated down the valley to the helipad at Many Glacier. A waiting crowd was asked not to take pictures. Johan was transferred into an ambulance while Justus went back to pick up Jenna. Finally Johan was out of the wind and in a warm place.

Then he heard the news.

“Jenna is here,” someone said.

“Hi, sweetie,” he called out as they prepared to fly him to the medical center in Kalispell. With his head wrapped in bandages, mummy slits for his eyes and the C-collar on his neck, Johan couldn’t see her. “Make sure when they call Mom that you talk to her.”

He knew he wouldn’t be the one making that call.

“Otherwise she’ll totally freak out,” he said.

About this article

The accounts in this article are drawn from interviews over a span of 18 months with Johan, Marilyn and Jenna Otter. Additional interviews were conducted with the following individuals:

National Park Service: Jan Cauthorn-Page, Katie Fullerton, Rachel Jenkins, Kathy Krisko, Gary Moses, Rick Mulligan, Melissa Wilson, Amy Vanderbilt and Andrew Winslow.

Hikers on the Grinnell Trail: Julie Aitchison, Colin Aitchison, Kathleen MacDonald, Jim Knapp, Marla Moore, Robin Malone and Heidi Reindl.

Minuteman Aviation: Jerry Mamuzich.

Kalispell Regional Medical Center’s Advanced Life Support and Emergency Rescue Team (ALERT helicopter): Jerry Anderson, Addison Clark, Ken Justus, Travis Willcut, Patricia Harmon and Keith Hannon.

Additional reporting came from the National Park Service’s investigation report concerning the attack.

CHELSEA showed that pre-season might be merely a formality as they rolled over AC Milan by four goals to one, lifting the coveted VisitMalta Weekender trophy for the second time in three days.

The Blues have made two supposedly decent teams look like amateurs, in what were hardly tough tests for Enzo Maresca’s young team before playing Crystal Palace in the opening game of their season.

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New signing Jamie Gittens announced himself to the world against AC Milan for Borussia Dortmund two seasons ago, who may well be his favourite opponents as he gave their defence, Yunus Musah in particular, a torrid time today.

The electric Englishman was perhaps overshadowed by Estevao against Bayer Leverkusen, but put in a performance today that showed he could nutmeg a mermaid in a telephone box if ever put to the test.

It was his direct running and trickery that won the free-kick for Chelsea to open the scoring through an Andrei Coubis own goal on the stroke of the 5th minute, after a calamitous mix-up between the Italian and Mike Maignan in the Milan goal.

Moments later and Joao Pedro and Pedro Neto combined for the Brazilian to head home his fifth goal in five games.

A driving run from Neto down the right was followed by an inch perfect cross, met by a header that could’ve ripped a hole in the net to add Chelsea’s second in as many minutes.

He’s proving exceptional value for his £60m fee.

The Blues continued to dominate until the half-time whistle, helped out on the way by Milan defender Andrei Coubis’ afternoon going from bad to worse with a straight red card for bringing down Joao Pedro who was through on goal.

The Italian booted a water bottle as he stormed down the tunnel, and rightly so, you may not see a worse 17 minutes at Stamford Bridge this season than that.

Cole Palmer went close twice from first-half free-kicks, one that left the post rattling and another which left former Chelsea target Mike Maignan being ridiculed as a ‘s*** Robert Sanchez’.

The Blues’ number ten almost went on to recreate Gus Poyet’s famous 1999 ‘scissor volley’ minutes later, but his effort just sailed over the bar.

Unsurprisingly, it was Rafael Leao who lead the AC Milan charge.

He was denied by Robert Sanchez, Tosin and Reece James before finally beating the Spanish stopper, only to see the offside flag raised on the near side.

Half-time brought the introduction of six-time Champions League winner, Ballon D’or winner and Swansea part-owner Luka Modric into the middle for Milan.

The Croatian was left chasing the shadows of Chelsea’s young and energetic midfield throughout the second half, his only highlight being a tame shot claimed by Robert Sanchez. 

After the disastrous news that future captain Levi Colwill required surgery on an ACL injury, Enzo Maresca will have winced as Trevoh Chalobah was forced off with a knock in the 56th minute and replaced by Josh Acheampong,

Milan grew into the game in the second half, and simply had to score when Yunus Musah rolled the ball past Robert Sanchez before Reece James arrived on the scene to put that fire out.

Expectedly, a flurry of Chelsea changes came with 30 minutes to go, and unsurprisingly it was teenage prodigy Estevao replacing Cole Palmer that drew the biggest cheer at Stamford Bridge.

It took the 18-year-old exactly five minutes to be involved in another Chelsea goal, as he was brought down inside the box, allowing Delap to rifle a penalty into the bottom left corner.

The rest of his touches brought an expectant gasp out of everyone in the stadium, as he danced and dazzled with fancy footwork in front of the Matthew Harding stand.

AC Milan got a consolation goal, courtesy of Youssaf Fofana who smashed the ball past Robert Sanchez at the near post with 20 minutes to go, assisted by Alexis Saelemaekers.

Just when fans thought that would be game, set, and match, Chelsea added a fourth and final goal.

Andrey Santos’ perfectly weighted ball into the path of Liam Delap allowed the English striker to make it a brace with a fine finish into the bottom left corner. 

A WOMAN’S body has been found chained by the neck and tied underwater with two concrete dumbbells at a popular fishing pier in Thailand.

The horror discovery was made after stunned locals spotted the corpse floating close to shore.

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The body was found on Friday near Ban Tha Yai pier in Phang Nga’s Mueang district.

Police Lieutenant Pheerawit Chaichanyut of Khok Kloi Police Station said officers rushed to the scene with Kusoltham Foundation rescue workers after receiving an emergency call.

The victim – whose identity, address, and nationality are still unknown – was wearing grey shorts and a brown round-neck T-shirt.

Police believe she had been dead for around two days before being found in the murky waters.

A heavy chain had been wrapped tightly around her neck and secured to two concrete dumbbells in what investigators believe was a calculated attempt to keep the body hidden on the seabed.

But despite the grim effort, currents carried her to the surface and she drifted close to land.

“This is a serious case, and we are treating it as a possible murder,” Pol. Lt. Pheerawit said.

“The way the body was weighted down points towards an attempt to conceal it.”

The body has been sent for a full autopsy to determine the cause of death and whether the woman was alive before entering the water.

Local leaders and neighbouring districts have been told to check missing persons reports for anyone matching her description.

Cops will meanwhile scour CCTV from the pier and surrounding waterways for suspicious movements in the days before the grim find.

Anyone with information – particularly those who may have noticed unusual activity near Ban Tha Yai pier – is urged to contact police immediately.

The case echoes a similar discovery in February when a fisherman in Rayong found a woman’s decomposed body inside a locked suitcase weighted with two 10kg dumbbells.

Her identity also remains unknown.

More to follow… For the latest news on this story, keep checking back at The U.S. Sun, your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, sports news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures, and must-see videos.

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Las Vegas — I turn a bend and see a figure in a cornfield. The gray sky is foreboding, a storm clearly on the horizon. When I take a step forward, I’m hit with a gust of wind and fog. Suddenly, it’s no longer a silhouette in the haze but a scarecrow, shrouded in hay, lurching toward me.

Only I am not on a Midwestern farm, and there is no threat of severe weather. I‘m in a warehouse in Las Vegas, walking through a maze called “Scarecrow: The Reaping.” I jump back and fixate my phone’s camera on the creature, but that only encourages them to step closer. I‘m hurried out of the farmland and into a hall, where giant stalks now obscure my path.

Welcome to Universal Horror Unleashed, which aims to deliver year-round horrors and further expand theme park-like experiences beyond their hubs of Southern California and Central Florida. Horror Unleashed, opening Aug. 14, is an outgrowth of Universal’s popular fall event, Halloween Horror Nights, which has been running yearly at the company’s Los Angeles park since 2006 and even longer at its larger Florida counterpart.

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Like Halloween Horror Nights, there are maze-like haunted houses — four of them here themed to various properties such as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Exorcist.” Their more permanent status allows for a greater production factor — think disappearing walls and more elaborate show scenes — and they are surrounded by brooding bars, a pop-up rock-inspired dance show and a host of original walk-around characters. “Hey, sugar,” said a young woman as I near the warehouse’s main bar, a wraparound establishment themed to a large boiler. The actor’s face was scarred with blood, hinting at a backstory I didn’t have time — or perhaps the inclination — to explore.

Horror Unleashed is opening just on the cusp of when theme parks and immersive-focused live experiences are entering one of the busiest times of the year: Halloween. The holiday, of course, essentially starts earlier each year. This year’s Halloween Horror Nights begins Sept. 4, while Halloween season at the Disneyland Resort launches Aug. 22. Horror shows and films are now successful year-round, with the likes of “Sinners” and “The Last of Us” enrapturing audiences long before Oct. 31. Culture has now fully embraced the darker side of fairy tales.

A scene from the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” maze at Universal Horror Unleashed in Las Vegas.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre at the Universal Horror Unleashed.

A gruesome moment during the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” maze at Universal Horror Unleashed.

“You can make every month horrific,” says Nate Stevenson, Horror Unleashed’s show director.

That’s been a goal of David Markland, co-founder of Long Beach’s Halloween-focused convention Midsummer Scream, which this year is set for the weekend of Aug. 15. When Midsummer Scream began in 2016, it attracted about 8,000 people, says Markland, but today commands audiences of around 50,000. “Rapidly, over the past 10 or 15 years, Halloween has become a year-round fascination for people,” Markland says. “Halloween is a culture now. Halloween is a lifestyle. It’s a part of people’s lives that they celebrate year-round.”

There will be challenges, a difficult tourism market among them, as visits to Las Vegas were down 11.3% in June 2025 versus a year earlier, according to data from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. And then there’s the question of whether audiences are ready for year-round haunts that extend beyond the fall Halloween season to winter, spring and summer. I entered Horror Unleashed for a media preview on an early August night when it was 105 degrees in the Las Vegas heat. It’s also been tried before, albeit on a smaller scale. Las Vegas was once home to Eli Roth’s Goretorium, a year-round haunted house that leaned on torture-horror and shuttered after about a year in 2013.

But Universal creatives are undaunted.

Frankenstein’s monster comes alive during a Universal monsters maze at Universal Horror Unleashed.

More than a decade, of course, has passed, and Horror Unleashed is more diverse in its horror offerings. A maze themed to Universal’s classic creatures winds through a castle and catacombs with vintage-style horrors and a mid-show scene in which Frankenstein’s monster comes alive. Original tale “Scarecrow: The Reaping,” which began at Universal Studios Florida, mixes in jump scares with more natural-seeming frights, such as the aforementioned simulated dust bowl.

TJ Mannarino, vice president of entertainment, art and design at Universal Orlando, points to cultural happenings outside of the theme parks in broadening the terror scene — the success of shows such as “The Walking Dead” and “American Horror Story,” which found audiences outside of the Halloween season, as well as “Stranger Things,” which he says opened up horror to a younger crowd. Theme parks are simply reflecting our modern culture, which is craving darker fantasies. Universal, for instance, recently opened an entire theme park land focused on its classic monsters at its new Epic Universe in Florida, and even Disney is getting in on the action, as a villains-focused land is in the works for Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom.

An anxiety-ridden actor in “The Exorcist: Believer” maze at Universal Horror Unleashed.

“We think our audience really wants this,” says Mannarino, noting theme park attendance surveys were prodding the company to give horror a permanent home. And at Universal’s Orlando park, Halloween Horror Nights starts earlier, beginning in late August.

“Just a couple years ago, we started in August, and we were selling out August dates,” Stevenson says. “On a micro level, we’re seeing that, boy, it doesn’t matter if you extend past the season or extend out before the season — people are coming. People want it.”

The central bar, themed to a boiler room, at Universal Horror Unleashed.

Universal is betting on it, as the company has already announced that a second Horror Unleashed venue will be heading to Chicago in 2027. Smaller, more regional theme park-like experiences are once again something of a trend, as Netflix has immersive venues planned for the Dallas and Philadelphia regions, and Universal is also bringing a kid-focused park to Frisco, Texas.

There are antecedents for what Universal is attempting. Disney, for instance, tried an indoor interactive theme park with DisneyQuest, for which a Chicago location was short-lived and a Florida outpost closed in 2017. Star Trek: The Experience, a mix of theme park-like simulations and interactive theater, operated for about a decade in Las Vegas before it shuttered in 2008.

“I know there’s horror fans and Halloween fans who are always looking for something to do,” Markland says. “What [Universal is] doing is very ambitious and big, and so I’m nervous along with them. We’ll see how it goes. I’m sure people will go as soon as it opens and through the Halloween season, but after that, I don’t know. … They’ve definitely invested in Halloween and horror fans. They’re all-in.”

Horror, says author Lisa Morton — who has written multiple books on the Oct. 31 holiday, including “Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween” — is thriving in part because today it is taken more seriously by cultural critics. The genre also has metaphorical qualities — the struggle, for instance, that is life, art and creativity in “Sinners” or the underlying themes of PTSD that permeated the latest season of “The Last of Us.” That makes it especially appealing, she says, for today’s stressful times.

“I suspect that’s part of the reason horror is booming right now,” Morton says. “Everything from climate change, that we seem to have no voice in, and our politics, that don’t seem to represent us. Many of us are filled with anxiety about the future. I think horror is the perfect genre to talk about that. When you add a layer of a metaphor to it, it becomes much easier to digest.”

To step into Horror Unleashed is to walk into a demented wonderland, a place that turns standard theme park warmth and joy upside down. Don’t expect fairy tale-like happy endings. The space’s centerpiece performance is twisted, a story centering on Jack the Clown and his female sidekick Chance, who have kidnapped two poor Las Vegas street performers and are forcing them to execute their acts to perfection to avoid murder. The deeper one analyzes it, the more sinister its class dynamics feel, even if it’s an excuse to showcase, say, street dancing and hula hoop acrobatics.

A circus show at Universal Horror Unleashed features various Las Vegas performers.

The space has an underlying narrative. Broadly speaking, the warehouse is said to have been a storage place for Universal Studios’ early monster-focused horror films. That allows it to be littered with props, such as the throne-like chair near its entrance, and for nooks and crannies such as a “film vault” to be renamed a “kill vault.” Somehow — horror loves a good mystery — the space has come alive, and don’t be surprised to be greeted by a vampire or a costumed swampland figure that may or may not be related to the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The goal, says Universal creatives, is to give Horror Unleashed a bit of an immersive theater feel, something that can’t really be done among the chaotic scare zones and fast-moving mazes of a Halloween Horror Nights event. But here, guests can linger with the actors and probe them to try to uncover the storyline that imbues the venue. One-to-one actor interaction has long been a goal of those in the theme park space but often a tough formula to crack, in part because cast members are costly and in part because of the difficulty to scale such experiences for thousands.

“As we’ve evolved this style of experience, we have given more and more control of the show to the actors,” says Mannarino on what separates Horror Unleashed from Halloween Horror Nights. “It’s less programmed. It’s less technology. I’ve had conversations with tech magazines, and they’ll ask me what is the most critical piece, and I’ll say it’s the actors. … The lifeblood of our all stories — we can build all of this, but it doesn’t go without the actors.

“It’s what really drives this whole animal,” he adds.

A dark moment in “The Exorcist: Believer” maze at Universal Horror Unleashed.

It extends a bit to the mazes as well. Audiences should expect to spend about five to seven minutes in each of the four walk-through attractions, but unlike a Halloween Horror Nights event, where guests are rushed from room to room without stopping, in Las Vegas there will be one dedicated show scene per maze. Here, groups will be held to watch a mini-performance. In the “Exorcist” maze, for instance, that means witnessing a full exorcism, complete with special effects that will have walls give way to demonic specters. In the ‘70s-themed “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” haunt, look out for a bloody scene designed to drench guests.

The mazes are intended to be semi-permanent. Stevenson says there’s no immediate plans to swap them out in the near future but hints that Horror Unleashed will be an evolving venue and, if all goes according to plan, will look a bit different in a few years. Thus, he says the key differentiator between Horror Unleashed and Halloween Horror Nights is not necessarily the tech used in the mazes, but the extended time they can devote to unwrapping a story.

“When Universal builds a haunted house, the level of story that starts that out is enormous,” Stevenson says. “There’s so much story. All of our partners need that because they base every little nuanced thing off of that story. Unfortunately, we don’t always have the chance to tell that story, and all our fans tell us they want to know more story.”

A sampling of food and drinks at Universal Horror Unleashed, including a bread dish with bourbon-laced cheese.

Tacos and a chainsaw-themed flatbread at Universal Horror Unleashed.

Story percolates throughout the venue. Flatbreads, for instance, are shaped like chainsaw blades. Desserts come on plates that are mini-shovels. Salad dressing is delivered in syringes. In the past, says Mannarino, no one wanted their food to be played with. ‘“Don’t do horrible things to my food!’” he says in mock exaggeration. “But now, people really love that.”

Little, it seems, is obscene, when every day can be Halloween.