True Monsters History Channel Kuchisake-onna Slit-Mouthed Woman

The History Channel is getting into spirit of Halloween with a new series that reveals the True Monsters behind myths and legends. It’s the antithesis of its current series Ancient Aliens, which proposes all unexplained phenomena are the result of aliens. Nevertheless, it will likely leave the door open to the monster in the closet.

The season premiere will focus on devilish monsters including the Jersey Devil, the Norse goddess Hel, an evil Santa Claus known as Krampus and Jinn or Genies, which Pakistani nuclear engineer Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood proposed harnessing as an alternate energy source.

“I think that if we develop our souls, we can develop communication with them,” Mahmood told The Wall Street Journal. “Every new idea has its opponents. But there is no reason for this controversy over Islam and science because there is no conflict between Islam and science.”

The series will also feature more modern myths like the Japanese urban legend of Kuchisake-onna or Slit-Mouthed Woman, who was mutilated by her jealous husband. The Slit-Mouthed Woman wears a surgical mask to cover her disfigurement and asks her victims if they think she is pretty. She kills them if they say no, otherwise she removes her mask and repeats the question. If you still think she’s pretty then she slits your mouth open like hers. The legend supposedly originated in the 1970s when a masked woman would chase children before being hit by a car. The accident ripped open her mouth and created the eerie grin on her face.

True Monsters schedule synopsis:

October 9, Friday 10PM
“True Monsters Devils and Hell”

Real monsters are behind our greatest legends. The gates of Hell are unlocked to reveal the surprising truths and devilish secrets of Satan, demons, and other powerful rulers of the Underworld. In the 17th century, a beastly devil is born deep in the woods of New Jersey and is said to still wreak havoc in a place called the Pine Barrens. Plus, from evil Jinn, whose power a nuclear physicist tried to tap, to a Christmas devil that takes naughty kids to Hell, to a two-faced female demon named Hel who presided over the dead in the icy North, there’s a lot to learn about our devils and the history that inspired them.

October 16, Friday 10PM
“True Monsters Cannibals and Killers”

Real monsters are behind our greatest legends. This episode takes us into the belly of the beast to find the surprising truths behind history’s most mythic cannibals and killers. Does a banshee born during the Revolutionary War still curse the North Carolina woods? Plus, a medieval clan of cannibals out for blood in 16th century Scotland, and did a fairy tale villain named Bluebeard inspire a notorious Chicago World’s Fair serial killer? And, could real zombies walk among us, created by a potion from puffer fish?