Hexed: Stories of Cursed Objects

Step into a world where history and horror collide. This episode of Hexed walks the empty cell blocks of Eastern State Penitentiary, a Philadelphia prison built in 1829 on a radical idea: that complete isolation could make a person truly penitent.Hosted by Mark Houston, Hexed blends eerie storytelling with cultural history and a dose of skepticism. Charles Dickens toured it and called the psychological toll worse than any physical punishment he'd witnessed. Al Capone served time in a cell furnished like a hotel room. This is a rare cursed place where you don't need a ghost story, the documented history of what isolation does to the human mind is horror enough. Enter at your own risk, and remember to keep your curiosity alive, and your caution close.

Step into a world where history and horror collide. This episode of Hexed sails out to Poveglia Island, a small, mostly forgotten island in the Venetian lagoon used for centuries as a plague quarantine station, and later converted into a mental asylum.Hosted by Mark Houston, Hexed blends eerie storytelling with cultural history and a dose of skepticism. Local legend adds a mad doctor and a fatal fall from the bell tower, but the verified history alone, tens of thousands buried or burned on the same small stretch of ground, is disturbing enough without it. Locals fought to keep developers off the island entirely, choosing instead to leave it as it is. Enter at your own risk, and remember to keep your curiosity alive, and your caution close.

Step into a world where history and horror collide. This episode of Hexed checks into the Stanley Hotel, a grand mountain resort in Colorado, built by a steam engine tycoon chasing a cure for tuberculosis, and forever linked to the horror novel it helped inspire. Hosted by Mark Houston, Hexed blends eerie storytelling with cultural history and a dose of skepticism. Long before Stephen King ever checked in for one quiet, empty night, a real 1911 gas explosion had already given the hotel's most famous room its haunted reputation. Was it ever anything more than an accident and a century of ghost stories built on top of it? The piano still plays, and the room upstairs is still booking. Enter at your own risk, and remember to keep your curiosity alive, and your caution close.

Step into a world where history and horror collide. This episode of Hexed travels to Bhangarh Fort, a once-thriving 16th century walled city in Rajasthan, India, abandoned centuries ago and now considered so cursed that India's own Archaeological Survey posts an official notice barring anyone from entering after sunset. Hosted by Mark Houston, Hexed blends eerie storytelling with cultural history and a dose of skepticism. Local legend points to a sorcerer's dying curse or a holy man's broken promise to explain why every roof in the city collapsed and never rose again. The real explanation may be simpler, and just as unsettling: drought, famine, and the slow, total emptying of a city history never fully accounted for.Enter at your own risk, and remember to keep your curiosity alive, and your caution close.

Step into a world where history and horror collide. This episode of Hexed digs into the Lemp Mansion, a Victorian showplace in St. Louis built on one of America's great brewing fortunes, and marked by one of its darkest family legacies. Across three generations, the Lemp family lost sons, fortunes, and finally themselves inside the same thirty-three room house, with three documented suicides occurring within its walls.Hosted by Mark Houston, Hexed blends eerie storytelling with cultural history and a dose of skepticism. Was the Lemp family cursed, or does grief, addiction, and the collapse of a business empire explain enough on their own? Either way, the house they left behind still keeps its doors open, for dinner, for a room upstairs, and for whatever else might still be there.Enter at your own risk, and remember to keep your curiosity alive, and your caution close.

In 1972, artist Bill Stoneham painted The Hands Resist Him, a haunting image of a boy, a doll, and countless ghostly hands pressing against a glass door. Years later, the painting resurfaced on eBay with claims that its figures moved at night and even escaped the frame. In this episode of Hexed: Stories of Cursed Objects, Mark Houston explores how one work of art became known as the most haunted painting in the world, blurring the line between creation and curse.

In Key West, Florida, a sailor-suited doll named Robert sits behind glass, and some say behind every misfortune of those who cross him. Visitors claim he moves, laughs, and curses anyone who disrespects him. In this episode of Hexed: Stories of Cursed Objects, Mark Houston unravels the eerie history of Robert the Doll, from his mysterious 1904 origins to his modern legend as one of the most haunted artifacts in America.

At the Myrtles Plantation in Louisiana, a grand gold-framed mirror is said to hold more than reflections. Visitors report ghostly faces and handprints that never fade. In this episode of Hexed: Stories of Cursed Objects, Mark Houston explores the legend of the Myrtles Plantation Mirror, a relic tied to slavery, betrayal, and restless spirits. From the story of Chloe to modern ghost hunts, discover how one mirror became a haunting symbol of the South’s past.