Theme: Urban Legend

Urban Legends are stories that have become pieces of modern folklore. That is to say, they are stories that are believed to be true by many who recount them but where the origins of the story remain unclear and the actual factual content either dubious or unsupported.

Some genre works incorporate existing urban legends such as stories about alligators flushed down the sewers; stories of Bigfoot and the chupacabra; stories of UFOs and the Men in Black; many of the entries that go into Films That Make Dubious Claims to Be Based on True Stories; while the popularly believed (but untrue) claim that we only use 10% of our brain has been incorporated into some SF stories.

In genre material, there was a horror series set around urban legends beginning with Urban Legend (1998). Other series can also be counted, particularly those featuring Boogeymen and quasi-supernatural figures of urban legend such as Slender Man, La Llorona or the Slit-Mouthed Woman or fictional ones such as Candyman.