A mum was horrified after she found a 'clawed Freddy Krueger ' figure in her bathroom.
Lyndsay Cash spotted the spooky silhouette of two spiked hands against her bathroom window while she was in her garden and went to investigate.
The 42-year-old was freaked out by what she saw and quickly ended a phone call before grabbing a quick photo and rushing into her home.
Manchester Evening News reports how she ran to her bathroom ready to confront the sinister-looking figure which was notorious in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.
But the mum-of-two ended up in stitches when she realised there was nothing evil lurking in her bathroom.
She instead found the Freddy Krueger-like claws were simply caused by shadows from her two spikey aloe vera plants.
The spooky illusion was even more convincing as her son's 17-year-old girlfriend Rebecca Maiden had popped into the bathroom to remove her make-up - giving the creature a clearly-defined head.
Aesthetics practitioner Lyndsay, who'd watched the film Malignant alone the night before, said when she told her friends they laughed at her over-active imagination.
She said: "I was an idiot and didn't take anything to arm myself - I didn't think that far ahead.
"I had no idea what was in there.
"The night before I'd watched a scary film called Malignant - the bloke in it had spiky fingers like that.
"I thought there would be an explanation for it but because I'd watched the film the previous night it put doubt in me that there was a monster in my bathroom."
After racing upstairs and bursting through the bathroom door, Lyndsay laughed with relief when she realised there was no-one there.
The relieved horror movie fan plodded downstairs to let son Devon Brogan, 19, and Rebecca know.
It resulted in them rolling their eyes and guffawing at her alarm.
Lyndsay said: "I was a nervous wreck, but then I laughed at myself when I got in the bathroom because I knew the aloe vera plants were the spikes that looked like hands.
"I put the plants on the window sill to break up the white and grey [from the bathroom tiles] with a bit of colour.
"It turned out my son's girlfriend had gone into the bathroom to take her make-up off so it was her head that I could see.
"Devon, Rebecca and my friend were all laughing at me when I told them what happened. They just rolled their eyes, because that's typical me."
The frightening experience hasn't put Lyndsay off watching scary films in future.
She said: "I love horror films - the adrenaline rush makes you feel alive and excited.
"I've got some other spooky films lined up ahead of Halloween. Now I know what it is, it'll just make me chuckle - there's no need to move the plants."
