LAKE COUNTY, Ohio — Legends abound about monsters dwelling in Northeast Ohio. You’ve likely heard about bigfoot sightings or ghost encounters. Some claim a prehistoric sea creature nicknamed Bessie swims in Lake Erie.
One cryptid dwells in Lake County lore: creatures with abnormally shaped heads, known as the Kirtland melon heads.
“I moved up here in the mid-1980s and my brother-in-law was from this area. And we were around a fire in his yard and he started telling a story of the melon heads. And I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’” recalled Tonya Busic.
As the education manager at the Lake County Historical Society, Busic collects stories from the area, including the more far-fetched ones, that are retold enough to be etched in the county’s history.
“We have just a huge amount of history in this area, whether it is keeping track of the true things that happened or these are the things that people claim and we can do what we want with them,” she said.
The legend of the Kirtland melon heads varies depending on the source and creativity of the storyteller. But most versions place the story in the woods near Wisner Road in Kirtland and include a main character named Dr. Crow.
Some variations cast Dr. Crow as a good guy. Busic said one story said he took in children with a condition that made their heads swell.
When Dr. Crow’s wife died, the grief-stricken doctor could no longer care for the children. Eventually, the doctor died, and they were fated to wander the nearby woods, leery of outsiders intruding in their territory.
Other versions are more sinister.
“The legend has it there was this Dr. Crow who was doing these creepy experiments on these orphan kids. And he was injecting them with some kind of venom, which would cause their heads to grow and become bulbous. That’s where they got the name ‘melon heads,’” said Eddie Lengyl.
The Solon native recalls hunting for the melon heads himself in the woods near Wisner Road.
“It was like the legend, the lore of it made it so fascinating. Do they really exist? Where are they?” he said.
As an adult, that same fascination with the creepy and unusual led him to a career creating horror movies. One of the latest projects from Fright Teck Pictures features the local legend of the melon heads.
“The Melon Heads: House of Crow” was shot on a tight budget with a small crew and local cast during the strict health regulations of COVID-19. This week, it will be shown on the big screen at a theater in Mentor.
“It really came out better than I thought for a micro-budget and skeleton crew. It came out alright. I’m pretty happy,” he said.
The film follows a group of college students as they unpack the legend for a class assignment and have their own encounter with Dr. Crow and the melon heads.
Lengyl said the feature-length movie premiered to a sold-out crowd in Euclid. He’s hoping it will be well-received during a Thursday night screening at Atlas Cinemas Great Lakes Stadium in Mentor.
“The people of Kirtland and Chardon, they are really into the legend,” he said. “Ours is a little different for movie purposes. So I hope they like it. I hope we do them well.”
The story has captivated generations, and whether or not it’s real, it lives on in the fabric of Lake County.
“Whether it’s true or not, the fact that we’re retelling it again and again and again, for me, tells me that that’s now part of our history,” said Busic.
“The Melon Heads: House of Crow” will be screened at 7:30 p.m. at Atlas Cinemas Great Lakes Stadium. Tickets for one theater sold out Wednesday, so the filmmaker is planning to include a second auditorium for the screening. You can find screening and ticket information by clicking on this link.
