What childhood nursery rhyme or tale. do you think would make the best horror film for Halloween? Mine is
Hansel and Gretel, How about boo(you)?
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Many nursery rhymes have dark stories behind them, but there's usually no hard (i.e. written) evidence one way or the other as to their original meaning. There are several similar rhymes, possibly precursors to PPPE, mostly about murdered women, so this one is maybe a little more convincing than others.
A less grisly interpretation assumes that "pumpkin shell" refers to a chastity belt. With all the historical variations in such folk terms, seldom committed to writing, it's hard for even the experts to be sure.
"The Cat and the Fiddle" seems like nonsense to modern ears, but apparently it's about court gossip -- "the Old Dog" refers to the king, "The dish ran away with the spoon" refers to an elopement, etc.; "The cow jumped over the Moon" was an old expression for "the impossible has happened", sort of like "Hell has frozen over".
To complicate matters further, the modern versions of nursery rhymes are often different from the originals, where the originals are known. There's always the possibility that an old rhyme could be changed slightly to become a 'coded' version of recent events, giving them an interpretation for which they weren't originally intended. And many were "cleaned up" by later, more squeamish/bluenosed, compilers. There have even been some recent "politically correct" versions of old rhymes. 
