There’s one thing that has stuck with me for more than a decade (probably). It was a very short youtube video. It was just a man and women in bed back to back. After a second it pans to the woman’s side of the bed and shes a scary looking monster demon lady. I think about it once or twice a week. Specifically when laying in bed with my lady and shes not facing me.I have no idea what its from. Youtube used to have alot of randomly terrifying content.
The film that scared me the most was ‘Paranormal Activity’. It was the simplicity and how it opened the door and let your imagination do the heavy lifting.
The scariest book I’ve read of late is ‘Incidents Around the House’. It put me in touch with the child version of myself that was afraid of everything.
Creepy movie! Haven’t read that book but I’ll probably end up looking into it, love horror media.
If, as a kid, you were scared of something under your bed or in your closet, it’s a good one.
I’m a big strong man now, I still get skeeved out by slightly open closets (all of the closets in my house are two folding door style, except my hall closets)
Same.
I can close a book and just verbalize myself that: “It’s literally just a story.” But books can get into one’s head. :)
SOMA continues to bother me. Much more about the ideas than the actual gameplay. It’s relevant. It feels more possible every year.
It’s either that or Stingers from Satisfactory, which are zero percent philosophical nightmare and just pure AAAAAA SHITSHITSHIT
The scariest aspects of SOMA apply to everyone regardless of scifi brain transfer/copy technology if you think about it. In the years immediately following the release of the game I followed discussions about it which largely converged on the comforting explanation that the idea of a transfer is a delusion, and continuity of consciousness must be always tied to the original body. But unless you somehow rule out the idea that it is an emergent property of the information being processed in our heads, there isn’t a lot of reason to think that would be the case. A copy of you with all your memories and brain patterns has equal claim as an original. But we don’t even have quite the same pattern as a moment ago, so maybe our own claims to continuity or self aren’t as strong as we rely on them being.
It calls into question basic intuitions about the nature of our existence that people have a very difficult time bringing themselves to question, something the game pretty brilliantly depicts with its robots that are deeply offended, hostile and defensive about the suggestion that they are robots.
SOMA was amazing. It’s in my top 3 greatest games I have ever played. The ending broke me.
Creepiest is definitely SCP articles
I love SCP related stuff but I haven’t been on the site in probably a decade.
An extended story that I recently read (or rather, listened to) was “There is no Antiemetics Division”, by qntm. The channel J&V SCP archives have an excellent audiobook-style reading of it, if that’s your thing. It’s not especially scary (though it does have its moments), but stumbling across it really reignited my enjoyment of SCP.
There’s only one film that has ever really given me the creeps and that’s The Descent. I think it’s the combination of the creatures and being stuck underground in those cave systems (plus the claustrophobic nature of it all). Plenty of times it gave me full on spine tingling shivers.
Also I will also say watch the full version with the extended (proper) ending.
Very scary movie
As Above So Below got me for similar reasons: the underground inescapability and claustrophobia. Parts of it felt a tad liminal too.
The really unsettling one for me was Beyond the Aquila Rift
I saw it on Love, Death, and Robots and it really creeped me out.
Every Paolo Baciagalupi novel and the first two acts of almost every Cory Doctorow novel. “The Water Knife” by Baciagalupi is fictional near-future extrapolation on the excellent non-fiction “Cadillac Desert.” “Walkaway” and the Little Brother books by Doctorow cast a stark light on the nature of power, surveillance, and authoritarianism in Western society. It doesn’t take a lot of social imagination to see that’s exactly where we’re going.
Sounds like I have alot to look into.
Do you happen to be frequently. On the edge of sleep deprivation? Either by continually running short on total hours and/or by ignoring the first wave of sleepiness? In my experience, such habits bring upon The Horrors. I’ve recently been honing in on those as random bouts of artistic endeavor. If I’m gonna dream it up, I may as well put it to paper
Anyway, my suggestion is The Jaunt by Stephen King. I think it’s only about 20 pages, part of a collection of other short stories. I have yet to read it myself
Lights Out is an oldie but a goodie horror short. Could do without
Tap for spoiler
the goofy creature reveal
at the end though.
Curve is another really good short that builds a sense dread and hopelessness. No cheap jumpscares, overused tropes (looking at you overly exaggerated smiles), or complicated lore. Just good old fashion universal horror.
Wonderful
Dread, by Clive Barker.
A short story. Ain’t telling you anything about it.
I do very much like Clive Barker.
For the horror readers, it’s in “Books of Blood, Volume 2.”
Honestly, at the time, The Blair Witch Project.
I still think it’s a great horror movie.
Honestly, Sphere (the book). On the surface it really appears to be standard Michael Crichton sci-fi/monster stuff, but when you realize what’s going on, the deeper the horror gets because it’s so much harder to face your fears when they physically manifest, especially in an already difficult environment.
I watched it only once, in the 90s, and I’ve never been able to watch it again since. At the same time, I think it’s an excellent film.
The seemingly light and even humorous beginning of the film is bit by bit replaced by the sheer horror of the gradual loss of humanity and the final transformation into a monster. Simultaneously, in my perception, a glimmer of hope for a good ending is created, only to be ruthlessly destroyed at the very end. Even the music from this film feels overwhelming to me.
I highly recommend it, but you should never watch it ;)
I want to say it was one of the Ju-on movies. They made a bunch of them.
Special mentions:
- Suicide Circle
- I Saw the Devil
Japanese horror always just hits so hard.
Agreed. J-Horror has a way of making one feel so uncomfortably on edge.
The Babadook
Phenomenal movie
Pretty sure you’re trying to forget Bedfellows
FUCKING AH. I guess I reversed the genders. What a horrible trip down memory lane.
