|
Thursday, 18 October 2018
quote [ I love Halloween. I love horror. What media - any media - gives you the chills? A startle? Or a creeping existential dread? ]
I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
Halloween is my favorite holiday and horror is one of my favorite genres. What are your favorite spooky things? What do you recommend checking out this October?
Here's some horror media I've enjoyed and want to share with you! I tried to limit myself to things that were: 1) absolutely free, 2) relatively brief (ideally between 20-90m), and 3) not a standard book or movie. (These were just criteria for me - share whatever horror you like!) A Colder War by Charles Stross Novella injecting the eldritch into the cold war. http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm The Things by Peter Watts Short story retelling the film The Thing from the Thing’s perspective. Ending line is a whammy. http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/ Ted the Caver Short story in blog format. A man, his best friend, and his dog work at opening a hole in a cave. http://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/ The Sick Land Short story in blog format. A small team of scientists research an infectious geographic anomaly. If you liked Annihilation you’ll probably like this. http://thesickland.blogspot.com/ The Sun Vanished Short story in Twitter form. What if the sun suddenly went dark (and we didn’t all freeze to death)? https://twitter.com/TheSunVanished/ SCP Foundation Creepypasta Wiki. Yeah, I debated posting this. It’s a really, really mixed bag of quality, from genuinely creepy to edgelord grimdark to hilarious to not-hilarious-but-supposed-to-be. I personally really like SCPs 087, 093, 439, 610, 895, and 1342. http://www.scp-wiki.net/ The Enigma of Amigara Fault by Junji Ito Manga/Graphic Novel. You’ve seen this, right? You’ve had to – but it’s a classic. The scary part for me is how it hinges on your curiosity – how many of us would see something so perfectly for us and not want to poke it with a stick? https://imgur.com/gallery/ZNSaq The Door in the Kitchen by Abby Howard Webcomic. A new home has a creepy, unsettling door. How long before you get too comfortable with it? If you like this, there’s 2 more stories on her page, though I feel this is the strongest one. http://www.terror-town.com/stories/4 The Dreaded Question by Kurt Huggins & Zelda Devon Webcomic. An aspiring writer asks a productive, published author what the secret of inspiration is. https://www.tor.com/2009/06/04/the-dreaded-question/ His Face All Red by Emily Carroll Webcomic. A Victorian-style horror story about two brothers out wolf hunting. If you like this there's tons more by the same artist. I also like The Groom. http://emcarroll.com/comics/faceallred/01.html Marble Hornets YouTube series. Essentially an ARC revolving around Slender Man. https://www.youtube.com/user/marblehornets Cathedral by Kitty Horrorshow Video Game. One of the games included in the Haunted Cities Volume 2 pack, featuring 90s-style graphics and first person perspective. You are investigating a creepy cathedral. Absolutely no jump scares, all great atmosphere. If you like this, her game Anatomy is also quite good. https://kittyhorrorshow.itch.io/haunted-cities-v2 Lurking by Gattai Games Video Game. First-person perspective with wireframe graphics. The predecessor to the game Stifled I mentioned in the echolocation post. Navigate by sound, evading enemies that hunt by sound. http://www.lurking-game.com/ Cube Escape by Rusty Lake Video Game. Click-and-point inventory puzzle game with its own unsettling mythology and atmosphere. I’m told it feels similar to Twin Peaks ? http://www.cubeescape.com/ Doki Doki Literature Club by Team Salvato Video Game. Visual Novel. You join a poetry club featuring 3 girls that are tripping over themselves to woo you. Not only horror, but a critique of the visual novel genre. This one IS a bit longer, taking ~3 hours to complete. https://ddlc.moe/ The House Abandon by No Code Studio Video Game. Text Adventure. Visit your old home and read a heartwarming letter from your dad. https://jonnocode.itch.io/the-house-abandon
|
Comments
 |
cb361 said[1] @ 7:17am GMT on 18th Oct
[Score:1 Good]
Not a horror person, but love Clive Barker:
Here are the stories written on the Book of Blood. They are a map of that dark highway that leads out of life towards unknown destinations. Few will have to take it, most will go on peacefully along lamplit streets, ushered out of living with prayers and caresses. But for a few, a chosen few, the horrors will come, skipping to fetch them off to the highway of the damned. So read. Read and learn. It's best to be prepared for the worst, after all, and wise to learn to walk before breath runs out Also: The Door in the Kitchen - Don't leave off fixing problems for too long The Last Halloween |
|
Dienes said @ 4:48pm GMT on 19th Oct
I love Door in the Kitchen, too. Abby's really good about making characters that are relatable and genre-savvy. I was surprised at how well the character's thought process paralleled my own, which probably means I wouldn't survive long.
|
|
cb361 said @ 5:04pm GMT on 19th Oct
[Score:1 Interesting]
A lot of stories lose their impact because the characters aren't so relatable. You're shouting "No, don't eat the fruit on the table" or "Just burn the spooky picture fcorrisake" But yes, that's a story where genre-savvy doesn't help you.
|
|
Silent said @ 6:05pm GMT on 19th Oct
You got yourself an upvote.
Suitably relevant to my interests. |
|
moriati said @ 9:43am GMT on 18th Oct
[Score:1 Informative]
Big fan of Charles Stross (his new Laundry book is out next week) and have fond memories of discovering the Books of Blood many years ago.
I've never been much of a big horror fan though - but quite like comedy horrors. 2 fairly recent films i enjoyed were Tucker & Dale vs. Evil and What we do in the Shadows. |
|
LurkerAtTheGate said @ 2:41pm GMT on 18th Oct
If you liked Tucker & Dale (which I loved, especially being from the south), i highly recommend Cabin In The Woods.
|
|
Dienes said @ 3:32pm GMT on 19th Oct
Cabin in the Woods and What We Do In Shadows are both excellent. I've never heard of Tucker and Dale, I'll check that out!
I also recently saw a poster for You Can't Kill Stephen King but I don't know if its any good. |
|
lilmookieesquire said @ 11:19am GMT on 18th Oct
[Score:1 Informative]
Btw the steam pack "Lakewood Cabin Collection" is amazing.
|
|
Silent said @ 7:27pm GMT on 18th Oct
[Score:1 Underrated]
Can confirm, the Lakewood Cabin is indeed a "collection"
And had a pretty fun time playing it. |
|
conception said @ 4:17pm GMT on 18th Oct
[Score:1 Interesting]
I always liked this creepypasta -
http://ichorfalls.chainsawsuit.com/ |
|
Bruceski said @ 1:54am GMT on 18th Oct
I'm not a fan of a lot of horror out there; jumpscares tend to leave me "stuck" where other people might get a pleasant jolt, and it can take me days to come down off a bad adrenaline spike. That said, even if I don't watch it often I'm fascinated by suspense horror and the sorts of things directors can do where your imagination does all the work. Stuff like the old monster movies or Alien, where a shadow on the wall could have you cringing in dread just as much as any modern torture-porn graphic gorefest can.
|
|
Dienes said @ 2:07am GMT on 18th Oct
I'm with you. I can't say I feel 'stuck,' but its a very different sensation than non-jumpy horror; they don't scratch the same itch. I can enjoy jump scares in the right context (primarily haunted houses) but I can't stand them in movies or video games - it feels cheap.
|
|
satanspenis666 said @ 2:09am GMT on 18th Oct
I like to watch horror movies when I work from home. They tend to have a lot of suspense scenes, which are easy to tune out while working. Just need to look up, when something is actually happening.
|
|
lilmookieesquire said @ 3:48am GMT on 18th Oct
I like Japanese stuff because it tends to be based on real legit plague/death/famine. A lot of western stuff (not all of it) is over the top. Basically real life is scarier than fiction/fantasy. That said I did like the slender man video game and the other one where you where trapped in the serial killers house and/or were the serial killer.
Slow burn scares are the best. I reallllly liked The Seventh Guest and Alone in the Dark back in the day. For horror suspense is magical. |
|
Bruceski said @ 4:39am GMT on 18th Oct
[Score:1 Underrated]
That final shot of Ju-On (The Grudge), an empty city with missing person flyers everywhere, is legit one of the creepiest things I've seen. Plague is a good analogy for that haunting, if you disturb it, you die and spread the effect.
|
|
lilmookieesquire said @ 3:56am GMT on 18th Oct
That said Mandy was both funny and an experience. I don’t know if I recommend it, but it’s worth watching as a horror movie tribute. Red letter media did a solid review of it. As always Mike is on it and Jay is a giant twat. Jay, if you are on this site, I want you to know you’re a massive twat.
|
|
captainstubing said @ 8:56am GMT on 18th Oct
I saw a Japanese horror film some years back I would love to know the name of if you or anyone else here has a clue. It was centred around a presence in the water within a house. In the tap water, in the shower...I recall it being really unsettling but much of the detail has left me. It would all of a sudden take a vague shape and harm people and then lapse back into simple water. That it was shown on TV here suggests to me it was a well known film in Japan.
It made me hold on for a bit longer than normal before going for a wee. |
|
lilmookieesquire said @ 11:18am GMT on 18th Oct
|
|
7 said @ 8:34pm GMT on 18th Oct
Woman in the Dunes | Hiroshi Teshigahara (1964).
This is the first film that comes to mind, and it isn't even classified as horror, and has nothing to do with death, really. The ultimate horror is living, not death. |
|
lilmookieesquire said[1] @ 5:41am GMT on 19th Oct
Is this the one where the dude is put into the sand pit with some lady who’s all into it and finally escapes?!
It is!!! I always remembered this movie. It’s haunting. I thought it was an alagory for small town life. |
|
Dienes said @ 3:29pm GMT on 19th Oct
"...the other one where you where trapped in the serial killers house and/or were the serial killer."
That's....that's all of them. |
|
LurkerAtTheGate said @ 4:26am GMT on 18th Oct
Not a fan of gore for gore's sake or cheap jump scares. Prefer suspense, slowly growing unsettled and eventually horrified. Lovecraftian themes, questioning sanity.
First season of HBO series True Detective was great shit. The Thing short story mentioned above is one of my favorite short stories of any genre...love Carpenter's The Thing and first Alien movie. Another JP visual novel game - Song of Saya. Med student is in a car accident, and brain damage leaves all his senses perceiving the world as a nightmarish gore-scape...except one other patient. Lovecraftian ending. It didn't age well, but Eternal Darkness on gamecube was one of the best lovecraftian games. Multigenerational battle against an immortal Roman serving one of 3 eldritch gods...only way to fully beat the game was 3 complete playthroughs as parallel realities where the Roman picked the other gods. |
|
slaytanik said @ 4:53am GMT on 18th Oct
Eternal Darkness was incredible
|
|
Dienes said @ 3:31pm GMT on 19th Oct
If you've never played it, is it worth tracking down to play on an emulator?
|
|
slaytanik said @ 4:10pm GMT on 19th Oct
Absolutely worth finding, hopefully they'll re-release for the Switch as well
|
|
conception said @ 4:15pm GMT on 18th Oct
Call of Cthulhu on the Xbox is amazing as well. The first sequence you are chased by towns people and it's terrifying. There's a new one coming out soon that looks legit.
|
|
slaytanik said @ 4:55am GMT on 18th Oct
The Amnesia games are great to play high in the dark, and alone
|
|
mechanical contrivance said @ 1:20pm GMT on 18th Oct
I watched all the horror movies I wanted when I worked in a video store. I haven't been interested in horror since then.
|
|
SnappyNipples said @ 6:01pm GMT on 18th Oct
I find Micro SD cards to be terrifying medium with a chance where this volatile memory will not properly save an STL file and ruin a 14 hour 3D print at the 13 hour mark.
|
|
robotroadkill said @ 6:32pm GMT on 18th Oct
I like horror movies but so seldom find them actually scary or suspenseful. I think video games do a better job of that for me because I feel more immersed and involved. That said, I do very little video game playing anymore.
|
|
daffyduck said @ 2:59pm GMT on 19th Oct
Comic book horror: Locke & Key-series by Joe Hill (writer) and Gabriel Rodríguez.
|
|
Dienes said @ 3:28pm GMT on 19th Oct
I've heard of this! I love Joe Hill's stuff - he definitely takes after his dad. Have you listened to the audio play version of Locke and Key?
|
|
daffyduck said @ 2:49am GMT on 20th Oct
I knew about attempts for a tv/movie-adaptation (none successful so far), but hadn't heard about an audio play. Guess I'll have to check it out.
|
Post a comment
[note: if you are replying to a specific comment,
then click the reply link on that comment instead]You must be logged in to comment on posts.
