You can technically eat this video if you eat your phone while the video is playing but the phone components probably arent good for you so i dont recommend. Plus the taste of the phone would overcome the taste of the video which sucks because the whole reason youre eating it is for the pure untouched taste of the video itself. Ive gone through about 8 phones so far. The type of phone actually does affect the taste. I've found that a flip phone is the easiest to consume because of the tiny screen but the flavor is very bad. The iphone is the best tasting but the planned obsolescence makes it difficult to eat. I will return with more results once ive experimented further but in all honesty i do not recommend you do this because the cost alone is not worth it.
My greatest beef with loud jump-scarey horror is when they force you to turn it up. The dialogue is all whispered and barely enunciated, the audio cues that the characters react to are inaudible so you HAVE to turn it up to keep up with what's happening on screen and then they shatter your godsdamned eardrums with a bs jumpscare
Honestly I don't even think I hate jumpscares, I just hate loud jumpscares. You know that thing horror movies do where they'll have something be off for a few seconds, like a weird noise or something, and then they show you a monster or whatever for like half a second? That scares the shit out of me and unlike jumpscares I remain scared afterwards too.
I watched Skinamarink with a friend who was severely abused in early childhood, and they were just bored by it, explaining that this was just what growing up felt like to them. I think that’s why Skinamarink is so unsettling. There’s no _shift,_ no concept of an acceptable reality lost, because terror and uncertainty is the only normal some kids ever know until they’re old enough to understand they’re being cheated. You tiptoe around, play with your toys, get hurt by the adults meant to be taking care of you, then go calm down by watching cartoons. There are no doors, no windows, this is the only reality there is and how all children are treated.
This is a really sad description of the movie to be honest, it just paints the film in a more tragic light than I thought of it as. I hope your friend found the help they needed after they moved out and saw the world is as beautiful as they are!
This! Although I found the film and the short it was based on oddly comforting in a nostalgic sort of way, I didn’t get the same chilling dread because I very fully understood that I was watching a *dream* being had by a deeply anxious child, one that, while asleep, would seem to last forever, and upon waking would vanish like a breath in the morning sun on a cold day. Like, the short film, Heck, was uncannily similar to a childhood nightmare; I went through a whole period where I ended my nightmares when I could finally express to whoever else was in the dream that I thought i was in Hell. The way the film ends on the word “hell” wasn’t a horrible revelation, it was just like “holy shit i’m not the only one who had those dreams!” because it was always the most excruciating thing to force that “i think we’re in hell” out, but once i forced out the last word, i’d wake up. so i didn’t feel bad for the kid when the credits rolled cuz i knew he’d woken up! that’s why the short ends, he’s awake now!
See I was also abused and that’s why it affected me so much! Trauma really does affect people differently. I’ve also had sleep disorders since I was a kid so that definitely didn’t help
@@chexfan2000 I feel this on a spirtual level and I had this experience with House of Leaves. I noticed that I had such a strong response to when The House first shifted. The sheer fucking relief that the couple could not deny their issues. And then the real questions come up. Why dont they leave? Why cant they leave? What compelles them to stay and endanger their own children? What do they need to face in order to liberate themselves? The fact that the book asks these quiet questions outloud and forces everyone and their cat to confront their fears, good God. The sheer relief. While others still feel haunted by the book, 20 years later.
Genuinely fascinating since... I too was abused and even just this video keeps making me panic. The shots of the rooms and hallways send me such a visceral fear despite this being a video essay. I know Skinamarink would break me. I have this barely contained fear and I feel like that movie would break me if I actually watched it
Two things create a good horror atmosphere. 1. Claustrophobic angles, offering plenty of cover for predators and no visible escape like in skinamarink. We’re subconsciously aware that there’s no where to run 2. Abyss-like nothingness like in petscop. Endless running, endless planes, no cover. This gives us the feeling that theres nowhere to hide. Humans are simultaneously predator and prey animals, so we’re always aware of potential hiding places and escape routes. Taking either away naturally makes us nervous
Perhaps that's why so many people like being scared It offers the fear of prey being hunted in safety and the thrill of the hunt The best of both worlds
"Imply, don't show". Yes! The scariest moment for me in Mandela Catalogue was in the MAD video, "the man in the corner". That phrase gave me chills. Second best was when the mom's body was completely censored and you had to imagine how it was being manipulated. Absolutely genius. In the topic of children in horror, check out Children under the stairs by Vintage 8. It's superb.
The "imply, don't show" idea is also central in all of the SCP project's entrances. Blanking out information as "redacted" with the excuse of it being confidential makes you as a reader fill out the story behind the anomalies you're reading about.
I think the reason analog horror hits gen Z so hard is because we barely saw the end of it. A time we can't clearly remember as a baby. The end of the 90s or 80s or even 2000s.we can't remember these places like millennials or gen X but we do feel some nostalgia from a time before our memories. Our personal liminal spaces, no beginning, no end as our baby memories aren't that clear. It's just the moment which makes it so easy for us to get trapped in. Maybe we weren't even in such places but saw them on photographs of our parents etc and couldn't tell the difference back then or something.
as a gen z i enjoy analog horror rather then being scared by it but that's probably bc i've been watching +18 horror movies since i was ten behind my parents' back lol. (they would have never allowed me) the only analog horror that i could not sleep at night after watching it is the mandela catalogue, but it wasn't even the 90s style that hit me but the uncanny valley images or just the concept of a shapeshifter pretending to be you or your loved one, which is pretty terryfing. altough now i no longer feel fear for that piece of media, i still adore it bc i just became immune to it.
@@SamuelBlack84 I'm a young gen Z and also get comforted by it lmao. Really depends on the person for who thinks of it as scary and who gets comforted by it. Idk how to explain it but I think we connect it with actual memories. If we had good memories during the time/in that place we get comforted while bad memories would make us uncomfortable :)
When I first watched Skinamarink, I was with both my parents. The copy I downloaded didn't have subtitles, and due to the hushed speaking of the kids and the fact that my mom knows only basic English, I spent the movie narrating the script as dialogue went by, and let me tell you, it's an experience. Not only watching them, but having to be a mouthpiece for these kids pushed me further into the film than if I had just watched in silence.
Honestly, this would be an interesting concept for analogue horror. Imagine yourself sitting on the floor as an elderly relative sits nearby on an armchair. An old recorder capturing only your silhouettes as it casts a wide angle, with the grainy TV at the centre. Perhaps the film could be in a language other than English with someone translating to English for us, the viewer. It could be a unique experience.
When I was 5, there was a restroom in my kindergarten with no door, sealed off with yellow tape. Rumors began to spread among us kids of a witch hiding in the restroom, and whoever entered would be grabbed and eaten. I remember trying to peek inside without crossing the tape, but a wall obscured most of the interior, and we could only see a corner and one of the stalls. Our imaginations ran wild because of that. In retrospect, the restroom was probably just waiting for renovation, but it was the unseen space and the ominous silence that fueled our fear.
I watched skinamarink in a pretty much empty theater late at night and it was one of the most terrifying movie experiences I've ever had. Just constant anxiety for an hour and a half.
Nah man. I watched the entire thing in 30mm and it was awful. It had atmosphere sure but literally nothing else. It was just an hour and a half of dark shots of a house and barely audible dialogue. Movie was mid at best
@@dirt8887 This is how I felt about it too, yeah. Just dull. It was a struggle to get through it. There were a couple interesting moments when.. something actually happened, but hearing kids shuffle around and mumble things while the camera points at a wall and toys are levitated onto the ceiling... just not what horror is to me, I guess.
honestly the scariest thing that could be around the corner is.. nothing. if you panned around and it was an empty hallway, no doors, no creatures, just a hall where you can see the ending, it would be much scarier. why? because you've already told us something is SUPPOSED to be there
One of my favorite examples of quiet horror is the short film “Portrait of God.” It uses such limited resources ro establish its set, but the way they go about it is absolutely skin crawling and dreadful. A single room and only ever one light source at a time, with just one girl. Its so dark you can never tell if what you’re seeing is really there, and theres no jumpscares in the traditional sense, only a slow crawling confirmation that the monster is real. I made the mistake of watching it in the dead of night with all my lights off in my grandparents old, creaky house and i could not move for the rest of the night. Horror done right imo.
I saw Portrait of God a couple months ago and thought it was one of the most unsettling things I’ve ever seen especially when you watch it back and notice things you missed before
i also love the weird responses that you got from the characters. most of them seem so happy to have seen the face/portrait of god and for some reason that’s more unsettling
@@gofornicatethyself yes, i did notice that! maybe its just me, but i think it very much speaks to one’s individual relationship with religion and fanaticism. I plan to rewatch it and maybe use it as my film analysis class essay sometime soon :]
@@marsinvirgo definitely yeah! it leaves you thinking what they see in that face that makes them feel so happy. or it leaves you almost feeling like there’s something wrong with you because you can’t see what makes it so good. i personally don’t understand christians relationship with god either in real life so i think that makes sense
People complained that the FNAF movie didn't have enough jumpscares, but I actually like that they went for a more tension building or "quiet horror" route. Like, the scene where Foxy was slowly approaching the ball pit where Abby was, was a lot scarier than when he started running down the hall toward Mike. And also the scene where Freddy whips around and looks in Mike's direction was a lot scarier than the freaking Balloon Boy jumpscare.
Schrodinger’s terror is why I’m so terrified of liminal spaces and liminal horror, especially the backrooms And skinamirink. We never get to see what’s on the other side of the corner, what’s at the end of the hall, what’s outside that door. It leaves something up to the imagination, it makes us immediately think of what terrified us most. Instead of taking a chance and trying to guess what you’re scared of, it lets you scare yourself. It makes you terrified of something that doesn’t exist.
I think it's part of why lethal company works too. While not particularly a particularly scary game as a whole, you do feel dread when alone and wandering through the corridors and platforms, hearing your footsteps echo against metal and the sounds of air being pumped in through the vents. It's never silent, and with all the doors being closed you never know what's hiding behind those whispers, behind another door, around that corner. Maybe another pair of footsteps is nearby. But is it a lootbug, one of your friends, or something sniffing out their prey. You don't know until you seek it out, or until it finds you. It works wonderfully.
This, and it reminds me of how the world felt when I was little. Everything was new and there was no telling who or what could be in the dark at the bottom of the stairs, etc. Anything was possible.
I love the backrooms but the adding of Monsters it get dull. Backrooms live from the atmosphere this strange feeling of fimilarity nostalgia and creepy atmosphere and the fear of being alone and isolated
Yes, absolutely agreed. I love liminal space and liminal horror and part of that appeal is either the emptiness or maybe even the weirdness. Signs of people having once been there is a big terror (and admittedly depersonalization) trigger for me. The chairs at the dinner table is misplaced, the beds are unmade, toys are tossed about like they were just played with before you showed up. Things like that terrify me.
Seeing children in harm's way in horror is specifically why I'm not afraid of the "creepy little girl" trope. In something like FEAR, I had heard for years and years how creepy Alma was. Then when I finally got around to playing the game recently, I just felt bad for her. I wasn't scared, I wanted to give her a hug. I think if you're doing something like that in a horror movie/game/etc, you need to make it evocative of something like sadness rather than fear. Silent Hill is a great example of that and it *really* adds to the atmosphere. The oppressive sadness, often times because of things related to children or other vulnerable individuals, is part of what makes it such a unique horror experience.
Well, I never played FEAR but I think Silent Hill had this special kind of horror because it felt bad killing the monsters. At least that's how I felt. And having a child monster could work like that, too.
I have a very low tolerance for jumpscares, meaning I'll fall for them 100% of the time. That being said, I find them to be a fleeting sort of horror. The kind that passes after a few moments. True horror is the type that stays with you for weeks or months after the event.
It’s true. I could watch a FNAF jumpscare compilation, get scared and then move on. But let me tell you about an actual experience I had a few years ago while out camping that I find illustrates how good horror sticks with you. I was staffing a summer camp this one time, and at one point, we had to spend the night in a tent to help teach the campers how to pitch a tent and spend the night. So I wake up at around 1AM, really needing to use the restroom. It’s at this moment, at the dead of night, with deafening silence, that I hear a low grumble. I’m a naturally easily spooked person, so I pause, and wait for the sound again, thinking it to be a nearby parent snoring. But as I hear it again, I realize that it sounds much lower than any voice I’d ever heard, and sounds like it’s coming from everywhere. It’s at this moment that I realize it’s probably a bear. I spent the next hour trying to be as quiet as possible, silently, frantically googling what bears live in the area I was camping in, trying to think of where the bear is relative to my tent as the growls I hear seem to grow more and more aggressive, more and more angry, almost like the bear was daring me to leave my tent so it could tear me to ribbons. Of course, when I finally overcame this, I realized that the bear was probably nowhere near me. But here’s the thing: there was nowhere to hide on the way to outhouse, and the bear felt like it was everywhere at once. And I remember that single night. I still wonder if I was right. Was the bear 3 feet from my tent, or 3 hundred? Was it just loud snore? If I saw the bear, would it even fight me, or would it ignore me? I just thought I’d get it off my chest. Since nothing really happened, it makes a wonderful campfire scare, but I think this idea of an invisible bear and how it sticks with me even after years illustrates your point.
@@shirshobanerjee7751hmm...may I borrow this for a game or two? I like to sprinkle little bits of subtly n moments of horror in my badly made games and the current one Im making does have a bodyguard mission in the woods. maybe Ill have em get a popped tire and need to spend a night, or part of a night :)
a "horror" story that stuck with me to this day is the plot of the rpgmaker game dreaming mary. its about csa, which already makes it beyond fucked up, but it sheds light on the topic in such a subtle way, it shows the main character's abuser as a shadowy figure that chases after you when you cross a dark path hidden behind a painting on the wall, but to understand what she goes through, youve gotta interpret the lyrics to the songs, the clues and the dialogue. the atmosphere is all pink and sparkly, because its the main character's dream, but the darkness of her reality slowly slips through the cracks, which makes it all the more unsettling. and the abuse she goes through is left up to your imagination. no graphic or disrespectful imagery, no direct reference to it, just subtextual clues and innuendos. i think one of the most disturbing parts of the game is in the very beginning, when the developer's childlike and whimsical voice in the radio tells you to not cross boundaries, like touching paintings or objects or paying attention to weird audiovisual events. she wants you to remain in the dream, but why? what is it thats so dangerous beyond the dream realm? you still dont know what mary goes through, so you just hear that unsettling little voice telling you that something dangerous lies outside, but you dont know exactly what it is. that game is so short yet so disturbing and heartbreaking. i highly recommend playing it or watching a playthrough, if you dont feel triggered by such a topic. its so beautiful.
Quiet horror is horrifying. I remember when I was young I would hallucinate a figure peaking at my door while it was quiet. I would be so scared that I would freeze the whole night in terror.
A great use of Schoedinger's Terror is in "No Country for Old Men" where the old Texas Ranger is tasked with investigating a motel room. The door is ajar, and the interior is bathed in shadow. Just a little light reveals a potential menace lurking deeper in the tiny room. The ranger says, "Nope! Too old for this," and dips out. The story never lets us know if he was really ever in danger, but the tension was terrible.
I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU MENTIONED THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES. I feel the exact same way about horror, jump scares always get me and I love a good psychological horror I can genuinely enjoy without having a heart attack & TMA IS MY FAVORITE RAHHH
I agree 100%. One of the first movies that REALLY scared me was nosferatu. Most specifically that long unbroken shot of him standing in the doorway. I'd say that's quite literally quiet horror hahaha
I will say the series Gemini Home Entertainment is really good at blending both quiet an loud horror. Hands down the best analogue horror out there, could not recommend more. Especially the most recent uploads
the scene with the guy covered in roots was the first thing that came to mind when i read the title of this video - gemini home entertainment is so incredible and even with the fairly recent spike in popularity, it's still sorely underrated
Same with Remy Abodes other project "Morley Grove". After previous episodes building up some of the lore, there's one video later in the series where a jumpscare is used to great effect in my opinion. Definitely give the series a watch!
Also why i adore Welcome To Nightvale. Its less actual HORROR and more horror comedy drama, but the fact that the weirdness and the terror are totally normal aspects of daily life there. After the event, life goes on as normal for them, though to us its a totally different horror that we are being asked to accept as normal. You get numb to it after a while, as if you are one of the citizens that is just used to it now, so that when something actually SCARES our radio host you actually feel nervous because what could possibly scare someone in a world where scared is the default?
Your “looking out the window at 3AM” example was something that happened to Wes Craven as a child which later inspired him to make A Nightmare on Elm Street.
"What if I simply told you the scariest thing i the world was around the corner and then I left you there? I like to call this idea Schrodingers terror" I like to call it edging
I had an odd experience with Skinamirink, me and a friend went to go see a movie in an old 70’s styled theatre and saw a trailer for a movie we never heard of called Skinamirink. The trailer was unlike anything we’d ever seen and we saw it was playing the following night so we went to see it. It was only when arrived at the theatre that night that my friend gave me the plot of the movie which sounded bizarre. 30 minutes in and it’s already unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Now I haven’t jumped from a scare in a movie since I was 8 because I’ve seen so many horror movies I’ve become decencitized to it, but the 3 jump scares in this movie scared me more then any game or movie I’ve ever played or watched. I left the theatre at about 1Am and had to walk 40 minuets to a subway and finally got home around 2:30 am. It was hard to go to sleep and I found myself constantly looking around to see if windows were still there. Horror that lingers is my favourite kind and I wish there was more of it. Great video btw, the fact this video doesn’t have at least 1M views is criminal.
A jump scare is an ingredient, not the whole dish. It can be effective when sparse, otherwise it sinks to the level of an 8 year old nephew jumping from behind the curtains every time he sees you and thinking it's always effective. Another analogy is Hitchcock and the bomb; building the audience's anticipation creates greater suspense.
I'm so fuckin scared of needles so i have mad respect for trans people, especially the ones that are on their own and have to apply that shit themselves 😭
@@piss7610i always go get my thing done by a nurse not bc im afraid of needles but im very much afraid of accidentally fvking it up and endin up dyin from it like that would be the biggest L. Gd would laugh His ass off at me i feel
U EXPLAINED THE MEDICAL NEEDLES SO WELL. my family doesn’t understand how i’m so afraid of getting blood drawn or iv drips yet have tattoos but it isn’t the pain it’s the concept that grosses me out
i’m doing better now but i used to have a panic attack before every vaccine or getting blood drawn and as someone who has many medical issues it would happen a lot
@@ch3rryphr0g I have a genuinely intense trypanphobia, to the point my mom had to hold me down to get my blood drawn while I was sobbing like I was about to be murdered by the nurses, so I get you. Thankfully though, I am also getting better, having learned that I can effectively distract myself before and during shots and blood draws.
I'm not scared of vaccines and donate blood regularly, but there is definitely and different between something shallow and fast like a tattoo and medical needles. When something is put deep into you and stays there your lizard brain wakes up and starts screaming at you to get it out. I can deal with it for the length of the blood donation but having a semi-permanent IV would definitely mess me up.
Fantastic essay! Being a Christian girl from a more protective and conservative home I had the same anti-horror upbringing you did, and just like you I've also grown to really love horror. I agree with basially everything you talked about it's like you plucked my thoughts right out of my head
Same, I’m in a very conservative anti horror Christian family. I’m still in that transitioning period of dealing with the excitement of horror in the day and the quiet terror of thinking about that horror at night
It's funny because I grew up in a very conservative Christian home. My dad wouldn't let me read Harry Potter. But my mom made sure to show me her favorite horror movies and would always try to scare me even more while watching them. Cujo, the Thing, Poltergeist, etc.
Same! I got a Magnus Archives tattoo this year and when people ask about it I have to hold myself back from info-dumping for an hour. I would love to have a good, high-quality video that I could send to people
I kept seeing cool fanart of it on pinterest, and i love horror, the colour green and multiple eyes so I saved a lot of pins of it without really knowing what it was. After finding out more about it i’ve been very intrigued, but i’m really not a podcast person. I managed to get through a chunk of that one SCP podcast but i struggle to focus on or be drawn in by it. I would really appreciate a video on it so I could understand it more. It sounds pretty cool
@@AnEmu404you should totally check it out, it’s got a lot of great horror stories like the one he mentioned in the video, but it’s also got a great story unfolding around the logs too
This is a videogame example, but there is something that happens in OMORI that really gave me a chill over my whole body. It was admittedly a jumpscqre but still a quiet one. The scene is this, it's nighttime and you woke up from dreaming. You go to the bathroom, you can click on any item in there and get some sort of narrative, but if you click on the mirror you'll simply cut to a reflection of yourself in a dark bathroom, no audio ever plays. However, there is a chance that you'll see something horrifying behind you, the warped figure of a girl hanging by the neck. The first time I ever saw that, with no audio ever playing, just the image silently appearing, I just felt my blood run cold and my breath was taken away. I really appreciated that moment because for the most part, despite the scores, it isn't all too spooky
I’m so happy someone finally talks about Magnus Archives! That series is already so underrated as is and I’m glad that it’s finally getting the recognition it deserves
Same. I am currently hyperfixated on The Magnus Archives and am consuming every last bit of content I can about it. The brain rot is real. I am a hopeless Elias simp.
ambient horror is the most scary thing. i think cry of fear is scary not beacause of the monsters. its because of the ambient the vibe the sounds. how evrything looks destroyed and abandodend. how you hear the footsteps of things that arent even there. in the begging of the game when you wake up you can see your self turn corners. thats really scary
If you like this sort of horror, I cannot recommend comic horror enough. It's an often overlooked medium for the genre, but I think it's one of the best. It allows you to use the visual horror elements of movies without being tempted by the dreaded violin drone jumpscare. Junji ito, of course, is the classic master of this. His works are so bizarre that sometimes they border on comedically disturbing. He does a fantastic job of playing with that fear of the unknown. Another one of my favorites is Harrow County. Its beautifully illustrated in watercolor and its story reminds me of Appalachian folktales and old school witch and ghost stories. If you like a lot of Wendigoons content I think you'll enjoy it.
Just finished reading Harrow County and I thought it was one of the best things I've read in a while. Not because it's scary, but because it genuinely makes you feel for the characters, which is rare in horror. Cosmic horror is tied with gothic as my favorite subgenres.
I love quiet horror. I often say, if asked, that I dislike horror, and that's mainly due to disliking "loud" horror - the stuff mentioned in this video that relies on jumpscares, loud music, gore, etc. I'm easy to make jump from a noise or sudden appearance of a person, friend or foe, I'm a 'coward' in that way. But I love quiet, atmospheric and tense horror. A movie that terrified me until I was 13 or so was E.T. It's not a horror movie, but the opening is so moody and weird, and the scene where Elliot throws his ball into the shed, only for it to be thrown back at him from off-screen... I get goosebumps to this day thinking about that. The fact that the creature has no malicious intent is irrelevant - it's a quiet and easy scene that conveys horror and the unknown brilliantly.
Hearing The Magnus Archives mentioned and talked about in the way that you did made me feel so happy. I haven't given Skinamarink a chance yet but you've convinced me!!
Okay, when hearing the question "do you remember the first time u were afraid?" A childhood memory hit me. I rarely have super clear memories of my childhood but this time I could fully visualize the entire scene.
I got really high yesterday and started this video. That first part when the video starts getting really loud then all of a sudden the audio drops sent shivers down my spine, then you started talking about a hypothetical and i fuck had to stop watch. phenomenal video.
I could tell you’re either a writer or a big fan of the arts by the essay itself. It’s refreshing to see such a tight script, a lot of the time I feel video essays can struggle with this aspect of the video even when the editing is flashy. I could tell when points are being repeated or when I would’ve personally reworded or cut something from the script. But this? it’s almost like I could see your mind at work, typing this out, revising and expanding. Really good shit, I’m sure you’ll get the viewership you deserve!
Funny that you mention Pulse, even only for a second, because it is the only movie that has TRULY scared me in the last 10-15 years that I’ve watched. I’m VERY desensitized to horror, having grown up playing horror games and being exposed to horror media, and so I’ve kinda come to accept that I don’t get scared by horror very easily anymore. Nonetheless, I don’t know what it is specifically about Pulse that does it right, but the fucking hallway ghost scene in Pulse fucking GOT ME. It’s easily the most scared I’ve been watching a horror movie in a long time, and the absolute EERINESS of the way the ghost moves in such an uncanny way just haunted me. I know others have felt the same way about that same scene, and I’ve seen videos about that scene alone, but damn, it’s up there for me as one of those scenes I’ll never forget. Much more effective than any jumpscare
skinamarink was my first thought. i know it’s a controversial movie and not everyone liked it, but i think it’s genius. i also have the same opinions on horror that you do; i love when horror doesn’t jumpscare you, but unsettles you. psychologically scares you. that’s a million times more impressive than a cheap jumpscare. i hope we get more great indie horror movies like skinamarink (i’ve already lost hope in mainstream horror by this point, lol)
The part where you describe the figure outside the window is terrifyingly funny when you think of it as something that is actually happening, because in all honesty i'd be terrified if i was going back home after a party at 3 am and some... weird, quiet person started staring at me from their window without moving an inch, until they just rapidly vanish from the window while im still looking at them. Personally, i'd also feel a sense of dread if this happened.
This is really well made, good job. the only problem in my opinion is that the background footage gets stale you need more variety. other than that everything else is well made the audio is exceptionally good and well narrated
the “maybe you live with other people, maybe you live alone, either way you’re the only one awake” bit i had to skip bc im the only one awake in my house rn n i do NOT want to be scared during my “video essay and playing video games” time . excellent video though
I came into this for a Skinamarink video essay and got so much more. Magnus Archives, M.R. James, analogue horror, and of course Skinamarink all are things that i thoroughly enjoy and I was not expecting for those interests to be talked about (but I love that they were)
No joke, as you started to describe MR James’ stories, I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “Man, this sounds a lot like The Magnus Archives.” I’m glad that show is getting a shoutout here, as I truly think that some of the episodes are some of the greatest pieces of short horror fiction around today.
The way you talked about the Wizard Of Oz puppet show somehow reawakened some weird childhood or maybe primal fear that I just cannot describe. Like the way you described the appearance of the witch being preceded by a song just gave me such uncomfortable goodebumps. I remember that feeling being young, and not actively screaming or squirming but just being filled to the core with fear because you saw something you didn’t like. Great job
was so happy you mentioned tma in this essay! i completely agree with your analysis of what makes ‘angler fish’ so effective. the episode itself is a literal angler fish-it’s the light that draws us into the jaws of the true story. i’ve got lots of favorite tma episodes but one of the ones that scared me the most also comes from season 1- ‘lost john’s cave’. there was something so hypnotic about sims’ narration in that episode which quickly gave way to utter panic. the sequence at the end with ‘take her, not me’ gave it an entirely new meaning in my mind-it’s not just horrifying because of the supernatural qualities of the tunnels, but also horrifying because of the personal, familial aspect. maybe i’m biased because i came into listening to tma already with a very severe phobia of caves and underground places, but that episode always stuck with me. if you did a whole video on tma i’d 100% be there for it :D this was a fantastic essay!
I think one of the most unsettling parts about the magnus archives is the understanding that these are the few people that managed to make their statements relatively unscathed. It's the realization of how many didn't survive to tell the tale.
2:25 Personalized explanation of childhood traumas, child vs adult 3:59 yes!! that's why horror is a "body genre," next to melodrama (makes you cry) and pornography (makes you feel aroused). Just cause something gets a reaction out of you doesn't mean it's automatically "good horror" 5:28 HIGHLY recommend listening to The Magnus Archives if you haven't already; it has dozens of horror stories with the same quiet dread. 10:19 NEVERMIND, please make a Full video on it!! 12:14 I'm so glad you're using Anglerfish as a prime example!! 7:04 Written fiction can be loud or quiet 7:47 LOL 9:44 morals, normality, and cosmic qualities 11:57 "visual canon" LMAO 13:56 no release of tension being scarier 14:31 15:16 19:01 17:02 "The scariest thing in the world is around this corner" 17:36 Schrödinger's Terror 18:04 What you're afraid of becomes what the story is about, even if the author doesn't know what your fear 18:45 adult protagonists' rationality vs expectation of child protagonists 19:23 "Do you remember the first time you were afraid?" 21:24 Children's perspective of reality and "normality" 22:19 dramatic irony & horror 23:23 the key to horror is empathy. But 24:51 25:13 Show, Don't Tell. vs horror: Imply, Don't Show. 25:41 Analog Horror & Gen Z 28:22 Simplicity and silence, you are in a world of danger 29:07 YAY PETSCOP 30:29 Empty, unfinished, imperfect, white spaces... 31:13 Nostalgic horror asks you to remember the possibility of something sinister, and it asks you to find it AMAZING video, I really enjoyed all of your points. Please do more horror/story/character related stuff!
Dude this essay was actually so good, probably one of the best ones I’ve ever seen. I’ve legit sent it to everybody I know in hopes that we can discuss it. I don’t think I’ve ever agreed on a horror take more.
Gosh you have those vibes of an early 2010s RU-vidr. The editing, your cadence in speech, and you've made yourself loud and clear on where you stand without being obtuse or preachy. You've made yourself a cozy little place here on the internet and I've found a new person to binge in the late nights ❤ Thank you for making art.
I identify so much with what you said at the beginning of the video. My mother was an overprotective helicopter parent, so much so that for a long time, the only things I was allowed to watch were Disney and animated movies and shows on the Disney Channel and Nickleodeon. My grandfather let me watch Jaws with him when I was eight years old because he didn't care what I watched, then Halloween and The Sixth Sense when I was around eleven. Needless to say, my mother blew a gasket about each one of those incidents. The only thing that flew past her radar was books. My Nana got me the Goosebumps book The Werewolf of Fever Swamp when I was a kid and then it was off to the races. I devoured every Goosebumps book I could get my hands on. Then when I was thirteen, Nana let me watch The Lost Boys and after that, I couldn't get enough of horror movies. What was once forbidden and terrifying became exciting, exhilarating. To this day, I credit her for my love of horror and how it blossomed and grew as I got older. This essay is amazing and I know I'm going to come back to watch it over and over again. Also you mentioned The Magnus Archives and that makes you a supremely cool person in my eyes. That series is awesome and one of my current hyperfixations.
I LOVE the feeling that something is WRONG and its not something I can understand. Not something I can comprehend or discover. Its beyond me and bigger than me. Thats my favorite kind of horror. I'm not a superstitious person. I feel like I have a pretty solid understanding of how things work on earth, so the idea of something that just, breaks reality, and being forced to contend with that is very unsettling and fun in media. I like to be shaken and challenged. I like to be creeped out and given something to think about, I like being followed around by a piece of horror like a ghost. Honestly. I hate jumpscares. And like yeah I do have Real Reasons that I dislike them, the usual. I pretty much agree with you. Sometimes they are good and earned and have a place, often they are not. They don't leave me with any more thought than "oh man that jump scare got me" but I don't APPRECIATE it. I don't actually see people talk about this a lot but I actually HATE the sensation of being jumpscared. I hate the jolt, I hate feeling my heart beat, its almost kind of painful? Like a small electric shock? Its not fun to me and I clearly don't understand why people enjoy it. I don't think its much of a choice, haha. Like, I'm happy some people enjoy that stuff the same way I enjoy getting on a roller coaster. I don't really get the positive dopamine whatever feeling after being jumpscared. I'm just like. Irritated and upset or frustrated. Just a physical, uncomfortable jolt, followed by the feeling of like "now why would you do that to me". I love horror so much, but it does make it hard to engage with a lot of horror when I'm like ugh when am I going to be shocked like a mouse in a maze. Personally I've never felt like a movie needed one but again, what doesnt work for me appears to work for other people. I'm just glad theres horror without it I can enjoy.
@@NuniaBiznazFascinating! To each their own lol. I dont get whatever like positive kickback i think other people might be getting for it. no relief, mostly just irritation lol. Its not logical irritation either its just like fear/pain and then like immediate frustration for having being caused it, all before i register a whole thought.
@@JackTheVulture I think it's a little bit like how some people hate spicy food but other people love it: they're experiencing the exact same painful burning sensation, the main difference is some people LIKE experiencing it, whereas others don't?
I think you've put into words why I love analog horror so much. There's not a lot of stinger sound effects, not always creepy music for building tension, and usually a big lack of jumpscares. A lot of analog horror is hidden in the details, so you only get more and more creeped out the more you dig deeper into it. I could name a dozen different ones, but I do think that Vita Carnis is my favorite one on RU-vid, and The Magnus Archives would be my favorite podcast one
something i really wish was more often looked at was how this sort of thing works in situations other than horror. I am a man that has read many novels. Authors are people who put their time and creativity into creating a world for us to enjoy. One thing authors are not though, is the master of everything their characters are. sometimes an author will screw up a character by trying way too hard to explain something they don't quite understand and it will leave such a bad taste in my mouth. one of the easiest and worst examples of this was in a book i read where a character was known as the most horrific torturer to exist. they always got a confession, and the author did an incredible thing where he just never explained anything about those scenes. not once did he make mention of what went down in those walls, instead he focused on the fact that the walls were soundproof, how the character actively got excited as the conclusion of torture got clearer and clearer. It was a beautiful use of implied terror... Until he finally decided to show what was happening inside those walls. All of the incomprehensible dread that had been built up was suddenly and terribly whisked away as there was no longer the impllied violence, and instead a terrible penis gag where the torturer got their answers by throwing a knife near genitalia. The worst Twist ive ever experienced and it will forever taint that book for me
Finally someone has put it into words! The vast majority of my horror consumption has been podcasts (like The Magnus Archive ; I am in Eskew; and Archive 81 (s1)). I love the creeping dread that something is wrong, with just enough information for your mind to fill a lot of the horror! At this point I think everyone has stated it already, but this video really does deserves so much more attention! Both you editing & narration are well done and engaging (was planing to play this as background sound but ended up watching the whole thing).
PLEASE do a video on The Magnus Archives -- it is one of the best fictional horror podcasts I've ever listened to. So good, so gay, so terrifying, tragic, and wonderful.
I was just thinking about The Magnus Archives and you just placed it in front of me . I love to hear more people talk about this masterpiece .Please make a video about it your voice is so pleasing to listen !
tma was the first thing i thought when read the title. not only the fact that it, if you think, is quiet as hell with only monotone voice telling you about a story, but the whole concepts and ministories of episodes are hilarious. like, even after years i rember some of the 1s eps also wonderfull vid, really enjoyed watching it!!!
I was NOT expecting TMA to come up in this video I basically lunged at the screen out of excitement when I heard the name of Jonathan Sims being uttered.
One of my favorite horror tropes is where the physical location changes in an impossible way. I remember reading a creepy pasta a long time ago where someone is trying to escape a parking lot and every time they turn onto the street theyre in another parking lot. Its so effective because its a threat that you cant fight back against. You can fight or hide from a monster or murderer, but a location that wont let you leave? Theres nothing you can do. Something similar happens in the movie Vivarium. As soon as the characters enter a neighborhood it becomes impossible to leave. They drive and drive until their car runs out of gas, but they always end up in the same place. Gives me chills just to think about.
i absolutely love the magnus archives, it’s one of my favorite podcasts and one that i could sit or work and listen to for HOURS. it makes me happy to hear someone mentioning it in a video about horror! (please do make that video about the magnus archives, i’d watch 🧎) definitely subscribing for more :D
Wow, i clicked on this late at night expecting background noise and was forced to pay attention to all of it. Dude amazing video! this is the type of essay where i’d expected the veiws to be up there with people like wendigoon, but after i check and it’s less then 10k? dude, amazing things are coming to you. Please don’t ever stop writting, or being a writer
_"The night made everything which had seemed fun and exhilarating in the light of day terrifying and oppressive"_ All too relatable. I have vivid memories of browsing all sorts of horror VHS tapes that I was too young to rent and then laying awake petrified later that night.
I was absolutely hooked by the premise of this and THEN you mentioned the Magnus Archives???? (/pos) very cool of you, fantastic subject, fantastic essay 👍👍
The air conditioner's freakout from Brave Little Toaster was the single most terrifying thing I've experienced in media. It even changed my behavior in real life up to this day. That voice actor needed an Oscar for that scene!
Liv & Maddie is a perfect example of quiet horror (aside from one jumpscare). You’re on edge the whole time as you watch Liv slowly degrade into madness, even if she rarely lashes out at anyone.
I somehow knew you were going to mention TMA the moment you started the sentence. This idea of "Imply, don't show" makes episodes like Upon The Stair, or Revolutions some of my favourite pieces of horror. I'm with you on dolls not being particularly scary but The Stranger's (and to a certain extent the spiral's) theme of obscuring what you thought you knew behind illusions and breaking from the way you thought reality works is such a perfect example of applying that lack of understanding of the world you talked about in the skinamarink section to adult characters. I think that's why liminal spaces and analog horror took off the way they did.
This is a FANTASTIC!!! Video!! I know I’m just one voice, but I’d love to see a full video on The Magnus Archives. It’s such an amazing series and I’m sure you’d do a really great job. Really, you’ve done an incredible job with this video.
I had a similar "very resticted media access as a child" experience growing up, and while I haven't come to enjoy mainstream/traditional horror yet, I absolutely fell in love with a multitude of horror subgenres that fit the moniker of "quiet horror". And the strange thing is, antithetical to their purpose, I often find these stories comforting. Relaxing. Instead of a horror story keeping me up at night, I sleep soundly and easily. Sometimes it even helps me fall asleep. Instead, the stories consume my waking moments and fill in those dark corners of my brain. I've gotten weird reactions from friends when I talk about finding some horror relaxing all my life, until the Magnus Archives started gaining popularity and people suddenly *understood*. Maybe it's a subconscious relief that I am not in the situations being described. Maybe it's because there are no jump scares to increase my heart rate. Maybe I'm just a little messed up in the head. Whatever the case may be, it's become clear to me that horror is so much more than just "scary" or "frightening" as I used to think it was as a child.
I was SO ready to suggest The Magnus Archives as another great example and then you mention it??? Absolutely amazing video, very well made!!! Please keep making more content I eat this up :DDD
clicked for an interesting looking video essay about horror and STAYED for the magnus archives mention THANK U for acknowledging such an effective example of this kind of horror
