It's Hard to Make Minecraft Scary 

Using jumpscares in horror is like a comedian tickling you to make you laugh.

these modders tend to forget that extremely long and skinny limbs often mean very silly looking run/walk cycles

The perfect horror mod would bank on the idea that you aren't really alone. Like imagine seeing an identical copy of your house 4000 blocks away, or seeing bridges that you didn't build in the nether

13:07 It's actually funny. The chase music playing for no reason was actually scarier than if something instantly jumped out on time with the chase music. It felt stressful and suspenseful even as an observer, asking "where is it?" And "what is it?" Without ever knowing. Same reason why vanilla cave sounds are so scary. You never see a thing, just feel and hear.

True horror comes when hearing the hiss of a creeper in the storage room. What a logistical nightmare

in reality, minecraft really CAN be scary, but mods like these don't build any tension, they just try to by "scary" and leave it at that

I can't get over the villager at 16:11. Eyes wide awake, lying in his bed, and some random dude just breaks into his house with the slenderman just screamin at the top of his lungs outside. Dude must be thinkin 'FML'. Lol

I think the cave dweller was fine. Maybe with reduced spawns but that "The One Who Watches" dweller is literally the worst offender. Dudes just annoying.

Scary minecraft be like "just whitewash a enderman"

I think what a lot of these mods are missing is subtlety. It's kinda goofy how all of these mods have the jump scare screamer thing going on and it has gotten so old. Like imagine seeing the teeth guy on the outskirts of a forest near your base and rather than running at you he waves or beckons at you and walks into the forest. Maybe Minecraft is too limited to do something like that but I think it'd be better than bum rush screaming at you. Also, upload more Lethal Company or else Evil Uncle Grandpa will spawn in your Minecraft world and SCREAM at you...

All designs are inspired by Slenderman, yet why Slenderman was scary was due to the tension. You having to find pages in a dark foggy forest and more pages you have the more you have to hurry. It made you focus on the game and feel somewhat immersed. Not just cause he has long legs and long arms, he kinda goofy looking nowdays.

7:09 the way a tall cactus is getting a bigger reaction out of you than the horror mods is making me cackle

unironically minecraft Alpha is scarier than all of these mods. That big feeling of loneliness made going to caves or going out at night much more scarier. Wondering if you are truly alone in what seems to be an empty world, just like the og backrooms

the way most horror mods fail at being "Scary" is they completely ignore what made Herobrine so popular and just put some big lanky ghoul onto the game make it jumpscare and kill you and leave it at that, the kind of scary Minecraft could be is like how The Backrooms was scary before people started adding creatures and "sectors" it's just the idea of being alone in an environment completely untouched by human beings but always feeling like something might be out there with you.

I feel like the Cave Dweller, in its environment, can be scary. If the Cave Dweller was taken out of the caves and spawned randomly, then it isn't scary at all.

16:16 it's a shame, that's actually a pretty cool shot; the Watcher's arms reaching in through the windows, grabbing and scratching at your hiding spot, but perfectly positioned so you can't see his face or any other part of his body would actually be surprisingly ominous... if you didn't see his face immediately before, and if it wasn't accompanied by the EXTREMELY long and drawn-out roaring sound

7:30 is an actual game mechanic called a zombie siege. each night at midnight there’s a ~10% chance for one to spawn outside a village; basically the OG raid.

The Warden is lowkey the best "horror" MC element because it builds tension. Y'know that old writing trick where "if you just blow up a table, that will just make a moment of shock. If you show the bomb under the table first, that creates suspense." The shriekers are the perfect suspense builders for the bomb that is the Warden. It really gets the blood pumping. So many of these horror mods just... lack that. There is no suspense, just shock.

22:13 “Hes just like a train” perfect describes all of the dweller mods, they are all fast loud big things that kill you instantly

Vanilla Minecraft is scary enough by itself with constant looming sense of desolation. Once you get used to that, everything else feels tacky.

I am convinced that the starved stalker (that goofy long-necked griddy-hitting dweller) is a parody of dwellers with the goofy music and silly-looking head

Most of these "dweller" mods are kinda like the parasite enderman from the Scape and Run: Parasite mod. It spawn from nowhere, jumpscare you a bit, either one or two shot you, then done. It's more furstrating than scary tbh

the fact that one of the horror mobs was quite literally the first thing you saw when loading in speaks volumes lol

17:29 That chase music choice sent me laughing, mod trying to be scary and suddenly music sets the mood to take out a gatling gun and mow down the demons Doom style

These mods basically treat "scary" as "jump-scares and insanely loud music/sound effects that assault your senses."

Don't sell yourself short, as a modder myself I find your type of feedback the most valuable of all. It makes us modders want to try harder and address the issues stated as to create something that'll actually have an effect :)

This isn't just a problem with minecraft mods, it's a problem with a lot of modern horror. Horror isn't when suspense that doesn't exist is resolved, horror is when suspense that does exist isn't resolved.

I think the scariest thing in Minecraft already exists, it doesn't need to be modded. The ancient cities are terrifying, and they follow the suspense horror formula pretty well

A lot of these mods don't utilize minecraft's systems and mechanics. The herobrine mod has him using chat and such, but the rest just are "ooooo scary monster go boo and kill!".

I think one problem with these mods that not many people are talking about is that they don’t feel like minecraft. I know it’s pretty hard to make a mod feel like minecraft but these mods make creatures that just don’t fit with the game. It’s almost like these horror mods are trying to change minecraft when really they should try to take advantage of the game and it’s mechanics. These monsters just feel like they belong in a different game.

I find it silly how they made an overpowered sword available after killing a single mob.

Omg, coming back to this and just now realizing the chase music from the monster without eyes and with a goofy run animation is literally using a remix of the Courage the Cowardly Dog music from whenever Courage gets chased. Learning that made it 10x funnier

I do remember one mod that I think did "horror" right. It's an old mod, very old. From many years ago. It was called "Dimensional Doors". It was all about these doors, which looked normal until you opened them, at which point you'd see they were actually portals to something. You could go into them, and enter these pocket dimensions (unique to each door). These places were generally like small structures you'd be in, often with loot to find and other doors that could lead you deeper into the dimensional layers. These places were mostly made of just normal blocks, with normal lighting (complete with preset torches). The horror element came if you tried to break out of there. You could dig through the outer walls of the structure, and generally surrounding it would be like, a very small bit of terrain that kinda looked like it had been ripped from the overworld. And I mean VERY small. Like this might only extend 15 blocks beyond the outer walls of the structure. It was always fully lit out there, though there was no sky or landscape beyond that, just a pitch black void. But there was one other thing that was found out there, which were these monoliths. Like the one from 2001, that sort of thing, it looked like that. They were pitch black in color, so they would blend in with the void (but were totally visible with a different background). And they just floated there. They didnt move, other than rotating so that they'd face you. They didnt seem to do anything at first. After a few seconds you'd get this weird glowing eye... more like a symbol of an eye... very slowly opening in the center of them. If the eye opened all the way with you still in the thing's field of vision, there'd be this weird warbling effect and you'd be pulled into another dimension entirely. Just this unending, twisting landscape, that was somehow very dark and very well lit at the same time. It was only made of two types of blocks, one of which made up the majority of it ("fabric of reality") and the other was this flashing block; your goal in this world was simply to locate some of the flashing blocks, touch it, and be sent back to the overworld. The only mobs in that world were the monoliths, and they'd do exactly the same thing; stare at you, and then warp you to another area of the bizarro world. So, the challenge was to avoid their gaze while finding the flashing blocks (which were typically at really low z-levels). The monoliths didnt actually do any damage, and in fact nothing in that world could hurt you at all. Even fall damage... being sent to that world (or being warped within it) always put you into the sky, so you'd fall a great distance, but wouldnt get hurt. It was just to disorient you. And that's it. There was no jumpscare, no weird gangly thing chasing you, no loud noises (there was no noise at all except the warp sound), no spooky faces staring at you in the dark. And heck, none of this happened in the overworld, it was ONLY in the pocket dimensions. So there was no chance of sudden loud shrieking things while you were going about your business. The closest thing to an actual threat is that when you exited the bizarro world, you'd be put in a random location in the overworld (within like, 1000 blocks or so of where you'd entered the original door, I think it was). So you could spawn in and get lost, or find yourself in a cave with creepers nearby, that sort of thing. What made it effective though was just that the whole thing was... uncanny. Kind of unnerving in a very subtle way, while also playing into the "fear of the unknown" just a bit. What were these things? What did they want? What was that place? No answers, ever. And whenever you were in one of the pocket zones, you KNEW they were there, outside of the structure. They were always there. And that's what did it: the place you were in was just "wrong" somehow in ways that were hard to explain, there was absolutely some eldritch thing there but it was harmless, and it all just had no explanation whatsoever. So there was just this constant sense of "something feels off" even when you knew how everything worked. It was very effective and really did a great job of creating atmosphere, and making the whole thing memorable. The best part? Dimensional Doors was not a horror mod. It had some eldritch weirdness in it (since that suited the overarching concept), but that wasnt the POINT of it. There were all sorts of screwy things you could do with the doors themselves, various types of doors (such as doors that would just link two spots in the overworld, and you could set them up) and the pocket zones were basically like mini dungeons that often had secret stashes or puzzles to solve for rewards, yet contained no other danger. Lots of other content too. Tons of stuff to do. Not even a horror mod, it didnt even add mobs that actually could hurt you in any way, yet it's THE one that I remember actually being rather freaky. It got weird and just rolled with it, and that's all it needed to do. Whereas all these recent "horror" mods are just "tall thing screams at you". Honestly I hesitate to even call them horror mods. I honestly think what they actually are is RU-vidr bait mods, nothing more. Something to get some overacting RU-vidr to get "scared" by, and get attention that way. If someone REALLY wants to make a Minecraft horror mod, they'll have to actually get creative, and that's where I think a lot of people really struggle, so most will only go with variations of what they've seen before. And they'll add jumpscares because they simply dont know how else to freak out the player.

I was just talking about this yesterday. These mods aren’t scary because there’s no tension, and there’s no consequence to losing a fight. They’re too strong, almost impossible to beat, and there’s no escaping them, because they’re almost always faster than the player. So you just have to deal with the futility of getting absolutely fucking rocked by a stickbug on speed several times during your playthrough. There’s plenty of effects in minecraft that could’ve been used to create ambiance and tension, but every horror mod just has unbeatable enemy number 34972 beat you to death because that’s “scary”. They don’t feel very real in this world. They’re always unusually big and unusually fast, so they look absolutely ridiculous running after you. The cave dweller had a good NEW mechanic of crawling, but it can be pretty easily circumvented by simply… blocking it off. The important thing about horror are stakes and consequences, I think. Unless you’re in hardcore mode, there really are no stakes/consequences, and there’s no *point* in playing hardcore mode because it instakills and you’ll never get very far.

Probably the main highlight of this video has to be the Starved Stalker, because every time it's on the screen, the game turns minecraft into comedy. Kicking it off with the goofiest sprinting animation as Friend A casually discusses how it's not even scary, and even has hit the griddy in some GIF. Look again and now its aggressively, yet slowly running across water. Every sound effect it causes isn't anxiety, but more so adrenaline without the stress factor. Ultimately, it's a mod of s scrawny, triangle headed creature that has such an energetic chases theme, and the stupidest running animation that has made me burst into laughter though out the entire video. It even gives you an OP WEAPON just for killing its miserable self, but too bad it no longer spawns beyond that point

real minecraft horror is when you install a bunch of mods without knowing what they do, so you hide in a hole for your first night, but then you start to hear digging noises from above

The Warden is the scariest minecraft experience I have ever had, and that's vanilla minecraft. Something about having to sneak around, not being able to see, and the sounds of the warden sniffing around looking for you is so tense and anxiety inducing

You perfectly encapsulated my feelings on these sorts of mods - they're all some variety of the exact same thing. By this point there's a metric ton of lanky "horror" mobs with a spooky face (with lots of sharp teeth and glowing eyes, because ooh scary) that watches you from a distance, then either runs at you or teleports into your face, plays a loud sound, and then kills you almost immediately. It isn't helped by the fact that they spawn CONSTANTLY. Seriously, the One Who Watches spawned, what, like 30 times in this video alone? The constant appearances only detract from the experience, because they quickly just become annoyances. I'd argue the Cave Dweller is tolerable simply by how scarce he is. Hell, he only appeared twice this video, and he ran away the first time. The others always showed up, always chased. It gets old, quick. I feel bad for the mod author of the original Cave Dweller - he had a somewhat neat idea going - giving a face to the spooky noises from within the cave 9even if the lack of affiliation was what made the noises so eerie to begin with) - but then a couple other guys saw his success and tried to cash in with their soulless carbon copies that completely missed the point of the original, only finding real favor with the clickbait Minecraft "content" creators whose core audience isn't any older than maybe 12. Maybe that's the age range I would've found these scary, but now? No chance.

Honestly, the Warden, a vanilla Minecraft mob, and the entirety of the Ancient City, is a lot more scary than most Minecraft mods. Its even on par with some of the better horror mods like Dimensional Doors.

honestly besides these mods simply having bad scaring techniques, the basic minecraft mob behavior is just a perfect recipe of making any scary mob a disappointing collection of blocks; the loading into chunks, the choppy turning in place, the general animation style, the pathfinding (like chasing stopping for a few seconds after reaching the players location or spinning in place), and so on. thats the stuff that makes you end up with a toothy stick in water aggressively hitting the griddy as it bobs towards your location at the speed of a snail with scoliosis.

My desire for you to break any of the purple ore was immense.

Bit of an idea. What about something that never directly interacts with the player, but isolates them? Hear me out, something that prevents mobs from spawning nearby occasionally killing some. It ducks out of sight to teleport somewhere else, but doing this does not rely on the player's sight, just their presence. so, you could only hear it, and never actually see the thing. Eventually it de-spawns, playing some sort of ambience sound before presence of mobs returns to normal.

i think the emptiness is what truly makes minecraft, especially the early versions, truly scary. there aren't actual monsters, but the world is just so eerie and mysterious. another great example would be the movie "Babadook". The movie has zero jumpscares, so the tension you've been building up by watching the movie, never releases and you're still having the heebie-jeebies after the movie ends.

I'm kind of late to the video, but I just love this kind of honesty. No overreacting, no stupid [still screaming literally more than 10 seconds after getting jumpscared by the most obvious object] things, just honest opinions :)

I tried talking about this to my mom and ended up falling into a tangent about the backrooms, but I think a key aspect of most horror - for me, at least - is fear of the unknown. No matter how good a horror media or game is, once you "know" the monster, know how to run away how to fight it whatever - it loses that scary aspect. This happens with all monster types. But these mods don't even have that "unknown" aspect really. They stare at you, run at you, kill you. There's no tension built, there's no fear of the unknown.

The only scary monsters for me is the Cave Dweller and Weeping Angels, mainly because they move while you're not looking which is hell for people like me and there are way too much mobs around. As for the ambience, the sounds for when they're nearby is a little heart-dropping, not the Night Dweller though. He's just annoying when you're outside minding you're business. Overall, the mods are cool, they just need some updating.

this video feels more like classic minecraft lets plays, than all the crap nowadays. oddly nostalgic, and super chill!

Og cave dweller was cool. It was unique at the time, had a LOT of buildup/tension, and was fairly balanced. It played off of the pre existing cave noises, which made it scarier. The only bad part was really the design/animations. These other mods lost that. Some improved the design, but not the anims.

Gonna be honest, a lot of these mods became a major annoyance. At first it was spooky and scary but then it became annoying with the jpeg jumpscares and the monsters being able to break blocks and being OBNOXIOUSLY loud. It got to the point where it actively hindered my ability to progress. I want to see a mod where you're being hunted by something that stalks you for a while, lets you get comfortable, reminds you of its presence, stalk you some more and then attack while respecting the area you've claimed as your own and allowing you to feel safe. Doing that allows the player to get comfortable, and that sets up a contrast between the safety of the players base and the rest of the world which creates the constant nagging thought that the moment you step outside your wall, base, etc., you're in danger and being actively hunted. Also, this hypothetical creature shouldn't be an unkillable, instakilling behemoth. Instead, it should be able to be killed while also still posing a significant threat. It also shouldn't just chase you for an hour while screaming. Instead it should act like an predator, quietly stalking its prey, waiting for the perfect opportunity where its prey's back is turned, alone, unprotected and vulnerable. It also shouldn't over stay its welcome because if it does, it looses the shock and horror it had and becomes familiar to the player and with familiarity comes comfort and fear looses its place. However, for every moment of fear and terror, there should be an opportunity for courage and triumph because that chance of a different outcome, of change, creates a contrast that further exaggerates the fear and tension this creature creates by adding the sense of risk. Do you stand your ground and risk your life to fend off this predator? Or do you continue running and hiding from it which grantees your safety but all at the cost remaining in constant paranoia and fear of when its going to strike next. Do you continue in the constant which is familiar? Or do you push back for the unfamiliar and unguaranteed chance of freedom and peace? With all that being said, it all boils down to the truth that a GOOD monster (in any genera tbh) is one that creates fear and tension but still allows the victim(s) to create a sense of familiarity. A monster that greatly contrasts from the victim(s) normal, repetitive life. Unfamiliarity creates fear. But for something to be unfamiliar it must 1.Not be a constant. If its constant it becomes familiar and looses any chance to be scary and 2. Allow familiarity to form because once that happens, that gives room for this creature to come in and introduce itself into an environment that it wasn't made for. It must be able to become an unknown variable in an otherwise familiar world. Also side note, the loud screams don't equal scary. Being loud and screaming 24/7 ruins ANY surprise or secrecy it may have. Its hard to be scared of something you're constantly aware of. Also, its just stupid, annoying and it hurts my ears.

For me, it’s the fact that these mods aren’t made for the average Minecraft player; they are made for modshowcases or quick Minecraft challenge videos. They are too overpowered to beat by normal means and too quick an experience to really count as a memorable mod outside of “oohh it’s spooky and unnatural.” Funnily enough, we have been here before; Herobrine mods used to just him in as a *boss* when he is ment to be a *presence.* I don’t *always* want to fight “the thing that is scary.” Sometimes I just want it to be part of my world.

27:11 That jumpscare is absolutely legendary

When the tall cactus is more interesting than the horror mods

The problem I find with these is how frequent the "events" happen. Like From the Fog is scary until maybe the tenth or eleventh time you've seen Mr Spooky Eyes try and sneak up on you...

To be fair, they don’t really play on the “dweller” name that much considering the only one called dweller is the cave dweller😂 otherwise it’s midnight lurker, man from fog, one who watches. I agree though, the mods really aren’t scary and they are either blatantly easy to beat, or impossible. Except, the single mod I didn’t see you use, the updated cave dweller… the only one that is actually scary. The way it watches from the distance and gives you zero sound que its around. It’s genuinely terrifying and makes you want to stay out of caves. It spawns just infrequently enough to really keep you paranoid. Nice video.

Really enjoyed this video. It's been a long time since I've watched a "natural" minecraft video with commentary, a lot of the videos these days are incredibly edited and LOUD but this video brings me back to my childhood. Keep it up please!

I watched this video alongside silence broken by metal pipes, and the metal pipes scared me more than the horror mods

probably the biggest pitfall is just putting in a super fast instakill monster like I saw many other horror mods do. Trying to play a pack with those (Fear Nightfall) ended up being eventually just annoying, since every time I saw them im just like "yeah just kill me already". What makes a lot of horror effective is the dread, the buildup, the ominous cues that _something_ is there, lying in wait. It's better when you have more of a chance to get away or prepare, because then it stays as a tense encounter rather than an instant death RNG which many mods I've seen go down.

I think when it comes to horror in Minecraft, specifically, the kind that terrified us all as children long ago, is the absence of anything dangerous yet, the environment making you believe that there is. Setting the game to peaceful, no mob spawn gamerule, brightness to 0, and cave sounds on while never letting the sun rise, that in essence is the horror that Minecraft naturally has to itself if you let it scare you enough. If I were to mod it to enhance it, I would use shaders and dynamic lighting, as a single torch light would be all you have/need, dynamic sounds for echoes, and maybe replace the cave sounds with subtle and almost quite sounds of something walking on blocks or an extremely soft voice that sounds like it’s saying hello or breathing. I would make the frequency very low so it’s very rare to hear said sounds, not only making you jump but to also question over time is that is infact what you heard. If I had the capability to mod, I would love to tackle this and try to create what I think is the strongest and most effective kind of horror, psychological horror, and instead of adding a monster to what we feared long ago, I would enhance the features and bring what we feared into light and give us new reasons to fear it again

I agree on most of your points. To me the best minecraft horror is the "stalking" kind, its clear some of these mods started out with that but the jumpscares and chasing instantly ruin it. How minecraft caused fear in the early days was with the fear of unknown and rumors of herobrine, you didnt know if you were alone in your world and the feeling of isolation played into that creepiness. these mods are wayy to in your face. the original horror of minecraft, like you said, didnt come from a scary mob, it came from the lack of knowledge and sense of isolation. its extremely hard to do a scary mod well but some definitely succeed in some categories. the skinwalker mod is my favourite, just seeing another player in a single player world can cause so much distress even when it isnt scary. one other thing these mods do right are ambient sound effects like the one where you can hear something that sounds like a player walking up to you is my absolute favourite. brings back that nostalgic feeling, when it wasnt in your face but a dreadful feeling of "what if something's behind me".

The chase music/noise is what makes half of these not scary lol.

Jump scares shouldn't kill you. They should either debuff you or leave you at low health. Killing you just ends any suspense you managed to build.

And this is why I really like From the Fog, I mean yeah sure it’s goofy at times and more just like funny than scary but I think having something appear every so often to scare you or stare at you is more scary than having a walking tree branch slap your shit back to your respawn point.

jumpscares are release of tension, therefore the games and mods that spam them without building tension just makes them annoying isntead of scary

It often becomes more frustrating gameplay wise rather than actually being scary.

I think one of the problems with scary mobs that chase you is the dilemma of how much HP they have. If it's low and you can kill them in a few hits, they're no longer as scary since you just killed them. But if it's high and takes a long time to kill them, you're going to be seeing them longer and will get desensitized to them.

I'd love a "mod/resource pack" that says its really scary, but nothing happens besides just really small shit like new noises and stuff. So the entire game gaslights you into thinking something is going to jumpscare and kill you. Then once you feel like the pack doesn't work, more shit happens to remind you that its in fact working and that there is more to it than you thought.

Dude I absolutely love your content like it’s honestly so chill, even with these poorly made mods (I say poorly in the sense of they’re really not so scary outside of Jumpscare value) and yea like it’s kinda cool to find some shit that isn’t over the top reaction over the most minute thing lol

Seeing your skin everytime you opened your inventory was scarier than the monsters.

17:00 did actually kinda get me, mainly because I assumed it was From the Fog Herobrine, and he would just fuck off Wasn’t expecting him to instant transmission over and slap you

I think the one that has the most potential is From the fog, the whistling sound effect it does when it spawns is genuinely creepy, I just think they need to add some more behavior patterns to it rather than just you look at it and it chases you. Like imagine if it did the whistling and you saw it, and instead running straight at you it just walked back into the fog or something, it would be a lot creepier and you genuinely wouldn't know what it was about to do

From watching this video ive come to the conclusion that the true purpose of minecraft "horror" mods is to see which one gives you tinnitus the fastest

ngl seeing a video like this is gold. something about hearing your keyboard through your mic is therapeutic. Plus its just a good watch!

I got the perfect idea for a Minecraft horror mod. Hear me out. When you spawn, you will notice that there are zero clouds in the sky, no mobs are spawning, everything is desaturated, the old shading system replaces the new one making caves darker and no ambience or music plays(besides cave ambience that will randomly play and scare the shit out of you. The world will feel dead and alone. However, you will begin to notice subtle chances such as one block in your house being switched out with another, or your bed changing color or an item or two going missing from your chest. Even better, the mod is updated randomly and no change log is provided. Edit:now realizing it this mod would be boring as shit

Honestly, I think a lot of it is caused by oversaturation. If your gameplay is normal, to the point you forget that there is something scary, you're much more likely to shit your pants when ordinary mining expedition #213 suddenly goes bad. I also think that minecraft is, in general, a very unimersive game, so you're already working against fear with its basic design.

6:10 I've never felt both so recognized and also ashamed of myself at the same time.

those videos are great to watch because there is none of that annoying editing in them, just cuts to get to the interesting moments and nothing more, great job and subscribed

Some Minecraft mods can be scary once you find the right mods, but a majority of them have nothing that adds to the tension and none seem to have a build-up with ambiance.

I think Minecraft has one pretty great native horror mob, the Enderman. Now, since everyone knows what the Enderman does and that they can be made harmless by just standing under a low ceiling, they aren't that scary currently. But if you were to open Minecraft for the first time with no prior knowledge, they would be pretty scary. They are not instantly hostile, but there is something alien about them, and they make strange noises. If you don't know you shouldn't look them in the eyes, it can seem almost random when they decide to attack you. Their aggro sound is eerie, and their teleporting hit-and-run tactics make it feel like you are being attacked by something from the shadows, never sure from where it will strike next. They also hit decently hard, so they pose an actual in-game threat. Once you learn their behaviour or get super geared, they stop being scary, but that would really apply to any horror creature. Even dedicated horror games can still struggle with the scariness disappearing when the player figures out a way to exploit janky AI or a bug to make the monster completely trivial to face. The horror does often require the player to voluntarily try to maximise immersion. And Minecraft itself is not built to be a horror experience. So it is hard to make Minecraft scary, but not impossible.

I completly agree with you. All of these mods seem to be missing something. You should try this modpack called "Fear Nightfall". I think it's a pretty well made modpack that has a lot of cool Horror elements that some of these mods don't have and it's pretty well put together.

i remember someone comparing jumpscares scaring someone being the equivalent of a comedian tickling you and then saying they made you laugh and that still holds up

only good horror mob is the stalker from betweenlands, its not just a default unity horror game mob, but an actually originally shaped animal with pretty well executed way to cause paranoia by staying out of sight at first and breaking sources of lights(the fog of lake cavern layer helps at making the place look even darker), starts assault by either jumping down from ceiling or attacking from behind and when low on health can summon reinforcements

I think the Man From the Fog does a good job of being frightening without being intrusive. He spawns on the surface at night only and only attacks when you look directly at him. So he can be avoided successfully.

These mods can be scary, but I just dont like how repetitive they are. They also are unfair and annoying because of how fast they can reach you, how fast they can kill you, and how common they spawn. If I want a good dweller mod, I want unexpectancy, somewhat of a fair fight where I would be more terrified of any other mobs killing me with the amount of health I would have after an interaction with one, and some space to breathe after fighting one.

people just dont know how, the cave sounds especially in early versions of the game send chills down my spine even to this day...they're horrifying

Doppelganger mod is the only mod that scared me with my friend because I didn't know what it would even do. After that I got used to it.

i think the problem is that people don't understand that over saturating the freaking game with these dwellers mobs makes it less tense, but tedious lol. The dwellers have the purpose of spawning nearby, and if you tend to put more than one it is very obvious that the playthrough will become unplayable, or annoying. Next time play with only one dweller or two but be aware of the function of these before downloading them.

all this has just made me realise that i want a Minecraft faerie mod where you see this hunched-over figure in the woods at night that tries to draw you outside, maybe placing valuable items or a mysterious chest out in the open, and who is scared off by light sources. i feel like having a bit of uncertainty would help these scary mods a lot, especially if the creature was designed to blend in more with Minecraft's aesthetic.

My fridge suddenly made a noise (regulating temperature i think) while i was watching this in the kitchen and it scared me more than the entire video lmao

I like how you’re so chill and mediocre about everything that’s happening lmao, would be cool if you did more like this

i thought the cave dweller was actually an okay design, it roams in the caves and it stalks it's prey before attacking building tension. Also the cave sounds it made were very unsettling, but the problem is people piggy backed off of the cave dweller and ended up making a saga of "spooky skinny man with big teeth jump out of woods and chase you" type mobs.

I swear playing a single player world while you're alone irl gets CREEPY. Just the sheer silence is scarier than all these mods.

I think a good place to start for minecraft horror mods would be to take what's already there in minecraft. The warden for example, In my opinion is pretty good at being horror like, because of the way it is summoned. Each and every time you activate a shrieker, you know that your that much closer to unleasing it on you. So the tension just builds, and builds until the thing actually spawns in. And the moment it catches you is Really cathartic from a horror point of view because the creature earned that pay off. So theres bound to be at least Some scare factor involved even if your exploring your thousandth lost city and got enchanted to hell and back netherite armor. And the best part about it, is it won't just spawn in on the surface and insta kill you when your just trying to get yourself established like with most of those other mods in the video. What those mods are doing just ends up being Extremely frustrating after a while. With the warden, You actively have to seek it out to maybe get something of valiue. That's one reason why I think the cave dweller is more close to being a good horror mod, because you have to go out of your way to go underground. So overall, I think the warden and the sculk have a lot of potential for various horror mods to expand on them. The sculk infestation mod is pretty good, but something more subtle would go a long ways. But, If you wanna have a monster on the surface that stalks you, I think the Herobrine mods generally lean in the right direction. Where they mostly just stalk you and don't just run at you. It plays into the whole "your not alone when you should be" vibe that made older minecraft more scary. They're not perfect, but I think more peoples should follow the example of those mods instead of "cave dweller but on surface" I think what a lot of peoples miss out on, is the Enderman. they were initially added in as a spooky themed mob. So I have no idea why nobody tried to turn that slender aspect of the enderman up to 11 by now? I think if you tweaked the enderman Just the right way, and add a pinch of Herobrine to them, they could be a very effective horror mob without making your first few hours a series of one tap jumpscare kills. Maybe along with a revamped end dimension that makes it more of a horror dimension than what it is now. Give it that eldritch cosmic horror feel with this eldritch god like entity constantly looming in the background somewhere. maybe it's just me because I remember enderman used to scare me a lot more than other mobs when i started playing minecraft. but still.

15:50 thats a cool mechanic, being able to hear the footsteps and when you see it it turns visible, just wish it wasn't an immortal instakill, it would be a cool mob to fight

its like the difference between a quick in-your -face jumpscare for a quick reaction, versus the dread of hearing a floorboard upstairs creeking even though you think you are alone.

like im feeling sleepy watching this, your voice be more relaxing than the mods being scary lol

I love that people are starting to embrace horror in minecraft, but I feel like a lot of the mods released recently are just variations of mods that have already proven to be successful. also, you're absolutely right about how most of these mods are made solely for youtube

From The Fog is nicer than the most of the dweller mods from what I can see. At least that can build tension with the lack of "appear, walk around, kill player" routine. It can still be sorta goofy (also with the bugs) but it's a step in the right direction. End of Herobrine shouldn't be used with From The Fog, I don't know why people are doing that. Two different things!

7:20 This is actually a feature that has been in the game for over a decade now called a zombie siege or just a siege. A few updates have broken them before, but ever since 1.14.3 they have been fixed and occur normally.

The Witherstorm mod is the scariest mod that adds "something that chases you." you can't escape or kill it with extreme ease, and it doesn't instantly kill you in an unavoidable way out of nowhere. Also the "earthquakes" it makes in the newer versions are scarier than all of these jumpscares.

Yeah, ive noticed this problem. I plan to make my own horror mod, leaning into more of the atmospheric horror that i like. A creature that watches, slowly moving closer and closer the more you ignore it. It starts out far off in the distance, hiding behind trees and standing on top of cliffs, staring at the player. Then it gets closer, moving into the chunks around your house, hiding in the treeline. Then it starts standing outside your windows, opening your doors, rifling through your chests. Havent really figured out what happens after that point- I just meant for this to be a comment saying i agree with the sentiment how did it become this.