Hello! Are you like me, constantly seeking out the spooky, creepy, spine tingling, nightmare fuel of the world because, I don't know, something in our brains is like "yes please, more"? Let's congregate and talk about horror! What we like, what we don't like, why we like what we like, tropes, ect. Anything horror-themed can be discussed here, like: Movies! TV Shows! Anime/Manga! Books! Comics! Creepypasta! That one ghost story your older cousin told you in 4th grade that fucked you up for like three years! Video games! And sundry. Do you like psychological horror? Slash and gash babysitter hunting? Retro screamers? Asian horror? The encroaching certainty that something exists beyond our feeble mortal understanding of the universe and it really wants to flay our souls and minds? Welcome home. Edit: Ah. I should probably also preface this thread with a warning. Horror being what it is, discussion may very well cover some dark and disturbing topics. Love yourself and tread carefully if you're susceptible to such things.
And to start the thread off, I confess there are two crappy horror movie tropes that I will happily gobble up and ask for more. Cinema verite, aka found footage. Paranormal Activity series? Fucking love those movies. V/H/S, REC, ect? Yes please. Demon possession movies! The Exorcist was the first movie to give me prolonged nightmares as a wee bab, and I've been hunting for a new movie to replicate the experience ever since. I was raised by a hippie liberal atheist father who was totally cool with me watching whatever I wanted, as long as I accepted the consequences of being scared. As a result, I was watching intense horror at a tender age of 7. Ah, memories.
have you seen cloverfield? it's cheesy but i love it, if we're talking found footage. also i didn't know v/h/s was like that, i'll have to check it out! movie that fucked me up as a kid? definitely ghost ship when i was 7, because everything i had seen before that had been g rated, and darkness falls. i slept with the lights on forever after that movie. it was stupid but i still cringe whenever i have to go into somewhere not very well lit. oh man and bloody mary still freaks me out, i feel like she's always watching and waiting for me to finish the game because i chickened out after saying it twice instead of the full three times. a lot of the anime i watch and manga i read involves body horror or psychological bullshit. i'll always have a soft spot in my heart for junji ito's Uzumaki and the reference to The Enigma of Amigara Fault in an episode of steven universe made me SO UNBELIEVABLY HAPPY.
I have seen Cloverfield! It had some good moments, but it ended up frustrating me more than anything. As for v/h/s, the movies are actually built on the premise of people finding various tapes recording terrible, creepy shit happening, and it's all tied together by this nebulous overarching theme of WATCH THESE AND YOU WILL DIE UNTIL YOU ARE DEAD. So it's really a series of short films (by different directors, I believe) in one film. Thus they're hit or miss, but I got some genuine shivers from a few of them and I'd recommend checking them out. Watch out for triggering content, though, shit gets dark sometimes. JUNJI ITO IS MY BOY. I too was filled with glee over the reference, and Uzumaki was one of the first horror mangas that made me creeped out. I love his short story compilations too, and Tomie is another favorite.
steven universe actually has a lot of effed up scenes, now that i think about it. i wonder how cartoon network gets away with this sort of thing, this is certainly not the first kid show they've made that had really dark themes. courage the cowardly dog comes to mind.
DUDE I KNOW, the recent episodes are pure nightmare fuel, JFC. Gravity Falls and Adventure Time have also had moments of true creepy shit, and as much as I appreciate it, I too can't help but wonder how it gets approved. I really am glad though, because I'd be the first to tell you kids can handle and sometimes even crave those darker, deeper themes.
Oh, also, re: blood mary. I was the kid teaching other kids about her and Candyman and making up ghost stories to freak people out, cackling gleefully every time I turned off the bathroom lights after the third "bloody mary" chant. I'd say I'm sorry, but...that would be a lie. >:3
I love all sorts of horror, for different reasons, like, there's a form of horror to suit my every mood, it's great! I'm so glad someone mentioned Junji Ito, because his mangas (ALL OF THEM) might be my absolute favourite mangas of all time. I think part of this is how heavy on body horror they are- I'm pretty desensitised to pretty much every horror trope, but body horror still has potential to, well, horrify me. I find it interesting and terrifying how many ways people can think of to fuck up the human body. Special mention to Gyo for actually making me feel ill. I used to be a huge fan of creepypasta, until people started signing their names, back when like 90% of it was ritual creepypasta, and 99% of it was anonymous. I still really like it, but the feel of it has changed, greatly, and now that it's more popular, there's less quality control, imo. I am such a creepypasta hipster. :/
TBH, I feel the same way, both about body horror and creepypasta. For me creepypasta is kind of like my fanfiction.net. I'll scroll through a million tryhards and trolls and then find a gem, and that's enough to keep me scrolling. Body horror and reality bending are the two things that still get to me. So as a result, I am all about the Lovecraftian-esque stuff!
OMG, this captures the feeling perfectly. Me too, though I could never get into actual Lovecraftian stuff. Something that utilises the same tropes, though, and I'm there.
speaking of horror manga, has anyone read Kurosagi corpse delivery service? it's one of my favorite horror manga - scratch that, make it one of my favorite manga ever - and it's always been impossible for me to find anything past volume 10 :(.
unfortunately, they're nearly impossible to find online unless you outright buy them from Dark Horse Comics. i could try to scrape together the first 6 volumes since those are the only ones readily available if you look, if you'll give me a moment. the only reason i ever got to vol 10 is because i found hard copies in a random library my family decided to try out instead of the one we regularly went to one year.
Oooh, a manga I haven't heard of yet! Looking it up, seems to be in the same universe as MPD Pyscho, which I enjoy, so I'll have to check it out.
I really adore lovecraftian esque stuff. Got issues with some of his actual work, because, well, yeah. But there's some good stuff there. I once read a weird manga about eating mermaids to make your crush love you, and that was interesting. Creepypasta are really fun, as long as you read either the REALLY good ones or the REALLY bad ones. Does anyone here watch any off the youtube slenderman series type stuff? Those are pretty fun.
yeah the author likes to keep everything in the same universe. i might be wrong but i think kcds was written before mpd psycho. it's been forever since i've actually read either. it was around the same time as when i was super into parasyte, whICH REMINDS ME OMG I STILL NEED TO CHECK OUT THE ANIME I AM SO HYPE. anyways. here's a link to the first 29 chapters of kurosagi corpse delivery service, that's all i can find rn: http://mangadoom.co/Kurosagi-Shitai-Takuhaibin/1/ edit: gah i have a bajillion anime and manga recs i could probably give in the horror genre
@emythos Yeah, Lovecraft himself was a mega dick, but I can respect what he did with the genre, and I love when less douchey creators take the tropes and run with them. Is the manga you're talking about School Mermaid by any chance? And yeah, I watched the Marble Hornets stuff go down in real time back in the day! I'm always on the look out for other creepy youtube vids. In fact, let me supply some now, though they aren't "found footage" like Slenderman stuff.
@Deresto PLZ give me as many recs you want! There's a good chance I'll have already read/watched some of them, but I am so very desperate for new stuff!
It's wicked interesting to see what they can do with it. Yes, that is in fact it. What a weird. Ooh, cool! Have you watched Tribe Twelve or Everyman Hybrid? Everyman Hybrid is a pain in the ass to get into, but it's actually fun once you do. Those look neat. Gonna watch them in a bit.