Horror stuff

yknow. Horror things. 90% text rn because yeag

Media I've Seen

My ratings are probably not based on anything worthwhile. A lot of the time it's just based off of "well I had a good time playing/watching" so if you came for actual ratings, you might not like what you find.

Video games

Outlast 1 & Whistleblower: 5/5 stars! The first outlast and its dlc are probably my favorite horror games I've ever played.

Outlast 2: 4/5 stars! I still liked it a lot, I just preferred the first games.

Lost in Vivo: 5/5 stars! Another one of my favorite horror games I've played. (Fun fact: the header image of this page is one of the game over screens from Lost in Vivo)

Buddy Simulator 1984: 5/5 stars! Psychological horror more than anything, made me feel really fucked mentally for a little bit, good experience!

Resident Evil 7: 5/5 stars! One of the first horror games I played ever actually, had me shaking in my boots for quite a bit of it.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent: 4/5 stars! I think this was my very first horror game actually and partly what got me into horror games in general.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs: 4/5 stars! Honestly underrated in my opinion, all things considered.

The Mortuary Assistant: 5/5 stars! I quite enjoyed this one, but at points I kept getting upset at scares because I got so into doing the tasks, but that's not the games fault '^_^

Nix Umbra: 2/5 stars. I loved the look of the game but it mostly disappointed me.

Penumbra (Overture, Black Plague, Requiem): 5/5 stars! Underrated in my opinion, I really loved these ones and what they had to offer.

SOMA: 5/5 stars! Fucked me over and I loved it, need to replay it though.

Layers of Fear: 5/5 stars! Really liked the atmosphere and story behind it.

Below section is specifically for itch.io games

Elevator Hitch: 5/5 stars! Didn't really scare me but I loved it nonetheless.

Carbon Steel: 5/5 stars! Very obsessed with the concept of this one, the atmosphere was very Ick (in a good way), and I think it was very fun.

Fears to Fathom (All chapters): 5/5 stars! They all made me feel so yucky in an enjoyable way, the atmosphere almsot always got to me and made me want Out, I loved it.

FeedVid & FeedVid Live: 5/5 stars, though I preferred FeedVid Live! Felt oddly reminiscient of horror utilizing "the dark web" which always leaves me feeling uncomfortable.

Movies

Hellraiser (1987): 5/5 stars! This is honestly a comfort movie for me at this point. While it didn't scare me, I thought it was compelling nonetheless.

Event Horizon (1997): 5/5 stars! I finished it like uhm. I have no clue what I just watched. And felt brain broken for a little bit but in a good way, I loved the film.

Host (2020): 5/5 stars! Short on purpose, this one actually spooked me pretty bad so of course I gotta recommend it.

The Thing (1982): 5/5 stars! I love body horror and fucked up creatures an abnormal amount, so naturally I'm drawn to everything here. Didn't scare me, but I had an awesome time watching it.

The Ritual (2017): 4/5 stars! The cinematography in this film is beautiful, and most of the movie was so delightfully creepy. I wasn't personally a fan of the ending, but I didn't hate it, so I only docked 1 star.

To be expanded when I remember what movies I've watched lmao.

Concepts & Genres I appreciate

Genres

Found Footage

Found footage is a genre of typically or seemingly low production quality, one where a few people pick up a video camera and start filming what's happening to them. Maybe they're exploring a thick forest, or breaking into people's houses, but something always seems to go wrong. Rife with shakey shots and interpersonal issues, found footage is a special type of insight to horrors happening to usually ordinary people.

While it's a super hit or miss genre for me, I love found footage films, because to me, there's something so real about them. Because of how found footage is framed compared to movies shot with planned shots and music scores, among other things, found footage has this viscerally real feeling to it. There really isn't music scores to build a tension, there are a lot of shots that are first-person, pulling you into someone else's sight, the seemingly poor production making it feel like someone actually trying to document things rather than carefully planned filming of things, it's all so viscerally real and can make for a specific type of horrifying experience.

Recommendations coming soon

Body horror

While I personally see body horror as a subgenre that can be featured in many types of horror genres, I think it deserves a place here as one of my favorites. Body horror is a genre/subgenre defined by, as you could guess, horrifying things happening to someone's body! Limbs contorting in ways they shouldn't, skin splitting open and extra limbs coming out of it, cracks and squelches as bones and flesh are pushed beyond their limit, creatures taking over someone and transmogrifying them beyond recognition, there are so many things that can make the human body horrific.

I personally love body horror, especially older films, from a practical standpoint among other reasons. The reason I prefer older films is they almost always used practical effects. Puppets and sculptures and makeup and goop, computer assistance didn't exist or was minimal. I love practical effects, so seeing what horrific things people do with it always makes me happy. I also appreciate body horror because it's so fascinating watching bodies pushed beyond recognition and becoming so distantly human you can barely remember what they looked like when unaffected. I love subtle body horror as well, like some of the effects from Event Horizon, with what happened to their eyes. While not big, I still consider it a form of body horror. It's horrifying to see humans become something much different, and body horror captures it in such a physical way that I'm pulled towards it.

Recommendations coming soon.

Concepts & Tropes

This section is just for specific tropes featured in a variety of horror media that I personally really like.

Flesh in the walls

Flesh in the walls is a broad statement for what I mean. What I mean is when nonliving objects are filled with flesh, blood, and viscera. When machines are opened up to reveal functioning organ systems, when building's walls are hacked through and blood comes splattering out, when houses have physical heartbeats, etc. I'm so obsessed with the concept of typical nonliving objects being alive, yet at least from my experience, I don't see it much!

Recommendations of things involving it:
  • House Hunted (game): I can't explain why without major spoilers, but this is the biggest game I can think of featuring this concept. Check it out if you like visual novels and this concept, it's one of my favorites.
  • Elevator Hitch (game): A much more minor part of the game, it is featured here. Elevator Hitch is a horror visual novel / escape room game where two employees must explore rooms and solve "puzzles" to reach their destination.
  • Adriana Varejão's works (art): Adriana Varejão is a Brazilian artist who works in a variety of mediums who's work explores meanings and themes relating to rupture and discontinuity and Brazilian culture from the colonial period forwards. Not all her works feature the themes of viscera in walls, but some do, and they have a deeper meaning represented by the viscera. They're nice to look at and quite provocative, and I recommend checking them, and the rest of her works, out.
  • Some of Simon Stålenhag's works (art): The specific one's I'm referring to I cannot find hosted on his website, but here is them in a tumblr post and here is his website as well, as the rest of his work is beautiful and I recommend checking it out as well. The specific works I link to in the post come from his series, "Things from the Flood".

Eye Horror

Something about me is I love eyes and eye imagery. I love eyes as metaphors, I love too many eyes where they shouldn't be, I love glowing eyes in the darkness, I like the feeling of always being watched, I just love eyes in a fucked up horror sense.