Fear of the Unknown
Disclaimer: This article mentions/discusses The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, Inside No 9, Thalasin, Centrifuge Brain Project, Mystery Flesh Pit, Late Night with the Devil, Five Nights at Freddy’s, Shipwrecked 64/Broadside Beach, and more. If you wish to avoid spoilers or are bothered by the contents of these works or the horror genre more generally, please avoid this article.
Fear is something that is known to almost everyone. What evolved as a survival instinct has been utilized by countless individuals throughout history with various intentions. One of the more fascinating uses of fear is for entertainment purposes through the genre of horror. Purposely inflicting fear on others for their enjoyment seems counterintuitive, but the genre has proven endlessly popular. However, not all horror is created equal, and trying to make something scary without understanding why it inflicts fear can often miss the mark.
History of Fear
Fear has been essential in structuring society since humans started organizing themselves. What was once a signal to protect oneself from physical threats eventually became a tool for controlling people's behavior in a collective society. It’s for this reason that fear is an integral aspect of religions, where the fear of higher powers dictates how and why people should behave, often to avoid causing distress to the powers that they believe will determine their fates when they die.
Using horror to control the reactions of an audience is nothing new, and yet the shock and disgust exhibited by audiences who watched Freaks in 1932 would suggest otherwise. The new genre spawned by this work is highly divisive, yet the fans of the genre are very outspoken about their love. The horror genre has exploded, with this passionate love keeping it alive and thriving while other genres have faded in popularity.
This popularity, the low barrier to entry for filmmakers, and the financial success of the horror genre have created works of every variety. From big-name series like Black Mirror to the subgenre of analog horror and everything in between, if there is a human experience, someone has turned it into a nightmare, to varying success.
Where some works succeed and others fail is understanding why something inflicts fear. With the slasher subgenre of horror, some attribute the fear as a fear of bodily harm. However, this does not always work. Pain does not inflict fear without the threat of death. Stubbing your toe or hitting your funny bone hurt, but neither inflicts fear as there is no imminent threat of death.
Death inflicts a sense of horror in us due to fear of the unknown, since we don’t know what happens to us after we die. It’s the same fear that underpins religious beliefs, causing people to go to extreme lengths to adhere to rules to appease higher powers and ensure an enjoyable fate after death. Religion removes the fear of the unknown by providing a concrete path to a certain future. Utilizing this fear is essential to success in the horror genre.
Black Mirror vs Inside No 9
If we’ve learned anything from The Twilight Zone, it’s that humans are very bad at predicting the future. Watching back on the depiction of the horrifying futures that await us in the distant future of the 21st century seems silly to us now. However, Black Mirror has many episodes like that, attempting to inflict fear of a future that is unlikely to happen. Fear of the future relies on the worst of humanity to create a world that is unrecognizable to us now. However, to quote Cecil Palmer in Welcome to Night Vale, “The future is fast coming for you, but it always flinches first, and settles in as the gentle present”. The future won’t end up as some abruptly dystopian world that we have no say in shaping, and creating horror as if it will is only effective as horror for a very brief moment in history, and only to those who don’t think beyond the present moment. It relies on a fear of the unknown future that will only be relevant until that future arrives, thus harming the horror effect long-term.
An alternative, and more lastingly effective, form of horror is basing said horror on things already happening, already very real. This is where the show Inside No 9 shines. A similarly formatted show of short stories, it rarely relies on the future or fiction. Episodes like The Riddle of the Sphynx and To Have and To Hold highlight horrifying things that could be and very likely are happening somewhere in the world at this very moment, whether it be bodily paralysis, cannibalism, abduction, or rape. Episodes like these rely on the removal of control and power, which inflict fear through an unknown fate out of one’s control as well as the threat of death.
Even episodes that rely on fictional elements like 3 by 3 work well in a different way. In this episode, they presented the episode as a brand new quiz show, to the utter confusion of the audience expecting an Inside No 9 episode (and some unsuspecting others). When it is revealed that all is not as it seems, this familiar—and therefore comfortable and predictable—quiz show format turns horrific. With the safety of the known gone, fear of the unknown kicks in. This episode is thus representative of a horror subgenre known as analog horror.
Analog Horror
This utilization of the normal to create deeply horrific things is a foundational aspect of the subgenre of analog horror. Take the Thalasin commercial as an example. Presented as a TV infomercial for Thalasin, a drug aimed to restore emotions in those who have lost them, the commercial takes a turn when it promotes Thalasin+, which induces new emotions in those who take it. Playing off nostalgia for infomercials of the past, it subverts the expectations of what you’d see by taking a dark and unexpected turn. Fear of these unknown new emotions and what the differences in a familiar television format might mean make this short YouTube video a skillful example of the analog horror genre.
Another example of these independent analog horror creations is the Centrifuge Brain Project. What appears to be a documentary about a scientist who studies centrifugal effects on the brain slowly devolves into increasingly terrifying amusement park attractions. Between 14-hour Ferris wheel rides and drop rides that instead shoot you into the stratosphere, the pit in your stomach that forms from watching these rides only continues to drop. Taking familiar amusement park rides and amalgamating them removes the feeling of excitement and childhood wonder often associated with them, replacing them with a lingering dread at what unknown fates might befall those who get on those attractions.
However, videos are not necessary for effective analog horror. Sometimes visual images and a good story are all you need. This is evident with Mystery Flesh Pit. A subterranean creature turned national park, this series shows how corporate greed and exploitation of the natural world can go horribly wrong. Countless unknown substances and biological materials, the world’s most deadly choking incident, and a surprising number of calcified clowns leave more questions than answers. The sheer scale of the natural world not fully understood is on full display in a series like this, with a website full of informational documents regarding the park and the horrors contained within.
While these previous examples showcase the incredible work being shared around the internet, the genre has escaped those confines into the greater horror world as well. The 2023 movie Late Night with the Devil takes the late-night talk show to the extreme. The movie’s footage shows the behind-the-scenes of a Halloween 1977 broadcast of the fictional talk show Night Owls with Jack Delroy. The evening goes awry with possession, death, and a shocking number of worms. This found-footage style horror is nothing new, but subverting expectations of a typical late-night talk show is a refreshing take and undermines familiarity with terrifying results.
Cultural Zeitgeist
There are many lessons the common horror themes of today can take from these examples and a better understanding of fear of the unknown as the root of horror. A big theme in horror recently is AI, technology, and a surprising number of dead bodies trapped in entertainment mascots. The behemoth that is the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise has inspired many works along these lines, with dead bodies stuffed into animatronic suits. The popularity of horror works like this is understandable given the cultural zeitgeist’s fears of advancing technology and the subsequent fears of corporate exploitation. Taking this fear beyond death, providing no escape from being used by a company for profit and entertainment, echoes the current conversations regarding technology’s intrusions into everyone’s lives with seemingly no escape.
However, this once again faces the same time limitations that Black Mirror faces, with a short-lived horror effect. As we continue into the future and figure out boundaries surrounding technology, these fears will abate. These works will not be timeless if they rely on these technological fears, ignoring the fact that humans are very human and will always put up a fight against change.
One of these works that has potential for lasting success, however, is the game Shipwrecked 64, which is part of the larger Broadside Beach story. While it relies on entities known as Starlings to pilot their mascot suits after the untimely deaths of the characters’ actors, the way the Shipwrecked 64 game is presented is exceptional. What seems like a run-of-the-mill Nintendo 64-esque game gone wrong, with cryptic codes and scary skeletal creatures in the forest, takes a startlingly disturbing turn. After failing a minigame in the kitchen with Giovani Goose, there is an abrupt cut to realistic camera footage of the Bucky Beaver costume brutally murdering a man. This is not an exaggeration, as his head is bashed against an oven and forced into a deep fryer.
This completely shifts the game's energy, bringing it to an even deeper level of uncertainty. What was predictable for the analog horror subgenre, a familiar style of game with some creepy aspects sprinkled in to throw the player off guard, is taken a step further. While the story content might not last past the current zeitgeist, the way the story is presented is so jarring that it is likely to outlast modern technological fears.
Conclusion
The horror genre is so vast that there are bound to be hits and misses everywhere. No matter the quality of the works, the genre has maintained its financial and cultural success throughout the past century, and that isn’t likely to change anytime soon. However, by understanding the fears that underpin the chemical changes in the body that horror fans often seek, existing and aspiring horror creators alike can continue to make successful works. Utilizing fear of the unknown in new and creative ways—ways that are bound to last—will cement the genre’s success now and forever.
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