How long has it been since somebody created a piece of horror that
really stuck with you. One that chilled you to the bone and left you looking behind your shoulder or made you pause before you turned
off the lights at night? It's been some time for me. Most of the horror movies released today
just don't really get to me. Even a great film, like Cabin in the Woods
is strong because it's a deconstruction,
rather than because it offers us a real step into the darkness, and horror games have been trending further and further from that grim
reflection of ourselves that we saw in the old Silent Hills or Fatal Frames.
Some horror games have drifted toward the action-packed, zombie stomping power fantasy side of things. Experiences, which may be intense from moment to moment
but certainly don't qualify as true horror.
Other horror games, especially recently have delved into the jump-scare, hide from the monster type of experiences games which are very much about terror,
but they aren't exactly what I'm talking about either.
I'm talking about real psychological horror. The kind that sticks with you long after the experience is over. P.T. is, in many ways, masterful.
Something we should talk about in its own right, but it stands as an exception to the long-standing rule.
So what's happened? At first, I thought perhaps
it was just that I've grown old, that the terrors of my youth are but fancies in my age,
but then I came to the realization: much of modern horror is actually created to make us feel safe
Sure, it'll give us a jump scare here and there, it'll throw in some gruesome imagery
And it'll surprise us or fill us with disgust in the moment
But these feelings are meant to be fleeting
You're intended to leave the theater or put down the game and laugh about how silly you were to jump, or to be frightened
You're supposed to feel powerful for not being scared or for knowing that you can overcome that horror
You're supposed to go joke over coffee about how not scared you were or snuggle up to a loved one.
In general, you're supposed to leave the experience aware of how comfortably safe your real world is
And it's not that this is supposed to happen on a conscious level. Often only
the best creators of this form of horror or even particularly aware
they're doing it, but insofar as this form of Modern Horror works
It works because it leaves you on some subtle level feeling safer about the real world
We live in, rather than leaving you scared of the possible world it created. Now, there's nothing wrong with this kind of horror
I think it has its place, but it's not what someone like James wants
And he will be the first to admit that perhaps he carries some damage with him, that wanting horror
Experiences to linger and mind long after the experiences over might be kind of weird
But it's what he looks for when he enters into a horror experience
He wants to feel that fear he wants to know that side of himself
There are a thousand, thousand ways to do this as we explore different sides of fear some of which we've talked about in previous episodes
but today we're going to go into more depth talking about one. The uncanny.
the uncanny is that sickly creeping sense that something is wrong
It's this feeling that you can't shake, that gets under your skin
You can't put your finger on it, but something is out of place or not quite right. Long, long ago
We talked about the Uncanny Valley
That place where a robot or a 3D model looks real enough for your brain to interpret them as being human
But something about them is just slightly off
Enough so that it triggers a feeling of revulsion and disgust. That's sort of a microcosm of the uncanny in general. You ever wonder why
a flickering light in an otherwise normal scene makes it so much more ominous?
It's not even about fear of the dark
We get the sense even when we see a flickering light in an otherwise well lit scene
And it's not just the irritation of something flashing on and off either. Otherwise we'd just be feeling annoyed rather than unsettled
It's the fact that it doesn't belong there. Our brains understand what a normal house
Or a hallway looks like because we see them every day. On some subconscious level we know that the flickering light is wrong somehow any
Well-maintained place wouldn't have such a thing thus it makes us tense
It makes us feel like something is wrong in this room
And it makes us look for whatever else might be wrong
It sets up that anticipation that horror pieces so desperately need before they throw the main scare at you
David Lynch is a master at this. If you want a doctoral class on the uncanny just watch Twin Peaks
Every scene every line of dialogue even the way the actors deliver their lines is stilted and unnatural yet
Not so unnatural that you can resign it to the realm of fantasy. The reason we can so easily
Brush aside many of the monsters in Modern Horror is that they so clearly exist outside of anything we would accept in our real world
and
Because they obviously can't exist in the real world
All you have to do is put down the film or the game and bam
You're safe
The true Master of Horror's trick is convincing us that their monster might exist in our real world and the uncanny is a very good
Tool for achieving this. If Gone Home got to you at all
It's because of the uncanny. There was nothing actually frightening in that game
But they intentionally tried to leave you with a sense of unease as you explore that house
And they used the uncanny to do it. These sorts of moments can be found in lots of games
usually in the environment design or the enemy models
Silent Hill 2 is perhaps the game most famous for playing on our sense of the uncanny
When you weren't in the other world, you are in a world
Just like ours only subtly and horribly wrong. There, the most disturbing moments usually weren't during combat with the monsters
But rather your encounters with other human beings in the town who were just off in a way that you couldn't totally put your finger
On but boy were they unsettling
In fact I would go so far as to say that many of the best horror works in any medium use the uncanny as one of
The key drivers behind the tension and release cycle that's so essential to horror and --
...we've never talked about the tension and release cycle in horror before. That is shameful
Aw, and P.T. is the perfect example, too. You know what? screw it. People find yourself some more costumes
We're keeping this halloween thing going. See you guys back here next week