Many of us are the kind of people who don’t get creeped out by much anymore. We watch enough horror movies and eerie shows, listen to unsettling music, or read eldritch stories to try and make our skin crawl only to feel a flitting moment of unsettling uncomfortableness. But that moment often flutters by all too quickly, just like a pigeon having a heart attack, leaving us craving something a bit more lasting, a bit more memorable.
I’ve been trying for a while to get creeped out by something and only two things come to mind recently that really stand out for me. I’ve shared them below and then I want you to tell me in the comments about your own endeavors to find something eerie.
So, tell me, what’s creeped you out recently?
The Canal
Many people were very disappointed by The Babadook. After all, there was a great deal of hype surrounding that film and it was the talk of the internet for weeks if not months. But the reaction upon its wide release was, in a strange way, very similar to the reception that The Human Centipede got. Both had huge amounts of interest beforehand and seemingly offered something intense, visceral, and pretty damn memorable. But the actual product, upon release, just didn’t sit well with the majority of viewers.
While I like The Babadook well enough, I think The Canal was a far more effective horror movie that still dealt with themes of personal loss and grief as the foundation for terror. If nothing else, it definitely scared me more, causing me to be apprehensive of the dark the night that I watched it.
Junji Ito’s “The Enigma of Amigara Fault”
I don’t know how to describe accurately what this made me feel but, by the last panel, my skin was crawling. Maybe it’s the idea that something can have such a hold on you, something that insinuates itself so deeply into your mind that it overcomes you, breaks down all barriers and compels you into that which fills you with the most dread, that it causes you to completely and even willingly give yourself entirely into it. Maybe it’s the eeriness of the story itself and how Mother Nature would align itself with humanity in the pursuit of the punishment of certain people. No matter what it is, it’s something that gave me nightmares, for which I’m both grateful and upset by.