Editorials
[Viral Horrors] Exploring the Darkness of “TheSunVanished”
Since the dawn of civilization, human beings have been scaring the crap out of each other with horror stories inspired by their immediate environments. Nowadays, however, many people don’t seem to realize that we spend most of our waking hours online, be it at home or work, on computers or phones, and our stories have adjusted accordingly.
That’s why I believe it’s time to discuss the Viral Horrors that surround us every day. From Creepypastas to killer memes, these sordid tales are as much a part of our culture as classic campfire stories, only on a much larger scale. So, let’s dive into the story of TheSunVanished, and see if we can come to appreciate these online scares and what they mean to us.
For centuries now, Horror and epistolary storytelling have walked hand-in-hand. From classics like Dracula and Frankenstein to modern-day found-footage films, presenting scary stories as if they were a real collection of recovered diaries, letters and other media is something of a tradition at this point. That being said, in the year of our lord 2019, people rarely share meaningful letters anymore, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find transcripts of phonographic recordings like that of Dracula‘s Dr. Seward. So, what kind of paper-trail can our characters leave behind in order to tell these shocking tales in the digital age? Well, creators like Aidan Elliot have wholeheartedly embraced social media as a means of presenting updated spooky stories like that of TheSunVanished, featuring the same innovative spirit that originally motivated masters like Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley.
Now, what exactly is TheSunVanished? Well, it’s an online horror story and ARG (alternate reality game, for the uninitiated) about a world where the sun quite literally disappeared, leaving survivors to deal with preternatural beings, bizarre infections and impending insanity. While the bulk of this Lovecraftian plot is mostly conveyed through snippets of text, there are also several uploaded photographs and even videos that help fill in the gaps as our nameless protagonist chronicles his plight in this nightmarish environment.
Not scary at all.
To go into further detail would spoil the fun, as this is one online yarn that takes full advantage of Twitter’s peculiar format, but suffice to say that things escalate very quickly. We’re only fed tidbits of information at a time through concise threads, making the narrative something of a puzzle that must be solved by immersed readers. Of course, there are also the occasional media attachments to remind us that, at least for these unfortunate characters, this is very much a true story.
Sure, the neo-epistolary format has a few drawbacks, especially when you consider some of the less-successful interactive ARG elements (after all, there’s a strange disconnect as the protagonist tries to survive in this desolate reality while still showing up alongside cat memes on your personalized Twitter feed) but the creative energy behind this convincing zero-budget apocalypse more than makes up for that. Plus, the unusual format allows for more realistic interaction between the main character and the other survivors he meets along the way, not to mention the readers that he frequently consults for advice.
The general story begins to stutter a bit as the plot thickens and the protagonist makes contact with more characters (such as in some of the later “segments” when we’re introduced to a mysterious human faction that’s also been trying to survive this mess), though this is a common issue with many online narratives. It also feels a bit too convenient that the most outlandish events are usually told through text-only. I know it’s unreasonable to expect an actual effects budget from a Twitter profile of all things, but the reasoning behind the post formats could have used a little work, and dealing with these “script” issues wouldn’t actually cost any more.
The low resolution somehow makes it freakier.
Nevertheless, aspiring horror creators should take note of how TheSunVanished handles the unique language of its chosen platform when preparing their own terrifying digital yarns. I’d also recommend thinking about a satisfying endgame, since most of these projects begin to stumble as they approach the finish line, and some never even make it to the end. Even beyond the realm of the internet, however, I’d love to see these fresh new ideas applied to film and television. A new generation of filmmakers willing to pull inspiration from the current digital world would be quite refreshing, especially in the horror genre.
TheSunVanished may not be a perfect horror experience, but it’s a simple idea that’s been extremely well-executed. I’m in awe at how such a large-scale story can convincingly told with absolutely no outside investment, and can’t wait to read more. While the account is currently on hiatus, the story is still ongoing, with the last post dating back to May, 14th. Aidan Elliot has also been teasing a web-series adaptation of this chilling apocalypse for a while now, and he’s involved in other horror projects as well, such as a short film titled Freywater.
If you’re willing to step into this shadowy world of loneliness and paranoia, the main account to follow is @TheSunVanished, though you’ll also need to keep up with @lostsunnews and @thmadjoy if you want to get the full story. Now, good luck, don’t talk to strangers and beware the headlights as you journey through a mysterious world where the Sun Vanished…
Steven Spielberg has always been conversant in the cinematic language of the horror genre, despite relatively few credits in the genre. His contributions as a writer and producer on things like Poltergeist are legendary, and films like Duel and Jaws certainly wield the horror genre in remarkable, often chilling ways. He may not be a horror filmmaker, but he knows when he needs to scare us, and he has the tools to make that happen.
I didn’t go into Disclosure Day, Spielberg’s alien epic, expecting outright horror, and indeed the film leans much more into thrilling than frightening. This is not a horror film, but for a few minutes in the middle, much to my surprise, it became one.
Spielberg has filmed more than his fair share of scary scenes over the years, but with Disclosure Day, he directed a new contender for the scariest scene of his entire career.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Disclosure Day!
Josh O’Connor in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
Among the various alien secrets laced throughout Disclosure Day are a trio of palm-sized rods, the color of pencil graphite. These rods, originating from another planet, can be used for a number of things, but for the purposes of this scene, the most important is “diving,” gripping the rod in one bare hand and using its power to “dive” into the mind of another person.
The person holding the rod in this scene is Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), head of shadowy cybersecurity firm Wordex, who is hellbent on keeping human knowledge of extraterrestrials secret from the general public. Scanlon’s trying to find whistleblower Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), who’s got all of those alien secrets tucked in a backpack while he’s on the run, and while Daniel’s more experienced mind is protected from diving, his girlfriend Jane’s (Eve Hewson) is not. So, monitored by medical personnel at Wordex headquarters (diving is dangerous), Scanlon pushes his way into Jane’s mind to find the location of Daniel’s safe house.
A telepathic invasion is scary enough on its own, but Spielberg doesn’t stop there. When Scanlon dives into Eve’s mind, he appears to her to be sitting across the kitchen table, like he’s in the room. Her bright blue eyes turn Scanlon’s dark brown, and she loses much of her control over her own body, not to mention her mind. Moments before, Daniel finally shared with her the secrets in his backpack, so Jane is shocked, conflicted, deeply vulnerable when Scanlon slips inside her head. This is not just telepathy. This is possession.
Spielberg underscores this not just through the visual language of the scene, as Jane breaks out in a sweat and struggles to sit upright as Scanlon invades her mind, but through Jane’s background. As she revealed to Daniel earlier in the film, Jane is a former novitiate nun who left her convent when she began to question her calling. She still believes firmly in God and, more importantly, believes that perhaps proof of alien life should be kept secret from the public because, in her eyes, it would upset the entire balance of faith in the world. God is a defining factor for humankind, Jane argues, and showing humanity proof of creatures from the stars would undercut that in dangerous ways.
This context, combined with the crucifix necklace Jane’s holding in her hand at the time of the dive, makes this scene the closest thing Spielberg will ever shoot to something out of The Exorcist. It’s not just a battle of wills, but a battle of faith. As an amoral technocrat worms his way into her memories, her beliefs, her faith, Jane turns the crucifix into a weapon, squeezing it until her hand bleeds when she discovers that a pain response can momentarily push Scanlon out of her head.
Of course, when you put a crucifix and a bloody hand together, it conjures images of stigmata. Screenwriter David Koepp pushes the allusion further by having Scanlon quote Christ on the cross to Jane by way of convincing her that she must be the one to stop Daniel by any means necessary.
It’s easy to see why this is scary, right?
On a very basic level, you have a powerful, wealthy man subduing and assaulting an innocent young woman, which is frightening enough. Then, the layers of the scene kick in. Scanlon doesn’t just assault Jane, but possesses her, seizes her memories, her knowledge, and finally her own free will, all while Jane literally clings to her faith in an effort to fight back. Disclosure Day is, among other things, a story about who has a right to the truth, and Scanlon believes that he should be the arbiter of that truth. Not just the truth as he sees it, but the truth as Jane sees it as well. If they don’t see eye to eye, he’ll make her.
But the possession, as it turns out, cuts both ways. Using the rod to dive is, for a normal human being, an intensely strenuous process. Scanlon admits that previous attempts almost killed him, and for some members of his time, so much as touching the rod results in a near-death experience. Even accessing an unprepared mind like Jane’s takes a lot of Scanlon, and when she kicks him out by squeezing the crucifix – again, so much meaning embedded in the details here – his team holds him back and tries to offer medical intervention. But Scanlon persists, pushing them away, and keeps diving back in.
This means that Jane can’t escape him because he just won’t stop pushing back through her defenses, but it also means that each time Scanlon enters her mind, and thus the safe house, he looks more monstrous. By the end, through a combination of lighting and makeup, Firth barely looks human, conjuring up images of the possessed Father Karras at the end of The Exorcist.
Colin Firth (center, standing) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
On a pure, visceral craft level, all of this is quite frightening, but the real trick to making this scene into Spielberg’s most terrifying lies in the more existential horror surrounding all of this. Disclosure Day is a film about the battle for the truth over extraterrestrials, but it’s also about a fight against an impossibly powerful surveillance state, the devaluing of human and alien lives in favor of some nebulous collection of assets, and the value of the individual in a world that increasingly lumps people into demographic boxes and writes them off.
In this scene, the surveillance state becomes supernatural, a human life is worth less than a piece of information, and an extragovernmental technocrat would rather sacrifice his own humanity than see reason. In 2026, few things could be more terrifying than that. Spielberg knows this and wields it mightily, proving once again that, while he’s not a strictly horror filmmaker, he can direct horror with the best of them.
Disclosure Day is in theaters now.
Eve Hewson (second from left) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
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