Editorials
[Viral Horrors] Diving into the Nightmares Housed Inside “The SCP Foundation”
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. Today, I’d like to talk about the infamous SCP Foundation, and see if we can come to appreciate these online scares and what they mean to us.
While we can often trace iconic horror stories back to a single creator, the fact is that most of our famous urban legends and monstrous folklore are the result of several generations of storytellers adding their own personal spin to age-old tales. After all, even geniuses like Bram Stoker and Lovecraft found themselves adapting local legends and historical fears when creating the likes of Dracula or even Dagon.
This remains true even in the age of the internet, with digital stories taking on a life of their own as people share and add to the digital mythos over time. We may know that a figure like Slender-Man was originally created by Victor Surge, but it’s this idea of collaborative fiction that helped the character evolve and achieve online infamy all over the world. Of course, it would only be a matter of time before a group of online scary-story enthusiasts would truly harness the power of collective storytelling, and that’s how the SCP Foundation was born.
We can actually trace the Foundation’s origins back to 4Chan’s /x/ board in 2007, when a user posted what would become the basis for a sprawling internet tradition, SCP-173. The post itself was written like a relatively convincing scientific report describing a spray-painted concrete statue that becomes aggressive when not being directly observed (similar to Doctor Who‘s Weeping Angels). The report was said to have been leaked from a secret organization, with SCP being an acronym for their motto: Secure, Contain, Protect. The post would then go on to describe the great lengths that this mysterious institution goes through in order to study and contain this metaphysical abomination, also including an eerie photograph of the supposed creature (though this would later be revealed to be a picture of a sculpture by Japanese artist Izumi Kato).
SCP-173, as seen in SCP – Containment Breach.
Naturally, folks loved this spooky description of otherworldly science and containment procedures, so it wasn’t long before other /x/ users produced more stories in this realistic format. The detached, pragmatic approach to the writing and the idea of a Lovecraftian underworld filled with cursed objects and eldritch creatures was something that the internet hadn’t seen before, so everyone wanted to be a part of it. These stories eventually became popular in other circles, leading to the creation of an SCP Wiki in 2008, where these stories are currently housed and the mythos continues to evolve.
It’s been over a decade since the original SCP-173, but the general format hasn’t changed much when creating new entries. Though the SCP community now also accepts standard fictionalized stories set in this universe, main posts found on the website usually share the same structure. A peculiar object, being or even location is labeled with one of the iconic item numbers (which have gone way beyond the original thousand), followed by a general classification that usually describes the Foundation’s difficulty in containing said element. Then, we see a brief description of the item’s containment procedures and general characteristics with the occasional photograph or illustration.
These posts can be bite-sized encyclopedic entries that leave most of the horror up to the imagination, but oftentimes we’ll see longform masterpieces of epistolary fiction, taking full advantage of the format to tell mind-bending stories that sometimes span multiple entries. Browsing the website can be much like getting lost in a Wikipedia from hell, where each new article leads to a related one in an ever-expanding world of horrifying browser tabs, making this one of my favorite places to procrastinate on the internet.
Bizarre creations like SCP-018 (a rubber ball that inexplicably bounces with 200% efficiency), or SCP-1756 (a DVD Player that transforms any video into an episode of At The Movies where Siskel and Ebert review said video, even if it was made after the end of the show) are shining examples of the creative potential when online communities gather to make something new. I’ll be the first to admit that a lot of these entries are kind of silly and don’t fit in with the truly terrifying ones (it’s hard to think that a traveling moth salesman exists in the same universe as a sentient, life-hating star), but due to the collaborative nature of the site, a few duds are all but inevitable; and I think it’s a small price to pay for all of the genuinely well-written content available at no cost.
Everyone has the right to feature SCP-106 in their nightmares.
At this point, it may seem surprising that there are no big-budget adaptations of the SCP mythos on the big screen (or even the little one, for that matter), but that’s mostly due to the fact that pretty much the entirety of the official Wiki is licensed under the Creative Commons Attributions 3.0 License. This means that, while anyone is technically free to adapt and reproduce the contents of the Wiki in their own work, they wouldn’t have exclusive ownership of whatever they produced, making the whole endeavor rather unprofitable for studios. While it’s kind of disappointing that we’ll likely never see a proper movie/TV adaptation of these memorable creatures and objects, the SCP Wiki represents one of the internet’s last bastions of complete creative freedom, and I think that’s worth preserving.
Nevertheless, we’ve still seen quite a few independent SCP adaptations over the years, mostly in the form of videogames, but there has also been a light novel and even a stage adaptation of stories from the Foundation. Here on Bloody-Disgusting, we have the SCP-Archives Podcast, which tells weekly tales masterfully adapted from the official Wiki. Unfortunately, as our own Pacific Obadiah explained, a certain Andrey Duksin has trademarked the SCP Foundation’s name and logo within the Russian Federation and Eurasian Customs Union, in the hopes of profiting off of years of other folks’ hard work. Not only does this jeopardize all the current projects derived from the Foundation, but it also clearly goes against the SCP Community spirit.
The site’s Admin team is currently seeking legal action, but only time will tell if the Russian legal system will agree that these stories should be available to everyone at no charge, with no one person in control of other people’s access to them. For now, however, I think we should celebrate the creative landmark that is the SCP Foundation, and how it represents a whole new frontier in collaborative fiction. The internet’s greatest strength has always been in how it brings people together, and that is still true when discussing online scares. The Foundation may be just a digital update to a long-standing human tradition of gathering to share scary stories, but it’s an important step forward, and I can’t wait to see what the future of horror storytelling has in store for us.
If you enjoyed reading about the Foundation and are interested in stepping into this bizarre world of flesh-eating gods, infinite stairways and interdimensional phantasms, I’d recommend a visit to the World’s Scariest Wiki, or checking out one of the SCP-Archives’ latest episodes. Just keep an eye out for escapees, as the Foundation can’t keep this stuff contained forever.
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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