Trigger/content Warning: This piece may contain instances of mild suicide, paranoia, and anxiety. Please proceed with caution if you are sensitive to these topics.
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Many of us are familiar with the feeling of someone watching us when we’re alone. We have the urge to look over our shoulder, check the closet, or close our blinds. Artists and writers have taken that fear and turned it into a form of entertainment known as analog horror.
The true definition of analog horror is a subgenre of horror that uses nostalgic elements, cryptic messages, and warped faces to create a “found footage” feeling. However, analog horror has become an umbrella term for many different styles of found footage and VHS tape-style horror.
One of the older analog horror series, Local 58, was created by Kris Straub in 2015. The series is known for popularizing analog horror and consists of 8 videos, all in the style of a TV broadcast. The episodes were published out of order, a tactic many creators use to make the series feel like a puzzle to viewers. The videos follow the idea that the moon itself is an entity manipulating humanity by hijacking news broadcasts.
The Backrooms is often considered the most famous horror series. The initial concept is simple: a never-ending alternate universe full of liminal spaces. A liminal space is the in-between of “here” and “there.” It manifests as an emotional metaphor or a physical place, like an office building with all the furniture cleared out. It sparks a feeling of uncanniness and discomfort in many. As the love for The Backrooms spread, users on the internet began creating more theories about the entities that reside in the universe. Here, we get the first glimpse of what a typical analog horror entity looks like: stringy, long limbs, faces that look like they’re melting off, and unimaginable speed and strength. Many series will follow the same format as these entities do.
“The Backrooms was a good concept until TikTok ruined it by adding more and more random stuff,” sophomore Darren Lei said.
Many AI-generated videos of The Backrooms have been circulating around TikTok for a while, answering questions like “What happens if you’re a child in The Backrooms?” and changing the whole idea of The Backrooms, removing the horror element by making The Backrooms kinder to certain people. At its core, The Backrooms is relentless to anyone who enters.
Similar alternate universes are a very common idea in the analog horror community. A lot of series play into the idea of “no-clipping” or being transported into another universe without knowing it until it’s too late. Sometimes it’s through a TV broadcast or alert—and this is where we’re presented with the world of EAS horror.
EAS, standing for Emergency Alert System, is a way for authorities to alert the public of danger, such as weather, child abductions, and Civil Emergency messages. The startling sound of the blaring alarm and the knowledge that there’s imminent danger scares many, even without the idea of an otherworldly entity. EAS alerts are incorporated into countless analog horror series as a standalone episode or a fragment of an episode. Typically, EAS horror uses stick figures to represent people and anomalies.
A new kind of anomaly is presented in the Mandela Catalogue. Humanoids are entities that aren’t human, but resemble humans closely. In the Mandela Catalogue, they cause intense psychological torture. The story utilizes religious themes, creating parodies of a bible show to introduce the main humanoid, Gabriel. The Mandela Catalogue, made by Alex Kister, creates a complicated story that’s difficult to piece together, but the general idea is that humanoids are taking over the universe, essentially replacing humans by leading them to suicide and taking their place. The idea that an otherworldly being can control a human’s mind is a concept that’s frightening on its own, but combined with imagery and audio, it truly becomes something horrific.
Analog horror as a whole opens a whole new world to artists and writers. It gives a lot of writers options to create visual media alongside their stories. The four examples of analog horror mentioned barely scratch the surface of the iceberg. The next time you think you’re seeing something in the shadows, you might want to start writing about it. It might blossom into a beautifully scary story.
PHOTO COURTESY OF UNSPLASH
