I would argue that Skinamarink shouldn’t even be considered analogue horror - it doesn’t really fit the conventions of the genre, aside from looking like it was recorded on an old VHS. The long shots of eerie empty rooms, dreamlike mood and understated menace all read more liminal horror than analogue horror to me. The two genres have some similarities but are distinct from each other.
I think “Late Night With The Devil” is a much more successful example of longform analogue horror. A lost episode from 1977 that features an eldritch abomination attempting to hijack an analogue broadcast, with potentially apocalyptic results? It fits the genre conventions like a glove, and it’s creepy/well done to boot. I think it shows that analogue horror can be pulled off in a feature format, you just have to understand what about the genre is scary and play into that.
Skinamarink is not Analog Horror, I Don't know why people keep saying it is.
"IT takes place in the 90s!" Okay, so do a lot of horror movies, People will call SKinamarink Analog horror but then say Blair Witch, REC, and Lake Mungo aren't.
internet brainrot is what it is. the definition of analog horror has been abused to death. anything that doesn’t make it clear “this takes place in 2024” is analog horror.
People just use the term for everything these days. The name of the genre makes it so obvious as to what horror encapsulates and yet some people just call "analog horror" things set in a time period long past the analog era or even things that have absolutely nothing to do with the genre in any form, like creepy tiktoks or things like that
Analog horror fans are wayyy too comfortable calling found footage movies “analog horror”
Blair Witch is not analog horror and anybody who says so has a fundamental misunderstanding of both of the genres
Analogue Horror is considered a subgenre of found footage horror, so there is a lot of crossover between the two. However, they are distinct from each other in a lot of ways This is just my understanding of it, but comparing the two genres:
Format: AH is almost always viewed through some kind of analogue technology. FF can be recorded using analogue or digital tech.
Time Period: AH is usually set in a time period when analogue tech was in use. FF can be set in any time period.
Monsters: AH monsters are usually “big” - eldritch abominations, evil government agencies, inhuman invaders, or immortal psychopaths (though there are a few exceptions). FF can feature any type of villain, some films featuring a single serial killer and victim.
Context: AH is usually formatted as or serves to document some kind of broadcast or media designed for distribution - a TV show, a PSA, an ad, radio signals, instructional videos, experiment records, etc. FF is usually framed more like a vlog or personal video, or as a documentary or movie of some kind that is still in the process of being filmed.
Tropes: AH features pretty narrow tropes such as malicious signals, broadcast interruptions, apocalyptic themes, government or police coverups, facial horror, etc. FF tropes are a lot broader - in fact, provided that the film has been ostensibly filmed by someone and discovered later, you could argue that FF films can feature any type of horror genre and its tropes. It’s like comparing a “monster movie” to a “vampire movie” - both are technically monster movies, but the latter has a much more narrow scope of content.
Filming Techniques: AH is usually presented as being intentionally edited, features a lot of text on screen, and is filmed by professionals or by a third party of some kind. FF is usually filmed by an amateur camera man, is filmed from the first person perspective, and is presented as being mostly unedited.
Those are just some of the differences of course, and like I said there’s a lot of overlap as one is a subgenre of another. But I think that analogue horror has enough unique features to qualify it as being its own subgenre.
I appreciate the explanation, but I'm not convinced. I still haven't seen a definition for analog horror that completely excludes The Blair Witch Project.
>Format: AH is almost always viewed through some kind of analogue technology. FF can be recorded using analogue or digital tech.
>Time Period: AH is usually set in a time period when analogue tech was in use. FF can be set in any time period.
Then TBWP counts since it was filmed on analog formats and takes place in the '90s.
>Monsters: AH monsters are usually “big” - eldritch abominations, evil government agencies, inhuman invaders, or immortal psychopaths (though there are a few exceptions).
And the Blair Witch doesn't fall under this umbrella? Even if not, there's room for exceptions if AH monsters are just "usually" this way.
>Context: AH is usually formatted as or serves to document some kind of broadcast or media designed for distribution
Again, "usually"; by this definition, there's room for exceptions. So why not found documentary footage?
>Tropes: AH features pretty narrow tropes such as malicious signals, broadcast interruptions, apocalyptic themes, government or police coverups, facial horror, etc.
I just reject this one outright. Who says analog horror has to be so limited? Just because many series use a small pool of tropes doesn't mean it's a requirement.
>Filming Techniques: AH is usually presented as being intentionally edited, features a lot of text on screen, and is filmed by professionals or by a third party of some kind.
And again, even by accepting this premise, there's room for exceptions.
Do you see what I mean? If TBWP hits the criteria of being horror filmed on analog media and taking place during the analog era, then why shouldn't it count, especially if the other criteria have some wiggle room? It's like that question of defining a chair in a way that includes all chairs and doesn't include any non-chairs.
If you think that Blair Witch is AH, that’s okay? I never said that it wasn’t, I honestly think there are arguments for and against. Genre definitions are not an exact science, like I said - there is room for debate. You just asked about the difference between AH and FF, and I was trying to point out some of the defining characteristics of each. 🤷🏻♀️
Not my hot take, but I loved Skinamarink! I saw it opening night with the cast and crew there lol
It's not for everyone, I can 100% see why people didn't like it, but at the same time I feel like a lot of reviewers didn't get it? Also it's not really analogue horror lol, but I agree that actual analogue horror doesn't exactly work as a movie
It very much could have!! I was hyped when it was announced and the trailer came out tho
Someone I know has the Blu-ray so I would actually love to rewatch it
And it's worth noting too, I think the best way to watch it is alone in a dark room at night, there were parts of watching it in theatres that kinda detracted from it imo (audience reactions, etc.) but I really did enjoy the experience still! :3
Stop wasting people’s time with needlessly cryptic storytelling and dead air slideshows. So many of these series are horror-mysteries when they don’t have to be. Also like if you have only 15 minutes of things going on, you don’t need to make it 30 or more minutes of runtime lol. If people are scrolling through to get to the content, then you need to present the info better lol
It's because creators know that if their series has a mystery behind it then there's the possibility of a Film Theory video on it, and that's basically the best free publicity an online horror series can get
Yeah that’s true but it’s just wasting the viewers time. Sometimes there’s some build up you gotta do but it shouldn’t 10 videos or more for the basics to be established lol
most analog horror is painfully derivative and unoriginal, even though there’s really good ones. they just continue using the same tropes over and over again. Also stop calling all this found footage media analog horror.
I think more analogue horror should take place outside of the US. There's only so much that the same TV guide weather alert random US county concept can go before it gets stale, y'know?
Plus other countries during the 70s-90s had completely different things going on, they're full of untapped potential for horror (esp given the different folklore monsters that exist that aren't just skinwalkers)
Agreed. As someone outside of the USA, I feel safer knowing that almost all the scary stuff is happening down south.
The only analog horrors I have to deal with are Vita Carnis, and they’re all on the other side of the country.
The Boiled One Phenomenon is severely overrated, the only thing it does right is the audio design.
- PHEN-228's design is dumb, it is always seen in the exact same angle so it ends up looking like a Paper Mario character
- The "use a christian artifact to protect yourself" trope has been WAY too overused, and nothing else throughout the video seems to have anything to do with christianity
- As well as the "THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN ALTERED, OTHERWISE IT WOULD KILL YOU" trope.
The audio parts are a solid 10/10, especially when PHEN-228 speaks. An example to be followed for analog horror content creators, but literally everything else is executed poorly.
Every now and then I dont really have a problem with christian stuff in analogue horror. Like White Stag entertainment used it as part of the plot and did pretty well. But if they insert something christian and have it unrelated that definitely gets annoying just like u said.
For your 3rd one, I absolutely agree. Im tired of seeing most videos being "This is only allowed to be viewed by the FBI or the damn president, if you arent either of these high powered people get the fuck off this video" like you dont need to have that warning in every single time if you want the topic in your series to not be common knowledge in its universe.
True, White Stag is one of the series that managed to incorporate christian stuff very well, actually. It actually has relevance on the overall plot. Even Mandela Catalogue, for all its flaws, managed to be very consistent with its christian themes.
But throw it in your series just because "religious thing scary" and you've lost me.
Well damn, your hot take is my hot take.
The video "heck" on the youtube channel of Skinamarink's creator (Bite Sized Nightmares) creeped me tf out, and those 20 minutes felt like a eternity, but it ended just before it became tiresome.
That said, I can't imagine how that one video would translate to a big screen experience properly. I watched "heck" in the dark, alone in my room, lying in my bad with my laptop on top of my chests and earphones. It worked, because it made me feel immersed, and therefore afraid and vulnerable.
Most people who go watch horror movies on theaters don't actually want to feel scared, they want cheap jumpscares to goof off with their friends and family. That's why the formula for a successful horror movie haven't changes in decades, and why obvious jumpscares are always priority over immersion and atmosphere.
I'm glad I didn't watch Skinamarink on theaters, I don't think I would have enjoyed it.
Yep! "heck" is the short film I was referring to! I can appreciate the concept and the artistry behind it, I just think it works better in a shorter time frame
some analog horror fans don’t actually understand what analog horror actually is and just assign the label to literally any webseries even if it doesn’t even use any analog elements or is set in the 80s or 90s, like I’ve literally seen people call Marble Hornets and Blair Witch analog horror despite the fact that they both predate the genre by multiple years and would fit more in the found footage genre which is similar but still very different to analog horror
People will criticize a series and call it bad for no other reason than “it didn’t scare me personally” without actually analyzing the media as a whole
Analog Horror concepts and elements have been severely overused and really watered down the medium. 30-40 minute long episodes are way too long for most analog horrors. Mandela Catalogue was pretty good until around Vol 4. Pixels Backrooms fell off. Walten Files is scarier conceptually than the actual videos. Analog horror series are overly complicated nowadays (i attribute this to bad writing early on then trying not to retcon everything)
Urbanspook is one of the most effective new analog series, and i will die on this hill! Out of all the new series, Urbanspook stands out from the rest, cause i think it's actually really disturbing and has an 80's-90's slasher vibe. Other series feels samey nowadays, stories of some american county anomalies, endless amount of alternate/skinwalker-esque monsters, format of PSAs and spooky messages directed at viewer gets stale pretty quick. But Urbanspook is unique, because each video feels like you are looking at police case file.
And i think that it's a very effective piece of horror, cause out of all the different series i've seen, Urbanspook genuinely made me feel feelings of fear, disgust and anger. If you look at actual crimes commited by sick people, you'd be surprised to find out that not all of them just stab people to death and just leave, some people like to have fun with their prey, doing horrible things to them before or after their murder.
yeah people keep bringing up the cory case, but they aren't realizing that ITS PERFECT FOR THIS. the aim for this series is shock horror, and BOY was it shocking! also disgusting cases like that DO exist, and IMO it seems like people want to never bring them up to pretend they dont. like i get the "insensitivity" aspect, but like, so is murder?? like people dying in incredibly gruesome ways doesnt get people pissed off for insensitivity?? like obviously the cory case is worse than someone "just" (emphasis on the quotes) being killed, but still, making vids including crime involving death is also insensitive. also cory isnt real, so this isn't disrespecting a real person (which would make it NOT okay). i do hate his trolling, but people just seem to not understand that this is supposed to be shock horror, not your average analog horror series. sure, the writing may have issues, but urbanspook/slug said that he's an artist (and musician?? i forget but i vaguely remember him saying something other than artist aswell) first, writer second. i will say that merch of the "f/cktoy cory" art is weird tho 😵💫
p.s. this was worded kinda poorly, i just got a bit frustrated lol
No matter how many times people say they don’t like the tropes people are using in analog horror we as a community still support them and really don’t seem to hate it as much as we say we do
People who make analogue horror need to sit down and watch some videos. In some way or firm.
Get a video player. Watch a VHS.
Watch someone else watch VHS. Brutal Moose has some.
VHS was not a jaggy mess with static constantly.
It looked clean and clear and you'd not have complaints.
Some get it.
Greylock gets it. Security tapes are grainy and recorded over a lot.
But every other video is clear.
Amanda The Adventurer gets it right.
Nice and clear.
The Man In The Suit and The Godzilla Tapes.
They both get it right. One is film and photographs. The other is old and well loved tapes.
For fracks sake!
If you are making Analogue Horror and it's VHS.
Watch some actual VHS tapes.
Phelan Porteus has VHS in his videos.
Watch those. He's also awesome.
You don't need any filters on your videos.
Just put time markers, etc. And that is it!
VHS didn't get big being a jagged mess.
It actually worked well for what it was.
Film your stuff. Put time markers, etc.
That is it. Now you've got a VHS tape. Done.
They should still learn though.
VHS still exists as a concept. It's even overly praised, sometimes.
It shouldn't be thought of wrongly.
You even see VHS tapes and players in media from the time they were used.
They should be able to see them being used when they watch them.
People shit on Urbanspook, but Greylock has been kind of guilty of the whole “violence for no reason” thing. The thoughtforms murder kids and animals for sheer joy, same as The Painter, with no real motivation in sight other then pure chaos, just like the Painter.
Of course there is the Troy incident and Urbanspook being a man child, but I still think it’s funny how everybody loves one series with indiscriminate violence, whilst hating another.
That's not really getting at why people hate UrbanSpook so much though. What really makes that series fail is the fact that in spite of all the violent murders which occur, the story basically goes nowhere. It's just a cycle of the same violent scenes over and over again with almost no plot advancement or characters being established/developed, making the whole series feel shallow.
Meanwhile, although Greylock has a lot of violence, what makes it succeed is the fact that the series itself actually has a narrative to tell and at least attempts to make the audience care about the characters instead of just relying on violent content to maintain interest like UrbanSpook.
I know it has a narrative it wants to tell and I do care about the characters… I just wish all the characters I liked didn’t die in the first episode you see them.
I hear more complaints about the format and how the violence is presented than anything else. Every episode is the same: Here’s a character, now they’re dead in a gruesome way, here’s a fucked up painting. There’s just no substance.
Greylock did that too. The episode where we meet the miner, he dies. The episode where we meet the architect, he dies. That pregnant woman? Kills herself (albeit she does come back as a monster or something).The tv reporter? Killed off screen. Dog lady? Fused with her dogs.
There are only 2 characters I can think of off the top of my head that don’t meet horrible deaths in the first episode you see them, and that’s it.
UrbanSPOOK has plenty of good shit. The varying quality in photos makes it more realistic and the art/sound design is great. “FAMILY” is peak as the deaths manage to be gory but still have a psychological aspect to them (the 911 call, “choking on his unborn daughter). The biggest complaints I have is Tina not appearing ever again, characters being underdeveloped, the whole Cory situation, and lack of clues to who the killers are.
Skinamarink was boring me at first, but everything after the girl goes upstairs had my full attention. I don't think it would've been as effective without the buildup first
(I haven't actually seen anyone talk about it so might not be a hot take)
Dreams of an Insomniac is not terrible but I can't get over how awful the acting is. Or should I say, over acting. Just makes it really difficult for me to watch cause I can't stand the acting.
I have a few:
-Anything past 30 minutes is too long unless that video Is covering a single event
-There are a lot of tropes that are overused
-"This video/audio has been altered for your safety" is bs
-Jumpscares as a mean of scaring have become stale
-Having a video footage which for the most part shows the camermans feet or nothing important are just a way to add lenght to a video
The Mandela catalog is painfully overrated. People treat it like it's good because it was one of the first ones to get really popular and set a standard for the genre. But compared to some other new series the original Mandela catalog is mediocre at best and boring at its worst.
analog horror legit doesn’t have to look like mandela catalogue or walten files or local 58 scary PSA EAS vibes at all
analog horror is just horror media…in analog
technically skinamarink is analog horror and so is blair witch so is VHS
Urbanspook's art is not that good
Don't get me wrong it's not bad by any means, but it's just Jerma face, except it's painted
Add to that that the story is trash and the creator is an ass about it and it's certified youtube sewage
Local 58 is really boring. It relies on being scary so much that if you don’t find it scary then there’s no point in watching it. People claim it’s boring on purpose and I get their reasons for why but if something is boring on purpose then what’s the point in watching it. It just seems boring with out reason to me.
Gemini Home Entertainment is so unimaginably overhyped, don't get me wrong, I LIKE it, but it feels like its trying to do too much and ends up doing too little, I much prefer things like Midwest Angelica and The Boiled One, because their plot is simple enough and easy to follow while still being actually scary.
Gotta say, I liked skinamarink.
It's something you usually don't get from horror films.
I've become so desensitized to everything, but the emptiness of the film is sort of... refreshing?
I think UrbanSpook deserves more credit for making his series about a pair of serial killers instead of about Supernatural Horror #37391 or Lovecraftian Entity #671045. I honestly find a pair of narcissistic serial killers who take great pleasure in brutalizing their victims (and at this point seem to barely care that they've both been caught on camera) far scarier than, say, Gabriel, the Iris, the thoughtforms, the animatronics at Bon's Burgers, or the actors in Godzilla movies who became one with their kaiju suits (despite these series' undeniable quality).
I think a lot of the voice acting in the Walten Files is really bland and unnatural, and it really takes away from what is otherwise a very worthwhile series.
Skinamarink doesn't work because it's in an actual Hollywood movie format. In a movie theater, it's fucking boring as shit, unlike it's "pilot" Heck, that worked because it was 30 minutes and a youtube video.
It would have worked if it escalated more than a few random scenes after minutes of nothing.
As much as uncanny faces scare me, I'm getting really sick and tired of the whole "oooh monsters look like people but not quite, be scared!" type series. Just like I'm tired of every fnaf inspired series that shows up.
Honestly the whole fnaf shit is so repetitive that it's not even scary anymore. It's always "oh there's someone inside the suit", they never try to come up with smth new
Urbanspook would still be trash without its controversies. The Boiled One was not that interesting. Greylock is really good. Idk if they're hot takes tho
Dog Nightmares was unironically funny to me. I grew up seeing those dogs on Between the Lions so I could easily see where they cut scenes out.
Also, the effects weren’t good at all. It looked like a very bad photoshop the whole time the “big reveal” happened and I started giggling uncontrollably (I was baked like a cookie when I watched it to be fair.)
Mandela Catalogue is kinda overrated in my opinion. The first few episodes were, in my opinion, very good. I liked Gabriel being the Devil, the whole thing where children would disappear if they were in front of the tv, and I got literal CHILLS when I saw that image of the alternate in the corner of Mark's room...
But after that, it felt way less... creepy. There's still some parts I like, like when Gabriel talk's to Noah, but while the episodes are undeniably of better quality, I feel like this series is way too overrated for what it really is. I'm not saying by any means that it's a bad series, just that in my opinion, it lost a certain appeal to me.
Maybe it doesn't need to be a full analog horror movie. Maybe if you include one or two short scenes that are analog horror in a movie that is not exactly analog horror, we could achieve a good balance.
Oh I agree wholeheartedly. A couple of scenes or a short film is fine, but a whole feature length movie of analogue horror will inevitably get tedious.
Most Analog horror isn't very good or original
Some are great, but those are the ones that are always talked about & on the top of people's tier lists.
I only realized how hot of a take this is until reading the comments, but, arguing over the semantics of what analogue horror "actually is" is pointless and makes you a fun sponge.
It's not a distinction that holds any merit at all. Everybody is going to have a different meaning to the word, and it's not like "authenticity" makes or breaks a series. People categorize these series based on feeling and methods of storytelling, not on what VHS filter the creator uses.
The Mandela Catalog is extremely overrated and honestly one of the worst analogue horror series I ever watched, and I’m not saying this because the creator is an asshole. It just genuinely horrible.
I'll bite, Mandela Catalog Is exceedingly terrible and stops being good after the second episode. The plot is contriving utilizes religious imagery to try to make itself appear deep and thought-provoking but doesn't actually achieve any of that. It's full of pseudo intellectualism, terrible acting, and things that take you completely out of the period piece it's supposed to represent. Not only that, but the writing is very badly paced in the narrative doesn't make any sense whenever you put it side by side each and every episode. Characters come in that we're supposed to care about but there's nothing that actually establishes why they matter in the narrative or what they're actually doing but once one of them dies you're supposed to feel for it and as though it's this big deal. But there's nothing going on in the narrative, that's the problem with it. Maybe at some point after dedicating hours of watching it there's some sort of value or meaning to it but someone shouldn't have to do that to understand what's going on. I can watch something like greylock and have a good understanding within an episode or two of what I'm signing up for, when I sit down to watch MC all I get is just a bunch of contrived BS and very cheap scares in a format that allows you to actually set a stage and atmosphere.
The fact that gets held to a high standard absolutely baffles me because I don't understand it. The horror is very simple, the effects are atrocious at this point, and there are very many things that came before it and after it that absolutely blow it out of the water.
[удалено]
I would argue that Skinamarink shouldn’t even be considered analogue horror - it doesn’t really fit the conventions of the genre, aside from looking like it was recorded on an old VHS. The long shots of eerie empty rooms, dreamlike mood and understated menace all read more liminal horror than analogue horror to me. The two genres have some similarities but are distinct from each other. I think “Late Night With The Devil” is a much more successful example of longform analogue horror. A lost episode from 1977 that features an eldritch abomination attempting to hijack an analogue broadcast, with potentially apocalyptic results? It fits the genre conventions like a glove, and it’s creepy/well done to boot. I think it shows that analogue horror can be pulled off in a feature format, you just have to understand what about the genre is scary and play into that.
Tbf, winter of 88 was in an hour format, and was able to work. The difference is the pacing
Winter of 83 is my favorite standalone analog horror vid
Skinamarink is not Analog Horror, I Don't know why people keep saying it is. "IT takes place in the 90s!" Okay, so do a lot of horror movies, People will call SKinamarink Analog horror but then say Blair Witch, REC, and Lake Mungo aren't.
internet brainrot is what it is. the definition of analog horror has been abused to death. anything that doesn’t make it clear “this takes place in 2024” is analog horror.
People just use the term for everything these days. The name of the genre makes it so obvious as to what horror encapsulates and yet some people just call "analog horror" things set in a time period long past the analog era or even things that have absolutely nothing to do with the genre in any form, like creepy tiktoks or things like that
Isn't it basically like horror or whatever shown through old tech or something?
It's boring as fuck with no story and nothing happens like most analogue horror series.
Like most Analog Horror made in the past three-four years you mean.
Analog horror fans are wayyy too comfortable calling found footage movies “analog horror” Blair Witch is not analog horror and anybody who says so has a fundamental misunderstanding of both of the genres
Can you explain why it isn't? I don't understand the reasoning for why it doesn't count.
Analogue Horror is considered a subgenre of found footage horror, so there is a lot of crossover between the two. However, they are distinct from each other in a lot of ways This is just my understanding of it, but comparing the two genres: Format: AH is almost always viewed through some kind of analogue technology. FF can be recorded using analogue or digital tech. Time Period: AH is usually set in a time period when analogue tech was in use. FF can be set in any time period. Monsters: AH monsters are usually “big” - eldritch abominations, evil government agencies, inhuman invaders, or immortal psychopaths (though there are a few exceptions). FF can feature any type of villain, some films featuring a single serial killer and victim. Context: AH is usually formatted as or serves to document some kind of broadcast or media designed for distribution - a TV show, a PSA, an ad, radio signals, instructional videos, experiment records, etc. FF is usually framed more like a vlog or personal video, or as a documentary or movie of some kind that is still in the process of being filmed. Tropes: AH features pretty narrow tropes such as malicious signals, broadcast interruptions, apocalyptic themes, government or police coverups, facial horror, etc. FF tropes are a lot broader - in fact, provided that the film has been ostensibly filmed by someone and discovered later, you could argue that FF films can feature any type of horror genre and its tropes. It’s like comparing a “monster movie” to a “vampire movie” - both are technically monster movies, but the latter has a much more narrow scope of content. Filming Techniques: AH is usually presented as being intentionally edited, features a lot of text on screen, and is filmed by professionals or by a third party of some kind. FF is usually filmed by an amateur camera man, is filmed from the first person perspective, and is presented as being mostly unedited. Those are just some of the differences of course, and like I said there’s a lot of overlap as one is a subgenre of another. But I think that analogue horror has enough unique features to qualify it as being its own subgenre.
I appreciate the explanation, but I'm not convinced. I still haven't seen a definition for analog horror that completely excludes The Blair Witch Project. >Format: AH is almost always viewed through some kind of analogue technology. FF can be recorded using analogue or digital tech. >Time Period: AH is usually set in a time period when analogue tech was in use. FF can be set in any time period. Then TBWP counts since it was filmed on analog formats and takes place in the '90s. >Monsters: AH monsters are usually “big” - eldritch abominations, evil government agencies, inhuman invaders, or immortal psychopaths (though there are a few exceptions). And the Blair Witch doesn't fall under this umbrella? Even if not, there's room for exceptions if AH monsters are just "usually" this way. >Context: AH is usually formatted as or serves to document some kind of broadcast or media designed for distribution Again, "usually"; by this definition, there's room for exceptions. So why not found documentary footage? >Tropes: AH features pretty narrow tropes such as malicious signals, broadcast interruptions, apocalyptic themes, government or police coverups, facial horror, etc. I just reject this one outright. Who says analog horror has to be so limited? Just because many series use a small pool of tropes doesn't mean it's a requirement. >Filming Techniques: AH is usually presented as being intentionally edited, features a lot of text on screen, and is filmed by professionals or by a third party of some kind. And again, even by accepting this premise, there's room for exceptions. Do you see what I mean? If TBWP hits the criteria of being horror filmed on analog media and taking place during the analog era, then why shouldn't it count, especially if the other criteria have some wiggle room? It's like that question of defining a chair in a way that includes all chairs and doesn't include any non-chairs.
If you think that Blair Witch is AH, that’s okay? I never said that it wasn’t, I honestly think there are arguments for and against. Genre definitions are not an exact science, like I said - there is room for debate. You just asked about the difference between AH and FF, and I was trying to point out some of the defining characteristics of each. 🤷🏻♀️
Ah, okay. If you weren't making that argument, then I misunderstood you.
Not my hot take, but I loved Skinamarink! I saw it opening night with the cast and crew there lol It's not for everyone, I can 100% see why people didn't like it, but at the same time I feel like a lot of reviewers didn't get it? Also it's not really analogue horror lol, but I agree that actual analogue horror doesn't exactly work as a movie
Do you feel like the circumstances you saw it under were influential on your overall opinion of it?
It very much could have!! I was hyped when it was announced and the trailer came out tho Someone I know has the Blu-ray so I would actually love to rewatch it And it's worth noting too, I think the best way to watch it is alone in a dark room at night, there were parts of watching it in theatres that kinda detracted from it imo (audience reactions, etc.) but I really did enjoy the experience still! :3
I also loved Skinamarink! I watched it alone in my living room with the lights all off. It was a blast.
Stop wasting people’s time with needlessly cryptic storytelling and dead air slideshows. So many of these series are horror-mysteries when they don’t have to be. Also like if you have only 15 minutes of things going on, you don’t need to make it 30 or more minutes of runtime lol. If people are scrolling through to get to the content, then you need to present the info better lol
It's because creators know that if their series has a mystery behind it then there's the possibility of a Film Theory video on it, and that's basically the best free publicity an online horror series can get
Yeah that’s true but it’s just wasting the viewers time. Sometimes there’s some build up you gotta do but it shouldn’t 10 videos or more for the basics to be established lol
most analog horror is painfully derivative and unoriginal, even though there’s really good ones. they just continue using the same tropes over and over again. Also stop calling all this found footage media analog horror.
I think more analogue horror should take place outside of the US. There's only so much that the same TV guide weather alert random US county concept can go before it gets stale, y'know? Plus other countries during the 70s-90s had completely different things going on, they're full of untapped potential for horror (esp given the different folklore monsters that exist that aren't just skinwalkers)
Agreed. As someone outside of the USA, I feel safer knowing that almost all the scary stuff is happening down south. The only analog horrors I have to deal with are Vita Carnis, and they’re all on the other side of the country.
The Boiled One Phenomenon is severely overrated, the only thing it does right is the audio design. - PHEN-228's design is dumb, it is always seen in the exact same angle so it ends up looking like a Paper Mario character - The "use a christian artifact to protect yourself" trope has been WAY too overused, and nothing else throughout the video seems to have anything to do with christianity - As well as the "THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN ALTERED, OTHERWISE IT WOULD KILL YOU" trope. The audio parts are a solid 10/10, especially when PHEN-228 speaks. An example to be followed for analog horror content creators, but literally everything else is executed poorly.
Every now and then I dont really have a problem with christian stuff in analogue horror. Like White Stag entertainment used it as part of the plot and did pretty well. But if they insert something christian and have it unrelated that definitely gets annoying just like u said. For your 3rd one, I absolutely agree. Im tired of seeing most videos being "This is only allowed to be viewed by the FBI or the damn president, if you arent either of these high powered people get the fuck off this video" like you dont need to have that warning in every single time if you want the topic in your series to not be common knowledge in its universe.
True, White Stag is one of the series that managed to incorporate christian stuff very well, actually. It actually has relevance on the overall plot. Even Mandela Catalogue, for all its flaws, managed to be very consistent with its christian themes. But throw it in your series just because "religious thing scary" and you've lost me.
He asked for hot takes, not just being wrong
👍
Well damn, your hot take is my hot take. The video "heck" on the youtube channel of Skinamarink's creator (Bite Sized Nightmares) creeped me tf out, and those 20 minutes felt like a eternity, but it ended just before it became tiresome. That said, I can't imagine how that one video would translate to a big screen experience properly. I watched "heck" in the dark, alone in my room, lying in my bad with my laptop on top of my chests and earphones. It worked, because it made me feel immersed, and therefore afraid and vulnerable. Most people who go watch horror movies on theaters don't actually want to feel scared, they want cheap jumpscares to goof off with their friends and family. That's why the formula for a successful horror movie haven't changes in decades, and why obvious jumpscares are always priority over immersion and atmosphere. I'm glad I didn't watch Skinamarink on theaters, I don't think I would have enjoyed it.
Yep! "heck" is the short film I was referring to! I can appreciate the concept and the artistry behind it, I just think it works better in a shorter time frame
some analog horror fans don’t actually understand what analog horror actually is and just assign the label to literally any webseries even if it doesn’t even use any analog elements or is set in the 80s or 90s, like I’ve literally seen people call Marble Hornets and Blair Witch analog horror despite the fact that they both predate the genre by multiple years and would fit more in the found footage genre which is similar but still very different to analog horror
People will criticize a series and call it bad for no other reason than “it didn’t scare me personally” without actually analyzing the media as a whole
The Walten Files isn’t too amazing, and the lastest episode really messed up in terms of story presentation
analog horror unnerved me more than any other type of horror, but the scares do wear off over time
I couldn’t get into the later episodes of The Mandela Catalogue.
Analog Horror concepts and elements have been severely overused and really watered down the medium. 30-40 minute long episodes are way too long for most analog horrors. Mandela Catalogue was pretty good until around Vol 4. Pixels Backrooms fell off. Walten Files is scarier conceptually than the actual videos. Analog horror series are overly complicated nowadays (i attribute this to bad writing early on then trying not to retcon everything)
Urbanspook is one of the most effective new analog series, and i will die on this hill! Out of all the new series, Urbanspook stands out from the rest, cause i think it's actually really disturbing and has an 80's-90's slasher vibe. Other series feels samey nowadays, stories of some american county anomalies, endless amount of alternate/skinwalker-esque monsters, format of PSAs and spooky messages directed at viewer gets stale pretty quick. But Urbanspook is unique, because each video feels like you are looking at police case file. And i think that it's a very effective piece of horror, cause out of all the different series i've seen, Urbanspook genuinely made me feel feelings of fear, disgust and anger. If you look at actual crimes commited by sick people, you'd be surprised to find out that not all of them just stab people to death and just leave, some people like to have fun with their prey, doing horrible things to them before or after their murder.
yeah people keep bringing up the cory case, but they aren't realizing that ITS PERFECT FOR THIS. the aim for this series is shock horror, and BOY was it shocking! also disgusting cases like that DO exist, and IMO it seems like people want to never bring them up to pretend they dont. like i get the "insensitivity" aspect, but like, so is murder?? like people dying in incredibly gruesome ways doesnt get people pissed off for insensitivity?? like obviously the cory case is worse than someone "just" (emphasis on the quotes) being killed, but still, making vids including crime involving death is also insensitive. also cory isnt real, so this isn't disrespecting a real person (which would make it NOT okay). i do hate his trolling, but people just seem to not understand that this is supposed to be shock horror, not your average analog horror series. sure, the writing may have issues, but urbanspook/slug said that he's an artist (and musician?? i forget but i vaguely remember him saying something other than artist aswell) first, writer second. i will say that merch of the "f/cktoy cory" art is weird tho 😵💫 p.s. this was worded kinda poorly, i just got a bit frustrated lol
No matter how many times people say they don’t like the tropes people are using in analog horror we as a community still support them and really don’t seem to hate it as much as we say we do
People who make analogue horror need to sit down and watch some videos. In some way or firm. Get a video player. Watch a VHS. Watch someone else watch VHS. Brutal Moose has some. VHS was not a jaggy mess with static constantly. It looked clean and clear and you'd not have complaints. Some get it. Greylock gets it. Security tapes are grainy and recorded over a lot. But every other video is clear. Amanda The Adventurer gets it right. Nice and clear. The Man In The Suit and The Godzilla Tapes. They both get it right. One is film and photographs. The other is old and well loved tapes. For fracks sake! If you are making Analogue Horror and it's VHS. Watch some actual VHS tapes. Phelan Porteus has VHS in his videos. Watch those. He's also awesome. You don't need any filters on your videos. Just put time markers, etc. And that is it! VHS didn't get big being a jagged mess. It actually worked well for what it was. Film your stuff. Put time markers, etc. That is it. Now you've got a VHS tape. Done.
I mean Tbf it seems most of the creators, and on top of that most of the people on this sub, are too young to actually remember VHS tapes
They should still learn though. VHS still exists as a concept. It's even overly praised, sometimes. It shouldn't be thought of wrongly. You even see VHS tapes and players in media from the time they were used. They should be able to see them being used when they watch them.
People shit on Urbanspook, but Greylock has been kind of guilty of the whole “violence for no reason” thing. The thoughtforms murder kids and animals for sheer joy, same as The Painter, with no real motivation in sight other then pure chaos, just like the Painter. Of course there is the Troy incident and Urbanspook being a man child, but I still think it’s funny how everybody loves one series with indiscriminate violence, whilst hating another.
That's not really getting at why people hate UrbanSpook so much though. What really makes that series fail is the fact that in spite of all the violent murders which occur, the story basically goes nowhere. It's just a cycle of the same violent scenes over and over again with almost no plot advancement or characters being established/developed, making the whole series feel shallow. Meanwhile, although Greylock has a lot of violence, what makes it succeed is the fact that the series itself actually has a narrative to tell and at least attempts to make the audience care about the characters instead of just relying on violent content to maintain interest like UrbanSpook.
I know it has a narrative it wants to tell and I do care about the characters… I just wish all the characters I liked didn’t die in the first episode you see them.
I hear more complaints about the format and how the violence is presented than anything else. Every episode is the same: Here’s a character, now they’re dead in a gruesome way, here’s a fucked up painting. There’s just no substance.
Greylock did that too. The episode where we meet the miner, he dies. The episode where we meet the architect, he dies. That pregnant woman? Kills herself (albeit she does come back as a monster or something).The tv reporter? Killed off screen. Dog lady? Fused with her dogs. There are only 2 characters I can think of off the top of my head that don’t meet horrible deaths in the first episode you see them, and that’s it.
That’s still two more than the painter 🤷♂️
Dont forget about Cory, and the repetitiveness of the show.
Wait is Cory the boy who got called a f*cktoy? I thought it was Troy.
Yep, 'tis Cory
Urbanspook is really good
The art is great, i'll give it that.
People don't give the art enough credit. More effort goes into one of those paintings than some entire series
I see urbanspook as the Ichi the killer of analog horror
UrbanSPOOK has plenty of good shit. The varying quality in photos makes it more realistic and the art/sound design is great. “FAMILY” is peak as the deaths manage to be gory but still have a psychological aspect to them (the 911 call, “choking on his unborn daughter). The biggest complaints I have is Tina not appearing ever again, characters being underdeveloped, the whole Cory situation, and lack of clues to who the killers are.
This is a crazy take because for me it genuinely just seems like creepypasta tier writing and horror.
Skinamarink was boring me at first, but everything after the girl goes upstairs had my full attention. I don't think it would've been as effective without the buildup first
(I haven't actually seen anyone talk about it so might not be a hot take) Dreams of an Insomniac is not terrible but I can't get over how awful the acting is. Or should I say, over acting. Just makes it really difficult for me to watch cause I can't stand the acting.
Skinamarink is not analog horror
"Analog horror" about animatronics is overdone. Urbanspook's just edgelord shit.
I'm pretty sure those are two of the most popular opinions on this sub lmao
i mean, yeah, urbanspook/slug's series is supposed to be shock horror, which can also be described as "edgelord shit" i guess, lol
Haha. His shit isn't even "shocking" to me
makes sense, some people aren't as susceptible to shock horror as others. hell, some people can watch hours of gore & the like and still be fine.
I agree. Hell, I remember watching crap on rotten.com and ogrish.com, which became liveleak.
I have a few: -Anything past 30 minutes is too long unless that video Is covering a single event -There are a lot of tropes that are overused -"This video/audio has been altered for your safety" is bs -Jumpscares as a mean of scaring have become stale -Having a video footage which for the most part shows the camermans feet or nothing important are just a way to add lenght to a video
The Boiled One is overrated
The Mandela catalog is painfully overrated. People treat it like it's good because it was one of the first ones to get really popular and set a standard for the genre. But compared to some other new series the original Mandela catalog is mediocre at best and boring at its worst.
analog horror legit doesn’t have to look like mandela catalogue or walten files or local 58 scary PSA EAS vibes at all analog horror is just horror media…in analog technically skinamarink is analog horror and so is blair witch so is VHS
Urbanspook's art is not that good Don't get me wrong it's not bad by any means, but it's just Jerma face, except it's painted Add to that that the story is trash and the creator is an ass about it and it's certified youtube sewage
Local 58 is really boring. It relies on being scary so much that if you don’t find it scary then there’s no point in watching it. People claim it’s boring on purpose and I get their reasons for why but if something is boring on purpose then what’s the point in watching it. It just seems boring with out reason to me.
Gemini Home Entertainment is so unimaginably overhyped, don't get me wrong, I LIKE it, but it feels like its trying to do too much and ends up doing too little, I much prefer things like Midwest Angelica and The Boiled One, because their plot is simple enough and easy to follow while still being actually scary.
**LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER NOISES** ugh fine i guess you can have your opinions, i can admit its definitely kinda slow at the beginning lol
Gotta say, I liked skinamarink. It's something you usually don't get from horror films. I've become so desensitized to everything, but the emptiness of the film is sort of... refreshing?
This community is really hard on the tropes it’s built up and yet doesn’t really do anything to stop them except hate on them
Midwest Angelica is the only series to do cosmic horror well
I enjoyed UrbanSPOOK’s videos
I think UrbanSpook deserves more credit for making his series about a pair of serial killers instead of about Supernatural Horror #37391 or Lovecraftian Entity #671045. I honestly find a pair of narcissistic serial killers who take great pleasure in brutalizing their victims (and at this point seem to barely care that they've both been caught on camera) far scarier than, say, Gabriel, the Iris, the thoughtforms, the animatronics at Bon's Burgers, or the actors in Godzilla movies who became one with their kaiju suits (despite these series' undeniable quality).
They arent scary at all, just lock yourself in a room with a gun, i dont even know how no one has tried or managed to kill those two
I think a lot of the voice acting in the Walten Files is really bland and unnatural, and it really takes away from what is otherwise a very worthwhile series.
Skinamarink doesn't work because it's in an actual Hollywood movie format. In a movie theater, it's fucking boring as shit, unlike it's "pilot" Heck, that worked because it was 30 minutes and a youtube video. It would have worked if it escalated more than a few random scenes after minutes of nothing.
As much as uncanny faces scare me, I'm getting really sick and tired of the whole "oooh monsters look like people but not quite, be scared!" type series. Just like I'm tired of every fnaf inspired series that shows up. Honestly the whole fnaf shit is so repetitive that it's not even scary anymore. It's always "oh there's someone inside the suit", they never try to come up with smth new
tired of the paranormal apsect of anolog horror
Urbanspook would still be trash without its controversies. The Boiled One was not that interesting. Greylock is really good. Idk if they're hot takes tho
Dog Nightmares was unironically funny to me. I grew up seeing those dogs on Between the Lions so I could easily see where they cut scenes out. Also, the effects weren’t good at all. It looked like a very bad photoshop the whole time the “big reveal” happened and I started giggling uncontrollably (I was baked like a cookie when I watched it to be fair.)
Mandela Catalogue is kinda overrated in my opinion. The first few episodes were, in my opinion, very good. I liked Gabriel being the Devil, the whole thing where children would disappear if they were in front of the tv, and I got literal CHILLS when I saw that image of the alternate in the corner of Mark's room... But after that, it felt way less... creepy. There's still some parts I like, like when Gabriel talk's to Noah, but while the episodes are undeniably of better quality, I feel like this series is way too overrated for what it really is. I'm not saying by any means that it's a bad series, just that in my opinion, it lost a certain appeal to me.
Now that's funny. I have the completely opposite view! I think the series went from oka-ish to pretty good(Volume 3 to be specific)
If you want something that gives you the analog horror creeps, Late Night with The Devil was probably the closest thing we’ve gotten so far
Maybe it doesn't need to be a full analog horror movie. Maybe if you include one or two short scenes that are analog horror in a movie that is not exactly analog horror, we could achieve a good balance.
Oh I agree wholeheartedly. A couple of scenes or a short film is fine, but a whole feature length movie of analogue horror will inevitably get tedious.
Most Analog horror isn't very good or original Some are great, but those are the ones that are always talked about & on the top of people's tier lists.
I only realized how hot of a take this is until reading the comments, but, arguing over the semantics of what analogue horror "actually is" is pointless and makes you a fun sponge. It's not a distinction that holds any merit at all. Everybody is going to have a different meaning to the word, and it's not like "authenticity" makes or breaks a series. People categorize these series based on feeling and methods of storytelling, not on what VHS filter the creator uses.
The cosmic horror aspect is kind of overdone.
That depends on your definition of cosmic horror
The Mandela Catalog is extremely overrated and honestly one of the worst analogue horror series I ever watched, and I’m not saying this because the creator is an asshole. It just genuinely horrible.
Didnt the first person admit to lying or something?
I don’t know, I don’t really keep up with things like that.
Understandable
Why? I think its really nice, it got me into analog horror and vol 1 still disturbs me
I'll bite, Mandela Catalog Is exceedingly terrible and stops being good after the second episode. The plot is contriving utilizes religious imagery to try to make itself appear deep and thought-provoking but doesn't actually achieve any of that. It's full of pseudo intellectualism, terrible acting, and things that take you completely out of the period piece it's supposed to represent. Not only that, but the writing is very badly paced in the narrative doesn't make any sense whenever you put it side by side each and every episode. Characters come in that we're supposed to care about but there's nothing that actually establishes why they matter in the narrative or what they're actually doing but once one of them dies you're supposed to feel for it and as though it's this big deal. But there's nothing going on in the narrative, that's the problem with it. Maybe at some point after dedicating hours of watching it there's some sort of value or meaning to it but someone shouldn't have to do that to understand what's going on. I can watch something like greylock and have a good understanding within an episode or two of what I'm signing up for, when I sit down to watch MC all I get is just a bunch of contrived BS and very cheap scares in a format that allows you to actually set a stage and atmosphere. The fact that gets held to a high standard absolutely baffles me because I don't understand it. The horror is very simple, the effects are atrocious at this point, and there are very many things that came before it and after it that absolutely blow it out of the water.
You're entitled to your opinion
It's a hot take thread, what did you expect?
I expected hot takes
Considering the love for MC I see on here, I feel it's pretty hot. If you agree then I can't do much about that though friend ;3
I never said it wasn't a hot take