I'm kind of worried my list of preferences might be too normie aside from a couple silly special interests, but I'm going to bite the bullet and post it. Just keep in mind that I didn't list all everything I liked here since I'm typing with thumbs… I can make a better list of the visual novels & other games separately and post more tomorrow.
I like
psychological horror and creepy, unsettling things. I find excessive gore and jump scares cheap ways to induce "fear." I'm really someone who will immerse myself in an eerie landscape (game) or descriptive book. I live for slow-burn horror with existential or cosmic elements.
Some stuff I like (please know this isn't comprehensive, listing off the top of my head):
- good analog horror. I'm picky but throw it at me since I haven't looked for more in a year or so. (I wish local 58 and the blue channel were still active. "You are on the fastest available route" is S-tier). A couple years ago, I felt like most analog horror just seemed to copy previous creators (hence all the moon/alien stuff everywhere). The genre could be so cool again if creators would consider new ideas.
- Web series
Petscop until the creator ruined it with his shitty reveal. I know some people didn't like it, don't care. No, I didn't like most of the fanbase but for awhile I was fascinated by some aspects of the series.
- The abandoned game-in-progress "Memory of a Broken Dimension." If I could kidnap that moid and force him to finish it, I would. I've played the demo many times. I'll probably play it again now
- True or fictional stories about people in creepy or foreboding wilderness (Death Valley Germans, mountains, forests, caves, diving accidents). It needs to be somewhat believable. True crime like the Girl Scout Murders, I read all the transcripts of the pre-hearing and creeped myself out with them. Obviously real crime is sad and I'm not using it as entertainment; I just realized how scared I was while imagining the setting of those murders in the wilderness.
- I get really unnerved when tech becomes sentient, pseudo-sentient, or malevolent. "I have no mouth and I must scream" short story - masterpiece.
2001: A Space Odyssey. The Mother Code. A trillion other examples. I fear tech far more than aliens. In fact, I'm mostly not scared of aliens.
- Cosmic and existential horror, like Blackwood, "The Willows." Asimov, everything… ok I would need to add more examples here. I also liked the uncertainty in
Rendezvous with Rama and I think about how the book made me have goosebumps often.
- Everything by John Brunner creeps me out, but especially
The Sheep Look Up, which made me spiral into almost quitting my grad program and going to work on a cooperative farm. I like a ton of scifi and dystopian works, won't make this longer by listing them. (Don't "read" Brunner as an audiobook.) Ah man this makes me want to write a syllabus for a course on eco-horror and pitch it next year.
- Desolate or neglected places that were once "fun": abandoned Chinese and North Korean and Russian fun fairs, Russian/East German young pioneer camps, the Salton Sea (Brunner's
The Sheep Look Up was mentioned in a discussion of the Salton Sea that horrified me years ago, there were some solid weeks were I basically ignored everything just to read about the Salton Sea and then everything of Brunner's I could find)
- nuclear accidents and incidents. Not just Chernobyl (but of course Chernobyl too). Discussion of how to communicate to future generations the dangers of nuclear waste. If you are interested in how terrifying nuclear semiotics are, get the pdf here:
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1279277/ (source of picrel, but there is a lot more in this report beyond what occasionally surfaces online - and btw nothing was ever decided upon)
- Ancient magical or religious ritualistic texts - real or in fiction.
- I liked creepypastas as a teen but they had to be somewhat well written or have other media associated with them. The Godzilla one was good up until a point, the pixel art redeemed it. Anything with glitchy games. Yes I'm such a nerd, glitches terrified me as a kid.
- Always down for illness or natural disasters while society is falling apart.
- Creepy puzzles, real or fake. Religion of any kind mixed with strange happenings. I like giallo films and the original Omen; The Exorcist creeped me out but I would probably have preferred even more build-up and "quiet" horror to the excessively disturbing parts.
- ah there are a ton of great creepy visual novels and games i've enjoyed: Buddy Simulator 1984 was good, Yume Nikki, Omori, Ao Oni, DDLC (played it without spoilers at night alone in a creepy place), One Shot, Song of Saya, Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk. I haven't been able to check out .flow or The Void (Ice-Peak Lodge) yet but I want to.
- Nostalgia, Ostalgia (cold war stuff). I liked
Dark but not really for the main plot, I guess. I don't mind untranslated German, French, or Russian media.
There's probably more but that's enough.
Please no:
insects in large groups (or warn me)
extensive realistic animal or child abuse as a major theme (I can handle sacrifice as a topic and true crime, but there are horror movies that voyeuristically dwell on abuse/torture - do not want these.)
zombies without other horror (ugh boring)
ghosts that are just boring old ghosts and not creepy, I could rant about ghosts but I won't. Only interesting ghosts.
vampires aren't scary
aliens are not scary
monsters aren't scary
someone I know is afraid of the sea and everything in it, but loves sea horror. you can suggest sea things for her. She's probably seen almost everything that got remotely any press but go ahead
no hate, i know some of my tastes are dumb. list is not comprehensive!!
