I realize most might just see it as unsettling, but I've known someone like AM. Obviously not a giant supercomputer, but with that much hate. With that much blind rage, that everyone around him must suffer for daring to exist. That would happily keep someone alive just to bring them more pain.
As much as I love that story, every time I read it leaves me a little more terrified, looking over my shoulder, waiting until I'm put in my cage because I dared break free, even almost 20 years later.
There was this short sci fi story I think about a lot. I forgot what it's called but it's essentially about some kind of particle (it's physics related) that floats around the universe and has the ability to engulf everything in it's path or something? The story is about the last few hours on earth when one such particle happens to stumble into our solar system. Ill have to dig it up.
Edit: Found it! It's called "the blue afternoon that lasts forever"
Played it without VR. Felt the same. Maybe because I intentionally waited until late at night so it would be dark enough with the lights off. Awesome game.
I love horror and fiction since I was very young so it's very hard to make me feel uncomfortable but this short did it. I kept having nightmares about this for a week
By a country mile the “best” book I’ve read. I think the film does an admirable job of staying within and delivering the message of the book without being “not suitable for release without cuts” in some territories. I mean the baby spit roast isn’t really something one can put to film and expect to get license to release everywhere around the world.
But funnily enough the book actually aims for, and IMHO hits, a completely different message than that of dread; for me, it makes me wholeheartedly appreciate the world, nature, and the good deeds we do for each other. It is also, and I’m aware I’m breaking no ground here, a treatise on love, fatherhood and courage. It makes me appreciate that, despite everything, we are still incredible blessed to live in today’s world.
It is quite simply sensational.
By the way, while very different in tone, Station Eleven really hit the same note for me; appreciate what you’ve got, it might just disappear.
Emergency broadcasts of any sort, fictitious or no, already put me on edge, but the idea of the US government having one ready to go, specifically to order people to commit suicide to spite some kind of existential threat, is especially chilling.
Buddy Holly and Carole Lombard both decided to get in a plane at the last minute. Some tourist decided to go to the World Trade Center instead of the Metropolitan Museum. If you start thinking about it, it can drive you crazy.
Remember the Oklahoma City bombing? My uncle is a retired lawyer in OKC, so he was in that building frequently when it was still standing. If memory serves, it still blew out the windows in his office.
The stupid zombies in Thief. Just the first one you encounter. It's lying on the ground with flies flying above it. And every time you go near it it gives out this loud awful moan. I hate it!
Signalis is a great game with a story that stuck with me for weeks. I wouldn't say it "terrifies me" but it's definitely both disturbing and heart wrenching.
The deadlights in Stephen King's IT. ::: spoiler The scene where the turtle is dead hits me right in the existential dread. spoiler :::
SOMA. There were sections in the game that were scary, but the entire concept is really a mind melt. It's not like it's not a common theoretical question, but going through it step by step is another thing. And if you go to the home page of it and read some of the short stories, it really adds to the whole experience.
Hereditary really stuck with me after watching it—and I’m in my 30s. It would really get in my head when I was trying to fall asleep for at least 2 weeks. Would have to double check the corners of my ceiling.
Warning! Spoilers! I'd use the spoiler tag, but no matter how I do it (correct or incorrect), it doesn't show up for me.
Perfect Blue.
Not for the conventional murder or bad things happening, but the whole structure of not knowing what's real and what is just an illusion and not knowing how much time has passed.
The Zone from the STALKER games disturbed me for years, but I'm such a grizzled veteran of the Zone now that I enjoy being in it. Night is still a little terrifying, though, and I don't care to use nightvision. Kills the vibe.
I love the STALKER games, the atmosphere is absolutely top notch.
The section where you have to go into the lair of the invisible dudes was terrifying.
I remember meeting my first one, before going into the tunnels, and losing half my health in its first attack, I fought it standing on top of a tractor because they couldn't climb thankfully.
One that I really like is Dear David by Adam Ellis. And yeah yeah, I know that he's going for the usual "true ghost story" marketing shtick or whatever, but these stories that don't just use cheap jumpscares and instead build a sense of constant threat and impending doom are the ones that make it harder for me to sleep at night.
Not sure if this is what you were looking for, but this song is a masterpiece of horror manifest through audio. In fact the whole album is a piece of art, troubling and dark but so well crafted.
I thought for sure this was gonna be “Everywhere at the End of Time”.
If you’re not familiar, it’s a 6 hour audio piece that simulates the descent into dementia ending in the complete loss of oneself and eventually death.
Knowing what it is going in, it’s terrifying to listen to.
The whole thing is on YouTube, posted by the creator without ads, but I’m too lazy to go find it and don’t want the piped link bot to kill me in my sleep.
The Borderlands (2013) starts out as a regular found footage paranormal movie but the ending is just so... horrifying. It's simple but well done, something about it unerves me.