woah, what are you doing in here?!
look, i am very nostalgic for the halloweens of my childhood that this site is curating a very specific vibe around, but i also really like a lot of the things that scared me as a kid now that i am older (take that with a grain of salt though... i am actually a total scaredy-cat). so this is my less nostalgic room where i talk about all of the halloween-y things i like now!
so, a fun little known fact about me is that when i was a senior in college i wrote a 65 page award-winning paper on horror literature.
well, to be more specific, i wrote about "found document horror" aka fictional horror media presented like it is a real nonfiction recovered document, like letters, diaries, found footage, etc etc (like dracula!! or, the blair witch project). so, even though i am a total baby about scary stuff, i am really passionate about found documents as a literary device and how it has a specific power to make the unrealistic believable, and how that especially contributes to the reader's engagement with (and enjoyment of!) horror.
basically the sparknotes: back when "the blair witch project" came out, it was a huge sensation with a really effective immersive marketing campaign and was touted as one of the most original and unique works in recent film. However, the things that made blair witch so immersive, unique, and original are actually things that date back all the way to the very first novels published in english! literature, especially literature meant to generate a response of fear in its readers, have been using the format of lost and rediscovered documentation of real events in the form of letters or diaries to create this same level of emotional engagement in readers for centuries. found documents have a special ability to connect more closely with the audience because of its human imperfections and direct address.
for example, samuel richardson's 1748 novel "clarissa", while not horror, depicts a woman in an abusive situation via her letters, and during a breakdown she writes sideways on the paper which is printed in the novel. this "insanity" is depicted directly on the page, bringing clarissa's interiority even more vividly to life. also, back in the 18th century writers like samuel richardson would write fake introductions for their books from the perspective of editors compiling these very real and definitely not fictional you guys letters, which successfully convinced readers that the novels were from real life and made them even more emotionally invested.
this style of novel was adopted by the gothic (castle of otranto, dracula, frankenstein, etc etc). the emotional closeness and realness the letters & diaries provide made the novels feel more scary, and also more fun to read! people love being scared! the format's use in gothic also brought to light another cool aspect of the found document, which is that it often reflects and comes to represent new and changing technology in the time period in which it was written. for example, in dracula they use new inventions like phonographs as found documents, and paranoia around dracula directly represents the invasion of new technology and industry. this bleeds into the more modern gothic and horror media that is adopted into the found document category as types of documents grow and change: like house of leaves which is an academic document with footnotes; like blair witch & paranormal activity and insert the hundreds of other found footage films here because they are personal video; and like creepypasta because it is online and can be published anonyously by anyone. found documents naturally explores how changing media & technology evokes horror because change is scary. obviously.
that's all i will say for now, of course i could go so much more in depth forever because i'm crazy but i'm not gonna go full academia on you here. i hope you think this is as cool as i do!
i've read a lot of horror novels academically for my degree and i love them a lot. i could yap about my analysis of horror lit for hours (i'll publish that 65 page paper some day) but for now i'll leave you with a small collection of horror lit recommendations below!
(click on some of these to read them FOR FREE on project gutenberg!)
ALSO! i can't talk about found document horror without recommending my favorite creepypasta of all time, ted the caver (the OG!!!) creepypasta is literature too and i have a degree to prove it.
i love mike flanagan's work so much, but i am so easily scared that i have to read a synopsis before i can watch any of this work. still, haunting of hill house & midnight mass are 2 of my favorite shows ever, now that i know when to anticipate all the scary parts :p
i used to be a HUGE american horror story fan back in the day: i've rewatched seasons 1-6 maybe 10 times. but i really disliked seasons 7 & 8 so i stopped watching :( still, seasons 1-6 hold a special place in my heart and i still revisit them from time to time
i want to give a shoutout to my favorite gothic/halloween youtuber, Rattus Rattus. they make really cool fashion/DIY/goth/movie/halloween videos and i love them all and want to be them when i grow up so you should check out their channel.
