Posts Tagged ‘creepypasta’

I’m Still Going to Try with My Backrooms Story

Posted: February 10, 2023 in Novella, Reflections, Writing
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The photo that started it all.

So, I freaked out for a moment earlier this week. I found out that a Hollywood studio was making a movie out of The Backrooms.

If you don’t know what the Backrooms is, it’s an Internet urban legend/creepypasta about a maze that looks like a never-ending office building with the most horrid yellow wallpaper. Supposedly, there are things in the Backrooms that will come after you if you fall, or “noclip,” into them. They were birthed by a photo that was posted anonymously to 4chan, followed by some lines of text that were posted by another anonymous user, so the Backrooms are technically public domain. Anyone can use them to tell stories.

I wrote a novella taking place in the Backrooms: “It Changes You: A Backrooms Story.” And I’ve been planning on editing it throughout the week. However, earlier this week, something came up that made me wonder if I even could or should edit the story. You see, one of the most–if not the most–popular iteration of The Backrooms was created by YouTuber Kane Pixels. He’s created his own mini-mythology through a highly successful YouTube series, the first video of which having over forty-four million views at the time I’m writing this.

Yeah, the new movie is going to be based on his take on the Backrooms, and he’s likely going to be writing and directing as well.

So, my first reaction was like, “Oh shit! Way to go, you’re barely out of high school! Good luck, I can’t wait to see it!” And then I was like, “What does this mean for ‘It Changes You?’ Will it even be worth editing and trying to find a home with a movie on the way?”

In times like these, I look to the experts I know best: my fellow horror writers. So I asked them in one of my Facebook groups. And they pointed out some things that I’d almost forgotten.

First off, plenty of writers and creators are making stories and videos and whatnot off the Backrooms, not just Kane Pixels and myself. Hell, I’ve seen one author posting photos of his own story on Twitter and Hive. I won’t be the last one. And so long as I don’t steal anything to someone else’s interpretation of the Backrooms, it’s fine if I want to release my own version of it.

Yeah, a movie might make things more difficult. But it wasn’t as if they weren’t difficult before. Let’s face it, everybody’s putting out their own versions everywhere they can. So long as I keep trying, my version is well-written and compelling, and

And it’s not as if the movie will be a surefire thing. It could end up in development hell or just never get made. Look at the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie. That thing has been in development since 2015, and it reportedly only just started filming this month! And the Bartimaeus Sequence by Jonathan Stroud? One of my favorite fantasy series from childhood and still beloved. It was supposed to have a movie years ago! But twenty years after the idea was first floated, still no movie out, even though some new studio bought the rights four years ago.

Who’s to say the same thing won’t happen with the Backrooms movie? It might spend several years in development before it actually gets to the production stage, let alone gets filmed and released.

In the meantime, that’s plenty of time for me to make a mark with my version. Not sure if that’ll be on its own as a standalone novella or as part of a collection, but that’s part of the fun of the search: getting to find out what happens and where your stories will end up.

So, this weekend, I’ll get started on editing “It Changes You.” Some friends/colleagues read the first five-thousand words and gave me feedback, so I’ll look over their notes, and then get to work. By the end of the weekend, maybe I’ll have it off to beta readers, and then maybe next month off to publishers.

But for now, I’ve got work. Until next time, good night (no matter what time it may be where you are), pleasant nightmares, and–watch out! There’s a killer behind you as you’re reading this!

Review: Channel Zero: Candle Cove

Posted: September 1, 2018 in Review, Scary Stuff
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If you’ve been with me for a while now, you know I’m interested in and an admirer of creepypasta, urban legends and scary stories born and spread on the Internet that seem to have some sort of plausibility of truth to them, even if you can’t prove it. Recently I heard about a TV series called Channel Zero that, like American Horror Story and Slasher before it, told a different horror story every season, though in this case the stories were based on creepypasta. I decided to take a look, and found out my local library had all three seasons on DVD. I reserved the first season, subtitled Candle Cove, and picked it up yesterday.

Guess who spent most of his Saturday binge-watching it on his TV and laptop? This guy. And as this is me we’re talking about, of course I’m reviewing it.

Based on the Candle Cove creepypasta by Kris Straub (unknown if he’s related to horror author and friend of Stephen King Peter Straub), Channel Zero: Candle Cove follows Mike Painter, a child psychiatrist who returns to his childhood home of Iron Hill, Ohio (go Ohio!) after leaving twenty-eight years previously, when five children were horribly murdered and the killer was never caught. One of the children was Mike’s twin brother Eddie. Now back to put old demons to rest, Mike reconnects with old friends and finds out that several children in town have been watching Candle Cove, a mysterious TV series that originally aired during the two months the murders occurred. Its return to TV doesn’t just coincide with Mike’s return, but with a series of events that threatens to rock Iron Hill, Mike, and his family to their very cores.

I was very impressed with Channel Zero‘s first season. First off, there’s the story. Candle Cove tells a slow-burn story centered around its unfolding mystery. It’s very hard to look away as you watch the characters try to figure out the mystery of the Candle Cove TV show and how it may have affected events past and present. It’s also extremely twisty, making you question everything and wonder how it’s all connected. Trust me, you won’t see the finale until it happens, and it’ll leave you speechless.

I also sympathized with a lot of the characters. They each had their own demons to deal with, and as events start getting crazier and crazier, you can almost find yourself understanding why they do what they do. Doesn’t mean you’ll always approve or root for them, but you’ll understand.

Special mention goes to Fiona Shaw (the actress who played Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter movies) who played Marla Painter, Mike’s mother. That character goes through so much, but is probably the strongest character on the show, and Ms. Shaw carries it with every scene. Loved seeing her on screen every time she showed up.

Hello, I’m the Tooth Child. I’ll be in your nightmares tonight.

And oh my God, the visuals on this show! From the clips of Candle Cove, to the figures of the Tooth Child and the Skin-Taker, to even some of the dream sequences, there is so much terrifying imagery! Season One definitely took care to make sure every creepy scene was as disturbing as possible. If any of my works ever get adapted, I hope just as much care is put into the visuals and scares.

If there are any flaws with season one, at times the story tends to focus more on the slow-burn story than on actually making viewers crap their pants. That’s not a bad thing, but for some horror fans who prefer outright scares, the slow-burn quality may be a bit off-putting. But at the moment, that’s the only issue I can point out with this show. And it’s not even my issue!

On a scale of 1 to 5, I’m giving Channel Zero: Candle Cove full marks with a 5 out of 5! Great storytelling with a well thought-out mystery and excellent visuals, it feels like something Stephen King might produce from his own twisted imagination. Tune in, and let yourself be hypnotized.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. With September here, there’s a lot of great horror stories on the horizon to read/watch and review. And believe me, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on most of them. Whether you want me to or not.

Until next time, pleasant nightmares!

Review: Slender Man (2018 film)

Posted: August 11, 2018 in Review, Scary Stuff
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Slender Man has been one of the most talked-about fictional figures to be created in the past ten years. It seems that it was inevitable that a major film adaptation of the character would come out, though nine years after the character’s introduction and two or three years after his peak in popularity seems later than I’d expect. But since the film’s trailer came out, there’s been a lot of discussion on the film, not just whether it would be any good or if it was too late for a Slender Man film, but also if there should even be a film based on the character. I won’t touch on that last subject (that’s something for a post for another day), but I can answer the first two.

Starting with if the film is any good, I’m going to say I have the same feelings towards Slender Man as I did to The Forest: a concept with great potential, but an execution with poor payoff.

Based on the famous Internet boogeyman, Slender Man follows four teen girls who find an online video that’s supposed to summon the titular entity. Soon after, they start getting sick and having nightmares. When one disappears, the remaining three realize that something is afoot, that they are being watched and stalked by an entity alluded to in folklore and on the Internet by a variety of names. And it won’t leave them alone.

The problems with this movie are numerous. For one thing, this movie is excessively trope-filled. And while we horror nuts love our tropes, we like them done with a little style, or a bit of love, or even some subversion. And we never like the film to be so trope-filled that it’s hitting us over the head with them. None of that love is here, and thus the tropes ring hollow. In addition, the film fails to build an atmosphere. Watching the film, I didn’t feel creeped out or terrified as I might have with another film. I just felt neutral the whole time, even when they are trying to scare me with disturbing footage (again, in another film this might have been terrifying). When you have a horror film filled with hollow tropes and no atmosphere, that doesn’t bode well for said horror film.

On top of that, the characters are pretty flat. It’s almost like they have variations of the one generic teen girl personality. I know you only have so much time to build personalities in a film that focuses on scaring the shit out of you, but you could literally shift these girls into each other’s roles, and it wouldn’t make much of a difference.

And finally, there are plot threads that are left hanging. They just present some threads, and never wrap them up. I left the theater with a lot of questions: what happened to that one girl we last saw looking out a window? Is the character Wren a preacher’s kid? Shouldn’t that matter more to her character? What happened to that one dude? We kind of just forgot about him.

Such potential for this character. And they wasted it with his first official film outing.

So yeah, Slender Man doesn’t have that much going for it. Does it have any good points? Well, the actors are decent. They’re not given much to work with, but what they do with it is pretty good. There are a few effective jump scares. And for all its faults, the film seems to have some respect for the Slender Man character and mythology. They really tried to incorporate as much as they could of the mythology into the film, and it shows.

But other than that, this film is poorly written and overly-reliant on tropes, with uninteresting characters and a lot of plot threads that just don’t get resolved. On a scale of 1 to 5, I’m giving Slender Man a 1. If you want a horror film based off a popular folklore character, there has to be better than this.* In the meantime, I would skip this one. And hope the next time a film about a creepypasta character is made, it’s done a lot better than this.

And as for whether it was too late for a Slender Man movie, I don’t think so. There’s always an opportunity to make an old story or idea new and relevant again (look at last year’s It, for example). I just feel that Slender Man was too reliant on the character’s past popularity and thus didn’t put that much work into making a good movie. If they had, this could’ve been something awesome, rather than a pointless piece of commercial fluff trying to make a buck off of something popular. Like The Angry Birds Movie.**

*Hell, there’s a better Slender Man film out there! You see, this is the first official Slender Man film, with the permission and blessing of the copyright holders over the character (yeah, he’s not as public domain as I thought he was). There was one a few years ago made without permission, a found footage film also called Slender Man that I honestly enjoyed more than this. It wasn’t the most amazing thing, but it was a good deal better than this piece of crap. Too bad it wasn’t official, because I prefer it over this one.

**Or the Friday the 13th remake. Okay, that’s not commercial fluff, that’s just another crap film that takes a great horror character and does everything wrong with him. And until something better is produced to remove the stain, I’LL NEVER STOP HATING ON IT!!!

Thoughts on a Creepypasta Anthology and Creepypasta in General

Posted: May 30, 2018 in Reflections, Review, Scary Stuff, Writing
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My copy of “The Creepypasta Collection,” as edited by MrCreepyPasta

A couple of years ago while I was in Germany, I became acquainted with a growing genre of horror known as creepypasta. Creepypasta, for those of you who are unfamiliar, are horror stories, images, videos, music and games that originate on the Internet and are meant to be spread around as memes. Sort of like viral Internet-born campfire ghost stories (see my original post from 2015 if you’d like a more in-depth explanation).

While I had to end my acquaintance with the genre rather abruptly (job searching and then landing a busy full-time job, as well as trying to write my own stories, doesn’t leave that much time for perusing the Internet for horror stories), I never forgot about this strange world of creators making and sharing these scary stories, sharing characters and creating entire mythologies out of some of them (Slender Man, anyone?). So when I found out there was actually a couple of anthologies of creepypasta available in book format, which meant I could read them on my lunch break, I decided to get a copy and dive in to see back in.

What did I find?

Well, like every anthology I’ve ever read, there were some stories that spoke to me more than others. A few I didn’t find that scary at all, but others definitely filled me with that feeling I get from good horror, and even set my imagination alight at times. There are writers in that anthology who would and have done well writing commercial fiction (in fact, some of the contributors listed in the back of the book have published or self-published stories). My favorites in the collection were “When Dusk Falls on Hadley Township” by TW Grim, which reminded me of a Stephen King short story; “Smile.Montana” by Aaron Shotwell, featuring the infamous creepypasta character Smile Dog; “Bedtime” by Michael Whitehouse, a classic of creepypasta fiction that really got my imagination going; and my top favorite, “She Beneath the Tree” by Michael Marks, a Lovecraftian tale that I loved from start to finish.

So yeah, if you’re curious, you should give the collection a read. 4.5 out of 5. As the cover promises, these are stories you can’t unread. And I’m not sure you’d want to.

But I found more than just stories in this collection. I also noticed some things about the genre, especially the pieces in the anthology, that showed me just how different they were from more “mainstream” horror stories. For one thing, the narration in the stories struck me as being more…realist in nature. Not like Realist fiction, which is set entirely around stories that happen in the real world, but like they really believed that the things they depicted in their stories could actually happen. In a lot of horror fiction, even by the greatest writers out there, you get the sense that, except for maybe stories involving serial killers, the authors don’t really believe that what they’re writing about could happen. But creepypasta writers seem to feel the opposite. I got the sense, even with some of the more supernatural or strange stories, that the authors really believed that what was happening in their stories could happen in the real world, and treated it as such. And this shown through especially with the first-person narrators.

When something like Smile Dog can be treated as if it’s real, you know you’re reading something different.

This is something I really admire in creepypasta, because it just gives these stories another layer and gives them the power to really make you wonder if some of what happens in these creepypastas could happen. Some of my own stories are based on my own beliefs of what could be out there, and I like to think that gives them this quality of strange realism to them. Seeing that quality brought out so well with these stories is a great guide for me personally as a writer, so I’m glad I exposed myself to them.

Another thing about this anthology is that it made me realize something: the creators of creepypasta are not too different from self-published and hybrid authors. The latter try to recreate the quality and success of books published by traditional presses without having to go through all the hoops that come with the traditional method and presses. They’re trying a new way to achieve an old goal. And a major component of this is through the Internet to reach readers and advertise. Basically, to spread the word.

Similarly, creepypasta creators are trying to recreate something as well. When I called creepypasta viral Internet-born campfire ghost stories, that was a really apt description. They’re recreating the feeling of telling scary stories around a campfire, and spread it farther than any campfire could. And their chosen medium, the Internet, is perfect for that. Spoken word can be used on the Internet, but so can the written word, images, video, music and so much more. They use the Internet to advertise terror as well as any self-published/hybrid author can to advertise their books. Is it any wonder that one can so transition easily into the other?

Overall, I’m glad I took this dive back into the world of creepypasta. It opened my eyes to things that I’d never realized before, gave me ideas for stories, and caused my respect for creepypasta creators to grow immensely. And while I may never write true creepypasta, I can see creepypasta-esque stories or ideas infiltrating my future work. Just like creepypasta, you never know until it happens. And by then, it’s likely too late.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’d love to talk a bit more on the subject, but a hole in the fabric of reality has appeared in the fabric of my carpet, so that either means something really pleasant, or something really bad. I’m going to go find out.

Until next time, pleasant nightmares!

What’s a Creepypasta?

Posted: December 16, 2015 in Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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Smile Dog, a creepypasta character.

Recently I’ve been delving into a genre of horror that’s grown up on the Internet, and I have to say some of it is quite impressive. I’m talking, of course, about creepypastas.

Now, for those of you who’ve never heard of this and think I’m talking about a Halloween treat, a creepypasta is actually kind of like an Internet campfire ghost story, scary stories designed to shock and terrify and that originate online.  They’re sometimes accompanied with images, audio or videos, usually distorted or featuring or gore or creepy imagery, in order to intensify the effect. The name “creepypasta” comes from “copypasta”, a slang term for text that is copied and pasted around the Internet multiple times.

And even if you’re not familiar with creepypastas in general, you may have heard of some. Slender Man, whom I’ve written about on this blog before, has been the subject of numerous creepypastas in the past, to the point where some creepypasta-devoted websites no longer upload new literature about ol’ Slendy. There’s also the novel Penpal, which started out as a series of creepypastas, and Candle Cove, a story that’s reportedly being adapted to television by the Syfy channel.

Slender Man has been featured in a variety of creepypasta.

Now while the length and quality of creepypastas, like every other type of fiction, vary from one to the other, there are some ways to categorize them:

  • Anecdotes: as far as I can tell, these are the most popular of the creepypasta story form. The narrator(s), often anonymous, talks about a scary legend, a new story, or something from their past. The anecdote stories are often told in the epistolary format, or in the form of a letter or journal entry, though this being an Internet phenomena they’re more often told as blog posts or Reddit threads. They’re certainly my favorite form of the genre.
  • Rituals: As the name suggests, these are things you can do to make something terrifying happen to you or someone you know. Examples include the Midnight Game or Bloody Mary (which I’ve tried on numerous occasions, and I’ve never seen any results). Sometimes these rituals have a short backstory, but they can vary, like with the Bloody Mary game. And as you can guess, these are quite fun at parties.
  • Lost Episodes: This form has kind of fallen out of favor but it has some pretty famous creepypastas. Lost episodes usually describe a missing scene or episode from a famous TV show, usually a comedy or children’s show, that depicts a character acting very strangely and violently, usually ending in that character killing themselves or the other cast members. Often times the episodes, when they are supposedly found, feature strange or distorted audio and video, and occasionally are rumored to cause violent behavior in viewers. As you can guess from the description, these are pretty formulaic and repetitive, which is why they’ve lost popularity, though some are quite well known among creepypasta devotees.

Squidward Tentacles from Spongebob Squarepants has been the subject of a Lost Episode creepypasta. You can probably guess the rest.

As I said above, there are entire websites devoted to the creepypasta genre and droves of fans, some of whom create their own stories and upload them online. What makes this genre so popular? Well, I’m still pretty new to the genre, but I think that there are several factors that may explain this popularity. One is that creepypastas tend to be a bit more extreme than mainstream horror. They’re often accompanied by scary imagery or some other strangeness, and that adds to the creep factor. There’s also the very subject matter of creepypastas: with some stories, you can take elements from them and create your own stories. Slender Man is a character who’s been featured in a variety of media, and plenty of people have made creepypasta based on him. And then there’s the virality of creepypastas: you’re encouraged, by their very nature, to keep sending them around and around the Internet. There’s a certain power in that very concept that’s exciting, and encourages creators as well as readers.

It’s especially interesting when you consider that this is a genre born on the Internet, which has the reputation of having content geared towards people with short attention spans, and also is sometimes considered the gathering place of creators who couldn’t make it in the “real world” (eye roll please?).

Personally, I think creepypastas are quite entertaining. Some of the stories are very good, very creepy, and I enjoy listening to readings of popular creepypasta by YouTube artists. I know some people find them too extreme or that they lead to violent behavior (a subject for another time, not going into it here), but I see it as no different than enjoying a Stephen King story or going to see the latest scary movie. Just a different format with different rules that I would like to learn (though not write; by the very nature of creepypasta, I wouldn’t have as much creative control or make some side income off my work. Maybe I’ll try writing in the style though for a novel someday).

If you’d like to try some creepypasta, here are some good ones I’ve come across. If you check them out, let me know what you think:

Are you a fan of creepypasta? What is it about them that you like or dislike?

What are some creepypastas that you’d recommend trying?