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Analog horror is a subgenre of horror fiction and offshoot of the found footage film technique,[1][2][3] often cited as originating online during the late 2000s and early 2010s with popular titles such as No Through Road, Local 58, and Marble Hornets.[3][2][4][5]
Analog horror is commonly characterized by low-fidelity graphics, cryptic messages, and visual styles reminiscent of late 20th-century television and analog recordings.[2][6][7] This is done to match the setting, as analog horror works are typically set between the 1960s and 1990s.[2][6] The name "analog horror" comes from the genre's aesthetic incorporation of elements related to analog electronics, such as analog television and VHS, the latter being an analog method of recording video.[2][6]
Analog horror may also be influenced by found footage horror films, such as The Blair Witch Project and the original Japanese version of The Ring.[2][8] David Lynch's Inland Empire heavily influenced both No Through Road and Petscop,[9][10] the former of which is a short film from which analog horror originates, and the latter of which is a web series rooted in analog horror.[11]
Analog horror could be regarded as a form or descendant of creepypasta legends.[12] Many creepypastas anticipated analog horror's themes and presentation: Ben Drowned and NES Godzilla Creepypasta, among others, featured manipulated or contrived footage of "haunted" media, and Candle Cove, a creepypasta from 2009, focused on a mysterious television broadcast.[13]
The subgenre is typically cited as originating from late 2000s/2010s Internet (mostly YouTube) videos,[4][2] specifically from Steven Chamberlain's No Through Road in January 2009,[3] and gaining substantial popularity with the release of Kris Straub's Local 58 in October 2015, from which series' slogan ("ANALOG HORROR AT 476 MHz") the genre received its name.[2][4] The series, which quickly became successful, would later inspire works such as The Mandela Catalogue and The Walten Files.[2][5] Another YouTube channel, Kraina Grzybów TV, anticipated many main themes of the genre, as in December 2013 it began publishing videos stylized as a TV program from the 1990s that contained disturbing and surreal imagery.
In 2020, Netflix announced that it would adapt the analog horror podcast Archive 81 into a series of the same name.[7][14] Despite its positive reception, the show was canceled after a single season.[15][16]
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Main article: No Through Road |
No Through Road is a YouTube series created by then-seventeen-year-old Steven Chamberlain of Hertfordshire, England, in 2009. Set within the real-world private "no through road" at the entrance of Broomhall Farm, it follows four teenagers driving home at night as they find themselves trapped in a space and time loop, eternally passing the same two road signs marking an intersection between Benington and Watton between miles of liminal space countryside, while threatened by a figure who can manipulate the loop back to an archway at the road's entrance.[17] Other plot aspects include all footage of the events being stolen from MI6 and uploaded online to YouTube.[3]
Composed of four shorts,[18] No Through Road has attained a cult following,[9] and is considered a foundational work of the analog horror genre.[3][19][20]
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Main article: Local 58 |
Kris Straub's Local 58 is a series of YouTube videos presented as authentic videotaped footage of a television station[21] that is continuously hijacked over the course of several decades.[22] While there is no main plot in this series, episodes include messages related to looking at the Moon or the night sky, as well as the in-universe Thought Research Initiative (TRI).[8] Local 58's first video "Weather Service" was published in 2015 as a stand-alone short[23] and then added to the dedicated YouTube channel when it was established in 2017.
Local 58 is frequently credited with creating and/or popularizing analog horror.[4][24][25][23] Additionally, the series is responsible for naming the genre through its slogan, "ANALOG HORROR AT 476 MHz".[8]
CH/SS is a YouTube series that was first released in 2016. It was created by an individual known as Turkey Lenin III, a Singaporean user who was 15 at the time of its first upload.[25] The series starts as various uploads from and about a mental health program sponsored by the United States government. As it progresses, details and mysteries are slowly revealed, alongside additional content provided through MediaFire download links and an accompanying Twitter account.[25]
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Main article: Archive 81 (podcast) |
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Main article: Marble Hornets |
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Main article: Gemini Home Entertainment |
Gemini Home Entertainment is a horror anthology series by Remy Abode that initially released in 2019.[8] It centers around the eponymous Gemini Home Entertainment, a fictional distributor of VHS tapes[21] that detail numerous anomalous incidents taking place around the world,[22] including the appearances of various dangerous alien creatures in the United States and an ongoing assault on the Solar System by "The Iris", a sentient rogue planet which sent the entities to Earth as part of its efforts to subjugate the planet and humanity.[21] The creature of the "Woodcrawler" in the series is heavily inspired by the Native American mythologies of skinwalkers and the wendigo.[26]
The Walten Files is an animated YouTube series, partially inspired by the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise,[27] created by Chilean internet personality Martin Walls.[21] It is presented as found footage from the fictional restaurant Bon's Burgers, which featured animatronic entertainment, and produced by the fictitious Bunny Smiles Incorporated.[8] The story focuses on the backstory of the restaurant and its founders, Jack Walten and Felix Kranken, alongside the many mysteries behind its enigmatic closure and Jack Walten's disappearance.[5]
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See also: The Mandela Catalogue |
The Mandela Catalogue is a YouTube series created by twenty-year-old Alex Kister[21] of Hubertus, Wisconsin in 2021. It is set in the fictional Mandela County, Wisconsin in the 1990s,[22] which is threatened by the presence of "alternates", doppelgängers who coerce their victims to kill themselves and can manipulate audiovisual media.[24] Other plot aspects include Lucifer disguising himself as the biblical archangel Gabriel.[28] Composed of twelve shorts,[29] The Mandela Catalogue became popular online through analysis and reaction videos.[24]
The Smile Tapes (stylized as The SMILE Tapes) is an analog horror series created by Patorikku in 2021. The story is set in the mid-1990s in the United States and revolves around a fictitious new drug in circulation on the black market called "SMILE". Usage of the drug induces violent behavior in its users and causes them to laugh and smile uncontrollably. As the series progresses, SMILE is revealed to actually be the spores of an extraterrestrial fungus-like organism native to the asteroid belt. The series was inspired by the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a fungus species known for infecting and altering the behavior of ants.[2][8]
The Monument Mythos (sometimes stylized as "THE MONUMENT MYTHOS") is a pseudo-analog horror, alternate history webseries created by Alex Casanas, or his pseudonym "MISTER MANTICORE". The series is split into three "universes". The primary universe is the Deanverse, where American actor James Dean is the 37th president of the United States, making many important decisions. In the end, the Earth is destroyed following a catastrophic event known as the "Great Division", leaving few survivors. The events that led up to the Great Division are documented by "Cthonaut A", and released into YouTube under the pseudonym of "MISTER MANTICORE". The second universe is "The Nixonverse", in which Richard Nixon, from the Deanverse, is transported to this universe, obtains godly powers, and creates three beings in his essence. After Nixon learns that society is cruel and unjust, he "fictionalizes" the universe, turning the Nixonverse into a YouTube series. The third universe is the "Montyverse", where American actor Montgomery Clift runs as president with James Dean as his vice president, a major event leading to the Great Division is undone, and an interplanetary threat is stopped, saving the Earth.[21][8]
Midwest Angelica is a YouTube horror series published in 2022 by the channel MidwestAngelica. The story takes place in 1999, when a government organization called H.O.M.E (Heavenly Operation Material Examination) make the discovery of a malicious extra-terrestrial being, codenamed "AZ-001", which flies into the Earth's atmosphere.[30][21]
In January 2022, a short horror film titled The Backrooms (Found Footage) was uploaded to YouTube by then-sixteen-year-old Kane Parsons of Northern California, known online as Kane Pixels.[21] It is based on the creepypasta of the same name, using the software Blender and Adobe After Effects,[5][7][31][32] and is presented as a VHS tape recorded by a filmmaker who accidentally enters the Backrooms in the 1990s and is pursued by a monster.[33][34] This was later expanded into a series of sixteen shorts, following the employees of a company investigating the Backrooms.[35] Parsons received a Creator Honors for the series at the 2022 Streamy Awards from The Game Theorists.[36]
After receiving positive reviews from critics,[37][38][39] on February 6, 2023, A24 announced that they were working on a film adaptation of the Backrooms based on Parsons' videos, with Parsons set to direct the summer of his eighteenth birthday. Roberto Patino is set to write the screenplay, while James Wan, Michael Clear from Atomic Monster, Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen, and Dan Levine of 21 Laps are set to produce.[33][35][40][41]
