There's some outstanding Creepypasta and there is definitely a lot of dreadful Creepypasta (I'm looking at you, half of the lost episode subgenre). The best Creepypastas have to be the ones that have you looking under your bed at night or noticing every creak in your house. I've been exposed to the horror genre, for so long, that it's hard to really get scared by horror fiction, anymore.
Some Creepypastas are atmospheric, some are straight up gory, and some are both (which are personally my favorites). With
Mister Widemouth, I knew the genre well enough to know what was probably going to be revealed at the end but it still gave me the creeps.
Tulpa,
The Russian Sleep Experiment,
1999,
Candle Cove,
Hands,
12 Minutes,
Pale Luna, and
Where Bad Kids Go made me shiver. To a seasoned horror fan, like myself, that's the ultimate high, equivalent to a roller coaster or a haunted house.
Non-horror fans don't understand that, though. They think anyone who likes the horror genre is weird and can't see it as a coping mechanism. I think reading horror and watching horror can be immensely therapeutic, just don't take it too far. I went to see
It Follows (2014) with my spouse when it first came out and we left the theater feeling bubbly and discussing the movie. The same thing happened when I rewatched
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) with my spouse, in the theater, the Halloween before this last one. It's like Wes Craven said that the horror genre deals with aspects of our lives that are uncomfortable for our rational (ha!) society to cope with.
Quote:
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"It's like boot camp for the psyche. In real life, human beings are packaged in the flimsiest of packages, threatened by real and sometimes horrifying dangers, events like Columbine. But the narrative form puts these fears into a manageable series of events. It gives us a way of thinking rationally about our fears." ~ Wes Craven
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I'm honestly terrified and sickened by real-life and the real horrible things people do to one another in this world, but I use that fear to fuel my own writing. I feel like the best Creepypasta (or let's just say it like it is
horror) authors of today's age and yesterday's age knew that so well.
Quote:
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"I'm not afraid of werewolves or vampires or haunted hotels, I'm afraid of what real human beings do to other real human beings." ~ Walter Jon Williams
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I love horror that is atmospheric and call me cliche, but I love those aha moments at the end of certain stories where the order is restored, but wait, some unchecked realization is mentioned by a character, leading to a twist ending or a pause from the characters. I love the creepy old house, the swaying nocturnal trees, the shadowy monster that is later revealed and is absolutely terrifying, or the lingering danger in the horror genre. Don't get me wrong, gory scenes can be shocking, but my love of the genre started with movies like
An American Werewolf in London (1981),
The Howling (1980),
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and others from the 1980's that had a quality to them that was so visceral and terrifying.
Has anyone read Creepypasta? What are your thoughts on these internet campfire stories? Are they good or are they bad? What is your favorite type of horror? Do you like atmospheric horror, psychological horror, gory horror, or all of the above mixed into one terrifying confection?