As a veteran of what we now call the “old internet,” I remember a time when the scariest media you could find online consisted of seemingly innocent image macros containing sinister details lurking in the background. Known as “mindf*ck” images, half the fun of sharing these spooky memes was the anticipation of finding whatever poorly photoshopped demon face that awaited you in the dark.
Years later, I still find myself fascinated by hidden horrors and I’m clearly not the only one – as we can see by the success of films like Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs, which features its own set of demonic background scares. And in honor of this specific kind of subliminal fright, we’ve decided to come up with a list celebrating six of the freakiest hidden scares in film.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be classifying “hidden horrors” as any easily missable background scare that isn’t necessarily meant to be caught during your first viewing. And while we’ll only be discussing movies today, I’d also like to give a shout-out to Mike Flanagan’s excellent The Haunting of Hill House series, which features some of the best subtle scares in the genre.
As usual, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite hidden frights if you think we missed a particularly spooky one.
With that out of the way, onto the list…
6. Early Crawler Reveals – The Descent (2009)
Spelunking is already terrifying enough even without the presence of flesh-eating humanoids adapted to living in the cavernous dark, so it makes sense that Neil Marshall’s claustrophobic thriller about a group of women trapped in an ancient cave system is often hailed as one of the scariest movies of all time.
However, among Marshall’s varied bag of cinematic tricks is his decision to use the dark itself to obscure terrifying details that only eagle-eyed viewers will be capable of noticing. Case in point: a lot of hardcore fans don’t realize that we’re introduced to the film’s Crawlers almost as soon as the leading ladies enter their titular descent, though these “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” appearances are initially limited to silhouettes and shifting limbs in the shadows.
5. The Faces – Midsommar (2018)
From wall-crawling mothers to subliminal demonology, Ari Aster’s Hereditary already had its fair share of unsettling background scares, but the director’s next film would take hidden horror one step further with the use of nearly imperceptible faces that were seamlessly blended into the background of several scenes.
Through pareidolia (our species’ natural tendency to recognize familiar facial patterns among random imagery), these faces were meant to evoke a sense of subliminal unease while also hinting at the true (possibly paranormal) nature of the film’s events – as well as Dani and her family’s possible involvement with the Swedish cult.
4. The Witches – The Lords of Salem (2012)
Despite having repeatedly stated that his dream project is a hockey biopic about the Philadelphia Flyers, rocker-turned-filmmaker Rob Zombie has developed an inaccurate reputation as a predictable director who can only tell stories about foul-mouthed redneck murderers. Thankfully, Zombie got the chance to make at least a couple of movies that broke the Firefly Family mold, and the best of these has to be his supernatural spook-fest, The Lords of Salem.
A decidedly more cerebral and surprisingly subdued project than any of the director’s other endeavors (including his underrated fable about survivor’s guilt, Halloween 2), LoS also benefits from a disturbing collection of silent jump scares as the witches stalk and taunt our troubled protagonist from the shadows of her own home – often hiding in the corner of seemingly innocuous shots.
Regardless of what you think about the rest of the film, you’ve got to admit that this is Zombie’s scariest film to date.
3. Background Spirals – Uzumaki (2000)
It may not be remembered as one of the J-Horror greats (mostly due to the inherent difficulty of translating stylized imagery to live-action), but Higuchinsky’s adaptation of Uzumaki is still one hell of a creepy ride. Telling the story of a town that becomes infected by supernatural spirals, the film also makes use of subliminal patterns in order to immerse viewers in the same madness as its ill-fated characters.
Several times throughout the experience, the background imagery will subtly shift into a spiral shape without calling much attention to itself, with these transformations often being accompanied by the ghostly faces of the curse’s previous victims. The CGI isn’t always convincing, but I appreciate the eerie attention to detail here.
2. Mr. Pipes – Ghostwatch (1992)
A simulated live broadcast, Stephen Volk’s subversive mockumentary is still influencing horror media to this very day. From the WNUF Halloween Special to Late Night with the Devil, countless films have attempted to recapture the nostalgic horror of tuning into supposedly cursed programming, but very few have achieved the same level of believability as this surprisingly well-crafted hoax.
In fact, keeping with the grounded approach, many of the film’s scares are actually hidden deep in the background – with the most disturbing examples involving the cheekily named poltergeist, Mr. Pipes. While in-universe viewers eventually call into the show to report that they’ve seen Pipes lurking in the footage, Ghostwatch never spoils the phantom’s eerie appearances, allowing you to look for these frights at your own risk.
1. Alice’s Real Ghost – Lake Mungo (2008)
A masterclass in both misdirection and slow-burn Found Footage, there are plenty of reasons to love Joel Anderson’s Lake Mungo. However, despite the film’s many qualities, I think what really makes this Australian gem stand out is the fact that it remains an exceedingly rare example of hidden horror being used as a narrative tool.
I won’t be going into detail about the flick’s layered use of barely visible apparitions (it’d be a shame to spoil the experience for those who haven’t yet seen the film) but suffice to say that Lake Mungo’s chilling finale will leave you second-guessing nearly every frame of the experience preceding it.
Not bad for the most low-budget film on this list!