Horror in Impossible Places: Liminal Spaces and The Backrooms
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- čas přidán 31. 10. 2022
- Liminal Spaces and The Backrooms are kind of spooky.
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Sources:
aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Li...
(i know generally .fandoms arnt the most reliable resource, but it has a pretty good break down of what liminality “is”)
Everything Must Go: Visiting the Last Blockbuster Video Stores:
airshipdaily.com/blog/01092014...
Andrews, Hazel; Roberts, Les (2015). "Liminality". International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. pp. 131-137. doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.12102-6. ISBN 978-0-08-097087-5.
Taheri, Babak; Gori, Keith; O’Gorman, Kevin; Hogg, Gillian; Farrington, Thomas (2 January 2016). "Experiential liminoid consumption: the case of nightclubbing"
www.verywellmind.com/the-impa...
www.betterhelp.com/advice/gen...
www.forbes.com/health/mind/wh...
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
sabukaru.online/articles/limi...
www.zacharyfruhling.com/philo...
museemagazine.com/features/20...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/...
www.boredpanda.com/liminal-sp...
www.newyorker.com/culture/rab...
blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/outside... - Krátké a kreslené filmy
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Yo, I love ur videos!
no, i luv u
No you don't
Sir. I will pay to have your videos' audio mastered if that is what it takes. It bums me out that your vids are always just slightly too low on the dB scale! You put amazing music and work into your vids, I know I'm not the only one who has trouble hearing without installing audio boosters or using Bluetooth speakers just to hear the video without needing captions. Love you man, please keep it up!
Wuv you too Monsieur eyepatch
After only two minutes in I've come to the conclusion that Wolf is just terrified of being alive.
It does get a bit unbearable sometimes.
I mean really sit down and think about consciousness. We have the ability to know we are thinking... and that is terrifying.
@@kid14346 and I wouldn’t want it any other way
that's called anxiety and he's not the only one tbh
Who isn't?
As someone who frequents dark and secluded areas I can tell you one thing:
It doesn’t matter how dark, scary or secluded an area is. Aslong as it it outdoors you have a possibility of meeting someone walking their dog.
Lmao it really ruins the creepy vibes
who the hell just says stuff like "as someone who frequents dark and secluded areas"
@@arcade3198 Your mom, kiddo.
bruh
@@arcade3198 Vampires, clearly.
House of Leaves is what happens when you add a picture to a word document
I think there is truly no horror greater than seeing something, immediately thinking "Something here is not right; something is wrong," knowing for absolute certain that it's the truth, and never being able to tell what it is.
There's a Steven King quote about how terror is coming home to realize that everything in your house has been taken away and replaced with exact copies. I think that encapsulates what you're talking about pretty well.
@@Parmesan_Seeker That's a excellent connection. I can't help but think about how this quote could be referring to you. That someday you come home and realize that the you that is standing here is not the one who bought this house. The liminality is not the space, but you. In that moment, you feel the disconnect of self, that who you are is not who you once were, and not who you will be. You are forever in a state of flux, of liminality.
or never having true confirmation. like when you think a jump scare is coming but nothing comes but at any moment it still could come.
Horror that exists in the subconscious is a powerful force. We don't know what or why but we feel something isn't right. That small bit of uncertainty is all that's required to let your mind wander to dark and disturbing places.
Just like the real world
My favorite Wolf-ism is when he...starts to...space...out, and...nervously...punctuate(?) Different words...before....returning to his normal, articulate self.
He speaks like House of Leaves is printed.
@@NotMeButAnother God i still need to read that fuckin' book.
I own it. I've owned it for 3 years, since Raycevick recommended it, but... Brainfog.
Same
Imagine Wolf being your best man and giving a speech on your wedding.
I like it when he starts talking, and then suddenly it's like his punctuation changes and he gets sO EXCITED OR TERRIFIED THAT HE STARTS SCREAMING AND THEN,
he stops,
And whispers
Man-made empty spaces (like abandoned buildings) provoke a feeling that natural empty spaces (like pristine forests) do not because they trigger two alarms in our brains simultaneously: the one that says "there should be people here" and one that says "there are no people here." The discrepancy in what we expect vs what we observe naturally inspires a feeling that something has gone horribly wrong.
This coment looks like something out of Stephen King
However being alone in a forest would also make us fearful just the same. I think it's because of being alone and being small and helpless in an environment that is much, much bigger than us
@syeda rizvi horror but with tense atmosphere. Scarier than jumpscares
@@kyrohowe3156 Yes indeed I agree. It's the feeling of being helpless that is truly scary. If you ever want to be super scared watch a Korean drama called "Strangers from Hell'' it's also known as "Hell is other people" one actor is Lee Dong Wook. It's the scariest thing I have ever seen,
@@syedarizvi7290 being alone in a deep forest would be frightening, it would be an entirely different type of fear.
The fear in the face of the unfeeling grandeur of nature is a simple, recognisable fear that can be exhilarating, in a way.
An unoccupied artificial space feels dangerous in a different way. It is sick, somehow. Something in reality has malfunctioned and you are alone in a place where you should not be alone.
In the forest you are alone in a place that deserves to exist. It asserts its existence aggressively and unapologetically, and warns you that you are not necessarily more deserving of existence than the location. A liminal space does not deserve to exist, probably should not exist, and might not exist at all. The forest exists ferociously and threatens to assert its existence over yours. The liminal space denies its own existence and, as you are within it, denies your existence too.
This video is like the phrase "there's a skeleton inside of you!", but reversed. Never been so afraid of my house's walls.
“There are walls that only serve as a transitional space around you!”
Technically, there isn't a skeleton inside you.
Your main consciousness is your brain.
You are inside a skeleton.
@@torazely OH GOD YOU'RE RIGHT!
You definitely shouldn't look into Anatomy by Kitty Horrorshow (but you definitely should, it just might make you fear your house more, or make you want to take care of it better...)
Also Jacob Geller's video "Control, Anatomy, and the Legacy of the Haunted House." And, while we're at it, his video "The Shape of Infinity")
(edit: I made this comment before getting to the segment about House of Leaves, which, really, makes that first video I mentioned even more pertinent of a mention...)
@@Rabbit_Hillthanks for the suggestions
Didn't expect House of Leaves to make an appearance. That is the only book that has physically affected me. I read HoL during the loneliest time of my life, my junior year of college. This book literally created a liminal space around me. I remember reading the appendices (I mean READING them) in a crowded cafeteria and feeling utterly alone and as if there was perfect fuzzy silence, and retching, only to snap to my senses and awkwardly pretend I had choked on my food so the people around me would stop staring.
I was at home in bed reading a certain section that LITERALLY spoke to me, and convinced my lizard brain that I was about to die painfully, in that moment, reading that book.
It is very engaging, and leads you into a liminal perspective that can reach out past the scope of the pages and into your life. It is very nearly a cognitohazard.
10/10 would recommend.
Book is overrated garbage
@@MasDouccan you tell me why? I'm considering reading it.
@@Its_Not_SuspiciousIt’s a contrarian with no backing argument.
@@MasDouc"I dislike a popular thing and it makes me mad that other people like it so I'll just say it's bad in an insulting way because making people who disagree with me upset as well is cathartic."
Like, you had the option to articulate a nuanced alternative opinion, which shouldn't be hard given that there is plenty to dislike about House of Leaves, but you didn't. Lazy.
I first heard about HoL when I took an introductory Uni course in grade 11, I had the most wonderful tutorial teacher who introduced me to some incredibly influential reads, 'The Laugh of the Medusa,' '100 Days of Sodom,' 'How To Be An Other Woman,' 'Things Fall Apart' and '100 Years of Solitude'.' I think it's time to take her up on her recommendation.
I think that the entire concept of entities is, or should be, the thought of what COULD be lurking around. But when you have an actual monster, it becomes way less mysterious.
Yeah, I really hate what kids have done to the backrooms. It began as a terrifying concept, then everyone tried to thrust their own edgelord creation into it, until it metastasized into the thoroughly cringe, very silly thing it is now.
@@WobblesandBean Yeah, the only monsters in the backrooms should be the monster we all know and love. The human mind
@@WobblesandBean i dont really like this idea imo, as john states in the video, i think even if the backrooms have somewhat been "ruined" by these creations, the outcome is that many teenagers have found the courage and passion to create new and interesting content once they watched kane pixels video. the idea that this 16-year old kid was able to make such a terrifying and cool video probably got a lot of same aged teenagers to pick up and learn in order to do the same thing. i think that result is far more rewarding imo and overshadows the unfortunate result of the concept of the backrooms being muddied. is it a little cringe? yea i guess, but i genuinely feel a lot of passion and love when these videos are made and i always value that over some abstract concept of horror that was "ruined".
2:29 I REALIZE
@@controlcon i think it's fine if it's the prompt they need to start developing as creators. But somehow I feel they really won't. It's a specific feeling I get about fanbases where I get a strong inkling they will be either a chill place to explore the facet of one's personality that draws them to the thing or just the newest self ID thing. And it's very much feeling like the latter.
I feel like of all of the people on CZcams, SuperEyepatchWolf has to be one of the most likely to have actually visited the backrooms
Why is this so accurate?
Dude, he's like _from_ the backrooms. Probably just spawned there at some point and occasionally ventures into normal reality to screw with people's heads
Oh yeah, totally
Nah, I'd say Nick Robinson is more likely to do ir
Are we talking metaphorical, cause then it was definitely the Garfield video
Doom's MyHouse is definitely the best execution of the 'backrooms' meme I've seen. I think it benefits from being less inspired by the creepypasta land, and more from atmospheric experiences like Yume Nikki.
it's also about the best house of leaves adaptation one could hope to make imo, especially for someone who knows doom well enough to have the Rules of the game mechanics embedded in their brain
'The Remains of Edith Finch' is one of many examples of how liminal spaces can be comforting or creepy especially when all of the bedrooms belong to the dead.
What remains of Edith Finch is one of my favorite games, despite never actually playing it. It's a wonderful story that deserves more attention, in my opinion. The way you see through the eyes of the characters and pick up inklings of their personalities is so cool. I end up loving them, despite them all being dead. And the different styles and music just...it's a masterpiece.
I have yet to explore The Unfinished Swan. XD
The backrooms make me think of a mimic predator - like the entire space is trying to invite us in by copying something familiar but it doesn’t quite get it right. An entire universe that snatches its prey and keeps it in a waiting room until it is digested
Sounds like an SCP and I like it
@@alepenagorbe9135 scp kids be gone yall ruined the concept by adding an organization, classifications and monsters to the wiki
Reminds me of Dead by Daylight.
@@solarflare3382 Uh, how about you stop being wrong though?
The S.C.P. format is its own thing, and the Backrooms wiki copied it and did so poorly.
Don't compare the original to the cheap knockoff like they're on the same level, and don't tell S.C.P. readers not to mention their favorite wiki when an applicable concept gets brought up.
@@pleasegoawaydude i agree. I wish scp kids didnt copy their format onto the backrooms wiki.
I work as a private EMT on night shift and recently my partner and I got lost in the lower levels of a hospital we rarely go to and it was the most viscerally liminal experience I’ve ever had. Pushing the empty stretcher around winding empty hallways looking for where we were supposed to be I had this fear of letting go of the stretcher or wandering too far like I was on the cusp of being turning the corner and never finding my way back. When we finally got back to the elevator my partner was like thank god that some terrifying liminal space shit and I was so relieved he’d felt it too.
I also had a very liminal experience in a hospital underground, but this time as a patient. Last year, I had to be transferred from the ER to another part of the hospital as I got admitted for what turned out to be a two weeks stay, and in this hospital, instead of going outside to go from one building to another, they used an underground passage.
Mind you, I wasn’t entirely conscious at the time due to being in a lot of pain and high on morphine (I’m alright now), but seeing the long halls, with many intersections and very little signs telling where we were going, dimly lit only by artificial lights, and the obviously very old green paint on the walls gave me such an eerie feeling I don’t think I’ll ever forget. I don’t think I was scared (I was being pushed around by someone who very obviously knew where to go), but during the few minutes I was down there, I got completely disoriented in that repetitive pattern, with no one aside from my caretaker and me. I think that was the most liminal experience I’ve ever lived.
I had this a while ago but as a patient in an unfamiliar hospital in the wee hours of the morning. I was told to head to a different department but the signage was poor, and the empty hallways combined with my sleep deprivation made it a memorable, though not pleasant, experience.
When i was a kid my mother used to do nightshifts alone in a nursery. A couple times i could accompany her and stay the night there. I would roam around the hallways and outside. I had no concept of this back then and thinking back it never bothered me, it was more like an adventure. This whole thing is like kids watching "IT" and suddenly afraid of all clowns. Its so present in peoples heads that it changes their perception. Your buddies reaction says it all
the hospital at night is a very liminal space. i was in the hospital just as often as not as a kid and wow, you've just made me realize how otherworldly and unreal those spaces felt, even when i saw other people...
Recently, my brother and I went to the hospital in the early morning, to meet our mother before an operation. (For the record: surgery was successful, indeed more successful than it had any right to, and she's recovering well at home). Having arrived at an arbitrary entrance, for we followed the signs where they lead, we had a great deal of trouble locating the pre-op waiting room. The place was nearly empty, at that hour, and with rather poor navigational tools in the hospital itself, we couldn't find our way for many minutes. Just marching, in silence and emptiness, through that most liminal of spaces: a building designed to act as the gateway between sickness and health, life and death.
Eventually, thru messaging our sister (who was already with our mother), we had to backtrack to our original parking garage and go to a different entrance entirely. The place was laid out like a maze, I swear.
There is a video game called "The Elevator". It's a personality quiz with multiple endings, almost all of them ending in some kind of never-ending, dull, repetitive hell the player goes through. I saw a playthough of this game when I was in fourth grade, and it has been my greatest fear ever since. Whenever I'm asked my greatest fear, I respond with "The concept of eternity". A hell that lasts not untill death, but until the end of time itself. People think the fear is stupid, but at least now I have a bit more understanding of it. Thank you.
I‘m so sorry but I just couldn’t help but laugh because that experience you described in the beginning reminded me just so much of the Rock Bottom episode of SpongeBob
I believe it was it actually. Wolf likes to tell fake stories from the childhood like this
The topic of abandoning places we inhabited hit me hard. We just finished renovating my late grandmother's apartment, she bought it on the day the building was finished and had spent almost her entire adult life there. In just 2 weeks of work, the entire thing is a blank slate. It already looks like nobody has ever lived there.
It touches on our fear of being forgotten. Deep down when we die we want to be remembered but here is the thing memory is a fleeting thing, so we turn to permanence through art and structure. But that to fades through time, theough destruction reconstruction life simply moving forward in the endless march towards the infinite. And we get to be punished by being conscious enough to understand how impossibly small we are and how colossal the task would be for us to be remembered, I think that's what eyepatch has stumbled upon and hes trying to rationalize it though his videos
Jacob Geller's video on Anatomy and haunted houses got me fucked up in a way I didn't expect it to, and this is hitting a lot of the same notes for me. It's a sorrowful horror
@@twinphalanx4465 beep boop, i poop
I feel you, it's weirdly surreal
Also: apartment*
@@twinphalanx4465 "I am Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair."
I love how the Backrooms Community represents such a human reaction to emptiness. They saw the overwhelming emptiness of the backrooms and instead of being overwhelmed by the emptiness, the were overwhelmed by *what might fill it*.
There are two types of people I guess.
Eh, in my opinion that approach takes away from the original creepy factor. The backrooms community has basically turned into a low rent SCP community
I feel like it was reverse. People saw the overwhelming emptiness and because of it they felt like it had to be filled to not be as scary...but i guess that could be just one of interpretations
@@ileutur6863 Yeah, The Backrooms wikis are a good example of what happens when you have an SCP style wiki with very little to no content moderation or even a general interest in coherency.
@@ileutur6863 i mean to be fair didnt the original 4chan post literally CONFIRM that entities exist, "if you hear something it sure as hell heard you"
@@nuggetgod2618 "If" it's there. There's no confirmation, it's just an unsettling suggestion.
I think the horror of liminal spaces is that feeling you're moving thorough a maze for quite a long time, and a thought for just but a moment occurs that "what if there's no exit?". That small moment before the progressive panic starts, that's it.
the best horror liminal video i've ever watched didn't have any monsters, it was just someone, in increasing panic, exploring one of these half flooded spaces, until they realized, completely non verbally, that they were hopelessly lost, and can't even reach the area they were before anymore.
Eyepatch Wolf: “the dream pools aren’t real”
Me, an architect: “Not if I can help it”
WHY WOULD YOU TEMPT THAT SHIT!?
I want the dream pools to be real so bad
If you made it, I would pay to go there. It looks like a beautiful, relaxing place. I'd love to spend a day unwinding there.
@ceinwenchandler4716
Hopefully they don't re-create the horrors
Seriously we need to make the poolrooms irl, even if only a small portion
The opening anecdote is a good example of why I never got the allure of back room “layers”, since the whole point of the horror in my mind is a space where nothing changes, no matter how far into it you move, a yawning abyss of exacting similarity.
braindead artsy people didn't get the horror. Simplicity is what makes a lot of these creepypastas work. The same thing happened to SCP, the holders and other image board horror.
That's the thing, I find other layers of the backrooms interesting, but I think it would be much better if instead of layers, these different environments just kind of seamlessly blends together. Maybe you start in the yellow room with the moldy carpets, and slowly the spaces get narrower, cluttered with pipes sticking out of the floor, and eventually the texture of the wall changes. Maybe that slowly evolves into strangely placed tiles, the smell of chlorine, and stagnant pools of water until you're in the dream pools, etc. Connections that serve no obvious purpose, and seem more like growths than any sort of intentional design.
I think it's less the change that's the problem, but the fact that this change has structure to it in the form of neatly divided layers. If this change was to be just as seemingly arbitrary and out of place as everything else, I think it would work a lot better as a concept.
I hate what the internet and crappypasta children have done to the Backrooms. It was a place where there was nobody, nothing, and just you. A place you shouldn't be in that you accidentally fell into just living your normal, every day life. And now you're completely alone, your only companions being the hum of the old lights and the odor of old carpet. And that's the way it'll stay.
Now it's full of men in plastic suits, various cheesy monsters, and has become its own little self-contained universe akin to that of SCP. It's garbage and I hate it.
@@pennyforyourthots when water dreams of liminal spaces, it's all just empty pipes
Not only that, the horror explicitly comes from something breaking that mundainity but never being sure if and when that'll happen. Outright taking the "if" and leaving the "when" breaks that and turns it from horror into survival and survival ultimately turns into routine where once you get the yist of it all horror is drained. Which is why most horror games like FNAF or Poppys Playtime to me stop being scary half way through, once you get used to the mechanics and patterns, even the jumpscares are predictable once en you know where and when you fucked up
As a scandinavian, those old paintings do actually have nostalgic comfort for me lol, even more so than the more modern stuff. It really feels like places you find in the scandinavian countryside that used to be estates for rich people but are now either museums or rentable locations for family gatherings or wedding parties or whatever lol.
I was looking for a comment like yours. Thanks for writing it out for me! I think those pictures felt the most liminal to me.
as a non Scandinavian, can you do a back flip?
@@222047 no. :-(
as a fellow Scandinavian, especially the first painting shown triggered something. I do truly feel like I have been in that place at a grandparents or something else and its fascinating especially when many other liminal spaces feel much more "American"
So glad you talk about House of Leaves! I devoured this book over the course of a week in July 2012 and it was horrifying. I remember being completely sucked into it and being unable to put it down. I've raved about it to a few friends and each of them was like 'What's it about?' I couldn't tell them. It's so hard to describe what's going on in the book and, it's always unsettled me that the experience of the book has completely settled in my brain, seemingly forever - but I have no recollection of what happens. It freaks me out.
"What's it about?"
"Existential horror about mundane things in your environment being WRONG, and progressively becoming more WRONG as you attempt to investigate them, culminating in the WRONGNESS becoming pervasive and inescapable. And that's just, like, the first quarter of the book.
The lore based backrooms can exist, just don't inject random entities into every aspect of it. The horror should not build up and then end at a cheap jumpscare, but instead linger and drive you insane over the course of eternity. Making you understand that you are truly trapped forever in infinite monotony.
thats exactly why I hate the backrooms as it is now, theres always a monster on every floor, its always catalogued and always has obvious behaviors and rules associated with it
that isnt horror, thats a thriller (at least to me)
@@itsClaptrap I'd call the empty version of the backrooms psychological horror/suspense rather than plain horror...but yeah the oversaturation of monsters does really alter the core feeling
Exactly. The backrooms are very similar to white room torture. Play with the psychological horror. At the very least, make these monsters hallucinations of a psyche gone mad.
@@urphakeandgey6308 sorta like amnesia where the monsters only show up when you lose your sanity. (It's been a while since I played it but that was what happens right?)
This is why I like horror games with constantly changing environments, like Hektor or Layers of Fear. Getting lost in a map that doesn't make sense, where every time you turn around you're in a different place.
The satisfying feeling of Super Eyepatch Wolf uploading
I literally gasped when I saw the title and thumbnail. I was like oh frick ya
Fr. Bro uploads like once a month, but the vids are ultra high quality.
It’s like getting a nice haircut.
True
I WAS GONNA SAY THAT
33:26 bride kidnappings became a tradition in my country. When the groom isn't paying attention, some family members "kidnap" the bride from the wedding to some pub where they drink beer and shots and the groom has to find them and pay the bill. So when it takes him a long time, he's paying a lot.
Holy shit dude. I think this video literally made me have a mental health breakthrough. I just graduated college and haven’t been able to find a job. I’m in a transitionary time, and that has caused me to lash out and become angry and sad. It’s the fear that this will never end, and that not true. Your line of that sometimes just existing is okay really spoke to me. Like seriously dude thank you. This is exactly the stuff I needed to hear right now.
House of Leaves is the first book to legitimately terrify me. It's so subtle in its actual horror, letting the gaps and spaces in between act as the "monster" and leaving you to create your own fear. I've been working in publishing for a few years now and I've come to appreciate the absolute mastery in creating a book like this, and just what a phenomenal piece of horror fiction it really is.
Yeah, surprised he didn't mention Poe's Haunted album. Both works stand alone but there was an intention to compliment each other. The song 5 & 1/2 minute hallway is probably the most obvious work. The location isn't liminal on it's own but the feelings we cast on it.
@@Lilnaomi3 Shout out to Poe, who never really got her due. Haunted is such a beautiful album dealing with love and loss (just as HoL came from) and I wish more people knew about it
Discovering and unraveling House of Leaves and finding and listening to Poe's Album was such a memorable experience and both still help me come to terms with a lot of aspects of my life. They feel intimate and fittingly haunting
“No one could make a movie out of House of Leaves”
David Lynch: “Hold my PBR”
@@derekmatzek9551 Would there be golden sunshine all along the way?
I think understanding liminal spaces is the closest way to describe what dissociating/panic attacks feel like to a person that has never experienced it
Do you mean DID? How does it relate? Genuinely curious to know.
No
@@antoniopereiraneves2009 DID and Dissociating are not the same, in simple terms it's kinda like being separate from your mind for a while. Nothing feels real, at least in my experience your body feels almost alien to you
@@marcooosbibendorsht1334 Oh, i get that. It happens to me if I stare into a mirror for too long.
This really doesn't apply to everyone, I dissociate and empty liminal-ish spaces are some of my biggest comforts.
I really like that you mention how liminal spaces can also bring a deep feeling of comfort, aside from creeping you out a little. It’s a feeling I can’t quite explain, and don’t feel with anything else, but it’s a very nostalgic comfort that can only co-exist alongside the confusion and uneasiness
House of Leaves was written by the brother of the musician Anne Decatur Danielewski also known as Poe. Her album Haunted is a companion to House of Leaves. It even includes a track named 5 1/2 Minute Hallway.
It’s definitely worth a listen.
I'm intrigued.
Another fascinating aspect of the dream pools is the stillness of the water. Almost surreal since by design, people almost never see a public pool filled with completely still water. Every time I was at a public pool as a child, and was the last to leave, whenever I glanced back at that completely still water it filled me with a dreamlike, uncanny sense of how fleeting that stillness was.
They need a damned filter running... Regardless of how private the pools are.
@@PirateJohnson I really can just speak on what I experienced myself, but I never saw a filter which is near the bottom of the pool move the water surface
CannonballDookie challenge begins.
For me the most terrifying thing about a liminal space like the backrooms or the dream pools is the idea that you aren't alone. Hearing a random thump or a distant splash would immediately send me into a paranoid spiral
completely agree
thats why the backroom monsters are kinda silly to me, because once you see something swimming towards you or a monster running up to you, it changes from a creeping horror to fight or flight adrenaline. Many horror writers assume that just because they make something that excludes the fight response, its horror
@@Maric18 an ancient additive of horror on film is "don't show the monster" i wish so dearly that more internet horror would get that.
@@jjju3 i completely support that
its why i oppose giving the truly scary monsters statblocks in DnD
a dragon should have a statblock, but some sort of horror monster becomes less scary even if the stats are super op
I spent a bit of time thinking about this in the context of games. In some horror games, the monster is the other shoe dropping, the release of tension, the transition from purple back to pink. If the tension keeps rising without release, the sense of discomfort and unease can give way to frustration and annoyance, which you don't really want. Plus, having random thumps and distant splashes would only go so far, without them being attached to something that stalks the halls.
With that said, perhaps the "threat" of a liminal/Backroomsy kind of game should be less something that actively tries to run up and kill you, but instead more of a voyeuristic presence, perhaps something that causes you "harm" just by being nearby. It tries to stay close to you, yet never draws close enough to reach out and touch you. But its presence is indeed harmful, in some way, shape or form. It doesn't NEED to run up and claw you in order to cause you harm; it just needs to stay in that sweet spot between the other side of the room and just around the next corner, while its inimical aura wears away at your existential needs.
It may run off if you try to confront it, making it hesitant to pursue you for a while, but it might also just stare you down as you stand too close to it, as its winnowing presence is magnified by you daring to stand too close to it. Even throwing a punch might not give you the cathartic payoff of bloodying the stalker's nose instead of simply running away (you would be able to punch and kick, so running and hiding WOULD be an option instead of mere dominant strategy), for if you're too weak from hunger or thirst, searing heat or biting cold, physical exhaustion, emotional fatigue, or contracting something nasty from something uncleanly, it might just catch your punch, softly push you back, and smile warmly as it finds your struggle so endearing as you stumble away.
That in mind, while survival elements could help elevate the dread and horror of being stuck in a liminal space (even if you can't die from hunger or thirst, you'd still lose the strength to move at all, which would probably be WORSE than death), stuff like hunger, thirst and fatigue shouldn't become problems at an unrealistic rate, since in some survival games your meters deplete way quicker than they are supposed to IRL. If anything, they should be things that you attend to after several actual hours, where if you start a 2-3 hour session with a full stomach, you'll only get peckish near the end of your session. They should be a long-term existential concern, for the most part. At least until you get stalked by something so dry that, long before you catch a glimpse of it, you will know its presence by how inexplicably dry your throat feels. THEN you'll be chugging water bottles in order to stay alive, trying to get the Dessicated One off your tail.
Additionally, to make the survival elements work, the liminal spaces would need to have resources of some description, for the presence of something can make you lament its absence all the more. You might be exploring a frigid office, only for the bloop of a water cooler to bring joy to your heart as you've been walking around with empty bottles and a parched throat. You might stumble into a dead mall, having not eaten in days, only to find a Cap'n McGrille inexplicably open, with a wrapped burger sitting in the hot-hold area. You might be checking an empty hotel where all the doors are painted onto the walls, only to find a door that is both real AND unlocked, and you find a cozy bed where you can get some much-needed rest.
You might also be wary of such strange fortunes, since why would there be a freshly cooked burger waiting for you in an empty mall? The water cooler's water might be too cold to drink in such a frigid environment. And if you aren't careful about sleeping in that hotel room, you might never wake up, for the Sleep Paralysis Demon might simply walk in through the main door and stand by your bedside, watching you waste away in your sleep... But even if such strange fortunes might hide a strange danger, you'd still have ways of circumventing their dangers. You'd be able to check the burger and see if there's anything strange about the garnishes. You'd be able to bottle the water for later, and find some way to warm it up. You'd be able to barricade the entrances to the hotel room, ensuring that the SPD will have to wait until tomorrow for another chance to people-watch.
This theoretical game would have certain tenets of survival horror, but with more of a focus on survival and exploration than active conflict. It'd have multiple stalkers roaming the liminal world, but they wouldn't necessarily be "tethered" to you like the Alien from Alien: Isolation. If anything, while they would normally roam according to their own whimsy, they'd be inclined to look for traces that you've left behind, like footprints if you've had to walk through something unclean, or the skin oil left on trash items that you've had to leave behind because you needed space for something else, or maybe even just the smells left by an unwashed human who hasn't found the laundromat/bathhouse yet.
For me it's the idea that you *are* alone. Just you and the space.
Your story in the beginning is a perfect description of liminal horror. The feeling of eternity when one is still in a quiet, empty place. In an office. In a school. In a hall. On a lonely road at a dim hour. On a path. Places where there is no where TO get lost because its a connection between places... But what if you are lost? What if you've gone somewhere no one else has been or will be in years, and you don't come back? Effectively, you are dead without dying.
The horror of holding still is something that makes my palms sweat just thinking on it.
I have an experience of my own to share. When I was 16 I partipated in the student exchange program via my language class in highschool to go to Germany for 3 weeks and be hosted by a kid my age and her family.
Highschool graduates at 10th grade in Greisheim. So our host kids were celebrating graduation. One of the... Unofficial activities was meeting up at the elementary school playground with a bunch of booze, a couple of lights, some music, and hanging out well past sun down. It was a neat little party! I had fun, since drink, dance, and laughter read well in most languages.
And then someone on the edge of the party started shouting. I didn't hear them but the lights went out. Everyone was scattering. I didn't know where Eva, my host, was. The person who shouted was closer to the main group, still yelling
"Polizi! Polizi!"
The police had shown up, and everyone was scattering. I knew *generally* how to get back to Eva's house... But she lived in a suburb that had a 12 by 12 grid of streets with houses that were all exact clones of each other. There's no identifying marks, I don't remember Eva's street, no one is out on the sidewalks. Just.... Rows and rows of identical homes with dark windows.
I was so tried, and drunk for the first time in my life so remembering the street signs was hard and the horror that I'd be caught by the police and get in trouble with my school because *I signed a piece of paper promising I wouldn't do that* and my phone is at 2% battery and Eva hasn't texted me and I'm torn between turning it off or hoping the battery will last long enough for me to get help getting home.
I started crying, out of breath and so confused. I couldn't speak German all that well, and I was so panicked and upset I couldn't even think if what I might say if I did see someone. How could I explain? That made it even worse, the *horror* that someone being around may be worse than being alone.
Thankfully Eva found me after that. I found a street sign and texted her a cross roads, my phone died, and she found me like 20 min after that. Longest 20 min of my life 😅😅😅😂
My wife fell in love with the idea of House of Leaves from watching this video - she says it’s a book she’s wanted to write or read since she was a little girl, she was in awe that such a thing actually existed. I’ve got her a copy ordered for her birthday, so thanks for bringing it to our attention!
Watching this in a taco bell where I'm the single customer is fun
Let a nigga borrow a French fry
But not the only person
once you drop a nuke in the bathroom, you wont be alone anymore
@@CirnoTheBaka_ average (9) ideas;
To me it's the weird feeling that, "something is missing" that is scary to me. Say like an empty mall, it's mundane till it's empty but the lights are still on like people are suppose to be there.
Empty pools are another classic example of this. Like, I get the idea of the Dream Pools, with its impossible, purposeless structure, but real empty and abandoned pools are just as liminal and creepy in a very different kind of way. I'm not sure why they've never caught on as part of this phenomenon. I've seen people discussing them as creepy in other places for decades.
I wonder if you get desensitized to these spaces if you work in them overnight doing cleanup, restocking shelves, security, etc.
@@BB-te8tc actually i use to be an overnight janitor in a clothing warehouse. Walking though a empty warehouse is honestly terrifying imo.
@@BB-te8tc I'm late, but I have been working as security, and walking inside a hospital at night is for sure a special feeling.
As someone who listened to the Magnus archives, it's lovely listening to someone just describe the spiral to you in manic detail.
LITERALLY!!! The distortion probably wouldn’t appreciate being explained like this
This video feels like an interview for working at the institute, that the applicant didn't know they were sending
just imagining our door wife helen standing there arms crossed being like "excuse me"@@Paradox-Roxy
nutgrove shopping centre showing up in this video just WINDED me. no feeling more bizarre than a complete stranger on the internet talking about places you know very well
I find liminal spaces more comforting than creepy most of the time, being completely alone in a space that should have people in it puts me at peace, like being in a mall after most shops have closed or taking a walk around the neighborhood very early in the morning or super late in the night, it only gets scary for me when it seems I may not be alone or I am aware that I am lost
Same. I had a feeling like that last year when driving to visit my parents on Christmas. I was on a main road that's always super busy and has several stoplight intersections, and I was the only car on the road as it was super early in the morning and lightly snowing. Almost an "end of the world" feeling, but oddly kind of comforting.
When i was younger my dad had an office in an almost empty office building, grey carpet and tube lights have always made me feel comfortable
From what I observed and understood, liminal spaces can cause someone to feel unsettled because they cut off line of sight either by (a) putting obstacles in the way or (b) darken the surroundings. By cutting off line of sight, a person may think that there is something hiding or lurking in the shadows. Thus, becoming paranoid.
Imagine you're in a lit hotel hallway at night, alone. Imagine that with all the rooms open and the lights in the rooms are switched off. You become paranoid because you can't see what's hiding in the dark and expect something to pounce on you.
The same can be said about the backrooms. Those wall segments add to the eerieness because it cuts off your line of sight. So you become paranoid because you expect something is hiding behind those wall segments.
This is also the reason why you don't really feel unsettled being alone in an open field during the day.
Same. One time I got stuck with a hooker around the Christmas holidays out of town (it was Orlando) and the mall was open for like another hour and closed at 11pm. I took her there and we walked around and talked (I wasn't after her services we were honestly just hanging out) and the mall was empty, bright and yet dark at the same time and it was a surreal feeling we got to share
@@Muhammad_Nuruddin That's an instinctual fear of the dark, which has nothing to do with liminal spaces and everything to do with our monkey brains not wanting to get eaten by a saber tooth. Something like that with the lights on just makes me want to explore it and doesn't scare me.
I am not a horror fan by any stretch. The horror genre as a whole gets a pretty big "NOOOPE" from me with a few extremely rare exceptions here and there. I remember darn near having nightmares due to anti-smoking PSA videos in grade school and from cheesy haunted hay rides as a kid.
An amazingly well made video like this makes me realize I might be in my own liminal space when it comes to horror itself. I find myself watching lots of analytical breakdowns of horror related things - this one, how the AI works in FNaF or Baldi's Basics, what's physically happening out of bounds when a game tries to scare you, why games like Hello Neighbor and FNaF: Security Breach don't work, or why Garfield is actually an Eldritch abomination. It makes me think that maybe it's OK to take a step forward and give the genre a genuine try. That even if I don't like it, I'll have a better understanding of myself. I... will be OK.
Love your content, please keep it up!
I was enjoying this already, but lost it when you brought up one of my favorite books, House of Leaves, which I had never thought of in the context of liminal space / horror. I have never felt so anxious and horrified as when I read that book. In that same vein, Dahlgren, by Samuel Delaney, brings this feeling about across an entire city which has experienced some sort of catastrophe. It also plays with formatting and physically altering the flow of text 20 years before Danielewski.
I love how video games of the late 90s and early 2000s unintentionally featured a ton of areas with liminality. Not because they wanted to give you that feeling but because of limitations, and those limitations have forever been pressed into my mind. Liminal spaces rule.
Half-life's loading corridors
The first 4 Silent Hill games
running around an empty halo multiplayer map
@@Rabhadh any Source engine game. Empty Garry’s Mod maps. They should just call Source “Liminal Engine”
Limitational spaces
I am fascinated both by the “complete emptiness and infinite transition” and the “what if you aren’t actually as alone as you think?” approaches to liminal horror
I hope we’re getting a “my favorite things Fall 2022” video. I always look forward to the countdown of scary stuff
my approach is: "these rooms are so uncomfortably unassuming and vaguely 'habitable' as if the rooms themselves try to lure you into a false sense of security to get you to live inside of them for reasons you'll never find out" sorta like a Venus fly trap but for architecture.
It always feels like as if these rooms haven't been built by humans, but by something natural that tries to Imitate the "most typical human way of human life", getting close to it but failing to get you to feel comfortable.
Maybe I'm just strange, but I'm almost never creeped out by Liminal Spaces. I actually find them pretty comforting, for whatever reason, and I'd like to explore some of these places.
Like those weird pool rooms, I can imagine sitting in the pool water in a warm sun beam that's coming through one of those windows and just relaxing.
I'm with you there, with some Vaporwave playing
I think it more comes from the feeling of being trapped by an entity outside of human comprehension, often times liminal spaces feel endless like you'll slowly wander until you can't remember anything but the space.
I on the other hand can't remotely relate to the section of the video where he talks about finding liminal spaces oddly comforting. They are basically always very unsettling to me lol
I'm with ya, I love these spaces
Agreed there is a sense of calmness with me
Speaking as someone who is religious/spiritual I can get this spiritual feeling with some of them especially the one with Churches and the rural areas. It's like you meet some spirits or a place where you have loo inside yourself.
Also I live in a somewhat low density area near Forest and wild area. I also arrive really early to places so I see limited spaces upfront.
I think what can make liminal horror exceptionally unsettling is when it triggers a sense of paranoia. Such as say you are walking down an empty hallway full of doors its exceptionally quiet and you reach then end of the hallway you feel like you just saw a figure duck into the rooms or move behind you but when you look no one is there and when you call out no one is there. Its also this aspect of doing horror that is in the background, like when you have two characters having a perfectly normal conversation but you notice that slowly theres a face peaking from behind a wall or underneath a bed. I feel like specifically for liminal horror its creating a sensation that you are by all means alone but its the fear of realizing that you aren't alone somewhere that you expect to be alone.
I'm SO happy you actually mentioned House of Leaves. One of the greatest works of any kind ever created. Took me a decade to actually finish. When I first saw the Backrooms, I was instantly shot back to the unsettled evenings I spent getting (quite literally) lost in House of Leaves. Any fan of this kind of stuff owes it themselves to at least try plumbing it's depths.
House of Leaves is truly an experience.
Question: is it worth reading after watching this full video and hearing what seems like most of its plot? I am really interested in it but unless there is still more to discover then I am not sure it’s worth the commitment as I am a slow reader
@@StrawbrryVampire It's a difficult book, but I'm also a slow reader and I got through it over the course of a few months. I highly recommend it
@@StrawbrryVampire There is absolutely more to discover that I’m actually surprised Eyepatch wolf didn’t cover. There’s so many twists and turns that unwraps itself with a revelation that absolutely left me with chills months after I finished it.
@@StrawbrryVampire Honestly, he dosen't really go into the book as a whole. What he talked about was only the story of the movie that is being dissected in the book. Its got so many more layers of story and facinating rabbit holes it goes down.
These concepts have always been interesting to me, since liminal spaces are really common in my dreams.
A city that has no end, no people, but only cars.
An endless shopping mall.
A creepy basement-dungeon, with infinite rooms.
That creepy infinite basement exists in many of my dreams too except it's an infinite public bathroom full of water, cracked walls and rusted plumbing. People call it the Infinite Bathroom Dimension, there's a whole subreddit about it.
A toilet, endlessly flushing, endlessly swirling, the turd within ever afloat, ever moving.
A liminal space is actually a location that is primarily passed through from one place to another rather than a destination in itself. A simple hallway, a waiting room, hell, a door are liminal spaces. The "empty, possibly infinite area that should be full of people" is something else.
@@SakuraAsranArt you should stretch before reaching so hard
Liminal spaces are common in dreams cause sleeping mind cant really form complex visuals. Its like dreams only loading stuff halfway until you wake up.
I have chronic illness, and I found this video during a CZcams binge session while struggling through a really bad flare up. Sometimes when you're wrapped up in the cycle of pain it can feel like a scary and lonely place. Like you said, however, despite feeling like it may never end there is a genuine sense of comfort that this is only temporary, and the space between can either be filled with fear or with hope.
I just wanted to say thank you for making this video. It helped my transitional period between pain and relief a little easier.
Tell ya what man, I've watched countless videos about the backrooms and/or liminal spaces. This is one of the most interesting and actually thoughtful videos i've ever watched about the subject. Sorry that I'm a year late to the party but i just hit that subscribe button hard bro. Thanks
My college years was filled with luminal spaces. My campus had a lot of underground corridors and bridges, and I had managed to learn to navigate them all in an attempt to avoid going outside during the winter. My friends followed me to try the route across campus and it literally confused and frightened them.
Lol we're you at Carleton by any chance? Although the tunnels were not really complex there. They just seemed very lively.
"luminal spaces"
Must have been bright. Remember your sunglasses 😎
On road trips in America there are some rest stop centers. You can get a map, use the restroom, maybe get a vending machine soda. And there’s a field outside for dogs and a few picnic tables that are never used. Usually there are other people there. But if nobody is there, it is uncanny.
I’ve been to so many and I always get so many liminal vibes from them. I’m from Europe and America is sooo much more liminal. Like there’s much more liminal spaces here in America
i love rest stops
About a year and a half ago me and a friend took a road trip over a few states. We drove through the night across open, empty land listening to scary stories and stopped at a few of those rest stops. It was one of the most atmospheric and fun memories of my life
@@Angel-ou6rc its probably because america is big and empty
It’s even worse when you find the ones that have another rest stop on the other side of the highway for people going the other direction.
And it’s an exact copy of the one you’re in, except mirrored
There’s one I always stop at on the Ohio Turnpike and it’s real creepy
37:37 The coincidence that this is the second time I'm hearing about this book in 2 days back to back is crazy. From two unrelated videos, one about Liminal Spaces and Backrooms, and the other about a Doom mod.
I'm pretty sure I've seen that vid too😂
My house.wad
I feel like The Stanley Parable also captures this energy pretty well! Whenever the Narrator isn't speaking, the office just feels so empty, particularly in the Escape Pod ending, where you lock the Narrator in the boss' office, and as you backtrack, you're just left with the sound of your own footsteps. There's also this sense of other horror after the Epilogue, where the Narrator's Achievement Machine is fixed, and what was originally a gag becomes mildly unnerving just by how this seemingly omniscent being begins to panic over something he made no longer being in his control
Every time someone did the confusion ending in TSPUD a billion people said THE BACKROOMS in the chat and i’m just like, this came out, 6 years before that
the elevator that goes to nowhere evokes this feeling the strongest for me
Not even mentioning the skip button ending, which still haunts me to this day
Oh for sure, the Stanley Parable is THE OG backroom/liminal space
YES HOUSE OF LEAVES IS MY FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME
i have a couple notes:
1. some of the descriptions given abt the book are only true depending on which edition you get. my full-color copy is well over 700 pages, and the word "house" is always typed in blue (additionally, certain struck passages and the word "minotaur" are always printed in red, and references to the protagonist's mother are in purple). the full-color edition comes with multiple appendices including letters, photos, a glossary, etc. full color editions can be pricey though; if you're interested, i'd recommend looking for a used copy.
2. if you're interested in this type of book that plays with the physical text like that, it's called "ergodic literature/horror". some of my favs include the raw shark texts by steven hall, multiple choice by alejandro zambra, and s by j.j. abrams (yes, that j.j. abrams). some books that are kinda similar are ulysses by james joyce, the resurrectionist by e.b. hudspeth, and eunoia by christian bok.
3. if you want a non-horror book about cool infinite liminal spaces, i recommend piranesi by susanna clarke
4. house of leaves, in addition to having multiple sequels/sister texts, actually also has a companion album! it's by the author's sister, stagename "poe", and it features a ton of songs that directly reference the book like "haunted", "exploration b", "5 1/2 minute hallway", "dear johnny", and, of course, "house of leaves". the album's called "haunted" and it's REALLY good.
5. yes, i am just as annoying about this book in real life, too.
I've never read it, but watching this video is making consider it. It sounds really creepy and cool.
@@pundertalefan4391 probably the most creepy and innovative novel i've ever read
@@aternialaffsalot It sounds intense as heck.
Hey can you help me? I need help finding stuff about the writing of the book, like what influences it took. Gosh dang it I can't find anything
@@shadow_shine3578 i just tried doing a bit of research and... yeah this is tough. from what i can find, what initially inspired him to start writing house of leaves was learning that his father had severe terminal cancer. there's a long quote about it on his wikipedia page which hyperlinks to a really great interview about danielewski and his writing process, but not a whole lot about his direct inspirations.
in other interviews the influences he's named himself are ee cummings, john cage, thomas pynchon, donald barthelme, emily dickinson, nathaniel hawthorne, and edgar allen poe (he doesn't mention any of that in direct reference to house of leaves though, just his style in general). he also mentions in an interview a graphic novel by richard mcguire called "here", though he was talking about a different work of his, "the familiar".
personally, i most see cummings and cage in his typesetting (a style which he calls "signiconic" rather than ergodic), along with a healthy dose of james joyce-- particularly finnegan's wake. i'd also look at vladimir nobokov, cain's jawbone, and, of course, h.p. lovecraft.
My favourite liminal image is a simple low quality photo of a basketball net inside of a school gym. The memories that brought back were incredible
Seeing what happened with SCP way back when in the modern day with the backrooms community is almost as surreal as the backrooms themselves, it's really cool just seeing young people getting so excited about this kinda thing like how people who are now all grown up once got about SCP.
I don't think that the backrooms community will ever supersede the SCP community but it still holds so much potential and I'm really excited to see it continue to grow.
You can always go back to the past, but the scary part is that nobody else is ever there.
U have no idea how bad this genuinely fucked me up today. But in a good way.
Brb having an existential crisis (no but I love this comment thanks for making me think)
In B4 some director sees your comment and makes a scifi horror about a machine that lets you relive the past, but, it can't properly recreate personalities of past people, they're all just recreations of your ideal of them, making them uncanny monsters
@@left4twenty Have you by any chance seen The Langoliers?
@@cceres it's something I keep hearing about, but I've also heard it's a movie you have to immerse in, so haven't been in a mood to watch with the full attention needed
Tldr, havent seen it, yet lol
I have a weird hobby of occasionally looking up my childhood homes on Zillow and could never really put a name to the eerie/comforting/sad/nostalgic feeling I’d get from looking at the photos.
I've done that with houses my relatives have lived in. There's nothing quite like thinking, "I played in that room"
Just tried this, was a weird experience. Thanks internet stranger!
@@IchorousIcarus1 it gets weirder once the house is re-listed a few years later and looks different because other strangers changed it.
@@tombuck hundred percent. My strangers added a new fence. Whys that fence there? We didnt have no fancy fence, lol
My grandma died last year and we had to sell her house, I moved around a lot as a kid so her house was the closest thing I had to a consistent childhood home and the only place that truly felt like a home to me honestly. It feels weird knowing there are strangers living there now and the last time I went back to see it the new owners had repainted the house a different colour and changed the windows so it didn't even feel like her house anymore.
Recently me and my mum searched it on google earth and used the timeline feature to go back to 2009 and it was so weird. the house looked as I remember it, my uncle's car was still parked outside, my grandma was probably sitting in the front window just out of view, watching TV. She was still alive and she didn't have dementia yet and everything was ok. It's weird how technology can make the past feel so close yet so far away.
This is why hate working late at the office, especially in winter. In order to leave the building I need to pass by many empty desks and empty hallways to make my way to the empty elevator.
I got sick today after chowing down on some hot dogs, just had to go lay down and kept my headphones on for background noise to help me sleep. The trouble is, I took some adderall before I laid down, and then the video I was listening to autoplayed into THIS, and it gave me the most terrifying nightmares I have had in recent memory.
About to go to sleep - half excited and half terrified of what my brain will come up with as a result of this video
Oof.
It reminds me of being the last person left at a high school or a department store, the one who's locking up after everyone else has gone. I spent a year as one of the last people to leave the office every night at a big corporation. It was a pretty large complex, with 1400 or so employees during the day. At night, it was so, so eerie going past all the empty desks. You try to limit the noise you make because it feels like the sound of every step is magnified, even though there's no one to hear it. It never really stopped feeling strange, like being the last person on the planet. In reality, security and cleaning staff were in the building, but the place was so big that I only encountered them a handful of times, and every meeting was a heart-stopping surprise.
This video made gave me a realization about something I've liked for like 10 years without knowing why. At the beginning of Silent Hill 3, you exit the mall briefly to go down this alleyway outside. And there's an orange glow from the sunset during that short little run that has etched the scene into my head. And this space is as liminal as it gets. A completely insignificant, literally transitional part of the game that has always stuck with me in a profound way. It's such a strange feeling when you realize there is terminology behind something you're sure is a totally unique quirk of your brain.
That area of the game is so so special to me, it's such a tiny forgettable piece of the overall game but I always stay there as long as I can. The chill guitar music and orange sunset in those shitty PS2 graphics just itch my brain the right way idk, and when you run it feels like it goes on forever. I love it.
Those first 4 SH games are just amazing
Especially when you know that when you decide to leave that backalley, you will be deep into the fog world.
YES !!!! another part that gets me lie that is the beginning when heather wakes up from her dream. the way heathers face is lit with the blinds shadows is so beautiful to me. i love silent hill 3 so much aghhhhhh
@@creekandseminole SH4 is torture to play lol, I really like it but I will only play it once and never again, what an absolute nightmare, too many game overs.
This is one of the rare moments a youtube video that isn't even a review has made me go out and buy a book. Specifically, the hardcover copy of the House of Leaves because good god damn, I cannot resist the allure of a novel about liminal spaces that also plays with the typography itself. Thank you SEPW!
I feel that the way to make a game out of Liminal spaces would be making it puzzle focused with no monsters. You're just stuck there and trying to find a way out.
It’s interesting to me that you find comfort in liminal photos because I’ve only ever found them unsettling. The liminal space photos that give me the strongest uncomfy vibes are the ones of spaces that you normally see full of people but are completely vacant in the picture. It gives me the feeling that I’m not supposed to be there. Like being in a school after hours. It’s a place normally full of people and if there’s no people then you’re probably not supposed to be there, and you could get in trouble if anyone saw you in there. I’m not allowed to see this because…. it’s not allowed. Same thing with empty movie theaters, empty malls, empty transit stations, you’re used to seeing them in the context of being full of people but when they’re empty it feels bad to be there.
Same
Cuck to rules (jk i see what you mean)
Going outside during lockdown must have been traumatic for you
Honestly, yeah, this is how I've always taken these things - empty classrooms after school, empty hospitals, places where there should be activity but there isn't - it's fucking creepy. That's why Silent Hill works so well.
i've always found them comforting but i don't know. i think because of how my life is day to day, i would love to just be in a dream-state type place, devoid of people and things that matter. just complete calm. i've always loved being in empty car parks and shopping centres though.
this may not even be the reason, i just know i've always found them comforting.
The Backrooms as initially described was such a fascinating concept. The idea of being alone trapped in that endless droning emptiness was so unsettling. Equally unsettling was the possibility that you’re NOT alone in that endless droning emptiness, that there’s something else out there in the infinite maze. Somewhere.
In a way I’m reminded of that question we actually do ask ourselves about space-Are we alone in this entire universe? Whether the answer is yes or no, both scenarios are kind of horrifying in their own right.
If we’re all there is in the endless vacuum of space, or if there’s something alien out there…
The backrooms, in a way, was like being presented with that question on a personal level. All of it condensed into you yourself, an endless array of empty rooms and maybe, just maybe, something else.
In recent years the backrooms have become this setting for a gallery of monsters and horrors and I think it kind of undermines the simple unsettling nature of what the backrooms really are.
Are we alone in the universe? Are you alone in the backrooms? You’ll never know for certain until it’s too late.
Outer space, the ultimate liminal space. No anchor points, no inherent function, just a medium of transition to other spaces
The evolution of the back rooms as a concepts might just be a consequence of the media used to explore it. The idea of being trapped in a vast yet constricted space, and wondering if *something* is in there with you makes for great horror... in a bit of self-contained text.
But when you have many people, especially younger people, wanting to explore this idea in the form of short films and video games, if they want to stand out they kind of have to actually show the *something*. Combined with the current wiki culture of trying to "solve" all of the "lore" behind stories, you get massive collections of monsters, many of which would be really interesting if they were allowed to exist on their own, but which all blend together into this general... mush. There is no horror remaining in the questions, because they have been answered. The result is a constructed universe, with rules and mechanics, with no uncertainty left, and in which you definitely aren't alone.
"It reminds us that stillness comes to everything". So true. Once a year I go back to my country for a few weeks, and this year I stayed with my grandparents. The thought that 20 years ago there were 9 of us family members living there and maybe in few years there will be nobody living in that big nostalgic house brought me to tears.
its like being left alone and/or being abandoned in a space... you can never return to your community or your home but also the Possibility of encountering something that you cannot handle on your own.. genuinely think its a primal fear thing or something. being Stuck somewhere where no one will look for you or even know to look for you. you cant escape. You Are Stuck. the rest of the world is gone. a modern dark forrest. You Don't Know What You Could Find. You Are Alone.
its bad and terrifying but I'm also obsessed with it.
I got the feeling of liminal horror from the first 3 Silent Hill games.
Whilst you're moving from place to place or exploring the various locations you get this sense of dread. Even without enemies, the emptiness, rust and fog come together to create such an uneasy yet familiar feeling.
That atmosphere is what makes them such masterpieces in horror media.
"You can be sure it heard you." Your footsteps and the sounds of doors opening in those games has that effect for me
Silent Hill is indeed a great example of liminal spaces
I think that's correct, because Silent Hill spaces always had a calming effect on me. I know that's the opposite of what most experience, but so do the liminal space examples.
always struck by how so many doors are just...stuck
Nightmare Creatures for the ps1 had this same effect too. It was so drenched in "fog" that the emptiness was always significantly more frightening than the actual monsters. You scared yourself walking about, jumping at nothing, because enemy monsters _COULD_ pop out from anywhere
The ending kind of hit me hard. I'm in my final year of university, I'm in the middle of being assessed for autism, and both my country and the world at large are going through major declines due to sociopolitical factors that do not make sense. I'm trying my best at the moment to grow my portfolio, to get a better sense of myself, and to try and find true safety in this world, and the space in between is truly terrifying. I am in a liminal space, and don't want to be. But, I'll try my best to enjoy the opportunities afforded by the now, and although I will still do my best to get past this liminality, I will appreciate the things around me. Thank you.
This actually describes my rem sleep dreamscapes quite well- my subconscious will just stitch together endless vaguely familiar stuff and stick me on an adventure of some kind within and there’s a very particular emotional background feeling that accompanies it.
i watched this video for the first time last year and have just now come back to it. i’ve realized now that over the last year i’ve been really observing and appreciating the places i live every year, with college dorms and moving around, because i won’t be here forever. all of these spaces are liminal, a series of transitions in life. while there’s certainly something scary there, i think there’s much more that’s beautiful that i’ve come to appreciate. i’m sure that’s not the intended take away of the horror content surrounding liminal spaces, but i appreciate this video for helping me find the beauty in dorms i used to find run down or depressing.
sorry if it’s already been discussed, but where do ghost towns fall on the liminality spectrum? they are fascinating and creepy as hell, just empty houses that still have furniture, a general store that could be waiting for its merchandise to be delivered. all these inanimate objects just waiting
I think it can be liminal. They used to have a purpose, but now they don't. They are in transition from a town to being reclaimed by nature.
Depends on how old it is. If you see an old Western ghost town, it's not as creepy because you've likely gotten most of your experience with these in movies and TV. Now an empty city like the ones in China on the other hand...
I think liminal space have some proft theres human while ghost town we already knew its abanoned .so for me liminal space not included ghost town or more later stage of it .in the video limial space is transition from a to b .so ghost town is stage b ,stage a is town full of people so from my opinion liminal space for ghoy town that still have electricity everything look new or shiny and no people. So for me ghost town don't include in liminal space .liminal space is when two "felling" crash in each other .the first feling is of human is around like bulding neon lamp and other thing Made by human ,the second feling is human left everything like no human no sound no human abrtract thing left behind .these two crash and make fell of uneasy ,cognitive disonance is i think make us afraid of liminal space .
@@FleshWizard69420 You say that, but also consider how many mining towns popped up and were abandoned just as quick. Imagine a ghost mine town on a misty morning with towering trees around.
And what do you have ahead of you? An endless misty forest. And behind you? Endless dark mines. And where you’re at? Alone in a place you know in your gut is completely abandoned.
Or rather to say, you secretly hope it’s abandoned. But you just can’t shake the feeling of eyes on you.
How old? And also if that town is in ruins with plants growing on the walls, inside buildings and wild animals roaming around then it is not liminal. But if it's recently abandoned for any reason and everything still looks functional and clean, then it gives that feeling of "why isn't anyone here?" "Am I completely alone?"
I read House of Leaves way back in the early 2000s and it was certainly a book ahead of its time that left a deep impression on me. To me, it's "horror" in the same vein as Lovecraft or Poe, much more psychological and dealing with nameless, faceless "cosmic"-level horror. Having read it so long ago, I had never considered its relationship to the backrooms before and that certainly casts it in a different light.
I chose this as my "im finally going to put down my phone and start reading again" and it did not go well. At all. It was a bad choice to dip my toes back in the water... I will finish it someday though
I think i need to just stick to the zampano stuff or itll never happen...
I was never an horror book for me, it was a romance book with a side plot about dealing with mental illness and family trauma.
@@ae121584 A good way to read it, if you so choose to do that, is to just read the text, then just read the footnotes, maybe going back in the text a few times to see where the footnotes are in relation to the text. I had to crack out the bookmarks, postits, and different colour highlighters for it. It’s A Project to read, but so worth!
My biggest red flag is that house of leaves is my favourite book. I love how the book inherently makes you a part of the text. That might be the most horrifying aspect for me. Also, Haunted slaps
I had never considered the connection between HoL and Liminal spaces either so when he suddenly jumped to talking about the book it simultaneously caught me offguard and it suddenly made perfect sense why I loved the idea of Liminal Spaces/Backrooms.
It really helps that HoL does backrooms perfectly, in that the characters never actually see the Minotaur, it remains just as much of an unknown as the House itself.
Interestingly, all the liminal images you described as nostalgic and comforting I found unnerving and spine-tingling, while the old paintings were the ones that I found calming, despite you describing them as more anxiety-inducing due to the lack of familiarity. It might just be because I grew up in an old house, so those wooden chairs and wall/door patterns are more familiar to me, but that’s not just it. I still get nostalgia from the modern, artificial liminal art, and I don’t get it from the old paintings, but the paintings are still a lot more calm and normal while the modern art/photos feel muffled and unreal.
I like paintings. :03
absolutely phenomenal take on the difference between liminal horror and horror that can take place in a liminal setting!
I don't know if this counts as "liminal" or not, but it resides in the same headspace. That being a place that you lived that you moved out of, and returning once it's occupied by a completely new family. There was a house I grew up in for 10 years of my life, very nostalgic for me. I still have dreams about that house; have vivid memories of that house; will experience things that blow my mind as they mirror something from that house perfectly. So, we went back. The new tenants were chill and they gave us a tour and we swapped stories. It was equally as pleasant as it was upsetting and uncanny. It was like the defiling of a corpse - seeing new furniture in new places so unlike how our old house layout was- but a shock to see they put a TV in the exact place we did, or that their boy's room was in my old room, bed in the same place as mine. Kid even had similar interests as me, so it was like my childhood room was a Frankenstein's monster to me.
It may not count as "liminal", but it can definitely be described as "uncanny".
I think that sounds very liminal. But I base most of my understanding of "liminal" on the feeling of it
That's a fun thought to connect to this! I moved into a house that was previously occupied by an elderly friend of mine and I DEFINITELY use it very differently than she did. It feels uncanny for me to remember how it was when I visited her here. She is an old lady who liked living in a dollhouse aesthetic, and had a proper living room for entertaining, and a dining room. I'm a gremlin with too many collections shoved in a small space, and I split the living room into two areas and use her "dining room" for a computer room / pantry. For a long time when she visited me here, she couldn't help saying how weird it felt to visit me here.
you have this way of making things..... UNCOMFORTABLY relatable in both the best and worst ways possible. made me realize that my anxiety disorder turns existence into a liminal-esque space... it removes state A and pushes state B so incomprehensibly into the distance that it feels like I can only exist in Limin
Does it make you feel like you’re stuck in one place, unable to move on for fear of what will happen next? That’s the sense that I get when i’m anxious
@@z-nab27 It does for me. The only way I can make that feeling of dread go away is to hope that it doesnt happen any time soon and push it to the back of my mind. If I dont that Fear will turn to Anger.
@@nobalkain624 For me, it’s the idea that the answer to every single question that comes after doing anything - “what’s going to happen to me?” is “I don’t know”. I find that comforting
Yes this video has hit me in an interesting way too. I have anxiety, and feel very connected to the idea of liminality. I usually feel more curious than scared about liminal experiences. However watching this video made me realise the connection between some of my deeper more existential anxiety fears and the more aesthetic, more enjoyable elements of liminality.
@@impitarjavaara7093 living in liminality where you’re afraid of moving forward is scary. However, whenever I end up in a literal liminal place my brain calms down and I feel at peace. Liminal spaces force me in the present calm moment and helps me stop thinking about the past or future.
As someone who didn’t really get to have a childhood, and has cptsd, the kid play liminal spaces feel so unusually sad and depressing to me. It’s got bright colors and everything that a kid would like, but something isn’t quite right. Something was robbed of it. It’s not lively and bright like it should be. The space is made for a child but the child isn’t there. Now that I’m older, those kinds of liminal spaces feel strangely comforting to me. I’m still in my transient phase even at 21, but slowly I’m finding opportunity and creativity in what there was, and will be.
29:30 The reason backrooms ruined liminal spaces is because the feeling of you being alone was completly thrown out the window with the garbage idea of having entities room around the backrooms, while also adding thousands and thousands of levels which always end up with either goofy or edgy entities, like the game master or some shit. the whole idea of you being alone is terrifying in the liminal spaces, as for the backrooms with entities, its literally "Ooohh spooky place with spooky ghost or monster"
Much like how Amnesia: the Dark Descent was an excellent horror game because it didn't want you to observe THE HORRORS, a liminal space with the suggestion of HORRORS will always be more terrifying a proposition than one in when you know for a fact that there are HORRORS, and more insultingly, you know what THE HORRORS look like and what they are. It is the threat of the unknown that provokes real anxiety. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs opted for a different kind of horror entirely by showing you that the visible horrors are only the cheap façade and the real horror is the inevitability of humanity's destruction through greed and war.
I once went to a mall with me and a couple friends, and there was only a couple costumers and most of the stores inside were closed. The only employees we saw were inside the few open stores. It felt like I went into an actual liminal space
There’s a mall just like that near mine. Went there with some friends and while they were in a store I just ended up wandering. It felt endless, nothing was going on, no one was there. Felt like I was in a dream. Then they called my name and I snapped out of it. Such a weird feeling
Dying malls are so interesting to walk around in. I once went to one where half of it was a pretty normal, albiet slightly underpopulated mall, but we went too far in one direction and there was nobody around anymore and only one part even occupied by a store anymore. It was really sudden too, just like WHAM, no people.
Oh god the worst was when I wandered a Sears clearly in its death throes. Racks of seemingly fine clothes that are actually unraveling on closer inspection, huge empty spaces where display tables clearly should've been, lights a shade dimmer than what's comfortable, rows and rows of naked mannequins. If I had been alone and not with my friends, it would've been nightmarish.
The story you told at the beginning really hit me. In Halloween of 2019, I planned to go on a train to visit a friend in the city. But at that point, I had never been on public transport on me own. I have intense anxiety, so something like going on a train on my own for the first time is a huge deal.
The station in my town had closed down, so my stepdad drove me to the next available station. It was a place I had never been before, in town that is not my own. He then went away, having faith in my ability to do the rest on my own. He then drove away as the rest of my family planned to go swimming.
I walked up a short path to the train station, a slightly forested area where the leaves were all removed. A dull, brown, lifeless offshoot of a town I don’t know. I paid for my ticket by a machine, and sat at the bench, waiting. However for whatever reason, that station was also closed down for the day, but I had no way of knowing.
I sat there for an hour, checking my phone and feeling panicked, helplessly texting my parents so much but never knowing when they’d be out of the pool to text me back. It was getting dark. I kept trying to read the ticket to know if the station really is closed for the day, my young teenage mind struggling to comprehend the formal words I was reading. Every now and then, people would come by to the station, and left when they realised it was closed. But I couldn’t leave like they could. They knew the town and what to do in this situation. But I didn’t. My social anxiety panicking at the thought of finding a nearby shop to call my parents, with my phones battery running out. It’s been three hours now, and it’s only getting darker.
But thankfully, after so long my parents came to pick me up, though I didn’t get to visit my friend that day. For those hours, I was completely stuck in the liminal. A transitional period in which I’m trapped. Nowhere to go or nothing to do except wait.
This is fascinating to me, the contrast of those who find the stillness horrific and other comforting. In these images the space has power over the viewer, it exists without them and will not change to suit their needs. It exists beyond their control. In response to losing control over their situation some freak out and panic, while others take it as-is and accept it.
I know I'm a little late to the party but if you went to a lot of museums or historically preserved houses as a kid, Hammershøi's paintings hit just as hard
Yo bro, the key to getting away with long videos where you slowly meander to the ACTUAL topic of said video is viewer interest.
And you fvcking NAILED it :3 I usually have no patience for longer videos. ESPECIALLY longer videos that don't get to the point, but from the start of the video you kept it interesting af that I didn't gaf about the 30-minute intro lol
Keep it up. I love your stuff
I actually love that about him. It's so unique, and it kind of feels personal.
This made me realize, my dad wrote me a story with a liminal space! Basically there is this impossibly long hallway with an infinity of doors that lead to empty rooms and even more corridors.
The hallways were described as hauntingly beautiful, with large windows and silken curtains, I always imagined everything bathed in warm yellow and gold. It was about learning about fear and accepting it, with the protagonist at first acting bold, gradually feeling confused and only when he felt truly scared and recognized it for what it was that he found the exit.
It's my favorite story and I think it's the reason why I’m so drawn to the horror genre.
That story sounds cool. Any way to read it? :03
@@pundertalefan4391 nope, at least not yet
Reading this comment unlocked a memory for me, and I have no idea if it was a dream I had, a show I watched, or my parents giving me an idea for a mental play space, but I clearly remember and endless hallway, every door a little different, and each leading into a different space, empty or abandoned.
That makes me want to recreate that combining it with the Hallway from Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe.
But I love that story
I've always struggled to describe that feeling when I was in school and it was the last day. Everything was calmed, almost everyone had already left and I had to wait until my parent came from me, so I just wondered through the empty hallways of the school in the only instance when they were silent. It was so different, so strange. I guess this is it.
is it rain too?
I lived that feeling for years in my old job. Worked in schools but longer hours than the teachers. Some jobs were easier to do (or only got done) once class was out.
ok i KNOW im not the only one who finds liminal spaces comforting. posts and videos like this that make them out to be terrifying are really funny to me.
I feel like that sometimes. And I think Eyepatch does too.
While rewatching this, I had a bit of a shocking realization. I think I've dreamt of that exact bathroom at 3:22
Also that moment where someone asked you about Halloween is hilarious. XD
Your statement at the end of the video about being in a liminal state while transitioning into adulthood is really impactful, because during this time of my life I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such immense stress before, and your words reminded me that at the end of the day it IS in nature liminal, temporary, and most importantly beauty CAN be found within it no matter how frightening it is. Thank you SEW!
I think what's worse is that you never get out of this state. I have never felt like I've gotten anywhere solid and I'm 43
Another aspect of liminal spaces that isn’t mentioned as often is just the raw curiosity that it invokes: where is this? why is it here? where does it go? does it ever end? and how it taps into that nature of just wanting answers that we will probably never get. id love to just wander through an endless liminal space and find the strange things that stick out, like doors to nothing or thin spaces that you can just barely peak through to see another empty room with a strange tunnel full of water. i think theyre neat!
True! Every liminal image feels like a question in form of a photo that makes you linger on it and question so much. Probably also why there is so much overlap between them and "cursed images", since both evoke these rapid and big questions where your mind just can't quite put a finger on it.
Also why they feel so introspective to me and a lot of others since you start to apply all these questions to your own life and experiences as well.
We ask those questions because these places feel like they shouldn't exist , because their layout , to our minds that are used to being in normal places , can't possibly have a purpose , so why are they fucking there? why does something without purpose exist? Or is there a purpose that infinitely trancends us ? it is indeed that infinity that terrify us with its uncomprehensible immenseness and absurdity...
I'd love to see Super Eyepatch Wolf's take on SCPs and the SCP Foundation. Such a cool interconnected creepypasta-esc world that anyone can add to and create in. Fantastic video as always!
Of the non-kane backrooms creators I fully admit to 'lost in the hyperverse' being my favourite. It just expands on stuff and goes weird places.
damn that ending with house of leaves went so hard, but it was also your storytelling that made this whole video not just powerful, but both compelling and enlightening. it gives a really wide perspective into liminal spaces with how it applies from both a psychology, philosophy, film theory, and horror perspective, and that is just so impressive
For anyone interested, I would really recommend the Magnus Archives. Although not exclusively liminal horror, it's filled with it in podcast form. It's also one of those stories you listen to and go "Oh, boy, I guess I have a new phobia!"
There are a few episodes that focus on it with one particular character and yeah, it's creepy as hell. Seconding this.
Oh yeah, I had to think about that podcast, too. Fittingly I was listening today to the episode cul-de-sac, where that one guy gets lost in an endless suburban area.
Absolutely. The Spiral and The Lonely are both super liminal horror.
Many years ago I was helping out at a charity auction event at a hotel. Someone asked me to go through an employee's only section to grab a few folding chairs. I very clearly recall having to take a few twists and turns in an area that was just... empty. Empty and the same everywhere. Even though I knew the way back (right?) I felt like if I went any further that I would get lost forever and never be found. So, when I first learned about the backrooms, the whole idea felt eerily familiar and creeps me out deep in my soul. Just one wrong turn in that corridor or stepping into the wrong room feels like it could have led me there.
It brought me so much joy to hear anybody online bring up, and the dive into ‘House of Leaves’. I think another work you would enjoy looking into, is the manga “Blame!”.
I don't read any books but this House of Leaves explanation really intrigued me. There really WAS a backrooms before the backrooms. I can't imagine a house changing on its own, creating a room where it ends up with you falling forever. That's a scary thought. You lived all your life just for it to end in an infinite falling loop....very scary man. Can't imagine that at all.
That's my favorite book and now I have a word to put to it. I loved just the feeling it gave, creepy yet serine. Just felt empty yet so full of detail.
"I don't read any books", we know, we know.
House of Leaves is a _classic._ Every nerd in the 2000s probably read or has heard of it.
"I don't read any books"
That's really sad.
I have a lot of books waiting to be read but I unfortunately seem to have lost my lust for reading when as a child I was a bookworm... Then I watch this video and hear about this book. And boy just knowing that liminal horror exists in literary form is enough to rekindle that lust.