Science Fiction

Years ago, I watched this Korean movie, The Wig, with a friend, and were both so freaked out. It was about a woman who was slowly being possessed by the spirt of the woman from who the hair of her wig had been taken from. It seems kinda hokey, but the woman being possessed had just recovered from cancer (thus, the need for the wig), and the story was from the POV of her sister watching as her sister seems to have a complete personality change after being diagnosed as cancer-free, and was trying to figure out what was happening. Some parts of it might not have aged well (namely, one of the twists), but the way it felt more like a psychological horror than a horror horror really stuck with me.

As for gaming, I can NOT recommend the two games by Red Candle enough. Both games start out seemingly as pure horror, then end up just ripping your heart out and stepping on it as the situation becomes clear.

Detention is a side scroller set during the White Terror period of Taiwan in a high school, and it’s really good. There was a movie made from it that looked to stay really close to the story, and it won a fair number of awards in Asia (I still haven’t seen it yet). There was a Netflix sequel show, but I didn’t really get into it. Detention, though, is really good, and you can get it on pretty much any platform now for only a few bucks.

Their other game, Devotion, is a damn masterpiece and I will never stop being angry it got pulled from Steam after only a week because some idiot accidentally left in a placeholder image that had “Xi Jin Ping Winnie the Pooh moron” written on it - that cost Red Candle’s partner in China their business license, and caused them to pull the game from Steam. It was supposed to go up on GOG, but they backed out a few days after announcing they would be selling it, claiming it was because of the “gamer feedback,” or some such nonsense (but really because Cyberpunk 2077 had just come out in China and they didn’t want to risk upsetting the Chinese government), and they refused to answer anyone asking them about it on twitter back when it happened.

Rant aside, Devotion is set in 1980s Taiwan, and is about a small family that gets destroyed because the father gets wrapped up in a cult. Not a weird murder cult or anything, just a cult promising him easy solutions. It’s basically a “domestic horror,” the horror that happens in a home. The game starts in your living room, with your wife talking about your daughter, Mei Shin, then going, “Where’s Mei Shin?” Then you’re looping through three different years trying to piece together where she is and what happened to her.

Devotion is only on PC, and you can only get it from Red Candle’s webpage. It’s only about $16, and it’s so worth the price.

Edit - This is a really good video comparing Silent Hill 2 and Devotion, on how they both handle the uncanny - Silent Hill 2 with their use of FMVs, and Devotion with it’s use of actual video footage. It has some mild spoilers, but it warns you and gives you a time stamp to skip to avoid them. An Uncanny Reality.

Magnetic Rose is a short Satoshi Kon anime film from the 90s about a haunted abandoned space station. Very good vibe and aesthetic.

The Tails From the Crypt series is awesome and the directors/producers have an amazing podcast "How Not to Make a Movie" that gives a lot of great insight into the stories, actors, special effects, and more. I like listening to them then watching the episodes later that day.

The Void (2016 film.) Very well done indie horror that punches well above its class when it comes to practical effects.

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury is a book of short stories that are great. I really like the rain and he has a story called The Long Rain which I read a lot. He has a few in there that are actually really spooky though.

The Marionette's Inc was just taken and adapted into a loosely based episode in the last season of Black Mirror (Beyond The Sea)! They're very very different, but it's the same concept applied differently and the book itself shows up in the episode.

Let the right one in(2004) is a beautiful movie set to the background of some beautiful dark Swedish forests.

For films, Under The Skin (2013 indie film directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Scarlett Johanson in a pretty low-key role for the most part) is fantastic. More on the horror end, but has strong scifi elements. Amazingly crafted film, nothing really gory at all, the horror is all psychological, but it has such disturbing moments that stick in your head (unwanted) for years. I've watched it 3 times though, so that may be part of the problem.

"Yoo Retoont, Sneogg. Ay Noo" and "The Greater Punishment" by Marek S. Huberath (those are must read if you can find translations)

"The Radius Riders" by Barrington Baylay

"A Boy and His Dog" by Harlan Ellison

"A Song for Lya" by George R. R. Martin

"The Quickening" by Michael Bishop

"Dying in Bangkok" by Dan Simmons

"Press Enter" by John Varley

"Saliva Tree" by Brian Aldiss

"Catch That Zeppelin" by Fritz Leiber

"Deathbinder" by Alexander Jablokov

"The Last of Winnebagos" by Connie Willis

Check out Coherence(2013) - it's like Primer's long lost cousin

Peace On Earth is a book by Stanislaw Lem, the author of Solaris.

It is my all-time favourite sci-fi novel.

The premise is that mankind builds autonomous war robots and sends them to the moon to fight proxy wars instead of real wars on earth. But the robots evolve. For reasons unknown, contact with the moon is lost, so humanity sends a astronaut up to see what's going on.

Andromeda strain, Logan's run, Event horizon, stalker, x-files series 😆

The Mist (2007)

I did not expect the film's ending to be so crushing.

"Automata", about human-robot interactions in a post-apocalyptic setting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aut%C3%B3mata

More "suspense" than "horror", but it's the most realistic depiction I've seen of how future robots will actually communicate. Overall a solid sci-fi movie that flew under the radar.

The music video for Failure's song Counterfeit Sky

https://youtu.be/S0P6t2rlo_k

It's such a good package. I only wish it was a fully flushed out story