The Blood-Red Mine: Five Horror Movies Ripe from the Interwebz

I've talked a little about Creepypastas on the blog here before, but it bears repeating: some of the best horror stuff you'll find anywhere on the world right now is in these things.  I'll never forget the first one I ever read on some random message board.  The story, as sparse as it was, was all about a strange phenomena overtaking the entire world.  Not an epidemic, not ghosts, not zombification, but the earth.  As in, earth, not capitalized - dirt.  It just keeps rising and rising and rising, destroying everything that it touches.  Told from the perspective of a survivor hiding out on the roof of his house, it consisted of little other than watching his neighbors get sucked up by the dirt as he theorizes about why this is happening, eventually coming to the conclusion that it's a plight from God himself eating his own creation.  Brrrrr.  And then there's the Slender Man, a creepypasta that has become so popular it's getting its own movie soon.  Spoiler alert.

There's a lot of freaky stuff out there on the interwebz, though, and not all of it is via short stories told by semi-anonymous horror buffs.  A good deal of them, but not all.  There are a few true crime stories that I would not have discovered without the Internet.  You'd be surprised how many other freaks are out there who are into this kinda stuff other than myself.  Than again, maybe you're not.  Ever hear about the adult baby community?  And then there's the whole Brony...thing.  Nevertheless, there's a prime amount of material all within a few clicks that THIS REPORTER is convinced would make amazing horror movies.  Since it's been a while since I've done one of these "five suggestion" lists, you know what's coming.  Ladies and gentlemen...

FIVE STORIES FOUND ON THE INTERNET THAT WOULD MAKE A GREAT HORROR MOVIE

(1) The Elisa Lam Disappearance
If you've never heard of this true-life disappearance/possible murder/possible paranormal mindfuck of the highest order, Google it and be prepared to be amazed.  The final days and death of Elisa Lam is the kind of locked door mystery that mystery buffs pine for, but the single most perplexing thing about the whole affair is surveillance footage from inside the hotel where she spent her final days.  More specifically, from the elevator.  Apparently, there is an urban legend from Japan and Korea called "The Elevator Game" that involves visiting the floors in a tall building (of at least 13 floors) in a very specific order.  And if you do it right, you get to cross the line into the afterlife.  I think a film about an amateur sleuth who gets obsessed with this case and finding a similar disappearance would be awesome, ending with said protagonist playing the Elevator Game himself.  Whether or not he talks to the woman on the fifth floor is entirely up to the screenwriter.

(2) Black-Eyed Children
This is another subject that I had never heard of in my life until something like a year ago.  And since I work third shift, there isn't a night that goes by where I don't go out to my car and think about it.  The first recorded story about children with jet black eyes has its roots in a series of mailing lists in the mid-'90s and Texas reporter Brian Bethel who related his dalliance with the little demons while exiting a movie theater late at night.  The basic legend goes like this - they suddenly appear late at night, either while you're in your car or (shudder) at your door.  All they want is to be let inside, but under no circumstances are you ever to let them in.  As you can tell, there is more than enough material here for a film to be made, and the way that I understand it is that this has already happened.  However, give this baby a budget, a decent cast and a script that takes place over a confined single night and you've got some solid nightmare fuel.

(3) The Deep Web
Just, the deep web in general.  No further explanation needed, but since I have to at least make it seem like I'm being persuasive with these things, I suppose I should elaborate a little bit.  Only something like 3% of the Internet can be found on Google.  The rest?  Well, a lot of it consists of stuff you might find via stuff like searching for hotel listings.  But then there's...the other stuff.  The stuff that you need that mysterious Tor browser that there ain't no way in hell I'm ever putting on my hard drive, because I've read the stories dammit.  A lot of these particular stories and videos fall into the "unbelievable" territory about a massive global conspiracy of deep web stalkers, but it doesn't matter, they scare me.  The movie is right there - give us a couple of young likable "righteous" hackers, have them run across the wrong people on the deep web, and begin some of the stuff that you may or may not have checked out on Tor, you sickos.

(4) The "Point-and-Click Mystery" Story
There are a few different variations of this particular creepypasta/Internet legend out there, but the most memorable one that I ever ran across involved a Jack the Ripper point-and-click game.  You know what those are, right?  Also known as "hidden object" mysteries, they're basic flash games that you can buy for something like $9.99 at every Wal-Mart in the country where you basically click everything on the screen.  Only this Jack the Ripper game apparently is SATANIC.  Taking place years after the protagonist's childhood memories of said game, he goes back to it only to find a much different version of the game that almost threatens to break through the screen and become much more than a game.  Hell, it even starts addressing the player by name.  Pretty much every aspect of the plot that you need is right there, so there isn't a need to get fancy with anything.  Give us a game about a famous killer, a likable hero and solid three-act structure and you've got a win.

(5) Obey the Walrus
Yeah, just give this a watch and try to get it burned out of your memory.  There IS a much longer version of the video out there without all of the intentionally creepy music and filters that gives the video a bit more context, but then again there are also parts of it that manage to get under your skin more than this one.  To be fair, there are also a fair amount of interviews with the actual person featured in this thing.  But if someone were to make a movie with this as their inspiration, you don't need to know any of that stuff.  This is the kind of stuff that J-horror is made for; a cursed video that first royally messes you up and then potentially kills you?  Get Hideo Nakata or Takashi Shimizu on the line, stat.  Of course, since this is MY fantasy world, those are the only two guys that I would want to take on this material.  Call it Sadako or Kayako for this generation, the urban legend that turns out to be real and makes you really, really dead.

That completes my final "horror movie ideas" post.  Get ready for more backbiting as we continue wrapping the blog up into a nice little bow.