… Just Be Careful Out There.
Many classic horror icons, such as Geger’s Xenomorphs, Silent Hill’s Pyramid Head, and other disturbing creatures, share common characteristics. Pale skin, dark, sunken eyes, elongated faces, sharp teeth, and the like. These images inspire horror and revulsion in many, and with good reason. The characteristics shared by these faces are imprinted in the human mind.
Many things frighten humans instinctively. The fear is natural, and does not need to be reinforced in order to terrify. The fears are species-wide, stemming from dark times in the past when lightning could mean the burning of your tree home, thunder could be the approaching gallops of a stampede, predators could hide in darkness, and heights could make poor footing lethal.
The question you have to ask yourself is this:
What happened, deep in the hidden eras before history began, that could effect the entire human race so evenly as to give the entire species a deep, instinctual, and lasting fear of pale beings with dark, sunken eyes, razor sharp teeth, and elongated faces?
… Just be careful out there.
This one’s never made sense to me. Pyramid Head is NONE of the things that they reference in the last paragraph. At all. I think the original writer just threw him in because he’s popular.
Sorry. Misspelled “affect”. Can’t take it seriously now.
inb4 dinosaurs
Pyramid head and the Xenomorphs don’t have dark sunken eyes, they don’t even have (visible) eyes. Pyramid head doesn’t have sharp teeth, and the Xenomorph doesn’t have pale skin. Maybe find something that has all these before putting them in the story eh?
rather than argue semantics maybe we should consider what the author was getting at.
Why ARE those things so scary to us (regardless of which named characters have/don’t have them)?
You have a point, icarus.
Someone on /x/ actually explained this once. The sunken eyes and pale skin remind us of sickness and death, which we wanted to avoid lest we ourselves get sick, thus the fear of those things. Most predators have elongated faces and sharp teeth.
Enigma revealed.
“Sorry. Misspelled “affect”. Can’t take it seriously now.”
Fagoot.
tr.v. ef·fect·ed, ef·fect·ing, ef·fects
1. To bring into existence.
Hmm. I like this idea. It does have a very real basis in being a prey species. Its kind of easily explained that way, but I like the way the author did it better.
actually, it’s probably just scary to us because there is no creature that ever looked like that. It’s unique, and we fear that.
Anon 6 is probably right.
Still though, with the teeth.
Pale skin, dark, sunken eyes?
Sounds like the recently deceased, or someone suffering from scurvy.
So were either afraid of the dead/death, or were afraid of a sudden lack of fruits.
Razor-sharp teeth makes sense (so much sense in fact, that I would question your mental processes if you didn’t catch this).
Elongated heads? Now that’s a hard one. Maybe other early proto-human species had elongated heads. Maybe there was a species in our early evolutionary history that hunted us. Maybe it was an accidental genetic defect that managed to weasel itself into humanity’s psyche over a few hundred thousand generations.
I say…. Pyramid Head is still awesome.
people fear anything that seems unnatural – desease, deformation…
Pyramid Head is pale with an elongated head
The Xenomorphs have elongated heads and sharp teeth
I sitll love this one.
It makes me want to draw.
Readman:
The elongated heads are a throwback to days long past. When humans weren’t the top of the food chain, many things wanted to nom on our tasty, tasty flesh. Most large predators had elongated heads.
So, essentially, we fear creatures who are pale, with dark, sunken eyes, razor sharp teeth, and elongated faces because of a combination of our instinctual fears. Firstly, our fear of death (pallid skin tone, dark, lifeless, eyes) and secondly, our instinctual fear of predators (razor sharp teeth, elongated heads).
Perhaps our fear is additionally intensified by the combination of both fears. The fact that death (fear no.1) could result from an encounter with a natural predator (fear no.2) ensues that we are especially afraid of Xenomorphs and Pyramid head – characters that play on both instinctual fears.
Your all fools.
These traits may be similar to other ones, but dont be fooled. Whatever creature has given us this species-wide fear, its waiting.
In the dark.
In the deep.
Haha, Darkest, the Messenger of Evil, made a typo.
“You’re”, not “Your”
he should have used the grudge girl or something.
SHE is scary lookin.
I always think of elves when I hear this one. not the tolkien-tall-and-pretty ones, or the santa clause Happy-munchkin ones, the old fashioned kind that liked to kill and kidnap people and let them go hundreds of years later.
Sorry, I have to post this quote now.
Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
Nobody said elves were NICE.
Elves are BAD.
– Lords and Ladies
amidoinitrite?
Like other people have said, there are understandable reasons for fear of all these qualities. Combining them like this is an interesting idea, but seems kind of random when only two examples are given and each of them has only two of the four qualities.
humans fear what is different
we also fear the unknown…no creature in our world looks like said description and therefore we fear it because it is not familiar to us
This… I like this. Gave me chills.
@ The person formerly known as ‘noneya’
I WENT TO A CAMP THAT HAD AN ELF LEGAND AND I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE FUNNY TO STEAL THE ELF PUPPET HE HE HE…
IT WASN’T
Vampires.
Stock up on holy objects.
Its aliens, dumb-asses.
Elongated heads? Aliens.
Pale skin? Grey aliens.
Sunken eyes? Aliens.
Sharp teeth? Predatory aliens.
L2Logic
anon,at the tope,you say pyramid head is nothign of these,well,hes pale skin,isnt he,and he does have an elongated face,althoug htis a giant elongated metal pyramid
THEN WHO WAS TEETH?
To “Choker”: Perhaps both. I still prefer my hypothesis of vampirism.
I’m pretty damn sure the author was reffering to vampire dinosaurs.
I think because it looks like a dead/dying person.
Sharks maybe?
Razor sharp teeth – check
Pale skin – check
Elongated heads – check
Dark sunken eyes – check
Will rip you to shreds without mercy. – check.
Xenomorphs don’t have pale skin. Pyramid Head doesn’t show any teeth. Neither have/show eyes.
Great creepy concept, but storytelling fail.
Wolves, anyone?
Uncanny valley. We’re scared of things that resemble humans but aren’t.
On top of that, the appearance described here includes several symptoms of decay. Corpses are scary as they signify recent death and the potential of more.
The concept is a bit creepy to entertain, but falls apart as the examples mentioned don’t match the specific appearance, and there are logical reasons why it is scary. It’s not a consistently specific and seemingly arbitrary fear.
To see a masterful mindfuck on that subject, read Clarke’s Childhood’s End – it explains why we paint demons with horns. (In actuality probably a vestige of pagan animal-worship.)
Reminds me of that Twilight thing. Horrible book.
“What happened, deep in the hidden eras before history began, that could effect the entire human race so evenly as to give the entire species a deep, instinctual, and lasting fear of pale beings with dark, sunken eyes, razor sharp teeth, and elongated faces?”
Exaggerated descriptions of cougars, wolves, bears, and whatever else fed upon early humanity.
If YOU’RE a caveman, and you just saw your entire group of hunters get slaughtered by an even bigger pack of lions, in your stark terror are YOU going to keep a cool enough head to describe what you literally saw?
Sounds a lot like something I heard in a foreign film.
Really creepy, it’s called Marebito.
Directed by the person who did the Grudge.
It makes me afraid of going underground.
@anonypoke, so some terrifying creature brought the human race into existence so evenly… ? you’re a fucking moron
Because those characteristics remind the entire human race of the British. Even the British are scared of themselves, that’s how scary and loathsome they are.
wow, people, isnt it even a little bit possible he didnt mean all of those things, the xenomorphs and pyramid head had all those traits? he said elongated heads, alien and pyramid head, sharp teeth, sunk in eyes? alien. also, yeah, the alien did have a sort of sunk in orbital socket, where it might’ve had eyes. plus, I think, that while the whole,lions, bearsw, lions, all these things do match it…but I think terror birds. giant seven foot tall birds with long serrated beaks, sunk in eyes, and pale feathers? or dinosaurs. they coulda survived, you never know.
I always picture the Cenobites when I read this.
Granted, Pyramid Head can be a bit unsettling, but he fits nothing from the above description, save for the paleness. I’m pale though, does that mean I’m a monster? Check your facts first, please.
And one could argue that PH has an elongated head. I guess technically he does, but all it is is a helmet. Durr.
http://i41.tinypic.com/aep18g.jpg
http://zimving.com/GO%20TO%20SLEEP.jpg
>:D
…goths? (like me?)