This post is part of our Nanu Film Trail for April – which this month is an anthology of horror. Looking at horror, it’s very easy to be lost in the culture of it without focusing on the effect it has. One of the questions we wanted to ask is this – what makes something scary? For our “free for all” this month, we choose something slightly unusual – a celebration of all the dark and creepy corners of youtube. A lot of what makes things scary are the circumstances within which you are experiencing things… turning off the light and turning up the volume both make a film feel that little bit harder to bare. But with new media comes new ways to experience horror – and nothing works better than stumbling through to the darker sides of the internet, where people have left their mark without leaving an explanation, uncertain shards glimpses into unanswered realities of an unknown world. There are many mysteries out there, tonight, let’s find them. How to make your own Creepy Youtube Horror Night For your own Creepy YouTube Horror night, you will need: One Laptop Some Snacks Some Drinks Some Friends A few links The recipe is simple – all of you sit together, turn the lights off, and put the laptop in front of you. One of you nominate yourself to be the curator for the evening. Pop yourself along to this reddit page, where some wonderful people have compiled an almost exhaustive list of videos on youtube that are considered by many to be of interest for this sort of thing. Amongst you, decide which sounds the most intriguing, and click play… and repeat! Importantly, as much as

this night is about exploring our fears, it’s important not to bully or go further than anyone in the room is prepared to go. Nothing spoils the night more than someone. This said, YouTube is fairly good at policing content which might be too violent or innappropriate, so although many of these are odd or freaky or even unknown, they are at least “safe” to a certain extent… For our attempt, the rules were simple – if someone read a title outloud, we watched it, and we soon learnt to keep

our intrigue to ourselves. For our sins, we kept a record of what we watched, and have made a playlist to get you started, which you might enjoy. Some of them are well-made horror shorts, some of them tread the line between hoax and horror, where others are just oddities from the past which now look odd and fun. We’ll find out about Finlay’s reaction to some of these later in the month. Have you given this a go? What videos worked for you, what videos didn’t work? Let us know in the comments, or get in contact on twitter.