Line #19 Main/MundaneHorror


1	[[quoteright:350:[[TabletopGame/ArkhamHorror https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mundane_horror.jpg]]]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Nothing out of the ordinary...]]
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4	The usual horror tropes (fantastic monsters, ancient curses, AxCrazy maniacs, etc.) do not always work because this is too distant from what we may encounter in everyday life. Therefore some creators use the Mundane Horror.
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6	The idea is to portray a seemingly comforting and everyday scene, but with some minor details which somehow "do not fit" and have '''very''' dark implications (i. e. that the character is really in a DarkWorld, or we're looking ThroughTheEyesOfMadness, or it is all a DyingDream).
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8	A common way to do this is to take a normal scene then apply effects to it. For example, a group of children jumping rope is innocuous or even heartwarming in normal contexts. Slowing the footage down, making it black and white, desaturating the colour balance, blurring parts or all of it - or a combination thereof then altering the soundtrack so it's CreepyChildrenSinging an IronicNurseryRhyme instead of the normal lighthearted jumping cadence and you get a totally different effect from what is ostensibly the exact same scene.
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10	Often features a WhamLine or a WhamShot, and may overlap with CrapsaccharineWorld; BreadEggsMilkSquick; SurprisinglyCreepyMoment; and DisguisedHorrorStory. Can sometimes result in FridgeHorror if you don't immediately see the weirdness. A frequent result of AGlitchInTheMatrix.
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12	Contrast MundaneMadeAwesome. Compare and Contrast FauxHorrific and {{Mundanger}}.
13	----
14	!!Examples:
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16	[[foldercontrol]]
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18	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
19	* ''Anime/DeathParade'' is a PsychologicalHorror taking place in an AfterlifeAntechamber where a CelestialBureaucracy [[{{Psychopomp}} judge]] the deceased, [[SecretTestOfCharacter who don’t know they’re dead yet]]. The main setting is in a bar called Quindecim that looks like an ordinary, classy bar with a live pianist and some guests sitting in the corners…until you look a little more closely and realize that the pianist and all those “people” are really just mannequins being controlled by puppet strings, and you are told that the [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight strange looking bartender]] wants you to play a classic bar game in which you “stake your life,” and all the doors are locked…
20	** The games really are normal bar games with the usual rules, but they’re often decorated with bones and pulsing organs. Game pieces like billiards balls, bowling balls, or air hockey pucks are coordinated with the players’ own organs, and are often “linked” so that the person feels pain when their game pieces get hit.
21	[[/folder]]
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23	[[folder:Comic Books]]
24	* ''ComicBook/{{Joker}}'' manages to make the Joker casually eating shrimp into something utterly revolting and unnatural. Also, if you [[MeaningfulBackgroundEvent pay attention to the background]], you'll notice that [[spoiler:some of the gargoyles on Gotham's buildings ''[[ComicBook/{{Batman}} aren't actually gargoyles]]'']].
25	* ''ComicBook/MisterMiracle2017'' frequently juxtaposes mundane domestic drama between Scott Free and his wife Big Barda with the backdrop of an apocalyptic war between the New Gods, to jarring effect. Even the most casual conversations are frequently [[InterfaceScrew disrupted]] by bizarre [[PaintingTheMedium format]] [[OminousVisualGlitch shifts]] that make the reader question [[MindScrew what the hell is going on]].
26	[[/folder]]
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28	[[folder:Films]]
29	* Much of Creator/DavidLynch's work resides here, balanced precariously with SurrealHorror (and, on occasion, SurrealHumor). In fact, the term "Lynchian" has entered the lexicon as a descriptor for something with disturbing undercurrents beneath a mundane exterior.
30	** ''Film/MulhollandDrive'': Two men are in a diner, discussing a dream one man had about being in the diner, terrified out of their minds because of [[HumanoidAbomination someone standing behind the diner]]. Then, they get up and walk around to the [[JumpScare back of the diner]]...
31	** ''Film/LostHighway'': The main character goes to a party and is approached by a pale man with black lips and eyes. The sounds of the party go silent. The man then says they've met before, at the main character's house, and that ''he's there right now''.
32	--->'''The Mystery Man:''' ''[producing a cell phone]'' Call me. Dial your number. Go ahead.\
33	''[The call connects]''\
34	'''The Mystery Man:''' ''[over the phone]'' I told you I was here.
35	* ''Film/JacobsLadder'' is a masterpiece of "Uh, did I just see that?" moments. A nurse with a bone sticking out of her head, a creepy-looking sandwich in a fridge at a party, blood in a sink in a public toilet, etc.
36	* In ''Film/{{Twixt}}'', the protagonist, who is interested in the biography of Creator/EdgarAllanPoe, comes to the hotel "Chickering" where Poe used to stay. He is met by a very eccentric family couple who say weird things about "graves in the floor" and sing the song "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" which sounds decidedly creepy in the context. It turns out it was all a dream, and when he comes there at daytime, the building is abandoned.
37	[[/folder]]
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39	[[folder:Internet Memes]]
40	* The "When you see it" meme: seemingly ordinary photographs which include one or more small decidedly creepy details.
41	[[/folder]]
42
43	[[folder:Literature]]
44	* Nancy Etchemendy's ''Cat in Glass'' is a collection of short stories that range from inventive and appealing to downright macabre. In ''Lunch at Etienne's'', a woman gets her toddler ready to go (he's mad and won't speak to her, and she has to carry him), gets annoyed by the quantities of dust on the coats in her wardrobe, can't get out the blocked front door (why ''hasn't'' the landlord fixed it yet?), walks down the street (are her neighbors ''still'' not speaking to her? and what's all this white stuff on the ground, it's too early for snow), enters her favorite restaurant, and meets her best friend for lunch (speechless). She catches a glimpse of the mirror, which reflects an old woman in rags sitting next to two corpses in the broken rubble of what used to be a restaurant. Stunned with horror, she shakes it off and goes back to talking with her best friend about how the service at this place is always ''horrible''.
45	* ''Literature/{{Coraline}}'': The other world looks almost exactly like an enhanced version of the real world, but areas around the edges (and eventually, the whole place) looks unrealistic in an unsettling way, with the narration likening it to a photograph or a drawing.
46	* In ''Literature/TheLandlady'' by Creator/RoaldDahl, there's a nice small hotel with a friendly host. It has only two guests who are still there though they checked in more than a year ago, and are "known for one and the same thing" ([[spoiler:having gone missing]]); the host gives her guests tea which tastes like BitterAlmonds. Guess the implications?
47	* ''A Letter from Clearys'' by Creator/ConnieWillis follows a seemingly ordinary American family who are living in a small house in the mountains, while building a greenhouse there and waiting for a letter from their friends... However, for some reason, there is snow in the middle of June, and the main character has strange burns on her hands that are not going away no matter what. Eventually it's revealed that they inhabit a post-apocalyptic world, the family friends died in the nuclear explosion, and the protagonist likely exhibits the first signs of radiation poisoning.
48	* In ''[[Literature/NightmaresAndDreamscapes Crouch End]]'' by Creator/StephenKing, a family couple drives into an unknown district of London. Initially it appears almost normal, but with some minor unsettling details (a strange newspaper headline, a cat with a mutilated face, three bikers who appear to have rat heads). These are the first indications that they are in a DarkWorld.
49	* "Literature/PizzaMadness" portrays the protagonist's pizza delivery job as though he had joined a {{cult}} in a more typical CosmicHorrorStory; the act of delivering pizzas consumes his every thought, he forgets the names of his friends and loved ones, and eventually he's driven to killing an older pizza delivery man that delivers "special orders" out of jealousy.
50	* ''Literature/AWrinkleInTime'': Camazotz looks like [[PlanetOfHats a 50s Suburbia Planet]], and then you notice that [[StepfordSuburbia the kids all bounce their balls in exactly the same pattern in exactly the same tempo, the mailman throws newspapers into exactly the same spot on the walkways of the identical houses, and anyone who screws up their act gets taken away and tortured until they get it right]].
51	* ''Literature/TheYellowWallpaper''. The narrator is in a room. It has really ugly yellow wallpaper with a pattern that almost seems like rather intricate prison bars. In fact, there could be a woman there... creeping around behind the paper... It would be a true shame if she were to stay trapped, wouldn't it? [[spoiler:Or perhaps, the narrator has suffered a mental breakdown, and now she ''is'' the woman in the walls.]]
52	[[/folder]]
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54	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
55	* In episode 9 of ''Series/TwinPeaks'', Donna delivers a meal to an old lady Mrs. Tremond and her grandson. They say cryptic things, the grandson, who is "studying magic", makes creamed corn disappear from the tray, and the whole scene has a very unsettling feel. Next time Donna comes to visit them, [[TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday they are not there, and a completely different person lives here]].
56	[[/folder]]
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58	[[folder:Music]]
59	* Music/LeylandKirby's album ''Everywhere at the end of time'' starts out this way. At first, it's old ballroom music, repeated in loops and distorted to sound like it's decayed. As the album goes on, it descends into chaos, representing the theme of Alzheimer's disease.
60	[[/folder]]
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62	[[folder:Video Games]]
63	* Creator/ChillasArt is a game studio that specializes in Japanese urban horror, making the most mundane activities terrifying ghost stories: try to get home on ''VideoGame/TheGhostTrain'', work the night shift at ''VideoGame/TheConvenienceStore'', or god forbid, try to help with a reported case of some ''VideoGame/MissingChildren''.
64	* ''VideoGame/CleaningRedville'': The game is about collecting garbage bags as you drive down the streets of Redville. Of course, the envelopes tied to sign posts suggest something isn't right with the job. [[spoiler:That's because you may have been actually collecting dead bodies to dispose of at your place of work: a crematorium.]]
65	* ''VideoGame/TheExit8'' is set within one underground passage that [[UnnaturallyLoopingLocation seemingly has no exit]]. The game manages to get a lot of horror out of a single, well-lit, clean corridor since players have no idea what to expect when walking through it.
66	* ''VideoGame/MoshiMonsters'': In the "20,000 Leagues Under the Fur" mission, one of the signs that the leader of the Super Moshis, Elder Furi, is seriously ill is that the smoke from his VolcanoLair, which is usually yellow, is purple. Another sign is that all his computers are displaying error messages.
67	* ''VideoGame/NightOfTheConsumers'' is a very unsettling look at what life working retail is like. You will learn to ''fear'' the words "EXCUSE ME" and "PLEASE HELP ME" if you don't already.
68	* Some of the more realistic levels of ''VideoGame/{{Sanitarium}}'' have this. A seemingly normal American town which has no adults and is full of disfigured children, a mental asylum with friendly guards and patients, with one of them cheerfully telling you that [[ImAHumanitarian she "ate her husband with carrots and rice"]], etc.
69	* The Playable Teaser for the canned ''VideoGame/SilentHills'' is set in single looping corridor of a completely generic apartment flat, albeit one that's haunted and becomes incredibly nightmarish the more loops the player goes through, gradually implying a horrific and tragic backstory.
70	* ''VisualNovel/SpiritHunterNG'', the sequel to ''VisualNovel/SpiritHunterDeathMark'', is said in the [[http://www.aksysgames.com/ng/ official site]] to differentiate itself from its predecessor by taking place in ordinary urban locales (for example, an underpass and an office building) as opposed to the more traditional haunted locations of the original (such as a haunted forest and HellHotel).
71	-->While its predecessor, '''Spirit Hunter: Death Mark''', found its spirits in distinct, horrifying locales, '''Spirit Hunter: NG''' weaves fear seamlessly into the mundane. Face down monsters in quiet residential streets, neighborhood parks, and even the protagonist’s own home. Be careful—terror lurks behind every corner.
72	[[/folder]]
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74	[[folder:Web Original]]
75	* This is part of what makes the best incarnations of Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos (''WebVideo/MarbleHornets'' in particular) so unforgettably terrifying, through the juxtaposition of the suburban mundane with the nightmarishly uncanny. The Operator isn't some distant, bloodthirsty demon from a monster movie who stalks the unwary at night or lurks in haunted houses...he pops up (often completely un-obscured) in broad daylight, in totally recognizable suburban surroundings, standing in front of that house across the street. Or as a small, seemingly inexplicable spot of static on your otherwise unrelated home video. Or beside that tree a little ways down the road. Or [[NothingIsScarier quietly lurking at the edge of the forest.]] Or outside your window. [[ParanoiaFuel Or inside your house....]]
76	* The picture that got ''WebOriginal/TheBackrooms'' started is a mundane picture of an empty office room with yellow wallpaper at an askew angle, posted to a thread about mundane yet disquieting images.
77	[[/folder]]
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79	[[folder:Western Animation]]
80	* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'': "One Flu Over the Loud House" is a PlagueEpisode parodying a ZombieApocalypse, in which the Loud family gets the flu. The first visible sign that things aren't right is that the upstairs hallway looks different-- it's dark, it's a mess (while a bit of clutter is normal in the Louds' hallway, this time it's so bad that even the furniture is knocked over), the ceiling light is askew, and "RUN!" is written on the wall with a backwards "R".
81	* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'': The episode "Video Killed The Gene-io Star" gives us Billy Bandana, a bland, monotone speaking man in a business suit who accidentally leaves his briefcase in the restaurant. Teddy and Linda obsess over the briefcase's contents to the point of actually breaking it open, much to Bob's displeasure. When they find it's full of walnuts, Bob immediately freaks out asking why someone would carry around a briefcase with nothing but walnuts inside. Billy Bandana eventually returns for his briefcase when Bob steps on a walnut shell. After Billy notes it sounded like a walnut shell was crushed, Bob bluffs by asking how Billy would ''know'' what that sounds like. He leaves with no answers about who he was and why his briefcase had walnuts in it, with Bob believing they're better off not knowing.
82	-->'''Bob''': I think we were just in the presence of Death.
83	[[/folder]]

Context Main / MundaneHorror