--- title: Meet the TikTok Creators Are Making Popular Horror Movies description: There's a reason short-form horror movies are taking the stage for some TikTok creators right now. Learn the surprising story behind them. canonical: https://time.com/5825674/horror-tiktok-videos/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-05-01T14:25:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T08:56:22.636Z og:title: Meet the TikTok Creators Taking the Mini-Horror Movie to New Levels og:description: Why millions of people are seeking a scare right now og:url: https://time.com/5825674/horror-tiktok-videos/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1b9ca0fa674af7e4/698a0d878fd2eeba4c3613f6/tik-tok-mini-horror-movie.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2742 og:image:height: 1542 og:image:alt: TikTok mini horror movies og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Meet the TikTok Creators Taking the Mini-Horror Movie to New Levels twitter:description: Why millions of people are seeking a scare right now twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1b9ca0fa674af7e4/698a0d878fd2eeba4c3613f6/tik-tok-mini-horror-movie.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Meet the TikTok Creators Taking the Mini-Horror Movie to New Levels > Sponsored content. 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Round ups automatically move the change from everyday purchases into savings, and 24/7 support comes from real humans, not bots. #### What bank is built for life today? Ally is the bank built for life today, a digital-first, people-first bank. Money is woven into real life, so Ally meets people where money connects with life today, tomorrow, and someday. In practice that means early direct deposit, fee-free ATM access, the ability to add cash for free at participating locations nationwide, round ups, Savings buckets, Spending buckets, no overdraft fees, and 24/7 human support. #### What bank is best for everyday spending and saving? Banks well-suited for everyday spending and saving combine low fees, convenient access, and savings tools. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: Are We In A Horror Film Renaissance? [Watch (HLS stream): Are We In A Horror Film Renaissance?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/qUXjGvdk.m3u8) (3:16)  _Published 2018-06-08. The horror-movie genre is on the brink of a renaissance. Or is it?_  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer May 1, 2020 2:25 PM UTC The horror-movie genre is on the brink of a renaissance. Or is it?  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer May 1, 2020 2:25 PM UTC There’s a good reason short-form [horror movies](https://time.com/5601438/best-horror-movies-netflix/) are taking center stage for some [TikTok](https://time.com/5594374/tiktok-artists-money/) creators recently. For people staying home right now, movies and TV shows — maybe more than ever before — are becoming an escape from reality. And on digital platforms like TikTok and Instagram, in addition to choreographing [viral dance videos](https://time.com/5829144/casey-frey-get-out-my-way/), some users are taking what they’ve learned from the entertainment world and creating mini-movies of their own. From comedies to musicals, these videos run the genre gamut. There’s even a thriving corner of the TikTok community that has taken to creating short-form horror flicks — including ones that are themed for this unique moment in time. And while it may seem strange for [horror fans](https://time.com/5601438/best-horror-movies-netflix/) to want to experience the thrill of a good scare in the midst of a crisis that could be considered a real-life nightmare, with millions of viewers tuning in, it’s clear some of these spooky shorts are resonating with people. Take the debut post of [Riley Bona](https://www.tiktok.com/@rileybona), a 20-year-old Princeton University student who made his grand entrance on TikTok’s horror scene with an April 11 video that has racked up over 2.3 million views on [TikTok](https://vm.tiktok.com/vD8yJf/) and 6 million on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/luvu2golka/status/1249056776504270848), for example. Like many cooking videos om the platform, the minute-long video opens with Bona going through the motions of baking a strawberry pie to the tune of the main theme from Pixar’s [_Ratatouille_](https://time.com/93672/best-food-movies/), a sequence that lulls viewers into a false sense of security. But then it takes a sinister psychological turn involving a menacing music switch-up and anxiety-inducing cuts between shots of excessive handwashing, pecking chickens, a whistling tea kettle and more. For his part, Bona tells TIME that he never thought the video would be as popular as it is. “I didn’t expect it to resonate so much with people because, for me, it was kind of a comedy,” he says. “There are so many people, including myself, making these videos about how well we’re doing in quarantine. I thought it would be funny to put a twist on that and make it a more accurate depiction of how we’re all feeling right now.” Despite his comedic intentions, the video was shared to Twitter with the caption, “TikTok owns horror now I’m sorry I don’t make the rules,” and quickly began garnering comments like, [“This made me so anxious omg,”](https://twitter.com/teoami/status/1249092657172938752) and, [“I’m having a panic attack trying to watch lol.”](https://twitter.com/flamingobonez/status/1249117153393094659) > [](https://twitter.com/luvu2golka/status/1249056776504270848) Bona, who says he’s a fan of scary shows like campy anthology series _American Horror Story_ and Netflix’s spine-chiling [_The Haunting of Hill House_](https://time.com/5419832/haunting-of-hill-house-red-room-explained/)adaptation as well as movies like [_The Babadook_](https://time.com/4972141/best-halloween-movies-to-watch/), credits his video’s fright factor to its unexpected twist. Around the 30-second mark, his serene baking how-to transforms into an unsettling dramatization of what may happen to the human mind in isolation. “I think it’s all about nuance,” he says. “You have to convey the feeling of anxiety or fear without having the resources to do a really scary costume or horrifying plot line. All you have is a minute and your iPhone, so you have to perfect the pacing and music and whatever else to convey that creepiness.” The success of the video seems to stem from the way Bona plays off many people’s shared fears amid the current health and social climate. “It’s hyper-contemporary because it plays on everyone being at home and the amount of baking that many people are doing,” says [Kinitra D. Brooks](https://english.msu.edu/faculty/kinitra-brooks/), a literary studies professor at Michigan State University who specializes in horror. “He lulls you into thinking it’s just a cooking video. Then suddenly there’s this increasingly foreboding sound and these quick cuts between shots that prey on our fears. Even though he’s showing us simple shots of a rabbit or a cat, they become ominous and scary.” Of course, short-form horror certainly isn’t a new trend, with Victorian-era [penny dreadfuls stories](https://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,918746,00.html) — cheap, sensational and often lurid fiction — enjoying great popularity over a century ago. Brooks says that TikTok has allowed the tradition to continue to evolve. “It’s not a new idea to put horror in short form. Penny dreadfuls were serial, but really short and to the point,” she says. “TikTok is a newer medium, but its short-form horror is part of a long, established tradition.” Although there are definitely challenges that go along with spooking people in a tight timeframe, Brooks says that horror stories can sometimes be even more effective when presented in short form — just think of the chilling tales of [Edgar Allen Poe](https://time.com/3676510/edgar-allan-poe-raven/), the nightmarish [_Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark_](https://time.com/5640083/scary-stories-to-tell-in-the-dark-movie-vs-book/)anthology or the [Reddit-inspired](https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoSentenceHorror/) TV series [_Two Sentence Horror Stories_](https://www.netflix.com/title/80244627). “Horror doesn’t have to be a long-drawn-out narrative, and a lot of the time, it works best when it’s not,” she says. Having created a flourishing horror TikTok that gives off some major [_Blair Witch Project_](https://entertainment.time.com/2011/01/20/top-10-sundance-hits/slide/the-blair-witch-project-1999/)and [_The Others_](https://entertainment.time.com/2011/09/30/top-10-haunted-house-movies/slide/the-others-2001/)vibes, Charles Robitaille, a 22-year-old TikTokker from Tampa, Fla., also believes that a good twist can make all the difference when it comes to ensuring your post stands out from the crowd. “You have to keep people engaged throughout the whole video, but that twist at the end can be the difference between a good video and a viral video,” he says. Robitaille has successfully tested the horror TikTok waters with a video that imagines the haunting aftermath of a tragic pool accident involving his little sister. He says he came up with the idea after watching other TikToks that used the same creepy staticky wind sound, Eric Keith’s [“ceo of deep moments.”](https://www.tiktok.com/music/ceo-of-deep-moments-6807494605425167110) When a sound becomes popular on TikTok, users often end up riffing off and building on each other’s ideas to incorporate it into their own videos. “That’s how it really starts,” Robitaille explains. “You find a sound, you find some ideas that are similar to yours, and then you put a spin on it to make it your own and make it original to you.” In addition to devising a spine-tingling opening sequence that immediately gives viewers the feeling that something’s off, Brooks notes that the way Robitaille uses text to convey some of the story’s drama makes the video very compelling. “He makes you read, but not too much. The sentences are short. He gets right to the point,” she says. “With horror, your viewer has to do some of the work, but you want to very much control the amount of work that they do.” Robitaille says the most difficult part of nailing the video was getting his little sister, who played herself, to cooperate throughout the hour-long filming process. Actors, right? “She was excited to be a part of it but didn’t realize it was going to take that much time,” he says. “We had to do a lot of takes because she would move a certain way and I’d be like, ‘Don’t do that. Do this.’ She had to be patient with me, but I appreciated it.” On TikTok, users have a maximum of 60 seconds per video to tell a story. So when it comes to horror, Brooks says it can be helpful for narratives to be rooted in the realities of everyday life. “When you’re doing things in as short an amount of time as TikTok forces you to, you’re usually most successful with horror when you’re playing with the everyday,” she says. “You have to drop your viewer into something that they’re instantly familiar with.” _Keep up to date with our daily coronavirus newsletter by clicking_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/coronavirus?source=article)_._ TikTokker and adventure videographer Shane Brown, on the other hand, faces a different set of challenges when making his horror videos: the unpredictability of the ocean. Brown, who specializes in videos that play off people’s fear of the deep sea — a.k.a. [thalassophobia](https://time.com/5785828/john-dombrowski-marine-biology-student-tiktok/) — that he films in the waters off Hawaii, has garnered nearly 30 million TikTok views with his four-part “Sinking” series. Although the ocean and the creatures that inhabit it may be some people’s greatest fear — as evidenced by popular horror movies like [_Jaws_](https://time.com/3894762/jaws-1975-review/), [_The Abyss_](https://techland.time.com/2009/12/14/james-cameron-almost-died-making-the-abyss/) and _Deep Blue Sea —_ Brown says that he never gets caught up in that terror while filming. “I’m in the water every single day, sometimes twice a day,” he explains. “I always have a healthy respect for the ocean, but never fear.” So when it comes to brainstorming ideas for ocean videos that might frighten people, Brown says he thinks back to how he felt as a child when a piece of seaweed would touch his foot while swimming. “With horror, one of the scariest things is not seeing the thing that you’re afraid of. The ocean contains so much mystery to so many people. They don’t know what’s out there, so that mystery is really scary,” he says. “The most scared I’ve ever been in the ocean was when a piece of seaweed would touch my foot as a kid. It’s the stupidest thing to be afraid of, but I would freak out. I just think about that feeling to imagine what other people are experiencing while they’re in the ocean.” Brooks says this dread of the unseen could also be viewed as responsible for some of the anxiety surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. “The horror isn’t a person,” she says. “The horror is a virus so we can’t see it**,** and it’s passed by having contact with other people.” As for why some people are seeking a scare right now, Brooks says that it’s perfectly normal to turn to horror in times of trouble or uncertainty. “Horror is all about dealing with our own anxieties. It plays on our cultural fears,” she tells TIME. “When done well, it gives us a psychological pressure release that can offer us the feeling of being more in control.” Bona says he thinks that’s why visualizations of horror on TikTok can be comforting right now. “My video wasn’t intended to bring people to reality at all; it was actually intended to remind people that we’re \[all in this together\],” he says. “It’s articulating the anxieties the viewer wants to escape, and that can be a cathartic experience.” _Please send any tips, leads, and stories to_ [_virus@time.com_](mailto:virus@time.com)_._ ## Transcript [00:00] [ MUSIC ] [ NOISE ] [ SOUND ] The horror movie genre [00:04] is on the brink of a rennaisance, or [00:08] is it? In writer- director Ari Aster's Hereditary, Toni [00:13] Collette gives a Terrific performance as an artist whose [00:15] family is haunted by a particularly creepy curse. You [00:19] might think you've seen this type of story hundreds of [00:21] times before. But Hereditary is a well crafted horror [00:24] picture that's hitting at just the right time. Unsettling in [00:27] its arid, controlled creepiness, it's a movie about [00:30] feeling small and inconsequential in the larger pattern [00:32] of danger churning all around And like some other [00:36] recent works of horror. Get out! Yo! Jordan Peele's Get [00:40] Out, or A Quiet Place, directed by John Krasinski, [00:43] hereditary works by building and sustaining a mood of [00:46] dread rather than relying on jump scares or outright [00:49] gore. In other words, Hereditary is part of a trend [00:52] toward a more sophisticated kind of horror filmmaking [00:55] than, say, the torture porn horror that dominated the [00:58] scene through most of the early 2000s. Have we finally [01:01] entered an error when horror can be Be taken [01:03] seriously as a genre. [ MUSIC ] The problem with that [01:07] argument is that it stems from the false assumptions [01:09] that horror has never deserved to be taken seriously. [01:13] Horror movies often speak of deeper anxieties in a [01:15] culture. Sci- Fi horror films of the 1950s like Invasion [01:19] of the Body Snatchers and Them, riffed on American [01:22] unrest over nuclear experimentation and the threat of [01:25] communism. Joseph Ruben's the stepfather from [01:29] 1987, about a seemingly normal guy who murders his [01:32] family because it fails to meet his perfectionist [01:35] standards, is the quintessential Reagan era chiller, a [01:38] parable about the illusory nature of order and [01:41] prosperity. People often say I can't tolerate horror [01:44] movies. What's happening? Because they're thinking of [01:48] slasher films like Halloween or Friday the 13th, or [01:51] sadistically violent films like Saw and Hostel. But what [01:56] about Robert Wise's 1963 Shirley Jackson adaptation [01:59] The Haunting? Which terrifies only by whispery [02:02] suggestion? Or Alejandro Amenabar's bleak, elegant [02:06] 2001 ghost story, The Others? Where's [02:14] my daughter? Are you mad? I am your daughter. Then [02:16] there's Dario Argento's outrageously opulent 1977, [02:19] Suspiria. It's fuchsia blood splattered, art nouveau, [02:22] bordello a goo goo esthetic is one of moviedom's great [02:25] visual pleasures. Luca Guadagnino, director of Call Me [02:29] By Your Name, clearly feels that way too. He's making [02:32] his own version of the film set to be released later this [02:35] year. So while this new wave of horror movies isn't [02:39] necessarily breaking new ground, it does represent a [02:42] shift. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. These [02:44] filmmakers are operating at a high level of [02:46] craftsmanship. They're more interested in teasing out [02:49] subterranean fears than in grossing us out or being [02:53] punishingly graphic. Saying I don't like horror movies is [02:57] like saying I don't like love stories. You just haven't met [03:00] the right one. Do you like scary movies? Uh- huh. [03:03] Maybe at long last it's time to come back to the world [03:05] of horror, to let yourself go and let yourself be scared. 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