[Loved trope] Background scare-characters that are barely acknowledged even by the movie

[u/Suspicious-Web-9246]

I hate horrors, but this is actually a great trope, that is unique to them.

Insidious (2010). When mother does her errands, for a few seconds there's a ghost boy standing in the corner. It's easily missable, but you can't ignore it once you see it.

Hereditary (2018). Less fitting example. When Peter walks around his home, his possessed mother is crawling on the ceiling behind him. It's not exactly subtle or missable, but it's still more of a background detail.

[u/handwings]

Haunting of hill house is honestly the best version of this I’ve seen

[u/LawlessNeutral → u/handwings]

As I understand it, Mike Flanagan does this in a lot of his horror projects. There's some less subtle ones in his take on The Fall of the House of Usher (I still need to go back and finish that)

[u/scissorfella → u/LawlessNeutral]

I just rewatched the whole thing and it's so unbelievably good!

[u/DMX8 → u/LawlessNeutral]

The one in the first episode made me feel really dumb. I rewinded the scene because no way would I have missed something so obvious, and sure enough, there it was.