One self-inflicted terror of my pre-teen years was also among the most banal — video chat roulette, a lá Omegle.
The platform’s tagline is “talk to strangers!”, a pretty on-the-nose directive targeted at the very population warned not to do just that. I remember sitting in front of the camera with a few girlfriends, waiting for the screen to load and reveal someone new, who could be anywhere from Atlanta to Azerbaijan and could be doing anything from playing a song on the ukulele to masturbating. I would say there was a one-in-three chance that the person on the screen would be masturbating.
It felt then like a true window to the world and all its gritty and gruesome possibilities. And I was reminded of that feeling when I watched We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, the 2021 film about a struggling teenage girl who gets involved in an online horror RPG. I always find the straight-on “webcam shot” in horror anxiety-inducing, though I think horror films that use it well are far-and-few-between. The camera is facing straight at a person’s face — usually a teenage girl’s — and in the background is an intimate space, typically a bedroom, dimly lit and partially pixelated.
Since we have some new subscribers, I thought I’d try out a thread for the first time: Chime in — what is it about the webcam shot that’s so eerie? Any films that use that concept particularly well?
I see someone already mentioned the mirror parallel, and I think that's is a very interesting comparison. I personally think of mirror sequences (and by extension, the use of webcam video) in horror as an elevation of the investigating-an-unexpected-sound trope with regards to how it builds tension.
I also appreciate your use of the word trapped, because that's exactly what I think the protagonist (or victim) experiences in a mirror/webcam horror setting. The desire to run away versus the fear of taking your eye off the frame, leaving you either trapped within eyeshot or forcing you to give up the final bit of sensory awareness/control to risk escape - it certainly isn't the worst way to build tension.
From a horror perspective I feel the use of webcam is a pretty accessible way to make the characters and their situations more relatable, given how widespread the use of webcams is amongst people of varying social classes, especially after the pandemic made their use more necessary for many. Also as mentioned above, it's a dimly lit pixelated scene. It's not intended to be flattering or convey some level of cinematic genius. We use webcams to contact people, that's it. The raw aspect brings additional layers of relatability.
From an Omegle perspective, definitely the below the scröt shot where you see everything like some perverted version of the Washington monument in a post-elder god takeover, is something of nightmares. Especially when you include the jump scare factor.
Relatability is an interesting factor. I think when you bring the internet or technology really heavily into a film, you also run the risk of trying to seem *too* relatable. Like when a young person's texting in a movie and they use all sorts of cringey acronyms and lingo. You have to recreate the online space in an authentic way in order for that "raw aspect" to come through, otherwise you move completely in the opposite direction - over-wrought, polished, inauthentic, etc.
We're All Going to the World's Fair is interesting because rather than creating a space where you can show multiple faces at once, in keeping with the idea of the internet connecting us, Jane Schoenbrun, who wrote and directed the film, was more interested in creating room for isolation, in an internet environment where one "could find these strange crevices to hide online."
Further, they were "interested in making something about the internet that I knew growing up and that I still know now, which can feel quite lonely, quite boring. A space where you spend all day staring at a box that’s reflecting you back at yourself.”
For me, I think the scariest part is the helpless feeling of seeing something in a webcam and knowing you’re behind a screen with no way to intervene. You’re detached from the scene, but also a voyeur to the horror. Like a modern day Rear Window, you could look away, but that severs you from any chance of helping.
Webcams also give me the same unsettled feeling as mirrors in horror movies, where there’s something drawing the protagonists attention away, and we as the viewer are given this window into possible danger and fear, left to only anticipate what we might see.
Some personal faves that use the webcam trope: Cam (2018) and The Collingswood Story (2002)
I wonder how our minds really differentiate the feeling of not being able to intervene in a webcam-based horror vs. a regular horror movie where the same is, of course, also true…
The mirror observation is exactly the same thought I had. They both have the same effect — they allow the protagonist to see behind them and in front of them, but somehow it feels like one the most limited angles. No one is allowed to be omniscient! We’re trapped in a square.
I think it's the voyeuristic element that's undeniably eerie. You're there, but not really. just watching. just witnessing usually through a low resolution lens. what happens on screen can be real, or fabricated. especially with all the filters and AI opportunities these days, what are you really seeing? what's real? and if something "real" happens, what can you even do? nothing, really.
I see someone already mentioned the mirror parallel, and I think that's is a very interesting comparison. I personally think of mirror sequences (and by extension, the use of webcam video) in horror as an elevation of the investigating-an-unexpected-sound trope with regards to how it builds tension.
I also appreciate your use of the word trapped, because that's exactly what I think the protagonist (or victim) experiences in a mirror/webcam horror setting. The desire to run away versus the fear of taking your eye off the frame, leaving you either trapped within eyeshot or forcing you to give up the final bit of sensory awareness/control to risk escape - it certainly isn't the worst way to build tension.
From a horror perspective I feel the use of webcam is a pretty accessible way to make the characters and their situations more relatable, given how widespread the use of webcams is amongst people of varying social classes, especially after the pandemic made their use more necessary for many. Also as mentioned above, it's a dimly lit pixelated scene. It's not intended to be flattering or convey some level of cinematic genius. We use webcams to contact people, that's it. The raw aspect brings additional layers of relatability.
From an Omegle perspective, definitely the below the scröt shot where you see everything like some perverted version of the Washington monument in a post-elder god takeover, is something of nightmares. Especially when you include the jump scare factor.
Relatability is an interesting factor. I think when you bring the internet or technology really heavily into a film, you also run the risk of trying to seem *too* relatable. Like when a young person's texting in a movie and they use all sorts of cringey acronyms and lingo. You have to recreate the online space in an authentic way in order for that "raw aspect" to come through, otherwise you move completely in the opposite direction - over-wrought, polished, inauthentic, etc.
We're All Going to the World's Fair is interesting because rather than creating a space where you can show multiple faces at once, in keeping with the idea of the internet connecting us, Jane Schoenbrun, who wrote and directed the film, was more interested in creating room for isolation, in an internet environment where one "could find these strange crevices to hide online."
Further, they were "interested in making something about the internet that I knew growing up and that I still know now, which can feel quite lonely, quite boring. A space where you spend all day staring at a box that’s reflecting you back at yourself.”
From this interview - https://variety.com/2022/film/news/jane-schoenbrun-were-all-going-to-the-worlds-fair-1235220775/
For me, I think the scariest part is the helpless feeling of seeing something in a webcam and knowing you’re behind a screen with no way to intervene. You’re detached from the scene, but also a voyeur to the horror. Like a modern day Rear Window, you could look away, but that severs you from any chance of helping.
Webcams also give me the same unsettled feeling as mirrors in horror movies, where there’s something drawing the protagonists attention away, and we as the viewer are given this window into possible danger and fear, left to only anticipate what we might see.
Some personal faves that use the webcam trope: Cam (2018) and The Collingswood Story (2002)
I wonder how our minds really differentiate the feeling of not being able to intervene in a webcam-based horror vs. a regular horror movie where the same is, of course, also true…
The mirror observation is exactly the same thought I had. They both have the same effect — they allow the protagonist to see behind them and in front of them, but somehow it feels like one the most limited angles. No one is allowed to be omniscient! We’re trapped in a square.
I’ll have to check out the Collingswood Story. 💘
I think it's the voyeuristic element that's undeniably eerie. You're there, but not really. just watching. just witnessing usually through a low resolution lens. what happens on screen can be real, or fabricated. especially with all the filters and AI opportunities these days, what are you really seeing? what's real? and if something "real" happens, what can you even do? nothing, really.
Leslie Jamison writes: "The TV is a portal that brings the horror close, and a screen that keeps it at bay."