Analog horror

[4][8] Analog horror is often noted to use visual and audio distortion, as well as glitch-like effects that emphasize and replicate the technological limits the subgenre works with.

[4] Works such as The Backrooms use the limitations of the equipment that they are replicating to disguise the use of Blender and Adobe After Effects, making the series appear more visually realistic.

[20][21] The subgenre is typically cited as originating between the late 2000s and the mid-2010s Internet (mainly with YouTube) videos,[6][4] specifically from Steven Chamberlain's No Through Road in January 2009,[5] and gaining substantial popularity with the release of Kris Straub's Local 58 in October 2015, from which series' slogan ("ANALOG HORROR AT 476 MHz") the genre received its name.

[2] Many pro-democracy activists, including public and political figures, adopted and shared the short video and it's screenshots across social media platforms.

[33][34] Jay watches tapes from the films production, and uploads them to YouTube as various entries showing that Alex was being stalked by an elusive entity known as "The Operator."

[26] Kris Straub's Local 58 is a series of YouTube videos presented as authentic videotaped footage of a television station that has been continuously hijacked over several decades.

While there is no main plot in this series, episodes include messages related to looking up at the Moon or the night sky, as well as the in-universe Thought Research Initiative (TRI).

The podcast is centered around an archivist named Dan, who recently began a job from the Housing Historical Committee of New York, who is told by his boss to constantly record his life.

[14] It centers around the eponymous Gemini Home Entertainment, a fictional distributor of VHS tapes that detail numerous anomalous incidents taking place around the world, including the appearances of various dangerous alien creatures in the United States and an ongoing assault on the Solar System by "The Iris", a sentient rogue planet which sent the entities to Earth as part of its efforts to subjugate the planet and humanity.

[53][54] The Walten Files is an animated YouTube series, partially inspired by the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise and its analog horror adaptations.

[56] It is presented as found footage from the fictional restaurant known as Bon's Burgers, which featured animatronic entertainment, and produced by the fictitious Bunny Smiles Incorporated.

[14] The story focuses on the backstory of the restaurant and its founders, Jack Walten and Felix Kranken, alongside the many mysteries behind its enigmatic closure and the former's disappearance.

It is set in the fictional Mandela County, Wisconsin in the 1990s and 2000s,[57] which is threatened by the presence of "alternates", doppelgängers who coerce their victims to kill themselves and can manipulate audiovisual media.

[39] Other plot aspects include Lucifer disguising himself as the biblical archangel Gabriel, shown through altered footage of episodes from The Beginners Bible.

[61][62] The premises include James Dean serving as President having won the 1968 United States presidential election instead of Richard Nixon,[63] an alternate origin of the Statue of Freedom,[64] and Martin Luther King Jr. avoiding his assassination.

The episodes are in the found footage and mockumentary format and revolve around American national monuments being depicted in relation to unusual incidents, involving fictional conspiracy theory narratives, such as disappearances of immigrants near the Statue of Liberty,[65] time travel/teleportation, a strange astronomical phenomena above the Pyramids of Giza,[66] and a mysterious infection affecting individuals near Mount Rushmore.

The story takes place in 1999 when a government organization called H.O.M.E (Heavenly Operation Material Examination), made to research a being of extraterrestrial origin codenamed "AZ-001", makes contact with AZ-001 when it reaches the Earth's atmosphere.

[56] It is based on the creepypasta of the same name, using the software Blender and Adobe After Effects,[7][9][71][72] and is presented as a VHS tape recorded by a filmmaker who accidentally enters the Backrooms in the 1990s and is pursued by a monster.

[83] In terms of embodying analog horror traits, the visuals and sound design of the film simulate the quality of VHS tapes.