i've ported my spatial horror reclist to notion to make it easier to sort and filter! everything is arranged by type, subtype, and a key describing what kind of hauntings are present in the work, and you can filter by any of those things.

check out the list here, and feel free to send me more recs for it!

edit 10/20/2022: if you've sent me a recommendation and i haven't replied to it, don't worry! i like to wait until i have time to check out whatever media's been recommended myself to respond/add it to the list, and i've been swamped with deadlines lately, but i prommy i'm not ignoring y'all <3

have you watched The House on netflix? it’s a fictional stop motion anthology, centered around three different cases of architecture that inspired a blinding obsession in its owner/creator. only about an hour and a half long too. i’m not super familiar with the spatial horror genre but i’m reccing it for your list since i really liked it and i never see anyone talk about it ahah

hello! i just watched it!! holy shit, what a film. i feel like it's one that's gonna need a few days to properly digest in my brain, but i absolutely adored the first section (it reminded me a bit of some of emily carroll's comics, especially the nesting place), and the different forms of obsession the house inspires is fascinating!

also very reminiscent of the mythology of the winchester house imo — this house won't let you stop building it, to the point that it becomes an entirely nonsensical structure over and over again! just remove the stairs entirely! turn the house into a maze! no one's allowed to escape! the more i think about it the more sure i become that that was a big inspiration for the writers; what better example of house-based obsession is there, really?

the third part was also beautiful (both story-wise and visually — the stop motion was gorgeous in the whole thing but those atmospheric establishing shots of the water, oh my god). the bit where rosa begs the house to let her leave really got me. i wasn't as fond of the second part but mostly just because bug-themed horror isn't my fave; i did really enjoy the weird insect dance sequence as a storytelling choice, though! what a fun way to show the surreal breakdown the contractor is having!

tysm for the recommendation, anons!!! i really enjoyed it <3 (and added it to the rec list as well!)

Hii i remember u had a haunted house media spreadsheet somewhere where could i find that? + does this qualify this is one of my favorite spatial.. well not horror http://www.tschumi.com/projects/19/

hi! the hauntings database is here (fair warning that i haven't updated it in a while, but there's still over 100 things on it so it should be enough content to find some interesting stuff!) & i actually already have that on it!! i adore the advertisements for architecture stuff, it's all so cool!

For your consideration, re haunted architecture notion list

Just Like Home - Sarah Gailey thematic CWs for serial killing, some true crime, torture. I do have a full CW list if anyone needs them, but the plot summary may hint at whether one is interested in the plot. I love a good coming home story, especially when Home is a fucked up place for so many reasons.

The Death of Jane Lawrence - Caitlin Starling It's no house of leaves but the house is creepily fucked up in its own right.

Smithy by Amanda Desiree I also have a list of CWs but fwiw the 'animal experimentation' plot does not involve, like, Wire Mother levels of animal abuse. But there is a scene of animal injury but it's animal on animal due to improper animal interactions. [I'm trying not to spoiler too much here.] This is a paranormal haunting but unfortunately does not feature as heavily as I wish it did. But all the same, I love the concept of animals picking up on the supernatural, very creepy!!! Also fair warning, the various rep is a bit shallow re lesbian character, Jewish character. Think passing single sentence references. I don't think it's esp offensive beyond the fact that the author clearly did not put very much thought into what it means to being lesbian or Jewish. You know, the usual superficiality.

The Invited - Jennifer McMahon Also tentative because it's more a mystery than a paranormal horror. The MC is, quite literally, building a haunted house out of materials that come from locations where major tragedy and / or death has occurred. I can appreciate the variation from the usual 'married couple moves into haunted house' plot.

Tentative, honorary suggestion? House of Small Shadows - Adam Nevill

It's… deep sighs. The 'tentative' bit comes in because. Well. Horror has a long terrible ableist history with regards to using disabilities and disfigurements as shock and horror. The book does heavily feature disabled people as an 'Other' but more like this community has banded together around this house because of society rejecting them for being disabled. I'm not sure if the author meant it to be That Deep or not. [he's been described as 'the british 'stephen king' '. Take that as you will....] I don't know if I can explain it well without spoiling, and I'm certainly not able to discuss it from a heavily disabled person's perspective. Go in eyes open, imo. I do remember the house being heavily toxic and vile until [spoiler]. While it's not a traditional paranormal haunting, I think it counts towards a 'house that isn't haunted by something but haunts the current residents'. A la Haunting of Hill House. This house is not meant for the able bodied living, per se. Or maybe it's more like 'the haunting isn't a ghost, it's trauma'? There's a lot going on.

Anyways, maybe these books are fitting for your list, maybe someone else can endorse or recommend against. It's all good. I hope your coming week goes very smoothly and chill! And thank you for making that list, I got quite a few recs out of it!

hi! thank you so much for the books! i'm actually in the middle of reading just like home right now (and absolutely loving it); once i finish it'll absolutely be going on the list. and i can't believe i forgot to put the death of jane lawrence on there — it's definitely one of my favorite books i've read this year! (tooting my own horn a bit: i actually got commissioned by the author to draw the house from that book!) i've added that one now!

the rest i haven't read, though they sound interesting and will definitely be on my 'research further before adding' list.

thanks again! hope you have a good day & happy almost halloween! <3

i noticed kitty horrorshow's game anatomy on your spatial horror reclist!! i think her game exclusion zone also fits the bill super well- it's a shorter one where you wander around an irradiated wasteland full of the ruins of pieces of a civilization and learn about how the people there brought a young goddess to her death, which was what wiped them out to begin with. it's part of her collection, haunted cities, vol. 4, which i believe is free to download on itch.io if you wanted to play it yourself, but there may be silent playthroughs up on yt as well

ooh thank you! i do have her whole "haunted cities" series on there — i included it all because, from what i've seen, a lot of the games in there fit the spatial horror category, and also because i haven't had a chance to play all of them myself yet. i definitely need to, though; they all look so good!! (also, if you haven't seen it already, jacob geller has a super good video about that haunted cities volume that discusses exclusion zone!)

i want u to know that ur spatial horror reclist feels like a gift specifically for me, will there be others like it for other kinds of horror?

thank you so much, i'm so glad you're enjoying it!! i probably won't make others like it, just because spatial horror is my main area of interest/knowledge and i wouldn't feel qualified to make a list like this of other kinds of horror. i'm just not as fluent in other areas! that said, i would absolutely love to see other people make lists like this (and send em to me if you do!)

would like to submit CYCLE posted by DOMINO CLUB on itchio for the spatial horror reclist! pretty short playthrough (took me like ten minutes total i think) and i liked it a lot. link at: dominoclub (dot) itch (dot) io (slash) cycle

i've actually got that one on there already!!! this did prompt me to go reread it, though, so thank you for that — it's one of my fave things i've found online in recent memory and the writing style in it absolutely haunts me

here's a link for anyone curious!

Hi I love ur haunted architecture list thank u so much for curating that <3333 I wanted to suggest the podcast woe.begone to you bc I think it fits at least some of the criteria <3 also I love it . I also wanted to recommend the video Upsilon Dies Backwards by exurb1a as it's one of my favorite pieces of media of all time and I think it may also be of interest to you. Thank you !

i love woe.begone too! i'm very far behind on it but its such a good podcast. i'm not sure that it really fits what i'm looking for for items on that list, though — i mean, there's definitely some spooky buildings, but i think they're more spooky along the lines of "people are doing fucked up shit in there" and less in terms of either sentient architecture and/or ghosts. (there's definitely something to be said about time travel as creating ghosts of yourself / the various mikes being ghosts, but i'm not sure it's the vibe for this list! someone should make a list of stuff about ghosts and time travel though that would be neat)

for the spatial horror list… maybe check out layers of fear?? though i’ve not finished it, it seems to fall in line with the whole ‘spooky-house-is-out-to-get-you’ vibe

hmmmm i've looked it up & though i do love a thing about a painter and a spooky house, the whole "Delve deep into the mind of an insane painter and discover the secret of his madness" bit of the game's official description feels super ableist & i want to stay far away from any horror that demonizes mental illness in this list.

i've also heard some pretty bad things about bloober team's games in general having a ton of problems with their portrayals of trauma and mental illness in other games — when i looked up layers of fear i thought "hm that developer sounds familiar" and then remembered it's because a friend sent me this twitter thread ages ago that talks about their game 'the medium'. heed the content warnings if you read the thread, it's rough. they seem to make a lot of games that follow the theme of "having trauma makes you an irrevocably bad person" which, obviously, i am very much not into!

i have not played this game though so if anyone who has played it has different perspectives i'd love to hear them! for now though this one's gonna be a no, sorry anon.

do you think hadestown could count as a haunted city/town for your architectural hauntings reclist? i know it’s not haunted in the traditional sense but i do feel like the themes of the musical tie it in really well with common haunted location stories

ooohh yes it absolutely could!! haunted both literally (because, y'know, everyone in hadestown is dead already) and more subtly (the way hadestown takes away your memories/sense of self reminds me a bit of the way hill house affects eleanor in the haunting of hill house tbh? you could absolutely put eurydice into the library staircase scene from hill house and it would work, thematically)

btw if you've sent me an ask with recs for the spatial horror list, i'm not ignoring them!! i have a couple in my inbox rn but i want to at least look into the media that's rec'd before i add it, and i've been too busy with moving/deadlines/etc lately to do that. i'll get to it tho i prommy<3

im using ur horror reclist to add books to my october/spooky season reading list and i have a couple haunted house books on my list that arent on ur list so once im done with them i'll let u know what i think!

ahh i'm so glad + i hope you enjoy them!!! absolutely let me know about any haunted house books, i'd love to hear about any that aren't on the list already!

ive actually got a bunch of horror books on my tbr so i might make a list! how did u make urs? is there a tutorial i can follow?

i made it on notion! i don't have a tutorial or anything, but it's a pretty easy site/application to use once you get the hang of it, i think. i made my list by making a new page & putting a table-style database within that page. if it helps, feel free to duplicate my page & mess around with it to see how it works!

your spatial horror reclist is so cool!! i was wondering if you had a link to "(cycle) by exai" bit because it doesnt work for me?

oh shit, sorry, i'm not sure how my links got mixed up there!! fixed it & here's the direct link, enjoy!