I Shouldn't Be Here: The Use of Liminal Spaces in Horror
How settings absent of life are filled with horror
The idea of liminal spaces has been gaining traction online over the past several years, especially among communities of horror media fans. Images of spaces that are considered liminal (usually man-made rooms devoid of people or other lifeforms, illuminated by dimming light sources, and no apparent exit or entryways) populate social media posts, image board forums, and videos and are given captions such as “Places from Your Childhood” or “Rooms only found in Dreams.” Users leave comments expressing similar sentiments, remarking on the uncanny familiarity of these images as places they have seen before but cannot quite place. Many of these liminal spaces feel like almost impossible locations that can only be created by the human mind in the deepest recesses of sleep and possibly serve as temporary prisons for our slumbering consciousnesses. Some are also from real life and might be areas that we inhabit every day, thus making us realize what the common spaces of our lives look like when no one is around.
The concept of liminality in storytelling is nothing new and has motifs in folk traditions spanning back for centuries. Often, liminal spaces are used to signal otherworldly or supernatural presences, but in the archaic context of myth and folktales most might not expect sterile white hallways and dim rooms filled with abandoned childhood toys to be access points to the otherworld. Usually, stories from the past treat liminal spaces and settings either as areas where people would be separated from society or as natural phenomena that leaves them exposed to the otherworldly. Sometimes people are able to encounter the otherworld in their own dreams as well. Modern liminal spaces also might have an otherworldly feeling to them, and often are of places with emphasis on the not-so-distant past (the '90s to early 2000s usually). What is interesting about traditional otherworldly encounters (in Irish mythology at least) is that the society and setting of the otherworld is often depicted as being locked in a perpetual golden age.
Although liminal spaces in the natural world are certainly effective settings for fantasy and horror, internet-based audiences seem to tend towards discuss the eerie, manmade structures that induce feelings of unease and sometimes nostalgia. A common theme amongst these discussions is the focus on the past and childhood; people in and around my generation often talk fondly about how we lived on the precipice between the “classic” childhood of playing outside and engaging in pre-internet activities but also grew up at the right time to engage with the boom in digital media. I think most people, no matter what generation, has longed for the simplicity and wonder of childhood and the fact most people in my generation have access to the internet and are very vocal about their opinions concerning the current state of the world, it is understandable why many of them long for the “good years” of the '90s and early 200s. This longing, however, comes with a few pitfalls such as sequestered, unpleasant memories the brain likely blocked out for good reason or the fact that nobody is in the past you might want to return to. The latter example is a common title or caption used in compilations of liminal spaces, and serves as the sad reality that the lives that once inhabited these spaces really only exist in human memory. With how much physical spaces can change or vanish, especially in rapidly-progressing society, the amount of time one might have spent in a fondly-remembered building or even just one room is comparable to a seven second dream. Some of the horror or unease comes from the absence of life in these spaces; where there normally should be people is instead nothing. There usually aren’t even sole traces in these photos that anyone has been through them at all, as if they simply manifested online. The lack of many identifiable photographers also adds to the mystique of these images.
Liminal spaces on their own are not a form of horror. Their sense of unease and the possible memories (whether real or dreamt) associated with the places they depict provide ripe ground for horror settings. With liminal spaces, authors are free to populate such places with as many ghosts, monsters, or unlucky prisoners as they wish or leave them completely barren. One example of a story that uses liminal spaces is Stephen King’s The Langoliers where the characters are trapped in a moment of time that has already passed. The setting is primarily in an airport, which alone can be considered a liminal space (being a point of transition) even when populated, and introduces the creatures that eat spaces left in the past—the titular langoliers. This story possibly plays into the anxieties of losing these moments in the past or the realization that those who let themselves remain in the past are doomed to be swallowed up and forgotten along with it. A more recent example is the series “The Oldest View” on YouTube by Kane Pixels, which is where the title of this article actually comes from. This video series takes place in an entirely computer-generated replication of the Valley View Center, a mall in Dallas, Texas. Malls are another common subject of liminal space photography as in addition to the large, white halls many people might have fond memories of these fading institutions as places they socialized in or spent holidays and weekends shopping with their families. The longest videos in the series focus on an urban explorer venturing through this recreation of the mall and at one point declares, “I shouldn’t be here” soon before he is chased by a strange creature resembling a lost historical figure.
That particular line made me consider further why liminal spaces have the potential to be so terrifying. As stated above, these locations are intended to represent moments from the past or areas that are seemingly difficult to access (or have no clear points of access), so they are fraught with this forbidden feeling. When considering the otherworldly connections liminal spaces inherently hold, tales of the otherworld often feature protagonists who accidently stumble across access points and many of these stories serve as warnings for travelers not to deliberately seek out traversal into whatever lies beyond the veil. Some internet folklore as well is centered on one particular image titled “The Backrooms” with an accompanying tale warning that sometimes people can “fall” out of reality into these purgatorial rooms that seemingly have no end.
I think this concept of falling out of reality can also be applied to many of the other liminal space images floating around the internet; writers and other artists can apply the horrors and anxieties of being trapped in such spaces to whatever melancholic limbo they choose to set their scenes in, whether that be the storage spaces of a decaying department store or a child’s playroom that hasn’t been touched in years. The themes of liminality in this digital age represent both the longing for a simpler time and the anxieties surrounding the idea of what goes on in these spaces when no one else is around. These are perfect opportunities to channel horror scenarios and haunt these spaces with cautionary tales about the dangers of wandering or slipping out of reality. Although these spaces of the past might seem empty, there could be things for which it is the present.
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Thanks for reading this week’s post! Are there any particular liminal spaces you’ve seen in life or online that particularly unnerve you? Describe them in the comments!
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On a recent flight from London to Boston, our section of the plane was almost entirely devoid of other passengers. Other sections of the plane had a normal contingent of passengers, but ours was eerily empty. Having a usually crowded space like the Economy section of a plane become almost a liminal space was quite bizarre.