Hello and welcome to Fanfic Subgenres, where I take a look at subgenres of fan fiction, and see how they apply to works outside of what most call ‘fan fiction’.
This time, I’m talking about horror re-imaginings of lighthearted material.
By now, we’ve seen a LOT of this, in fan fiction and in movies, television, and video games, to the point where I’m not even sure if I even need to explain it. Most of us have seen a few works where a previously lighthearted (maybe even family friendly) story, show, or whatever has a decidedly darker, scarier (and likely a bit less – it not a lot less – family friendly) take on it.
A LOT of fan fiction has fics that are much darker than the source material. Some fanfiction archives use tags to differentiate between, say, canon typical violence (in other words, not much worse than the source material usually depicts) and other types. If we were focusing on that, we’d be here all day. But here, let’s focus on when a traditionally non-horror series is re-imagined with a horror twist.
Fan fiction has this in a lot of franchises. Online fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic who read its fan fiction are probably well acquainted with the infamous fanfic ‘Cupcakes’. In the dark alternate universe that fic is set in, the sweet, fun-loving, cake-making, party-throwing Pinkie Pie has this secret basement of horror where she lures unsuspecting ponies to be tortured, cannibalized, and have their taxidermied corpses put on display. It’s inspired a few spinoffs/unofficial sequels, some attempting to explain it, some carrying it a bit further (I read one fic from the viewpoint of a pony commenting on how after Pinkie Pie’s arrest, it was revealed the whole Pie family was making many of their visitors disappear), some where it’s just a bad dream Rainbow Dash had, and some where the Mane Six (Pinkie Pie included) read the fic and laugh at how absurd and out of character it is.
It’s also inspired some other fics set in dark corners of the Pony Multiverse where some other ponies such as Rainbow Dash, Big Macintosh, and even Cherilee engage in horror movie villain type behavior. (Things like ‘Rainbow Factory’ and ‘Cherilee’s Garden’). And there’s at least one fic I’ve read where the characters acting like horror movie antagonists are original characters, but which is both horrifying and heartbreaking at the same time, as it suggests a dark underside to Equestrian life in its suggestions as to where that world’s glue, leather products, and pet food come from.
In other fandoms, we have alternate universes of My Hero Academia where Izuku Midoriya’s life goes down a different path when he’s given a different Quirk (instead of One For All, the Quirk he receives in canon), and he loses control of it with horrifying results. Granted, My Hero Academia is a superhero anime series that has its darker moments, with some stuff that is pretty horrifying in canon (the backstory of antagonist Shigaraki is a good example), so it isn’t quite as jarring.
There have been some Ranma 1/2 horror fics as well, even though the source material is a martial arts/romance comedy and usually is lighthearted in its treatment of supernatural entities (such as the Ghost Cat that appears in a few episodes). The cursed springs of Jusenkyo which provide much of the magical elements and source of comedy (many characters, including the title character, are cursed by those springs to shapeshift to other forms when hit by cold water, and what form they change into depends on which spring they fell into) can also be used by some fanfic writers for horror as well, given the fact that there are hundreds of springs out there neither the manga or anime mentioned, and some might be downright scary. There’s fics that state that were the cursed characters unable to change back to their normal forms (using hot water, usually) and were stuck as pigs, ducks, or whatever, it could lead to scary and tragic consequences. And then there’s material where a character’s eccentricities that were played for comedy in the source material suddenly take darker and terrifying turns.
I could go on, but you get the idea. Fan fic has lots of horror fics based on non-horror properties. And movies, television, and video games have them, too.
I’ve loved Alice in Wonderland for its memorable eccentric characters, its whimsical world, and its wordplay since I was a kid. But every now and then, someone will play the bizarre worlds of Wonderland and Looking Glass Land and their inhabitants for horror instead of comedy, fun, and whimsy.
One of the best known dark Wonderland portrayals would be the video game American McGee’s Alice, featuring a darker, violent Wonderland where (among other things) the Queen of Hearts actually DOES behead people (instead of the King pardoning them or the Queen just not caring if they run away as long as they’re out of her sight, as in the original book), the Mad Hatter has gone scary mad instead of funny mad, and the Cheshire Cat (while still a source of advice) has looked a lot better. This is all explained in a story establishing that Wonderland exists in Alice’s head, and Alice has gone crazy due to her parents dying in a fire, and Wonderland has become warped due to Alice’s trauma.
The 2010 Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland is another dark take on Wonderland, though thankfully nowhere near as dark. It too has a scenario where the Queen’s oft-threatened executions actually did take place, and Alice herself is forced to decapitate the Jabberwock (who was just a monster in a poem Alice read in the original books, and not an antagonist Alice actually encountered). But compared to American McGee’s version, it’s tame as far as horror goes.
It seems like properties both well known and lesser known have had horror re-imaginings within the past few years, as the next few examples will illustrate.
There’s The Banana Splits Movie (2019), where robotic versions of the fun-loving anthropomorphic animal rock band created by Hanna Barbera go crazy and start terrorizing anyone standing in the way of their show (and some people just in the wrong place at the wrong time). I already reviewed that movie in another blog post. It’s a very weird movie, especially for those who actually remember seeing the original Banana Splits show in their childhood or in its 2008 revival.
There’s also the 2020 Blumhouse horror themed Fantasy Island, which gave a horror spin to a lighthearted series from the 1970s. There, the guests’ fantasies turn into horrifying nightmares.
And the less said about Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, the better. (If you really must satisfy your morbid curiosity, I recommend Decker Shado’s review of it, or The Creature and Jarvisrama99’s review/discussion of the movie).
This is not to say that all horror reimaginings are bad. Some are actually quite good. Some might even be at the very least interesting interpretations of the material, even if one still prefers the original flavor. For example, American McGee’s Alice has its fans, but I’m not one of them, though I do think the premise is a bit interesting. At least it (unlike the Winnie the Pooh horror film) is actually looking at the source material from a different angle (as opposed to just doing a tiny bit of that in the prologue and then having little or no resemblance to the source material afterward).
In recent years, Archie Comics has embraced a sort of Archie multiverse, showing all sorts of ‘What Ifs’ for Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and the rest of the gang. There’s universes where Archie marries Betty, Archie marries Veronica, Archie heroically gives his life for a friend, and more. And there’s some universes crossing over the teen comedy with horror, bringing in elements such as zombies, vampires, and werewolves.
One of the first true Archie horror comics was Afterlife with Archie, playing zombie horror for straight, serious zombie horror. There’s tragedy and legitimately scary imagery here, as we see how familiar characters react to seeing horrifying things happening to friends and family.
Some of these horror alternate Archie universes even have ‘horror’ versions of well-known characters, such as a vampire version of Veronica in Vampironica, and a werewolf version of Jughead in Jughead: The Hunger. And many of these are actually good or at least interesting alternate universe variations that still somehow manage to keep the characters recognizable despite the dramatic differences in their lives and the tone.
And of course, we can’t forget how the lighthearted comedy Sabrina the Teenage Witch somehow inspired the much darker and scarier Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
Fellow Manic Expressionite Moviefan12 has done a series of blogs, ‘The Horrors of Riverdale’, doing reviews of Afterlife with Archie and other Archie horror-verse comics. I highly recommend you read them here or at their blog.
Anyway, the best horror re-imaginings are ones that are commentary on the original with lots of care and thought put into it, while still being good scary stories. Afterlife with Archie, in the views of many, is one such re-imagining.
So all in all, there are good horror re-imaginings, mediocre horror re-imaginings, and bad horror re-imaginings. And many of these will often overlap with ‘really weird horror re-imaginings’, though rarely with each other.
However, in most cases, the original non-horror versions still retain their staying power, and even in a world where we’ve seen American McGee’s Alice and Afterlife with Archie, some people will still prefer the originals. And some might like the horror versions better. Whether any of these will have as much staying power as the originals remains to be seen. Only time will tell.
But all in all, whether you like it or you don’t, one has to admit that the horror remake trend in recent years is certainly an interesting one.
If you have any insights you’d like to add, or want to mention any horror re-imagining of lighthearted source material I didn’t mention, feel free to do so in the comments.
Related Posts (that actually are related to the topic of this post, honest)
Fanfic Subgenres: Making Heroes Villains, or Ron the Death Eater, by Chris Lang
The Horrors of Riverdale: Afterlife with Archie (a review by Moviefan12)
Movie Curiosities: Fantasy Island (2020) (a review by Curiosity Inc.)
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Oh God, Cupcakes… I’d tried to block that out…
I’ve kind of gotten burned out on horror reimaginings, though I’m not averse to taking a show typically meant for children and switching up the genre. Like how The Looney Tunes Show and Jellystone placed classic cartoon characters in sitcom settings (the latter even had the Banana Splits show up as a tough criminal gang)
i also think Yahtzee once said something about how trying to make a twisted version of Alice in Wonderland shows a lack of creative effort given how often it shows up, but as with everything, it’s all in the execution. And there’s still untapped potential – no one’s tried turning it into a rock opera yet.
I’m pretty much tired of twisted versions of Alice in Wonderland. I suppose I’m biased given that I prefer the original with its whimsy and wordplay and backward logic, but by now it seems ‘dark’ Wonderland takes have become a tired cliche. I’m glad that I’m not alone in thinking this.
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I’m sorry I had to bring up ‘Cupcakes’ again. But in this context, it fits.
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Anyway, the point is that it is, indeed, all in the execution. For every GOOD horror re-imagining like ‘Afterlife with Archie’, there are about three or four badly done ones, or mediocre ones.
Anyway, I’m thinking of editing in a few more links to more posts that actually ARE related to this one. (The reason the ‘Related Posts’ thing is titled ‘Random Posts That May Or May Not Be Related to This One’ is because all too often, you get posts that have little or nothing in common with the current post aside from the fact that it’s posted on the same site).