Not awkward family photo creepy, slenderman creepy...

September 24, 2012 9:36 AM

Looking for the creepiest/deeply unsettling family portraits out there (or ideas about how to produce this type or portrait). Not kitschy-creepy, inappropriate-content-creepy (like families posing naked), or even outright scary portraits. I'm looking for nightmare fuel; family portraits that may seem ok at first glance, but there are horrors lurking.

We throw an annual *adult* Halloween bash, and this year we want to take everything to a creepier level by using a very unsettling family portrait on our invitation. Think holiday family portrait greeting card with a twist. It's just me and my husband (plus a plethora of animals we could enlist - two cats, a dachshund, and a betta - if they can be creepy). We can do black and white, scratch out our eyes, suggest figures in the shadows behind us, but what other suggestions do you have?

posted by Kronur to media & arts (22 answers total)

I always think it's creepy when I see pictures of people with eyes drawn on their eyelids, and them closing their eyes. Example here. You can make this as unsettling or as obviously fake as you want.
posted by amicamentis at 9:40 AM on September 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

oooh, LOVE this.
the cover of this book might give you some ideas. faceless or featureless faces = super creepy.
posted by changeling at 9:49 AM on September 24, 2012

I find this one from my library's collection extremely creepy. I like to call it "Angry Baby Will Steal Your Souuuuuul."
posted by MsMolly at 9:50 AM on September 24, 2012 [10 favorites]

How about this?
posted by unSane at 9:50 AM on September 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

You'll have to do some digging, but there's always stuff like that in this meme.

If you really want to freak people out, get a print of this painting and hang it on the wall during the party. *shudder*
posted by jbickers at 9:51 AM on September 24, 2012

There's a whole genre of photography, generally from the early days of the medium, that would probably fit the bill: Death Portraiture. Note the family photo on the left side of the wikipedia article - there's truckloads of photos like that from the 19th century.
posted by LionIndex at 9:53 AM on September 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Have you heard of Victorian "hidden mother" portraits?
posted by Rock Steady at 9:55 AM on September 24, 2012 [26 favorites]

A Google Image search for 'vintage halloween mask' and then narrow it down to Black and White should give you enough nightmare fuel for several years.

(would post URL but Safari refuses to show it to me)
posted by unSane at 9:55 AM on September 24, 2012

Boards of Canada's debut album cover is somewhat unsettling.
posted by davebush at 10:01 AM on September 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

I saw a sketch once of a family portrait where everyone had something subtly wrong with them. The two that I remember, even after decades, were the nice old grandmother carrying a butcher's knife, and the daughter who didn't have eyes.
posted by Leon at 10:20 AM on September 24, 2012

LionIndex said what I came to say: Victorian death portraiture is exactly what you want. Also, mourning portraits in general are subtly unsettling. This Flickr set has cases where the dead mother has been 'photoshopped' into the group (i.e. whatever the 19th century equivalent of photoshop was).
posted by Beardman at 10:21 AM on September 24, 2012

I was just going to say Victorian death portraiture. I would Google the pic for you, but I'm too scared.

Basically it contains the phrases "the girl who is standing is the one who is dead" (and shows a picture of the kind of stand that was used to prop up the body). It also includes the phrase "note the hands". It was on Tumblr, if that helps.

I would go on, but really, I just can't. It's that bad.
posted by tel3path at 10:43 AM on September 24, 2012

tel3path, you made me go and look that up. It's not actually that bad.
posted by echo target at 11:00 AM on September 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

Take a normal pic, then photoshop out your eyebrows. Examples in link
WARNING: nightmare fuel.

posted by anti social order at 11:12 AM on September 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

A lot of the seance effects of ectoplasm, etc can be fairly easy to fake for pictures.

http://www.amityvillefaq.com/truthboard/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8872&start=21
posted by Jacen at 11:37 AM on September 24, 2012

How about something inspired by Joshua Hoffine? He does a lot of nightmare stuff.

This fridge one or the babysitter or the mom and child might be a jumping off point for inspiration.

Obviously substitute your husband for the monster or little girl (or vice versa). You could be holding one of the pets while he stands on the other side of the doorway.

Possibly a gas mask family portrait? In black and white, with gas masks photoshopped onto the pets?
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 12:05 PM on September 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Look at the work of Ralph Eugene Meatyard. He did a lot of beautiful, yet slightly unsettling work with masks and his family. Like unSane said above, vintage Halloween masks are a good jumping off point. This blog post has a few photos that I love because the creepiness is all in the details.

You could have hands that are slightly too large for the body. Or like Meatyard's Lucybelle Crater series, get vintage masks that are a little opaque, so if you and your husband wear the same mask (and maybe even same outfit), your features will still come through and end up blurring that appearance of being identical.
posted by book 'em dano at 12:49 PM on September 24, 2012

Take a normal pic, then photoshop out your eyebrows. Examples in link

This could be double plus good because there is a good chance that some viewers won't know why they find it creepy, even while they are being creeped out by it. (Plus it can be done fairly easily)
posted by anonymisc at 1:20 PM on September 24, 2012

For folks that are interested, "hidden mother" portraits previously on MeFi.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:26 PM on September 24, 2012

Well I for one won't be sleeping tonight! That Joshua Hoffine set is the stuff of nightmares.
posted by Jubey at 3:14 PM on September 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Hands Resist Him could be interesting to get to do a variation of.
posted by Sparx at 9:32 PM on September 24, 2012

This pic definitely fits your description of "family portraits that may seem ok at first glance, but there are horrors lurking". Ever since I saw it I've been trying to fit out exactly what's going on.
posted by low_horrible_immoral at 2:25 AM on September 25, 2012 [1 favorite]