Really disturbing [something]

The full moon is a bloodshot eyeball. They don't notice this until it gets suddenly, momentarily dark and then light again, and they realize the moon is staring at them and occasionally blinking.

 

They catch a glimpse of a four legged animal walking on two legs.

 

Total silence is disturbing.

 

And that animal has human feet and hands ... eek!

 

Their mouths make the words that the other person wanted to say.

 

It's hard to give ideas for this sort of thing because there's so many types of unsettling that it's impossible to narrow it down with only that to guide us. First of all, I have to ask, what kind of "sinister" is this dimension? Is it just like ours, but with an ax murderer running around? Or is it completely alien to our own, where the laws of physics play by different rules and the native lifeforms are utterly bizarre based on our understanding?

If I had to throw one unsettling idea into the hat, however, I'd say have a blood trail (a nice, thick one, like someone got there legs torn off and dragged themselves to safety) leading further into the woods. Not only is this "unsettling," but it also encourages the man and woman to explore deeper into the forest.

 

"Look! A huge trail of blood! I say we follow it!"
"You're nuts! It's a huge trail of blood! I say we run away as fast as we can!"


A trail of blood would definitely be unsettling, but I'm not sure it would encourage them to explore deeper into the forest. But then, I'm a coward.

 

Well, it may both encourage or discourage. One would be like "Look, a blood trail! Someone's hurt!" and then the other's all like "To hell with this noise, I'm out of here." Boom. Character conflict.

 

They see dead bodies on the ground wearing hazmat suits. They go take a closer look at the bodies... IT'S THEMSELVES. dun-dun-dunduunnn

 

Depends how disturbing you want.

Obviously things like a dead body, bones, blood stains, bloody scratches are obvious ones.

If you want really disturbing, things like a baby's head, a dog's head, a body rotting covered in maggots, etc...

 

......or an old naked lady wearing a bloody strap-on, jumping rope with a bunch of penises tied together

 

You've got yourself a horror movie, my friend.

 

Bones don't unsettle me. Nor would a skull unsettle, for example, a pathologist or an archaeologist. Surely that's not the only possible answer? Why can't it me something considerably more mysterious and vague. Like a moving shadow, only half-seen, only half-felt. You're sure it was there a moment ago, but suddenly it is gone.

Have you ever been inside a very dark forest, in the middle of the night, with no light on, and an overcast sky? You start seeing things, you start imagining things. Now, imagine, that those imaginings are just slightly more real.

 

You're seeing this in the forest alone or in the portal specifically?

 

Well, that's an interesting question. It doesn't really matter to the brainstorming, but the characters go through the portal and end up in a forest, they leave and latter dream about the forest. That's when they see the really disturbing something.

Right now it's written like this

 

So it has to be a boat?

 

Oh, no, that just what I wrote out. I thought of a boat of bones, which doesn't even make sense. (How would it float?) Because the whole chapter was going to get rewritten anyway I decided to leave everything out for the brainstorming and just let people spawn their own ideas.

My favorite is still the foot prints leading off the cliff. I might rewrite it like that.

 

Maybe you could get some inspiration from Vsauce's very informal "Why are things creepy?" ( ) It's about 9 minutes long, and explains the psychology behind why we find things creepy or unsettling instead of reacting to them with full-blown fear (getting afraid), and also what things are creepy.

I have a ton of suggestions, but I don't have the time to write them now, so I'll return later

 

Not quite sure you got the right genre, given the amount of nudity and phalli.

You know what's disturbing? Everything being alright, now that creeps me out all the time.

 

Hm, a three-headed monkey?

 

...who says "Ni!"?

 

You need to watch Fringe. There is a lot of good material for something like this.

 

Your video gave me the creeps - I decided to stop watching it and just listened to the analysis about half way through!

 

It's 10 pm, dark and I'm home alone. Thanks for creeping me out

I think I'll just sit in my chair and stay there until someone comes home...

 

The best remedy is actually to imagine all those scary things in a distinctly un-scary fashion... like that time in Pan's Labyrinth - have you seen it? - where the Pale Man chases Ophelia down the a blood-red hallway. Horrific creature. Anyway, then I saw the behind the scenes footage, and there he was, the Pale Man, sitting in a chair with several make-up artists waving brushes at his face and arms. Some guy with a mike runs up to him and says, "Hey, would you like some coffee?" The Pale Man nods his head and says, "With sugar please."

Now while I don't expose myself to the horrible clip in the actual movie, seeing the Pale Man with a cup of sugared tea completely neutralised my fear for me. Try it!

And yeah since I didn't want to actually creep you out, I decided NOT to post a picture of the Pale Man here! But you could always google it.