The Monster in the Dark : The Power of the Unknown

I absolutely love the horror genre, particularly in film and games. One of my favorite things about it is how the core aspects of horror are applicable to the process of creation on an almost universal scale. To me, the most important of these aspects is what I call the “Monster in the Dark” philosophy.

This idea is a staple in horror: the notion that the less you see and understand the thing you're afraid of, the more power it holds over you, because of your imagination. That space of not knowing becomes a vacuum your mind rushes to fill. And more often than not, your imagination is capable of producing scenarios and imagery far more terrifying than anything that could be shown on screen.

It’s a well known technique for storytelling and visuals, but not always executed well. When its used properly, though, it creates a deeper, more lingering kind of fear, One that stays with you not because of what you saw, but because of what you didn’t. And this same idea, in a broader sense, ties directly into one of the most powerful psychological tools in any artist’s arsenal: the unknown.

In conceptual or abstract art, this principle becomes even more valuable. The unknown can add an immense amount layers. It can expand the depth of a single piece to near infinite possibilities, allowing the viewer to engage with the story or idea long after they've walked away from the work. It creates echos that consistently linger throughout the piece, allowing the art to continue to speak and continue to change, depending on who's perceiving it.

This becomes especially important in mediums that aren’t intrinsically immersive like film or video games. When you're not working with motion, sound, or interactivity, you have to create immersion through static visuals and implication.

The unknown allows us to tell stories without definite conclusions, to take people on a journey where the road can lead anywhere. It lets a piece live in a state of flux. That’s what makes abstraction so alluring to me. There’s this open-endedness to it, an invitation to feel something you can’t quite name, to make sense of something that resists being made sense of.

It’s why I think horror and abstraction go hand in hand. At first glance, they might seem like very different things, one often representing the essence of fear, the other often representing freedom. But both thrive in the absence of certainty.

Both ask the viewer to participate, to imagine, to sit with type of reflective discomfort. Both are at their best when they leave a little room for interpretation.

There’s something uniquely powerful about creating art that allows people to face the unknown, whether it’s the silhouette of a creature half hidden in the shadows or an abstract form that refuses to settle into a clear shape. That ambiguity activates something deeper in us. It engages more than just the eye. It engages memory, instinct, emotion. It pulls the viewer into a conversation they have to finish themselves which is very important for introspection in art.

In horror i often believe you shouldn't reveal the monster in the dark unless you're confident you can supersede the viewers imagination or come close. I think these same rules can apply in fine art, when you take someone on a journey and you're willing to depict this journey through visuals, are you confident you can meet the expectations of the viewers imagination in conjunction with the narrative? Its tough.

I think that facing the unknown in Art also allegorically links to the inevitability of death that often looms over us as human beings, it almost prepares us for a journey we all must eventually take.

So whether I’m watching a film that understands the value of hiding the monster or creating something that leaves a little to the imagination, I keep coming back to the same idea... That the unknown is where the real power lives. Not in what we show, but in what we choose not to.