>>6364
>but what exactly makes things like exposed lip-less teeth or eyeless faces truly frightening?

i think some of it also comes from those being things that happen to us upon death. skin starts to recede, the eyes will rot away etc. it's kinda corpsey.

>>11214
>but we get used to how biological creatures "should" look based on our experiences, stuff that doesn't fit in causes more fear

i've thought about this a lot in regard to animals, particularly deep sea creatures.
i think that's why seeing new discoveries of sea "monsters" makes them seem like "monsters" to begin with, just because we're not used to them.
similar to when weird shit washes up and people can't tell what it is, it's branded a monster, when in fact it's probably just an animal corpse that's decomposed or gone through some specific thing that's made it look so different to when it was alive that it's unrecognisable as that animal.
i mean, if someone had never seen an octopus in their whole life and then you introduced them to one, they'd probably shit themselves, but because we're taught about them we grow up seeing them as just another normal animal.


hopefully this pic counts as a monster (i know i thoroughly enjoy seeing the shinigami depictions in live action things, especially next to humans/human environments, because of how creepy they are). ryuk is the only good part of the netflix death note mess. particularly horrific in this incarnation.