Spooky Painting: Difference between revisions

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== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[In the Mouth of Madness (Film)|In the Mouth of Madness]]'' has an hotel with one very interesting painting. Very, very interesting.
* ''Candyman: Day of the Dead''. The said Candyman's good side is held within a set of paintings, notably his own, and as everybody knows evil can't exist without good, so the girl had to destroy the paintings to kill(?) him.
* ''Deathbed: The Bed That Eats'' (1977) features a painting haunted by its artist.
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* ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' II has the [[Big Bad]] using a painting to generate a portal into the real world. After his defeat, it's transformed into a mock Christian painting (with Bill Murray's girlfriend and new baby son as Madonna and Child, and the Ghostbusters as the four Gospel writers).
** You collect more spooky paintings in the game; although they're just there for [[One Hundred Percent Completion]].
* In the [[Roger Corman]] film ''[[Lovecraft Onon Film|The Haunted Palace]]'', Curwen's portrait is the main way he insinuates his spirit into the consciousness of his unwitting descendant. (In the original story, ''[[HPH.P. Lovecraft|The Case of Charles Dexter Ward]]'', the portrait had no supernatural qualities; it served only to show the [[Identical Grandson|similarity of appearance]] between Curwen and Ward.)
* In the remake of ''[[The Haunting]]'', Hugh Crain's ghost manifests through his portrait.
* The 1930's adaptation of [[The Picture of Dorian Gray]], mentioned below in the Literature section. For full effect, the movie was shot in black and white, while the shots of the portrait (seen at the top of that entry's page) was filmed in color.
* [[Fourteen Oh Eight1408]] features several framed pieces of drab hotel art (an ocean fishing scene, a fox hunt, a woman and a baby) that suddenly change to become menacing as the hotel room subjects the main character to more and greater horrors.
* Played with in ''[[Shanghai Knights]]''. Chon thinks that he sees the eyes in a painting move, while Roy, engrossed in a book about the Kama Sutra, dismisses him. It turns out that {{spoiler|Chon's sister had been hiding "inside" the painting, and she bursts out of it to save Roy and Chon.}}
* ''[[Black Swan (Film)|Black Swan]]'' has Nina's mother painting dozens of them, one of which moves slightly the first time Nina sees them. Later on during Nina's {{spoiler|breakdown, they all come alive moaning and shrieking at her.}}
* The portrait of the Master and his dog in ''[[Manos: theThe Hands of Fate]]''.
 
== [[Literature]] ==
* The eponymous room in E. F. Benson's "The Room in the Tower" contains a self-portrait by a woman who {{spoiler|committed suicide.}} Unfortunately for the protagonist, the portrait now houses {{spoiler|a vampire.}}
* Not quite a painting, but [[MRMontague JamesRhodes (Creator)James|MR James]]' "The Mezzotint".
* [[Simon R. Green]]'s ''Hawk and Fisher'' story "The Bones of Haven" introduces Messerschmann's Portrait, a painting which, if you look at it too long, will trap you in the hellish landscape it depicts.
* In the [[Stephen King]] story "The Road Virus Heads North", found in the collection ''Everything's Eventual'', a writer buys a painting of a car, but the background keeps changing...
** And of course, there's the painting in ''Rose Madder''. The content of the picture changing is not its most unusual feature...
** Not to mention the paintings in ''[[Fourteen Oh Eight1408]]''...
* The ghost of the [[Hanging Judge]] in J. S. Le Fanu's "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street" manifests as a creepy painting, among other things.
* ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'' is a good example where the painting reveals the true evil of Dorian's actions as his soul becomes more and more corrupted.
* Trumps in the ''[[Book of Amber]]'' series by [[Roger Zelazny]]: You can reach out to the subject of the painting, step through a Trump to join them, wherever they are, or you can draw them to your side through their trump, even stab them through the painted card.
* In [[Roald Dahl]]'s ''[[The Witches]]'', a witch traps a little girl inside a painting. She ages normally, and eventually disappears altogether.
* In [[H.P. Lovecraft (Creator)|HP Lovecraft]]'s ''The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'' the plot is kicked in by the discovery of the eponymous protagonist's ancestor's portrait that's almost identical in appearance to him. It often appears to be watching on young Charles as he works, but although it loses its menace for awhile, it later gets worse, surrounded by a miasma of undefinable dread. {{spoiler|As it turns out, the latter is due to the fact that the said ancestor is resurrected, and he kills Charles and stuffs his body behind the painting, presumably after first destroying it with acid, resulting in unpleasant smell that people interpret subconsciously as evil presence.}}
** Lovecraft also had the stories ''The Picture In The House'' and ''Medusa's Coil'' [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Medusa%27s_Coil\]. In the latter, an artist ends up painting a picture of a strange woman, and the picture happens to capture such horrors that another character immediately makes it his mission to kill her. It doesn't help that she flees the scene after seeing it herself, and that {{spoiler|she attacks him in a rage so he is forced to kill her anyways. In a maddened rant afterwards - and after her severed ''hair'' has coiled up and murdered the artist in front of him, her killer tries to explain:}}
{{quote| '''Denis:''' "'God, but Frank is an artist! That thing is the greatest piece any living soul has produced since Rembrandt! It's a crime to burn it - but it would be a greater crime to let it exist - just as it would have been an abhorrent sin to let - that she-daemon - exist any longer." (...) She thought we couldn't see through - that the false front would hold till we had bartered away our immortal souls. And she was half right - she'd have got me in the end. She was only - waiting. But Frank - good old Frank - was too much for me. He knew what it all meant, and painted it. I don't wonder she shrieked and ran off when she saw it. It wasn't quite done, but God knows enough was there."}}
** When the protagonist ends up seeing the picture himself, after having being told the story behind it, he describes it as a gruesome imagery of witchcraft and decaying nature. He {{spoiler|draws his gun and shots it asunder, only to have the man that showed it to him freak out. Apparently the painting had talked to him and forced him to keep it safe. A few minutes later, the house is on fire and an undead witch drags the poor guy to his doom. The protagonist high-tails it out of there.}}
* Everything Laurent does after the murder in ''[[Therese Raquin]]''.
* [[Bram Stoker (Creator)|Bram Stoker]]'s ''The Judge's House'' contains a picture of [[Hanging Judge]] Jeffreys.
 
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' has featured at least one of these.
* The pilot episode of [[Rod Serling|Rod Serling's]] ''[[Night Gallery]]'' includes "The Cemetery", a story about a greedy nephew who murders his rich old uncle for the inheritance. Soon afterward, he begins to notice odd changes in a painting of the manor and its adjoining cemetery. One day there's a fresh mound in the cemetery. The next day, the mound's unearthed to reveal a casket. And the next, the casket's open to reveal his uncle's dead body. And then one night the painting shows the corpse walking through the cemetery gates towards the mansion. {{spoiler|After the panicked nephew accidentally breaks his neck, the whole thing turns out to have been an elaborate scheme by [[The Butler Did It|the family butler]] using a set of custom paintings he'd been swapping out each day, both to avenge his old master and to claim the estate for himself. But the next night, the butler notices that the painting on the wall's changed, and now it's the nephew's grave that's opening...}}
* Chiana brings one of these back to Moya in ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]].'' It appears to forecast the future, but in reality, it's the [[Soul Jar]] of [[Humanoid Abomination|Maldis]], one of Zhaan's old enemies- leading to a bizzare sequence in which the crew are killed off one by one and their souls trapped ''inside'' [[Eldritch Location|the painting.]]
* One episode of [[Twilight Zone]] featured a series of people's dissapearances in a cave, at the end of the episode a woman is the last person to vanish and the people searching for her enter the cave following her screams, and then they see a crude painting of her on a wall and several ''moving'' prehistoric cave paintings stabbing her with spears.
* In ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures (TV)|The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'' two-parter ''Mona Lisa's Revenge'' the eponymous picture comes to life.
* In the ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' episode "Fear Her" the girl's drawings both come to life, and draw people into them.
 
== Music Video ==
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Super Mario 64 (Video Game)|Super Mario 64]]'' had Mario jumping through paintings to other worlds, and sometimes not even paintings but portals hidden in walls.
* The entire plot of ''[[Castlevania Portrait of Ruin (Video Game)|Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin]]'' revolved around the villain's creation of evil pocket dimensions within paintings.
** The Stage 5 Haunted Ship of ''Dracula X'' has a painting that, if allowed to come close to Richter, will suck him into the artwork and then split itself apart, killing him instantly.
** In stage 15 of ''[[Castlevania (Video Game)|Vampire Killer]]'', the corridor leading to [[The Grim Reaper|Death]] has many full-body portraits of Count Dracula. The [[Final Boss]] room is dominated by an enormous painting of a demonic face which turns out to be Dracula's second form.
* ''[[Earthbound]]'' has the city of Moonside, which featured extremely bizarre enemies, including Abstract Art, which were literal living paintings.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy VI]], there are several paintings containing enemies during the Relm sidequest in the World of Ruin. There is also a boss monster in a painting at the end, which is an Esper possessed by evil.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]: Ocarina of Time'' had Phantom Ganon charge out of a set of paintings in a middle of a temple, as well as Poes possessing the paintings throughout the dungeon.
* ''[[Super Mario Sunshine (Video Game)|Super Mario Sunshine]]'' there is a beach painting in the hotel that gives the guest in that room "strange vibes." If Mario sprays it with water, the shape of a boo appears and Mario can jump through the painting.
* There's an actual enemy in ''[[Wario World (Video Game)|Wario World]]'' that is called the Terrible Portrait. It's literally a living painting that shoots fire, ice and boulders at Wario, and takes the appearance of three photo frames with a face in the middle one.
* ''[[Zack and Wiki]]: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure'' had a section in a castle with paintings that were out to get you. One you had to blind to get past and another had a fish that would eat you if you got on its nerves.
* Beatrice's portrait in ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro Nini]]''. Spooky for various reasons - most notably frequent deaths in front of it.
** Portraits. Most of the witches have a portrait that shows up at some point. How exactly the portraits are connected to the witches themselves hasn't been explained yet.
* ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'' had a painting that would change from lush fields to a hellish landscape depending on the character's sanity. Never sure whether it was due to the characters going insane or the ancients casting magick to make them insane.
* In ''[[Pokémon]] Diamond'' and ''Pearl'', the apparently haunted Old Chateau has a room with some kind of painting in it. You can't really tell ''what'' the painting is of, but there are glowing red eyes on it that disappear when you get too close, then come back when you turn your back.
* ''[[Clive BarkersBarker's Undying]]'' has quite a few of these that masquerade as normal paintings, but reveal the true horror when the Scry spell is used on them.
* Several examples, including the one shown at the top of this page, hang in the upstairs hallway in ''[[Scratches]]''.
* A ''very'' creepy example appears prominently in ''The Lost Crown'', both directly and in dream sequences.
* ''[[LuigisLuigi's Mansion (Video Game)|Luigis Mansion]]''. Obvious example is the painting of Mario (who's still screaming for help and banging on the front of the painting), but also the portraits of the various ghosts (well, they are the actual ghosts turned to paintings), anything in Vincent Van Gore's art studio (See [[Art Initiates Life]]) and various paintings in the mansion itself which can be pulled off the wall to reveal a creepy Big Boo picture (and various smaller ones which can't really be identified).
* ''[[Anchorhead]]'' has a whole gallery of creepy paintings done by one of the delightful members of the Verlac family. They get even creepier if you look at them closely...
* ''[[The Seventh Guest]]'' has several eerie paintings hanging around the Stauf mansion, and some of them get even worse when you examine them more closely.
* In [[Amnesia: theThe Dark Descent]], you will often run into paintings of the castle's owner throughout your exploration. However, should your sanity start to slip (due to looking at monsters or staying in the dark too long), the face will change into something grotesque. What makes it especially creepy is how nonchalant it can appear as you're exploring, until you realize something's wrong...
* ''[[Silent Hill]]'' has a long and rich history of freaking gamers out with wall paintings. The [[Silent Hill 1|original]] has a funny/frightening lounge in the elementary school which holds a giant framed painting of gore and corpses. The hero comments on the poor taste of the picture. When the Otherworld takes hold, the lounge is replaced by the room depicted in the painting.
** ''[[Silent Hill 2]]'''s prison has an [[Infinite Canvas]] showing the cafeteria you're standing in. Which would be weird enough, except that there's a slumped corpse on the table beside you -- ''and'' in the painting itself.
* ''[[Hitman]]: Contract'' features an asylum with portraits of a toddler wearing a three-piece suit. Note that [[Fridge Brilliance|the suit is identical to Agent 47's]], echoing the [[Evil Plan]] of the head doctor to breed superhumans.
* ''[[Ib (Video Game)|Ib]]'' features paintings made by a [[Mad Artist]] that come to life in the [[Dark World]]. Including portraits of women who ''follow you'' and will CRASH RIGHT THROUGH WINDOWS to do so.
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* One episode of [[Scooby -Doo! Mystery Incorporated]] features an auctioneer trying to sell off what he dubs a "spooooooooky painting". No one seems interested in it but the monster of the week.
 
{{reflist}}