At Gothic Bite Magazine we love welcoming new patients to become part of our asylum. It doesn’t matter what creative field. They’re our patient now. This week, we welcome welcome TikTok Sensation, Just Hauntr!

PATIENT NAME: JUST HAUNTR

Hello Fright Fam, I go by JustHauntr, and I like to call myself a Dark Visual Story Teller. But if we’re getting technical, I’m a TikToker, Twitch Streamer, and Horror Content Creator. 

I’m a horror movie enthusiast as well as a big fan of survival horror video games. I enjoy special effects makeup and telling dark and compelling stories. It makes people find beauty in the world of the macabre. 

My passion in life is to express my art through the videos I produce. Which all of them have their unique stories to tell. From taking care of the person who made you feel Worthless to the Vampire Who Falls In Love With A Human but can’t control their urges. 

Nothing more fun to me than spinning a horror tale in under fifteen to thirty seconds will make you think.

THE QUESTIONING

MDK: What makes you attracted to the horror theme?

JustHauntr: I’ve always loved horror as a medium ever since I was a child. Horror is one of the few genres, maybe besides fantasy, where the unimaginable is a possibility.

Horror, in many instances, is based on real-life circumstances. I had a rough childhood. So, watching horror movies made me feel as if life wasn’t as bad as the people experiencing the real horrors in the movies. 

MDK: What was the first horror movie to make you fall for horror?

JustHauntr: One I remember very vividly seeing as a child was Wes Craven’s: New Nightmare. I remember it coming on the television and just being in awe of the story and legitimately feeling afraid but in the sense of wonder type of way. 

I fell in love when I saw Scream and saw the people in high school living their lives. That happened despite the killing spree, and the way they interacted with their feelings was fascinating to me. At the time, I couldn’t wait to get to high school. Haha

MDK: What made you decide to start creating horror content?

JustHauntr: I’ve always been a creator. I remember being asked why I wanted to create, and the only answer I could come up with was that I was an artist without a canvas. I loved creating but did not know an outlet to express myself.

TikTok and YouTube gave me that outlet to tell those same stories I wanted to know in bite-sized versions. It was a way to express myself visually since I am such a visual person in general. It took me years to figure that out about myself. 

FOLLOW JUSTHAUNTR ON TWITTER!

MDK: What is your research like for your content?

JustHauntr: A lot of it is trial and error. I’ll see a look that inspires me, and I’ll do anything I can to give it that little bit more of an edge. One of my favorite things is finding a sound people are using in a fun, cute way and trying to make it as dark as possible. 

Because horror really lives in the innocent and unexpected. Other times I’ll see a movie where I enjoy a character, and I want to replicate those feelings in my own style. Really it’s relatively sporadic. Inspiration comes in many forms. 

MDK: What do you want viewers to take away from your content?

JustHauntr: That there’s beauty in the things that most people perceive as ugly. While I make some darker and disturbing content, I try to underline some positive stuff underneath the surface and not just what’s at face value. 

Whether it be confidence, self-discovery, or other positive values I’m trying to portray. It’s a very difficult line because many people will take the dark content at face value instead of digging what message is really trying to be said underneath. 

I guess that’s the fault of shorter bite-sized content that you don’t get to express the whole story. 

MDK: For those that haven’t seen your content, how would you describe it?

JustHauntr: Dark, menacing, and a lot of blood on the surface. But it is trying to say something more if you dig a little deeper. 

MDK: Are there any creators that have or continue to inspire you?

JustHauntr: My inspirations are all over the place. Visually John Carpenter is my favorite director of all time. Just because his storytelling is so out there, he really reaches for that unimaginable and makes it real. 

On the other hand, Guillermo del Toro is another favorite because his visual style and lighting are so unbelievable and exquisite to see. He also mixes fantasy and horror well, which are some of my favorite sub-genres of horror that doesn’t get much love. 

MDK: Do you have a favorite video you have created?

JustHauntr: I have quite a few. The After Dark-Mr Kitty Canibalism video I did is one of my favorites because if you’ve never heard the song After Dark, it’s so perfectly dark and hauntingly sad that it just flowed with the story I was trying to tell. 

The Makings Of A Serial Killer video was great because I got to make a story that, for some people, is very real. It was almost too real that dealt with some pretty dark themes, but It really felt like we were telling a story that people, unfortunately, go through daily. 

Yet I think my overall favorite was the video we did for Warner Brothers. They contacted us to be a part of the #ConjuringHorror trend promoting the third conjuring movie, and being a smaller creator, we created the second most viewed video on that trend and the third most liked. I was really proud of that one.

MDK: What was your reaction when you first learned that others enjoyed your videos so much? 

JustHauntr: It’s always great when other people appreciate your work. I’ve met so many great people just from creating it really spilled over onto Twitch and everywhere else. 

The community we’ve built really means the world to me. Everyone is so nice, welcoming, and supportive I would never have imagined it. I’ve met some truly remarkable individuals.

MDK: What do you think sets you apart from other horror content creators?

JustHauntr: I’m not afraid to push the envelope on what’s acceptable. I really see true beauty in the world of horror. Monsters don’t hide their flaws. They live them. It’s something I’ve always taken to heart. 

Guillermo del Toro’ quote on it always spoke to me.

“Since childhood, I’ve been faithful to monsters. I have been saved and absolved by them because monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing.” 

Guillermo del Toro

Monsters don’t hide their faults, they embrace them, and there’s a true beauty in that. There is no lying in monsters at their core. 

Overall I think I’m different because views and likes and the end of the day don’t matter as much as telling a great story or making great content. It’s always nice, but my true passion is making someone who watches my content feel something. 

MDK: Do you have a favorite collaborator you have worked with? 

JustHauntr: Warner Brothers by far. It really felt like we worked with a studio that appreciated what I did on a smaller scale. I don’t do many collaborations, to be honest, although I’d love to do more. 

Partnerships on TikTok are a bit different because most collaborations are just me dueting a video of theirs. I’d love to sit down with a like-minded individual or filmmaker and collab on projects. 

MDK: Who is someone you’d love to collaborate with in the future?

JustHauntr: There are a ton. I’d love to collaborate with Benkro_tv. His videos were a big inspiration to me when I first started. Also, SpencerGoulding makes some great storied content. 

However, I really look up to Andrew-Bowser, the same person who plays onyxthefortuitous. He really blends weird content with comedy and just seems like he’d be a great guy to just chat about horror movies with. 

Lastly, I know this one is a bit of a stretch, but I’d love to collaborate with Ice Nine Kills on something. I get in the comments that I look like Spencer Charnas all the time. They basically make the content I’d love to make on a larger scale. 

Those are some of the more prominent creators I enjoy watching on TikTok but to be honest, I’d love to collaborate with just about anyone that enjoys telling a good story. 

MDK: Can you share any clues or details about anything you are working on or planning? 

JustHauntr: There are so many things I’d love to do, but I just don’t have the time for them. I tossed around starting a podcast for a long time since I love talking about horror films, but those are a dime a dozen, and I’m having difficulty figuring out how to stand out from the crowd. 

However, my main project right now is working on making a short film for YouTube. My passion is telling short stories, so it wouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes long. 

But I’m really digging through YouTube and seeing all the great short films people have produced. It’s really inspiring.