Maria Elizabeth Estrada| Issue 12, Fall 2026

When a gory or otherwise disturbing moment would come up in a movie or show, my mother would always implore me to not look, reminding me each time “you can see it, but you can’t unsee it.” It’s sound advice to a child, but my little eyes always found a way to part my fingers enough for stealthy disobedience. Even from childhood, I had a deep fascination with the things we’d normally turn away from were it not for storytellers that dared us to bear witness. It’s this morbid curiosity that got me into creepypastas and horror videos on youtube at a young age. This captivation has lasted throughout my life and led me to two particular works of media that would eventually meet one another and synthesize within my psyche.

Back in 2022, Hayden Anhedonia, known by her stage name Ethel Cain, released the album Preacher’s Daughter which would immediately go triple platinum in my ears and has steadily sat at the top of the charts of my ribcage for four years now. The album recounts the journey of the fictional Ethel Cain, as she escapes her religious and abusive home in Alabama, only to fall into even more vile circumstances that end with her being kidnapped and cannibalized by a sadistic killer. This was the first album I had listened to front to back in quite some time, as there was simply no way I couldn’t. In both words and production, I found myself gripping the sheets and riding the ebb and flow of tone, the inhale and exhale of stress. I felt Ethel Cain the artist honed in on references that I myself was emotionally tied to. Track ten, in particular, tapped directly into the raw, early stages of my grisly fascination with the macabre, its title alone filling me with a dread I hadn’t felt since some years earlier. During my first playthrough, I looked down to see the words “August Underground” and was immediately transported back to my childhood bedroom at 2am. I am under the covers, the phone four inches from my face, and I can see the faded checkered linoleum, the bathtub, the gas station, the laughter, the shit, and the blood, and the blood, and the blood. It all bubbles right back up.

As mentioned, I was a creepypasta child. I was snooping around the internet for new and exciting scary stories or videos no matter which message boards or subreddits this exploration led me to. With unrestricted access to these online forums and sites like 123 movies, I was introduced to the film August Underground (2001) . This pseudo snuff film was created by Fred Vogel in an attempt to “right the wrongs” of serial killer films that don’t “go there” enough. The film follows Peter and the unnamed cameraman as they document the torture, murder, and assault of their “victims” on a shitty camcorder. Between the excruciating scenes of their primary victim, Laura, and the more mundane evil of Peter and the cameraman being jackasses to the general public, it was a tedious watch. I had watched it with the eyes of a child. A whole thread of people had told me not to bother with it for my own sake, but I watched anyway. It did indeed disturb me as they said it would. But did I look away? No. I remember viewing it to be such an intense and visceral sensation; it kept me paralyzed. “You can’t unsee it,” I heard my mother’s voice echo in my head, but still the covers were lowered from my eyes. I was terrified, but ever so fascinated that someone would choose to tell this story and create these visuals. Fifteen years after my first watch, this visceral experience would be sonically mirrored by its musical sibling of the same name. 

It is widely agreed upon by fans that track ten of Preacher’s Daughter represents Ethel’s murder within the greater narrative of the album.  “August Underground” is one of two lyricless tracks on the album, serving as this moment of grim transition for Ethel as she attempts to run. The song starts off low and slow, the melody (if you can call it that) formlessly wriggling its way into the landscape of the piece. Little by little, the dark and grainy synth starts to show itself. Then a voice, which I take to be Ethel’s, begins to come through. Ethel’s crying yet melodious moan echoes upon itself, the layering of which makes it feel like it is reverberating within my own skull. It has an eerie and cavernous atmosphere, creating a sense of confusion and isolation. The cries then build to a booming crescendo at about the minute and half mark when the synths buzz and the seedy and drawling electric guitar strums, signaling the torturous environment for our protagonist. The cries continue through the cacophony for another minute until the voices start to fade away and you’re left sitting in the filth of it all. The synths fade back down as one final BANG marks the end of Ethel Cain. Not a single word  sung, not one visual shown, but there it was, that deep and familiar discomfort that I’ve followed for years now. And I’m left absolutely delighted.

Within myself, I theorize why this type of grotesque and unshy storytelling resonates with me. Why do I keep following it? Am I disturbed? Am I unwell? I’ll say no, not really. My proof that I’m relatively mostly okay is that on the flipside of it all, I’m also a musical theatre-loving annoying piece of shit. But funnily enough, I feel like being a Queer fat kid comes with this understanding of “other,” of transgression, of having to outright be what the greater cultural hegemony says you shouldn’t be. I often felt, and sometimes even still feel, like the thing you could only look at through the gaps of your fingers. The thing you can’t unsee. I think instead of turning my gaze away, I looked toward the disturbing, and even sought it out as a means of breaking through my own feelings of censored existence. I was searching those subreddits for works that conveyed the inner turmoil I felt as someone operating outside of expectations. These two pieces in particular, though meeting me at such different times in my life, represent a confluence of stories dared to be seen and felt; one work folding upon the other as I fold upon myself from childhood and myself now. 

I often think about the heritage of media, and this particular pairing feels like a testament to the sort of possession that can happen across mediums when art begets art. The track “August Underground” summons its predecessor with hyper-focused intentionality. When I hear the grain of the synth, I see the grainy, digital noise-made halo around Peter. When I hear the moans of Ethel, I see the reflection of the torture room within Peter’s old television as the cameraman sets down the camcorder to assist Peter. And when I hear the midpoint boom, I see Laura duct taped to a chair, dripping with blood and sobbing. It all floods back as if this had been the film’s soundtrack all along. Now that the song exists, it is intrinsically tied to the film. They both live within one another. The two works are not only reflections of each other, but are responding to one another continuously. So long as both exist, there lives an open connection, the conduit of which is the shared two-word title that’s long mirrored my own experience.

Now in my late 20s, I’ve fully leaned into being—and adoring—this attention-demanding body with all of the “distressing” interests that live inside of it. I was able to inherit the best traits—and immaculate taste—from that scary story-loving child who was just trying to make sense of life’s discomfort. As she did in her time, I still have to navigate the overbearing societal standards that make us both want to claw out of our own flesh. Lucky for me, she gave us a much less messy way to do so  by interacting with art that reflected our pain. Instead of nervously peeking at these stories through my fingers, I now meet them face to face with a connected reverence. As the cries of Ethel echo the cries of Laura, the very same chills run down my spine that ran down hers, this physiological response a much-welcomed visit from the girl I once was.

Both works represent this grotesque yet bold demand to be felt. Like the song calling upon the film, I often call upon the girl who felt like the site of discomfort and, for better or for worse, only felt herself through uncomfortable artworks. Her and I run along a parallel track to the Undergrounds, in that we are forever tethered to one another, each of us continually experiencing the dread, tension, and catharsis of the other. Within the respective August Undergrounds, we are called to sit within both this dreadful moment in the album’s narrative and with the dark imagery of the film. As the song plays and as the film runs and as I watch, we’re sitting hand in hand around a candle-adorned table listening and feeling the ways in which each of us now live inside one another, unable to unsee all that comes forth.