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Editor's note: As you may guess, there are spoilers for What Remains of Edith Finch ahead. Read at your peril. The scariest shape is the circle. I'm thinking about one now. Brrrrrr. Freud would probably have told you that circles are scary because they make you think of the devouring void of the vagina or something, and who am I to call him a ridiculous misogo-bore, but that is not why I am scared of circles. Specifically, I am scared of circle stories, which I'm not sure is a technical term, but makes enough sense to work with. A circle story is one where the end turns out to have been immanent in the beginning. The twist is, there was no twist: it was always going to be this way. The horror is in the inevitability.
Sometimes a circle story uses prophesy to set its trap. Oedipus and his parents, whose misfortunes are all caused by their efforts to avert the misfortunes foretold for them, occupy a circle story. Sometimes a circle story uses time travel travel: the intricately looping plot of Primer is a circle story (and director Shane Caruth clearly likes the form, because his follow-up, Upstream Color, is about the life cycle of a parasite). Often, they're about inheritance. What's scarier than the call coming from inside the house? The call is coming from inside you, and something nightmarish in your own nature is orchestrating your downfall.
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