I don't get this ''monster in human form'' trope how is that scary...

I don't get this ''monster in human form'' trope how is that scary? It doesn't matter if it's a fucking alien underneath if it looks human then it automatically loses the alien factor to begin with might as well just have a serial killer as your villain. Are people who get creeped out by this on placebo effect or something?

To me it's more scary if the monster is entirely human to begin with.

If the monster can take human form, it could be anybody.

Yeah but it couldn't be Steve

Except your girlfriend because you don't have one lol.

It's playing on the notion of betrayed belief. Something you held to be true and obvious is revealed to be wrong on a base and fundamental level. How much else is wrong?

You thought your neighbors were wholesome folk. It turns out they are nth-dimensional brain-parasites who have come to this plain to impregnate people with their gingerbread cookie spawn.

What about your co-workers? How many of them are really human? What about your siblings and parents? Are they even your real parents? How do you know you're not the only human left? The only human there ever was?

What makes you think you're even human?

What makes you think that any exists? How do you know you're not just sitting in a little rubber room muttering to yourself in a hug-me jacket?

Aliens in Human Skin, user.

That would be terrifying if it was happening to me in real life but why would I be scared that the character is paranoid because his family might be a bunch of mutants?

Since I was a huge Lovecraft fan I was fond of this trope until I GM Rise of the Runelords. When my players realized that the BBEG was just a simple human, after seeing all the horrors he unleashed for come back and rule the world, I realized that human monsters are far more scary and interesting.

Because you're presumed to empathise with the nightmarish scenario that the character is in.

>Pigs in human clothing

never watched The Thing?

Because we assume you have the ability to display empathy.

You should be roleplaying the fear.

You don't actually have to suffer mental damage when your character takes san loss, and you aren't lobotomised by your GM when you get feebleminded.

But your character should act accordingly and not be perfectly sane, or being able to bark out perfect orders instead of drooling and crying.

>That would be terrifying if it was happening to me in real life but why would I be scared that the character is paranoid because his family might be a bunch of mutants?

Roleplaying.

Rekt, sick burn

You understand that in controlled circumstances like a roleplaying game or at the theater/cinema, fear is an elected response right?

Horror movies and games are scary because you choose to allow yourself to be scared by immersing yourself in the situation.

Are you gay?

Are you a baby?

holy fucking shit man

>sure, getting stabbed to death by goblins would suck in real life, but why would anyone care if it happened to their character

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA SO FUNNY OMG XXXDDDDD

>gag

Or possibly the barking out perfect orders is the manifestation of the SAN loss instead - they don't lose the functionality, they lose the emotion.

>It doesn't matter if it's a fucking alien underneath if it looks human then it automatically loses the alien factor to begin with might as well just have a serial killer as your villain.

Is this a bait thread? I'll just hope it is and leave it at that.

I'm a massive weeb so the big monster having a humanoid final form is my jam.

What about games like Continuum and Unknown Armies? Where the villains/monsters are just humans who have travelled so far down their part as to be indistinguishable as such?

As that better or worse than the same horrors in human form?

What about Nyarlathotep? Do you just not find it scary on an alien level because it choose to appear humanoid most of the time?

Take off your trip you fag

>the alien factor
Never got the appeal for that, myself.
I mean, oooooh the monster is incomprehensible and the [medium] won't give us any answers meaningful answers.
It doesn't let me feeling doubt or lingering horror, just annoyance and apathy.
I need a reason to fear the monster besides "It wants to kill/get you. That's all you can/need to know"