Silas Orion Talks Analog Horror, Animation, And His Grandma’s Demon Encounter
By O.A. CARRY FOR: 65,000〡PUBLISHED: May 6th, 2026
Silas Orion, also known as Doctor Nowhere.
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There’s something beautiful about the creature in the woods. But you can’t quite put your finger on it.
It’s not its heartbeat (you can hear it), or the way it looms like a skyscraper (its ribcage protruding at the 23rd floor). Maybe its beauty comes from its face. But no, its brow casts a long shadow. You can only see its nose and chin … It’s standing in the distance, shoulders hunched, and as your mind blackens with fear, you realize that its beauty must come from its creation. It’s not real. It’s not real, you repeat. You close your eyes, and it’s gone.
Silas Orion, known as Doctor Nowhere online, is its creator. He has that eerie feeling bottled up, contained before breach, in the horror art he shares online.
His latest work is more painterly and story-driven, but the lessons from those early days still shape everything. He spoke with us about those lessons, gave advice for aspiring horror artists, and revealed the inspirations behind some of his most iconic creations. Plus, tales from his early life prove terrifying, like his grandmother’s encounter with a demon.
Silas Orion and his Doctor Nowhere artwork (Source).
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Can you describe your work?
I think, dreamlike. I’ve loved the subconscious more as I’ve gotten older, like subconscious visions I get between sleep. They're part of a bigger story that you can't see. I love exploring those in-betweens.
Especially as I started drawing and telling stories, it was like, oh, this is free material [laughs].
Do you have any recurring dreams?
Every once in a great, great while, I'll dream about this grove of trees in the middle of nowhere. Trees in my dreams tend to be intimidating, and I don't really understand it.
What's odd is that my dad actually had a dream like that when he was young. He had a dream about this tree in his front yard that emanated a bizarre heartbeat.
Did you grow up in the woods or something?
I grew up in a pretty small town, and for a good portion of my life, I did live in the woods. The nearest Walmart was 25 minutes away. But that connotation with trees, for whatever reason, wasn't necessarily spawned from living around them; I don’t think.
Honestly, I drew. I drew so much. I liked creating stuff with clay, and when I read Captain Underpants and Calvin and Hobbes, I started making comic books. That was when I began to think, oh, wait, humans can just make shit. I could get on board with this.
It's funny that you said Captain Underpants first. It's funny to think that Captain Underpants sparked what you're making now.
[Laughs] Yeah, and then I got introduced to creepypastas and SCP Foundation somewhere along the line. I was both traumatized and inspired. I was like, I don't feel like getting up in the middle of the night to pee because Jeff the Killer will fucking get me [laughs].
That totally evolved into me wanting to create scary things, so that I could be in control of them. At first, it was a coping mechanism, 100%. When I was 13, I got this drawing pad for Christmas, and I drew this creature under the bed. I was like, see! It's not real. I can make it. None of this is real.
My grandmother once had an experience with a demon. And the way she described the shape of its head … It was shaped like it had a hat on, but there was hair coming from it.
The way my subconscious formed that shape … The fact that I couldn’t see it …
[To me] “scary” is lasting questions. After you've stopped watching, your mind starts to wander. You look into a dark corner, and your brain goes wild. I was young, probably too young to even be hearing that story. It was freaky.
Tell me more about it. Where was she? What happened?
It was in her house, and at the time, there wasn't a lot of money in the house. The church she was going to wanted people to donate, so they gave people these little ceramic jars, shaped like bread, that you would put coins into throughout the week. Then at the end of the week, you'd give it to the church.
She didn't want to give hers up because money was tight, and one night, she heard those coins jingling. She came out into the living room, and over in the kitchen, she saw this robed figure, with this strange oblong head, and it was, like, shaking the little ceramic jar.
She was frozen by fear, but then, she told me that she rebuked it in the name of Jesus Christ. And it disappeared. And the jar dropped.
She had this horrible headache afterwards, and she said, “Take your headache with you!” And the headache disappeared.
My family is quite spiritual, not necessarily super religious, but very spiritual, and so I've grown up acquainted with the idea of spirits and the weirdness that exists in this world.
Do you have a spirit animal?
Wow. That is a loaded question because I've thought about it a lot.
Um, I love bugs.
I really love the small world, the micro world. It's shockingly colorful.
Praying mantis is probably my spirit animal. There's something about them. They look slightly pretentious, but they really like art. They've got a weirdness to them.
Besides an insect spirit animal, I probably have to go with something under the sea, like a squid, like a humble squid. Yeah.
And why is that?
Sometimes I think I look like a squid who made a wish to be human.
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Did you grow up in a creative household?
They’re closer to hippies, but not lethargic hippies, just like, live and let live. My dad's a musician. He’s very artsy, cerebral. My mom’s crafty, creative.
They're supportive, you know? They're like, go do what you want to do, man. We don't have to understand it all, but go do it.
So, why did you choose analog horror as an art style?
I had seen a handful of clips from The Mandela Catalogue, and my brother showed me this Gemini Home Entertainment video, but when I made The Boiled One, I didn't know what I was doing was analog horror at first.
I just had the vision and drew the Boiled One, who was inspired by a bunch of creepypastas that freaked me out as a kid.
At the time, I was reading a true World War II story, and there were themes of war trauma and PTSD. The Boiled One was about trauma, just more lighthearted—not deep or introspective—just sort of an artistic take on it.
The first Locust video I did went viral at the same time. That blew up on TikTok. I was like, this is gaining steam, and so I continued that series from an analog horror perspective after seeing the formula a bit.
I quickly realized that the analog horror format was limiting to me personally. There’s a lot of great analog horror, but I love to explore things artistically and in detail, and I think that analog horror limits that.
So, I completely vetoed TOE and the Locust and began workshopping an actual story that's now turned into something that I'm animating called SMILEHOOD.
It’s more of an animated series than analog horror, but it has a lot of those personal elements that analog horror has, which is like, you're watching something you're not supposed to. The being knows you're there, and knows you're watching it.
I don't think that will ever leave anything I make. I will always love found footage; like, you're not just watching fiction, you have a glimpse into another reality.
And what was the inspiration behind the Locust?
That was inspired by a pre-sleep vision I had of this tall, dark, thin, wiry armature. This man in a corner covered in blood. The room is covered in blood.
I drew it and then the face. Then the hand banging on the glass, which was inspired by an animation on lomando.com of this hooded face banging on the glass of your screen. It's very violating, you know, breaking the fourth wall.
It evolved into what SMILEHOOD is about to become. It’s the biggest project I've ever embarked on and, I swear to God, sometimes I feel like I'm not even ready for it. People are gonna be shocked by it.
Do you want to give a sneak peek of SMILEHOOD?
I'm gonna be a little reserved about it, because I want it to be surprising. But if I could describe it based on shows that already exist, it would be like if Twin Peaks, Breaking Bad, and Neon Genesis Evangelion were all poured into a melting pot to form something that doesn't really resemble anything.
It’s about a cult run by a strange, colorful, charismatic man known as Arlo Bloom. And the story begins when … Um, very honestly, I'm getting chills just saying these names right now, because it's the first time I've ever addressed them.
It's supposed to take place in a future that's deserted. I had visions of a solar flare that sets back technology. People are living rustic, but the internet still exists. It's this closed-off and suffocated world, very hot, and there's a lot of desert. It’s all going to take place in this little institute, and it's going to explore the dark underground parts of it.
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I can see that shift towards narrative animation in your work, Desiderio, too. Let’s talk about it because I really liked that one. It's a metaphor for hypochondria. Are you a hypochondriac?
Yeah, I mean, I have medical OCD. It sometimes gets in the way of living a normal life. It’s not just about keeping things organized; that’s a complete misconception of what it is. It's like intrusive thoughts, especially around sickness. Little things with your body, like … I can't handle that. I can't deal with that. My mind will hyper-focus on one thing, and all of a sudden, I'm like, I wish I were a tree: a life form that doesn’t have nerves or bodily functions.
Making Desiderio came at the cusp of me being probably the sickest I was in my life, and it was obnoxious and horrible. I took all of my feelings towards that and placed them all on this sickly character; like, this is what it feels like to materialize that weirdness of being sick, and to fear the doctor, and to fear the pill, and it’s just about fear, and my hatred of the human body. It's both a beautiful thing and an utter curse to live in.
The surreal city imagery in Desiderio came first when I was making the video. Those are visions I had from wanting to live in the city. Coming back to living in the middle of nowhere, I felt disconnected from where my heart is supposed to be, which is, I’m a city person. I like to be around people, and then I realized I could tie it in seamlessly with an exposé on sickness.
And that story is going to be expanded upon, too. It’s gonna tie into a whole other narrative that I'm working on. So, that sickness I had led to a big and palpable vision, which is, you know, a good thing.
When you're thinking of these themes and character designs, how are you organizing your ideas and combining them to form a story?
I have a sketchbook where I draw vague ideas of what I want, how it's going to look. And then I have a million notes apps and like 30 Google Docs that just explain different parts of the world and how it works. A lot of these characters are just people that I've observed in my own life.
When I was younger, a lot was imparted to me by my grandpa, who’s a psychologist, about what makes adults into certain adults. That sadness of a child who grows up to be a bad person, that grief. That is where SMILEHOOD's inception came from.
How do you think you’ve changed as an artist since you went viral?
Filmmaking and painting became a bigger, more effective medium for me. I've started focusing more on the art rather than scaring people.
Contrast in a story helps with scariness, like if you make a story that’s mostly happy and then a character out of nowhere dies, the contrast alone makes it a lot sadder. To blindside someone with emotions means that you've settled them into a world where they’re not comfortable with the idea of death or shock or horror yet. And then when you introduce those elements, you can make a more lasting effect.
An analog horror excerpt on a little character is a scary idea, but it’s just an idea. I’m now exploring a thought to the very end.
Old Silas Orion analog horror work from 2021 (Source).
Your earliest work on Instagram is like that, inspired by the work of Trevor Henderson. I was reading an interview with him in which he said he's interested in how narrative-less his work is. He seems to be more into character design, visual vignettes, and playing with the analog art style. But it seems like you're totally veering into being a real storyteller.
The thing is, though, my passion for character design hasn’t left me. I want those two to enhance each other. Sometimes, I’ll design a character that's purely design-based—something meant to strike fear or weirdness—and then a story comes from that. They go hand-in-hand.
And I believe that, although Trevor believes that he likes the non-narrative element, he does do a lot of inadvertent storytelling. That's the reason his characters are great because they do tell a story, and they don't even mean to. They have a story that’s just barely out of reach; you know, there's a reason this thing is here.
Siren Head by Trevor Henderson (Source).Long Horse by Trevor Henderson (Source).
Like Henderson, you’re not anonymous online, but have you ever desired to start an urban legend and be a shadow creator? I’m thinking of how The Backrooms started as an anonymous 4chan post.
Yeah. I mean, I love that idea. One of the most Googled things when you search up the first three letters of “boiled one” is people asking whether or not it’s real. I'm satisfied with that [laughs].
But starting an urban legend would be super fun. But at the same time, I think if I were to draw it or create it, my style would be so instantly recognizable from people who know me that it would be like, nice fucking try, bro [laughs]. We know that's you.
I have a much younger brother, and there was a trend of showing your little brother a scary maze game with a jump scare. I showed it to him, and he wasn't scared at all, not remotely affected by it.
My little brother is the one screaming in that video. We made it together as a joke, like, look at this little guy. He's a weird little guy. He's watching the maze game, and he's freaked out by it.
And what does he think of your art?
Dude, he likes it. He's chill with it. He has a crazy media literacy for a kid his age. I mean, he's seen Twin Peaks with my dad and me, and he likes it. He gets it. He's a smart kid.
What do you think he's going to turn out to be?
He's a drummer. Actually, both of my younger brothers are drummers. However, my other younger brother, the middle child, he’s an artist as well. He's actually on Instagram and goes by @silgeroth. He's got a very different style of creepy art than mine.
To describe our art styles, my type of horror would be something tall and thin that is going to stab you or torture you, and his is something bloated and fat that is going to eat you.
Work by Silgeroth, Silas Orion’s brother (Source).
Is that a big debate between you two? I’m imagining a screaming match at the dinner table.
[Laughs] No, we enhance each other's art. We even borrow from each other sometimes. He'll come up with some shit, and I'm like, bro, how did you even think of that? We'll have an idea for a world, and we’ll brainstorm on it.
But yeah, my youngest brother is a drummer. He's like Young Sheldon. Whatever that kid wants to do, he's going to hyperfixate on it and become stupidly good at it. Like … he's scary.
He's scary? That’s funny coming from you.
[Laughs] Yeah, I know.
Employee of the Millennium by Silas Orion (Source).
Sometimes you post funny things like that propeller hat kid animation. What do you think is the importance of, every once in a while, sharing a meme-type post on your page?
Learning how to blend humor with horror is fun ‘cause they're tight-knit in a weird way. And the internet is very humorous. That’s a majority of what happens on here: people trying to laugh, brownie points. It’s a valuable thing to make somebody laugh.
I’ve even thought about making something purely comedic. I have a bunch of ideas for a purely comedic series that I’d love to eventually explore once I get out my more well-rounded, darker ideas.
Adventure Time is an amazing example of how something can be so funny and so light-hearted, and then get so dark so fast, and how that contrast never feels out of place. The show is totally a comfort show in a way, like you can always rely on the characters to be the way they are, but the world is very unpredictable and dark. It's super effective.
[Laughs] That picture I did not draw. A lot of people ask me if I rendered it or drew it. But, no, I was at my friend's house and, dude, his basement floor is just this labyrinth of evil. It looks like the Backrooms. I genuinely swear it's cursed.
There is a styrofoam head on a shelf, and this vacuum was leaned up against the wall. And I was like, bro, I have a vision.
Spontaneity often creates some of the most fun, weird, and creepy ideas, just because it comes from a place that you don't really understand.
My uncle used to tell these very strange, off-the-cuff horror stories. He was very creative.
They were part of what started my journey of scary storytelling.
One day, when we were camping, he came up with this bizarre world that he described through the daily routine of a character. And throughout, the character described having dreams of an unfamiliar being standing in front of the mirror and looking in its own eyes.
And the way he described this being was so inhuman. It was tall, and it had multiple appendages at the ends of its arms, and it had long hair, and thousands of little skin flakes, and two bulbous eyes.
It was revealed at the very end of the story that it was being told from the perspective of a parasite inside a regular human's eye. And the being he described in the mirror was actually a human.
He described the human so inhumanly. He somehow managed to make us relate to the little microbe.
And what does your uncle think of your work?
He understands it. I like what he has to say about it. Even though he's from a different generation, he gets it like not many people I know get it.
”Accidentally injected a soul into this drawing and now I can’t stop hearing the weeping.” (Source).
I mean, you went viral when you were like 16. What’s changed in your waking life since then?
Um, not a whole lot. Every once in a while, I'll have an opportunity to go to Atlanta or New York. I had an opportunity in LA come up, where I went to this digital exhibit that my friend @drezzdon hosted. He rented out a bunch of CRT monitors and was like, we'll show some of your art up there. A bunch of people showed up, and in that moment, I realized, oh shit, this is what I'm doing.
I think in the age of digital lethargy—people are bedrotting, satisfied with not making an impact on the world— when you meet people who want to make an impact on the world, it’s the most refreshing thing you can do for your spirit.
I'm like, I'm so glad these people exist. I'm so glad I'm surrounded by people who are even more ambitious than I am, because that means there's more ambition in me somewhere. I know that this is possible. I know there are people living life to the fullest.
What are your goals, like where do you see yourself in five years? What are you making?
I want a feature film done in the next 5-10 years. Obviously, I’d love to get the young jump—like Kane Pixels directing The Backrooms movie at 20 is so amazing—but I've kind of let up on that dream. I'm probably gonna have to hold for a little bit before I get launched into that stratosphere.
I want to travel, probably live by the ocean. And I want to create forever, just make stuff, make ideas, make stuff that, you know, demands a reaction from myself and from people; stirs conversation; stuff that people can either laugh about or be freaked out about together.
If I died tomorrow, I'd already be kind of content [laughs]. My footprint on the earth would be small, but it would be there. Preferably, I want to make a crater.
There are a thousand ways to dress
And 1
There are a thousand ways to dress
And 1
I'm going for that
And 1
You feel me?
You see me?
There are a thousand ways to dress
And 1
