The Weeping Angels apparently originated with Steven Moffat seeing a statue of a weeping angel in a structure in a cemetery and returning later to find out it was gone. At least according to this RadioTimes article. They first appeared in 2007 in the episode Blink.
I am wondering if this mechanic has been done before though?
It’s become quite common in the indie horror scene.
In the 2007 video game Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis Watson would not move if in the player’s view but would teleport behind the protagonist when given the opportunity. A video of it can be found here.
Considering this could be an easy place holder for developers or a way to get around programming walking animations all together I’m surprised no one took the idea and ran with it before then.
All that said it could have been used in books or movies. Maybe a twist on some other vision-centric myth like Medusa or Orpheus and Eurydice?
Statues (game) has been around since the eighties at least, and was one of the inspirations for the weeping angels.
Also, cats https://youtu.be/NbwpgyRUv5g
Cats do it and people have been living around cats for thousands of years
I was going to say, I think this originated with cats!
The hedge animals from Stephen King’s “The Shining”, 1977, was a great part of the book that didn’t make it to the movie.
It’s kind of an inversion of “don’t look back”, which is thousands of years old.
“Don’t not look.”
The ghosts in Super Mario Brothers 3 (1988) would pursue Mario only when he looked away. When he faced them they would stop and hide their faces.
SMB3 was from 1988? Lies.
Released October 23, 1988… In Japan.
Us gaijin did not get it until 1990.
this is how cats have operated since the beginning of time.
Check out They Bite by Anthony Boucher, written in 1943.
Edit: this is my favorite horror short story. Read it at night if you want to start jumping at every shadow in the corner of your eye for the next three days or something.
From what I remember they didn’t intend for Watson to behave that way, they just forgot to add the animations to him.
There’s also SCP-173 who was originally posted as a creepypasta on the /x/ (paranormal) board of 4chan on June 22, 2007