Midwestern gothic is my favorite horror-adjacent genre because it's not wrong at all. Any midwesterner who has lived by corn or the railroad tracks or been to a gas station at night will tell you it always feels like there is Something There or, if not, you're vaguely dissociating and reality is a little fuzzy. Nothing quite makes sense out here but that's just how it is.
I have lived out here my entire life and I can tell you that leaving your house is a somewhat religious experience. It's entirely possible that this may be just a simulation.
Illinois specifically only feels like it has three real spaces. Chicago, the corn, and Casey's.
Sometimes Springfield pops into existence but most of the time nobody ever thinks about it or mentions it. It's the state capital. Why do we only ever talk about it when we're talking about state capitals?
I feel connected to the corn out here. We joke about a corn monster but it feels like the corn is alive. Not in the normal plant way, but it feels like it's aware. I talk to it sometimes, because I talk to a lot of things and it's nice when walking outside, and maybe it's the pagan in me but it feels like the corn listens. It feels different than the other nature around here. The soybean fields aren't like this. Why is the corn?
Midwestern gothic is scary because it feels real. Who's to say what's real or not out here? Certainly not us who live here.
