Pale skin and sunken eyes are synonymous with illness and death. You instinctively fear people who are ill or dead, as to not catch an illness yourself. As for sharp teeth and elongated faces: characteristics of predators. Sharp teeth means carnivorous. Long face (with front facing eyes) means good depth perception for hunting. The pale skin, sunken eyes, sharp teeth, and long face trope is a combination of those instinctual fears, producing a stronger fear/reaction.

Many classic horror icons and other disturbing creatures share common characteristics. Pale skin, dark, sunken eyes, elongated faces, sharp teeth, and the like. These images inspire horror and revulsion in many, and with good reason. The characteristics shared by these faces are imprinted in the human mind.

Many things frighten humans instinctively. The fear is natural, and does not need to be reinforced in order to terrify. The fears are species-wide, stemming from dark times in the past when lightning could mean the burning of your tree home, predators could be hiding in the dark, heights could make poor footing lethal, and a spider or snake bite could mean certain death.

The question you have to ask yourself is this:

What happened, deep in the hidden eras before history began, that could effect the entire human race so evenly as to give the entire species a deep, instinctual, and lasting fear of pale beings with dark, sunken eyes, razor sharp teeth, and elongated faces?

To be honest that last question frightened me more that the picture.

That question is what always catches me and makes me want to reblog this

I know why. It’s leftover instinctual survival skills. Animals with long faces and sharp teeth tend to be predators, and before humans were at the top of the food chain they had to know how to recognise those features in order to survive. Humans are avoidant of pale skin and sunken eyes because it’s associated with illness, and again, people needed to survive. It’s nothing more than leftover survival instincts.