Discussion Anyone wanna discuss Cosmic Horror?

[EuclidianMisery]

I'll be brief here but its my favorite sub-genre of horror and one I feel most people do not understand.
And by people, I mean YouTubers and Media Literary figures.

What Cosmic Horror is in laymen's terms is: Humanity is unable to control reality. There are forces greater than us with unique traits we cannot perceive nor understand. Should we attempt to understand then it will make us feel very bad, perhaps insane or the mere fact is too much some turn to suicide instead. Do you need insanity in a cosmic horror story? Well what is insanity? What even is it when we keep changing the definition of 'sanity' every decade or so. A decade prior it was insane to think we would accept paying microtransactions in single player videos games, and a decade before that much more insane to release a broken-buggy game on day one. Genuine insanity is the full refusal of reality, all senses voluntarily cut off and left to one's own shadowy hell of misery. Insanity can be a broad spectrum of things and I believe Even Horizon is a great 'Vermillion' example of cosmic madness. I won't spoil anything, just know what they find on those videos is a perfect 'stained' example of cosmic madness. One from such forces that it makes the old crew do 'horrible' things to each other. Its the type of creative decision that shows insanity isn't just some fool muttering to himself. No. It can be something else. Something messy. Violent. Cursed. Just simply f***ing awful.
Rant done.
What is your favorite piece of cosmic horror media?
I'll reply and respond with some good recommendations of my own.

 

[JeyJeyOfJeypore]

Is Interstellar cosmic horror

 

[ZwartHartje]

H.P. Lovecraft, who is considered to be the "father" of this genre, is my favorite author! My favorite story of his is "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward".

There's a very nice movie adaptation of "The Call of Cthulhu," low budget but it works because it's made to resemble a 1930s silent movie.

Another amazing underground gem, "The Whisperer in Darkness", is found here - really great acting by the poor guy who is losing his mind alone in his cabin:



Edit: I don't know why it says it's unavailable, I tried it and it still works - I tried to insert plain text link but that also doesn't work...

 

[SASU-KE]

Obviously Lovecraftian lore would be the generic response.

But I have a very good suggestion about something a little more unique.

I would say Warhammer 40K is a good cosmic horror setting.

It's an extremely grim dark setting. Humanity has its back against the wall and there are a number of different alien races looking to exterminate it.

Fun tidbit : The Event Horizon ship is actually said to have got lost in the warp from Warhammer 40K and came back possessed.

While there is no official crossover, the 1997 sci-fi horror film Event Horizon is widely regarded by fans as an unofficial prequel to the Warhammer 40,000 universe. The film's screenwriter, Philip Eisner, has acknowledged that playing the tabletop game directly influenced the script's terrifying depiction of an alternate, hellish dimension.

 

[Canto XIII]

I'm no expert on the genre, but I've recently seen a beautiful French movie titled Else by director Thibault Emin at a local sci-fi movie festival, which despite being more of a body horror-science fiction work at the surface has strong elements of cosmic horror. It's about a worldwide pandemic which causes infected people to fuse with objects surrounding them. It kept me awake that night lol. Not overly pessimistic, I feel, a bit artsy but not annoyingly so. The movie came out in 2024.

 

[EuclidianMisery]

H.P. Lovecraft, who is considered to be the "father" of this genre, is my favorite author! My favorite story of his is "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward".

There's a very nice movie adaptation of "The Call of Cthulhu," low budget but it works because it's made to resemble a 1930s silent movie.

Another amazing underground gem, "The Whisperer in Darkness", is found here - really great acting by the poor guy who is losing his mind alone in his cabin:



Edit: I don't know why it says it's unavailable, I tried it and it still works - I tried to insert plain text link but that also doesn't work...

I really liked that Call of Cthulhu movie. Its one of my own personal favorites.

I'm no expert on the genre, but I've recently seen a beautiful French movie titled Else by director Thibault Emin at a local sci-fi movie festival, which despite being more of a body horror-science fiction work at the surface has strong elements of cosmic horror. It's about a worldwide pandemic which causes infected people to fuse with objects surrounding them. It kept me awake that night lol. Not overly pessimistic, I feel, a bit artsy but not annoyingly so. The movie came out in 2024.View attachment 204765

Now this sounds up my alley!
Thanks.

 

[Canto XIII]

I really liked that Call of Cthulhu movie. Its one of my own personal favorites.


Now this sounds up my alley!
Thanks.

Nice username btw!

 

[Bad Mojo]

I hate how lovecraftian horror always turns absolute insanity into something that's categorically bad or evil. Like, to me that's not chaotic at all. It's just a lame reimagining of things that aren't insane and are actually very common place, like people not caring about each other or whatever. I want lovecraftians to hit me with something that's actually compelling.

Like why do they always want human sacrifices? That's not insane or mindbending, it's just gross.

I love the myths of azathoth and yog-sothoth as derived explanations for what reality is, though. I watched this pretty cool youtube video that relied on material that was obscure and probably not canon, but it explained how they -went- insane in the first place and how, given the architecture of that imagined reality, we ended up where we were. If I find it I might edit this post to include it.

Okay it was this:



I loved this story and it resonated pretty hard with me. It's derived from a poem; barbelzoa has very few references that I could find, which is cool because it's like you're moving past the pretend "forbidden knowledge" that everyone actually knows to something more obscure xD. Even if she only exists because some person made her up one day.

Barbelzoa is also a tentacle monster derivation of barbelo from gnostic theology I reckon, which I don't know much about but it can point the the overall meaning of it. I'm just attracted to the idea that a mistake happened, something bad went down, between people who originally fundamentally loved each other in the cosmic sense, and it went out of control and now here we are.

Cosmic love is just too real and too binding for me to casually accept that the powers that be are all emotionally unintellgent and unevolved psychopaths. Like these tentacle gods are supposed to be so much more advanced than us yet they don't understand basic empathy? There's shit behind it. There has to be. And I think it has to be complicated, weird, tragic and overwhelmingly sad. I think whatever gods exist are crying, and I think they are either in immense pain or they're burying it behind fragile superiority complexes. No other force could vomit out something as terrible as the reality we live in.

And I really don't like how the tentacle gods are supposed to be a metaphor for the uncaring nature of the universe. To me, it's just so fucking basic. Why bother? We're already overexposed to that and we get it. That isn't mysterious, crazy, or interesting. A force that cares in a barely comprehensible and apparently ineffectual way (given how shit everything is) is much more likely to have all of those qualities and actually be compelling.

I guess the casual betrayal of your existential sisters and brothers is supposed to be the insanity. I do feel that. But in that case we're already insane and the tentacle gods are more like us than they aren't. So the mystery is dead and nonexistent once you get past "they look weird" and "woahh non-euclidian geometry omg". It just isn't incomprehensible to me because I think it can all be traced back to pain that was always wholly unnecessary but somehow happened anyway.

 

[ZwartHartje]

I hate how lovecraftian horror always turns absolute insanity into something that's categorically bad or evil. Like, to me that's not chaotic at all. It's just a lame reimagining of things that aren't insane and are actually very common place, like people not caring about each other or whatever. I want lovecraftians to hit me with something that's actually compelling.

Like why do they always want human sacrifices? That's not insane or mindbending, it's just gross.

I love the myths of azathoth and yog-sothoth as derived explanations for what reality is, though. I watched this pretty cool youtube video that relied on material that was obscure and probably not canon, but it explained how they -went- insane in the first place and how, given the architecture of that imagined reality, we ended up where we were. If I find it I might edit this post to include it.

Okay it was this:



I loved this story and it resonated pretty hard with me. It's derived from a poem; barbelzoa has very few references that I could find, which is cool because it's like you're moving past the pretend "forbidden knowledge" that everyone actually knows to something more obscure xD. Even if she only exists because some person made her up one day.

Barbelzoa is also a tentacle monster derivation of barbelo from gnostic theology I reckon, which I don't know much about but it can point the the overall meaning of it. I'm just attracted to the idea that a mistake happened, something bad went down, between people who originally fundamentally loved each other in the cosmic sense, and it went out of control and now here we are.

Cosmic love is just too real and too binding for me to casually accept that the powers that be are all emotionally unintellgent and unevolved psychopaths. Like these tentacle gods are supposed to be so much more advanced than us yet they don't understand basic empathy? There's shit behind it. There has to be. And I think it has to be complicated, weird, tragic and overwhelmingly sad. I think whatever gods exist are crying, and I think they are either in immense pain or they're burying it behind fragile superiority complexes. No other force could vomit out something as terrible as the reality we live in.

And I really don't like how the tentacle gods are supposed to be a metaphor for the uncaring nature of the universe. To me, it's just so fucking basic. Why bother? We're already overexposed to that and we get it. That isn't mysterious, crazy, or interesting. A force that cares in a barely comprehensible and apparently ineffectual way (given how shit everything is) is much more likely to have all of those qualities and actually be compelling.

I guess the casual betrayal of your existential sisters and brothers is supposed to be the insanity. I do feel that. But in that case we're already insane and the tentacle gods are more like us than they aren't. So the mystery is dead and nonexistent once you get past "they look weird" and "woahh non-euclidian geometry omg". It just isn't incomprehensible to me because I think it can all be traced back to pain that was always wholly unnecessary but somehow happened anyway.

All this is quite something to think about. The Great Old Ones are said to be evil because they violated their own creation and bent it to their will in blasphemous ways - now look at humanity, doing all that. Breeding dogs with squished faces and dairy cows with enormous udders that wouldn't be able to survive on their own, and torturing and murdering our fellow sentient creatures in unspeakable ways.
Why do the Great Old Ones demand human sacrifices? Because what goes around comes around, I guess, pitting evil against evil.

Yes, I'm a victim of this pain too, I think we all at this forum are, that's why we're here after all. But was it always wholly unnecessary? I'm not sure. Maybe it had to happen simply because it's a possibility among all that exists within the All, and because it needs to take form in order to be understood as well. I don't know, but I'm trying to find some meaning in it; I guess just because if it does have a meaning or purpose then it wouldn't be so needless after all.

I still have to watch that video now!

 

[limenlux]

Most of my familiarity with cosmic horror is through H.P. Lovecraft, who I really enjoy, and the video game Darkest Dungeon, if that counts. Is anyone here a fan of Thomas Ligotti? He's been recommended to me numerous times, but I don't read as much as I used to.

 

[Grav]

Most of my cosmic horror reading is from HPL. I've branched out but not all of it is the usual stuff, more like weird fiction and not so much horror. As to why human sacrifices? Who says they even care about them? Maybe that's just human cultists thinking it does something when it's not even noticed?

Just remembered and it may not be cosmic enough, but "The Willows" is one that I really like, read it 3 times so far.

 

[SASU-KE]

Who says they even care about them? Maybe that's just human cultists thinking it does something when it's not even noticed?

This is actually very true and something I've thought about before. The nature of God or these higher beings. Basically, they are so far above us that they will think as much of us as we think about the ants beneath our feet.In other words, they don't care at all. This passage regarding Cthulu explains quite a bit,

Cosmic Indifference: Most often, Cthulhu does not actively target humans out of personal malice. Instead, humans are entirely insignificant to him, and the harm he causes is largely an incidental byproduct of his alien existence.

 

[Canto XIII]

 

[SASU-KE]

Again. This movie terrified me when I first watched it. But this is a great scene. it's kind of sci-fi cosmic horror to me.

 

[EuclidianMisery]

I

Most of my familiarity with cosmic horror is through H.P. Lovecraft, who I really enjoy, and the video game Darkest Dungeon, if that counts. Is anyone here a fan of Thomas Ligotti? He's been recommended to me numerous times, but I don't read as much as I used to.

I've heard many good things of Ligotti, and his name gets thrown around a lot in cosmic horror circles and for good reason. If you want another deviation from the lovecraft-sphere then check out Annihliation Jeff VanderMeer. Its a wickedly good story and is more weirder than anything Lovecraft ever made. Another book that is bizarrely Cosmic Horror yet isn't and somehow compounded its philosophy into something 'unique' would have to be this 'special' book.
It's called 'Divine Farce' by Graziano Michael S A, and its one of the best reads I've went through in recent memory. I don't want to spoil anything other than the bare bone premise is that three people wake up inside a crammed hole, and how things proceed really took me by surprise. What I'm getting at is once you read and finish this story, it'll make you think very hard for a long time.

Fear and Hunger got some good Cosmic Horror in it.
Same for Iron Lung, the indie game.

Most of my cosmic horror reading is from HPL. I've branched out but not all of it is the usual stuff, more like weird fiction and not so much horror. As to why human sacrifices? Who says they even care about them? Maybe that's just human cultists thinking it does something when it's not even noticed?

Just remembered and it may not be cosmic enough, but "The Willows" is one that I really like, read it 3 times so far.

I love the Willows!

Did you read Wendigo by the same author? That's a really good horror book and one of the best folk horror I've read in recent memory.

 

[Knives_14]

EASILY Bloodborne (given that i love lovecraft a lot)

 

[EuclidianMisery]

EASILY Bloodborne (given that i love lovecraft a lot)

That's a great game! Loved every minute of it! Speaking of games, did you try Alone in the Dark 2024? It's a solid AA experience and has a decently lovecraft-esque storyline.

 

[Knives_14]

That's a great game! Loved every minute of it! Speaking of games, did you try Alone in the Dark 2024? It's a solid AA experience and has a decently lovecraft-esque storyline.

I did not! is it the same "franchise" from back then? I'm definitely going to check it out, thank you (<- that's cthulhu ofc)

 

[EuclidianMisery]

I did not! is it the same "franchise" from back then? I'm definitely going to check it out, thank you (<- that's cthulhu ofc)

It's reminiscent of RE2 Remake but with its own Southern theme going on.

 

[Grav]

Did you read Wendigo by the same author? That's a really good horror book and one of the best folk horror I've read in recent memory.

Yep. I'm slogging through some Dark Age battles now but I'll be going back to horror after that.

 

[EuclidianMisery]

Yep. I'm slogging through some Dark Age battles now but I'll be going back to horror after that.

I completely understand. I'm still into horror but not into cosmic horror at the moment. Kathe Koja managed to get my complete undivided attention but once I'm finished with Bad Brains then it's going to be the Great God Pan as my next read.

 

[Daniel8899]

EASILY Bloodborne (given that i love lovecraft a lot)

Yeah, this also made me look more into cosmic horror since after bloodborne I needed something to fill the "emptiness"

 

[Grav]

I completely understand. I'm still into horror but not into cosmic horror at the moment. Kathe Koja managed to get my complete undivided attention but once I'm finished with Bad Brains then it's going to be the Great God Pan as my next read.

Read that a few months ago. Watched a youtube overview of it with my wife and it was one of those "you have to read it" moments, just easier to explain.

 

[EuclidianMisery]

Read that a few months ago. Watched a youtube overview of it with my wife and it was one of those "you have to read it" moments, just easier to explain.

Saw a summary of the book and immediately clicked off when I heard how good the premise was. It was one of those 'i must read it now' stories and reminded me of the time when discovering Scanlines by Todd Keisling (which is a great horror novel btw). Speaking of you have to read it, ever heard of Eldritch Chrome? Its the coolest and most imaginative Cthulhu Mythos anthology book ever made. Cyberpunk meets Cthulhu mythos and boy does it get crazy good!

 

[Odahviing475]

I love HP Lovecraft but I think you should read the original King in Yellow book or even the poem. It was a much better idea back then IMO before being given an actual figure by HP lovecraft or more modern takes.

Otherwise, I've been interested in starting to read some Stephen King novels. Stephen King is behind so many wonderful ideas but what attracts me the most is the Crimson King series of novels.

Personally, I think the Witness from Destiny 2 (RIP, but play it if you can) is a really good take on cosmic powers, the entire campaign to take down the Witness involves so much body horror.

If you're thinking more community takes on cosmic horror, I think the SCP foundation and Backrooms offer a ton of amazing content on that front, (but also a ton of content that's kinda cringe).

Also, you can probably peruse the YouTube scene for a ton of horror like the Mandela catalogue or Wendigoon's channel.

 

[EuclidianMisery]

I love HP Lovecraft but I think you should read the original King in Yellow book or even the poem. It was a much better idea back then IMO before being given an actual figure by HP lovecraft or more modern takes.

Otherwise, I've been interested in starting to read some Stephen King novels. Stephen King is behind so many wonderful ideas but what attracts me the most is the Crimson King series of novels.

Personally, I think the Witness from Destiny 2 (RIP, but play it if you can) is a really good take on cosmic powers, the entire campaign to take down the Witness involves so much body horror.

If you're thinking more community takes on cosmic horror, I think the SCP foundation and Backrooms offer a ton of amazing content on that front, (but also a ton of content that's kinda cringe).

Also, you can probably peruse the YouTube scene for a ton of horror like the Mandela catalogue or Wendigoon's channel.

The King in Yellow is something I've wanted to read but hadn't had the right 'feeling' to do so. I strongly feel its a special book, and therefore demands to be read under very special circumstances. Example, I was visiting my Mom in WV and there was nothing to do while the state was suffering from drought and the only form of entertainment I had was a ebook called 'To Be Devoured by Sara Tantlinger'. My Mom is a hoarder in both animals and things so the smell inside was a special kind of putrid followed by cheap gas station coffee and the smell of death permeating the interior. The book itself was fantastic and at the same time so visceral that it paired too neatly with the environment I was reading it. That was special circumstance for a very special book and I feel the King deserves the same treatment.

As for your other recommendations, I nearly read Carrie by Stephen King in some cemetary somewhere in Santa Monica in a single day! Finished it later once back in my home state (not WV) and thought it was fine. Which leads me to wanting to read his other works which I hadn't the time to nor the courage given how humguous some of his books can be. Which to say I'm very lazy with Stephen King and that's on me.

I like Wendigoon and Mandela catalogue. I also like this other channel called Ghouligan who does some amazing video essays and explores dark art.

 

[EuclidianMisery]

For anyone wanting a really good story to read, I highly recommend Cipher by Kathe Koja.
Its the most unique story penned from the 90s scenes and stands equally with Clive Barker's work. Speaking of Barker, I think everyone should give a look into the Books of Blood series. It has some of the most coolest monsters ever conceived by a modern author.
Just wanted to give a small shout out to my fellow readers who are searching for their next read.