this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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Cosmic Horror

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A community to discuss Cosmic Horror in it's many forms; books, films, comics, art, TV, music, RPGs, video games etc.

"cosmic horror... is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock... themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries... the sense that ordinary life is a thin shell over a reality that is so alien and abstract in comparison that merely contemplating it would damage the sanity of the ordinary person, insignificance and powerlessness at the cosmic scale..."

For more Lovecraft & Mythos-inspired Cosmic Horror:-[email protected]

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Cosmic horror has been established as one of the most chilling sub-genres in horror cinema. With a focus on the unknown, isolation, and the human mind, cosmic horror plays on the imaginations of audiences rather than going all out on gore and jump scares. Instead of ghosts, serial killers, or vampires, these stories focus on the endless possibilities of the universe's fictional horrors.

Early 20th-century author H.P. Lovecraft gave Cosmic horror prominence through stories like At the Mountain of Madness, The Hound, and The Call of Cthulhu. The genre can be challenging to pull off in cinema, but plenty of films have tried to capture the terror of the unknown and unimaginable. Everything from stories of paranoia to questions about reality itself has made up cosmic horror in cinema.

They are:

  1. The Thing
  2. In the Mouth of Madness
  3. Event Horizon
  4. The Lighthouse
  5. Phantoms
  6. The Void
  7. The Mist
  8. Bird Box
  9. Color Out of Space
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I read the Annihilation books first and so was almost disappointed by the movie, but they did it differently in such a good way that I still really loved it in the end. Excellent stuff all around.