E.S. Raye

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

H.P. Lovecraft

As a lifelong fan of science, specifically space, science fiction has always been an obvious choice for me as a reader. Couple that with the fact that both of my parents were at least passing fans of Stephen King, and you’ll understand where my love of horror first came from.

So, it shouldn’t be much of a stretch to understand why discovering cosmic horror was like a homecoming for me; it just felt right.

But for the uninitiated, the distinction between run-of-the-mill horror and the cosmic variety can be difficult to discern. So…

What is Cosmic Horror?

As Mr. Lovecraft up there (who we will get to later, I promise) suggests, cosmic horror deals with the fear of the unknown. That means it moves away from the more standard fare of slasher killers, undead hordes, or ghosts, vampires, and other terrestrial or recognizable monsters.

Instead, it aims to point out the sheer insignificance of humankind. Cosmic horror suggests a vast universe beyond our little globe that is beyond our ability to understand and that it does not care if our civilizations cease to exist. Gods and monsters so far removed from our own experiences that we cannot comprehend them, and they barely notice us as they annihilate are common. Characters losing their sense of self or even their sense of reality is standard.

Following the recent solar eclipse, I saw a meme that I thought perfectly summed up the concept of cosmic horror. A fisherman had pulled a trout from a lake, put the special eclipse glasses on it, and showed it the sun before releasing the fish back into the water.

This is an apt metaphor for human characters in cosmic horror stories, ripped from their mundane life by an entity they can barely comprehend, to be shown the unfathomable majesty of the cosmos before being unceremoniously dropped back into their tiny reality. No wonder so many of them go insane!

The thrust of cosmic horror is to show us just how much we don’t know. It suggests that beyond all the questions science knows it doesn’t have answers to lie questions we haven’t even considered asking or even know how to ask.

Sci-Fi Horror vs Cosmic Horror

However, creating a cosmic horror story can be difficult because it requires going way outside the box. A monster from space generally isn’t good enough. To illustrate this, let’s look at two alien monsters that even inhabit the same fictional universe, but one is sci-fi horror, and the other is cosmic horror: the xenomorph from Alien and the Yautja from Predator.

Youtja

The titular predator from Predator, the Youtja, is an alien monster that defies human expectations and explanations. It poses a serious threat to the movie’s characters and humanity as a whole. But this is not a cosmic horror threat.

First and foremost, the Youtja is understandable. Though dangerous and terrifying, its motives are easy to understand: it’s a sport hunter.

Not unlike human big game hunters, the Youtja seeks to challenge itself by hunting the most dangerous prey in the galaxy. Those motivations are simple to comprehend. Aside from the questions of where it came from, there’s nothing fundamentally unknowable about this creature.

Furthermore, Arnold (admittedly something of a superman in the movie) can defeat it by going back to basics; he outsmarts it and beats it with simple, somewhat primitive traps. In the end, we and the monster aren’t so different.

Xenomorph

The xenomorph, on the other hand, is a fantastic example of a cosmic horror threat (at least in Alien; the sequels do remove some of the cosmic characteristics).

First, the alien knows nothing of humanity—the characters stumble upon it by mistake (really by design, as the company sends them there, but they don’t know that). And what they find is so dangerous and unknowable that it destroyed the very ship that was transporting it in the first place. This mystery—what happened to the derelict ship and the jockey pilot—adds the much-needed air of the unknown.

From there, we have the creature’s life cycle, which changes from egg to face-hugger to chest-burster to fully grown monster in a matter of hours. This keeps the characters guessing. They, and we as the audience, don’t know what will happen next, only that the threat seems to be escalating exponentially.

We don’t know where it came from, how intelligent it is, what it wants, or what it will do next. And it does not care one iota about us. Unlike the Youtja, which is there to hunt us specifically, the xenomorph sees us only as meat that’s in its proximity. And humanity, and all our technology, is insignificant next to the threat of even one.

At the end of this one, Ripley wins more or less out of luck. They can’t outsmart it, their weapons are only moderately effective, and even blowing up a massive mining rig proves ineffective. Ripley could have just as easily been killed before blowing it out the airlock. And then she still has to deal with the consequences of being lost, alone, in deep space.

I’ll admit, the xenomorph is not a “pure” cosmic villain because no one really goes insane. Ultimately, it is an animal and can sort of be understood as one. But I think my point remains: the xenomorph represents the cold, unyielding, and uncaring universe in which humanity is an insignificant part.

H.P. Lovecraft

Of course, no discussion of cosmic horror is complete without mentioning H.P. Lovecraft. Although he was not the originator of the genre (with several works published well before his time, such as The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers), he is definitely the most well-known. In fact, Lovecraft has enjoyed something of a resurgence lately, with Cthulhu striding his enormous way into modern pop culture.

As such, his influence on the genre and horror as a whole is unmistakable and indelible. If you’re a fan of cosmic horror or have been intrigued by this write-up and want a place to start, I suggest Lovecraft’s work as your springboard.

However…

I would give you a warning no one gave me before I started reading his 65 stories:

Lovecraft’s fear of the unknown extended to anyone who did not look like him. He was a self-destructive and bigoted man, and this shows up in quite a lot of his work. Putting aside that hatred for his fellow humans to experience the impact he made on storytelling may be a tall order—one not everyone may wish to undertake.

In Conclusion

It’s been nearly 100 years since H.P. Lovecraft’s death, and the genre has moved and changed in ways he could never have predicted (thankfully). Modern authors have reinvented the genre and taken it in countless new directions.

A genre that was once the preview of a frightened, small-minded person has not become a voice for anyone who has felt othered or left outside.