How to get obsessed with cosmic horror

Definitions

Horror stories come in multiple flavors. If there’s:

• A brooding monster or ghost, an old castle or crypt, and a series of murders? That’s Gothic horror. Examples: Frankenstein, Dracula, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• A human killer that stalks and kills in a gratuitously bloody way? That’s slasher horror. Examples: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Scream.
• A person who seems normal, but under the surface is deranged, unstable, or disturbed? That’s psychological horror. Examples: “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, Carrie.
• Extreme distortion of the human body? That’s body horror. Examples: The Fly, Eraserhead, The Substance.

There are other flavors too, and the lines between them are blurry at best. But one thing most horror stories have in common is the presence of (deceptive, subject to change, but still comprehensible) logic and constraints. The killer from a slasher movie can hide in closets and attack unexpectedly, but we typically expect they can’t turn invisible or kill by telekinesis. When they’re slain or captured, we rightly assume the community is safe. Dracula, Hannibal Lecter, and the xenomorph from Alien can also be plotted against and imprisoned or killed. There are boundaries around these horrors, and when we understand what they are, we see how to conquer them. This allows horror stories to have happy endings.

What about horrors beyond the human mind’s ability to comprehend? Monsters that can’t be contained or killed, dangers that can’t be predicted? That’s cosmic horror.

Cosmic horror refuses to be contained. A common complaint about this kind of story is that it “didn’t make sense.” For people who demand self-contained, easily-digestible stories, cosmic horror can never satisfy. At the same time, the vast scale and mystery of the genre is exactly what makes it satisfying—it feeds on our awareness of an uncaring universe, a place much larger than anyone can truly grasp, filled with strange and illogical things, governed by chaos and entropy. Rather than the personal horror of monsters that are out to get us, it’s the impersonal horror of all the things we don’t know or understand, any of which could “get us” at any moment—and which are far more likely to than zombies and aliens. It’s a portrayal of loneliness and helplessness as inherent to the human condition, rather than violent abnormalities.

H. P. Lovecraft is considered the father of the genre, and though he was a bad person, his influence is paramount. The tropes of his Chthulhu mythos (knowledge that causes madness, cursed objects, extradimensional phenomena, tentacled beasts, secretive cults and rituals) are omnipresent.

How to get obsessed

Today, video games are cosmic horror’s most popular and critically-acclaimed medium. The genre is convenient to the form: powerful cosmic beings make for spectacular boss battles, and the creeping dread of the unknowable creates myriad opportunities for surprise and discovery.

Returnal (2021) is a mind-bending, time-looping sci-fi shooter set on an alien planet haunted by psychological echoes and tentacled monsters. It’s thought to be influenced by:

• Edge of Tomorrow (2014), a sci-fi action film about a soldier stuck in a time loop during a war with the Mimics, an aggressive species of aliens.
• The art of Zdzisław Beksiński, a Polish painter whose work depicts surreal, alien landscapes.

Death Stranding (2019), a game from celebrated Metal Gear director Hideo Kojima, follows Sam Porter Bridges, a nomadic courier delivering packages during a worldwide human extinction caused by extradimensional entities that exist in the gap between life and death. Its influences include:

• The Metal Gear series, of course, whose faux-realistic military stealth gameplay is often interrupted by ghostly, superhuman enemies and allies.
• INSIDE (2016), a cryptic puzzle platformer game about a boy navigating a dark world of secretive human experimentation and unexplainable events.

Control (2019) follows Jesse Faden, who’s unexpectedly thrust into the role of director at the Federal Bureau of Control, an agency that investigates supernatural phenomena and “Objects of Power.” The game’s rich pedigree includes:

• The Magnus Archives (2016), a horror podcast about the fictional Magnus Institute, which documents witness statements about paranormal encounters.
• Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy (2014), modern classics of cosmic horror, the first of which is the basis for the movie Annihilation (2018). The novels follow the Southern Reach agency, which studies a supernatural coastal region called Area X.
• Alan Wake (2010), a game (set in the same world as Control) where the titular character navigates a rural landscape full of monstrous shadows.
• SCP Foundation (launched 2008), a collaborative wiki documenting “anomalies” (logic-defying objects, beings, and locations) investigated by a fictional organization.
• Delta Green (1997), a tabletop RPG about a U.S. agency that investigates supernatural threats, and its predecessor, Call of Cthulhu (1981), which is set in the world of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos.
• The X-Files (1993), a TV series about two FBI agents who investigate unsolved cases involving the supernatural.
• Twin Peaks (1990), David Lynch’s cult classic TV series about an FBI investigation into the murder of a teenage girl and the surreal circumstances surrounding it.

(This list, which could be much longer, is already extensive enough to suggest a subgenre of cosmic horror where rigid bureaucracy meets indescribable strangeness, each a contrast and an equal to the other. Said subgenre is informed by the New Weird and urban fantasy but not fully described by either. Perhaps the term bureau cosmicism, drawing on Lovecraft’s own name for his literary philosophy, captures enough nuance.)

Bloodborne (2015) is a FromSoftware action game set in the crumbling city of Yharnam, where a disease has transformed many of the residents into monsters. It’s considered one of the greatest video games of all time, and is universally described in terms of Lovecraftian tropes despite not containing any literal elements of the Lovecraft mythos.

Outside of video games, other cosmic horror touchstones include:

• Stranger Things (2016), a TV series set in the 1980s where the residents of a small town grapple with the horrors of a shadow dimension called the Upside Down.
• Lovecraft retellings, such as Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom (2016).
• House of Leaves (2000) by Mark Z. Danielewski, a metafictional novel about a house containing an inexplicably large labyrinth.
• Junji Ito’s horror manga series Uzumaki (1998), which tells the story of Kurouzu-cho, where the residents have become supernaturally obsessed with spirals.
• Event Horizon (1997), a cult classic sci-fi horror film about the reappearance of a missing spaceship.
• The Thing (1982), also a cult classic sci-fi horror film, whose titular Thing is an alien that can absorb and imitate Earthly beings.

I’ve undoubtedly missed some important works, but this is a good enough foundation to start your obsession.