Cosmic Horror

This Tag unites films that share a concept characteristic of Lovecraftian tales: What we experience as our day-to-day reality is only an insignificant speck compared to the incomprehensibly vast unknown that surrounds us... an unknown filled with unfathomable monstrosities whose very nature lies beyond any ability of the human mind to understand or rationalize it.

A horror, then, that's impossible to define or to convey, but its mere presence obliterates reason, causing psychological integrity to irrevocably crumble away. In that regard, the "Rhode Island recluse" (and some of his colleagues, such as August Derleth and Clark Ashton Smith for example, along with trailblazer William Hope Hodgson) produced an extraordinary artistic goldmine that breathed life into a veritable pantheon of disgusting creatures lying in perpetual wait.

Given all that, it follows that the discouraging effect produced by negative emotions such as anguish and fear have thus far protected us from the anechoic abyss, putting a damper on the careless rush of curiosity and discouraging the abandonment of that reassuring oasis of ignorance that nourishes our ephemeral existence. Nevertheless, dark clouds are gathering on the horizon, and the future bodes only misfortune and tragedy. That's the feeling reflected in the sinister echoes of the disquieting incipit of "The Call of Cthulhu" (1928), manifesto par excellence of cosmic horror: "The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age".

Note: more generally, the "Cosmic Horror" Tag will be applied to all works in the horror vein featuring entities that call to mind the fictional universe of the "Cthulhu Mythos".