Cosmic Horror

An in-depth analysis of the cosmic horror elements of Bloodborne. H.P. Lovecraft’s influence is abundantly apparent throughout the world of Bloodborne, in this video I will examine those aspects and provide a rationale as to why I consider Bloodborne to be a true masterpiece of eldritch horror.

https://collider.com/all-you-need-is-death-horror/

Anna, Aleks, and master song collector Agnes (Catherine Siggins) find themselves in the strange old woman, Rita Concannon’s living room. Rita (Olwen Fouéré) says she might have a song for them, but it has to be dealt with cautiously...

Official Trailer : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ox621LfE_4

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odUOQFtAkPk&t=6s

Venture into a realm where cosmic horror meets visionary storytelling as acclaimed writer/director Anthony Ferraro pays homage to the enigmatic world of H.P. Lovecraft with his latest sci-fi short film: "Wakener."

"BEWARE WHAT CASTS THE SHADOW CALLED OUTER SPACE"

Wakener is a Sci-Fi Horror film that follows a broken and haunted ship technician and a young, honorable military officer. Their paths collide when a ghost ship powered by tech outlawed centuries ago mysteriously appears at Point Station. The station's chief officer orders the ship secretly investigated for nefarious reasons. As a result, the Technician and Officer are compelled to fulfill an ancient and catastrophic destiny.

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY ANTHONY FERRARO

STARRING RHOMEYN JOHNSON NIMO PURCELL

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21807010/

Based on the short story "The Red Brain" by Donald Wandrei

(read online) https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/sffaudio-usa/usa-pdfs/TheRedBrainByDonaldWandreiWT1927.pdf

This science fiction short film from insolitum. envisions a dark future where our planet is invaded by gigantic creatures. But unlike some bombastic Marvel blockbuster, the aliens of Quiet Apocalypse are taking over slowly and doing what they need to do to survive. It packs a punch in just two short minutes.

https://theawesomer.com/quiet-apocalypse-short-film/762724/

https://www.artstation.com/thoughtographic

TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X__vuE86boM

While The Thing is clearly Carpenter’s most influential work in this vein, it’s 1995’s In the Mouth of Madness that most completely renders the elements of cosmic horror on the silver screen. The rampage of cosmic terrors that come to reclaim our world, driving protagonist John Trent (played by a brilliant, anxiety-ridden Sam Neill) to the brink while warping reality into an apocalyptic hellscape, is straight out of Lovecraft (whose At the Mountains of Madness clearly inspired the title of Carpenter’s Madness). Even better, the film’s finale sees Trent realize Sutter Cane’s power has fully subsumed Trent’s own life and every event we’ve seen, making Madness the boldest exemplar of the genre’s reality-bending tendencies in film history. It’s a masterpiece — but one that doesn’t get the credit it deserves. It was far ahead of its time when the film premiered three decades ago, and it’s still at the forefront of cosmic horror film history.

To celebrate the film’s 30th anniversary, Inverse spoke to producer Sandy King Carpenter and members of the cast and crew to tell the story of In the Mouth of Madness. (Sam Neill and director John Carpenter declined to participate.)

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/23410412

Writer & Monster Forge founder Shannon Eric Denton (Spider-Man, League of Legends), and artist David Hartman (Phantasm: Ravager, Transformers Prime) team up for an electrifying new adventure in Kraken, a brand-new original graphic novel which publishes in September 2025, from Titan Comics…

Set in alternate 1930s filled with dark magic, ancient horrors, and occult powers, Kraken will captivate fans of historical and supernatural thrillers. The graphic novel has been praised by high-profile talents including Rob Zombie (Halloween, The Devil’s Rejects) who calls Kraken “an insane ripping yarn”, and acclaimed creator Phil Hester (Green Arrow) who says Kraken “packs action, romance, high adventure, horror, and just straight up weirdness into every moment.”.

After disappearing for three years, esteemed adventurer Kraken returns to reality in search of allies to stop an evil sorceress from unleashing a horde of eldritch monsters on the world. Armed with a pistol and supernatural tentacles, the Kraken is loose!

...

Artist David Hartman expressed his excitement working on the project, “When Shannon showed me the script for Kraken, I was hooked immediately! It’s a wild blend of pulp adventure, cosmic horror, and action-packed characters—everything I love to draw. This is just the beginning of an epic series we’re creating together, and I can’t wait for you to dive into the first book and everything else we have in store!”

Title inspired by the short story by Terry Bisson - They're Made Out of Meat

Summary

• Cosmic horror explores humanity's insignificance in the face of unknown and powerful forces, like internet algorithms, creating feelings of paranoia and fear.
• Manga like Soil, Gantz, and Parasyte delve into cosmic horror themes, blending genres like crime drama and action to explore humanity's helplessness against unknown threats.
• Renowned horror mangaka, like Junji Ito, have crafted terrifying stories that embody cosmic horror, with themes of unpredictable futures, survival in desolate settings, and the manipulation of reality.

https://collider.com/aniara-horror-movie/

There isn't a kind of media out there as utterly, unfathomably terrifying as cosmic horror. It's a subgenre founded on the fear of the unknown, with countless creators drawing from the core tenets developed by famous authors like H.P. Lovecraft to make truly unnerving stories. Yet despite how often people try to borrow its elements to create their scary features, they often fail to really understand what makes the medium unnerving — which is why fans are so lucky to have Aniara.

Directed by Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja, this science fiction film follows the inhabitants of a spaceship, thrown off-course from their destination and confronted with the growing reality that is their inevitable deaths in the cold darkness of space. Cosmic horror was built on stories of the impossible eternity that is the cosmos, with writers and filmmakers refining this concept into ideas that would drive the human mind completely mad. Too often, movies reduce this into a scary big space monster with a dash of science fiction tropes thrown in to appease a general audience. Aniara does the opposite; it uses the oblivion of space as its terror, and by utilizing that concept as its core monster, it helps viewers understand to a disturbing degree what makes cosmic horror so unnerving. (...)

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MIlE9R00ik

Midnight Mass meets Annihilation in I KNOW THE END, a 40 page cosmic horror one shot comic written by Sage Groves and Noah Wagner with art by Bel Rees (Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures).

Amidst the age of space exploration and colonization, the Cosmos Mapping and Planetary Networking Industries (or The Company) leads the expansion. The Company receives a distress signal from the planet Eden and sends a response team to investigate. Leading the team is anthropologist Lola Madani, Company representative Silo Sanchez, and navigational robot Unit-10. But when the team reaches Eden, they immediately sense something is amiss. The inhabitants of the planet act strangely and the leader of the local church seems to be hiding something sinister. The team senses danger lurking at every corner but can they escape the planet before the planet claims them for itself…

(...)Cosmic horror generally revolves around humanity's contact with an Eldritch Abomination: a being so incomprehensible that merely laying eyes on it is enough to drive a person to the brink of insanity. In many cases, those who have seen the creature are the lucky ones, because they've already cracked. The folks who haven't met it yet must live in constant fear of first contact, which lends cosmic horror stories a delicious ramp of terror that lies in wait. (...)

books:

• The Brotherhood of the Wheel by R.S. Belcher
• Agents of Dreamland by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio De Maria
• Beneath by Kristi DeMeester
• Blindsight by Peter Watts
• Dead in the Water by Nancy Holder
• The Croning by Laird Barron