Lovecraftian Horror & The Modern World

“Cosmic terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races and is crystallized in the most archaic ballads, chronicles, and sacred writings.”

                   – H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)

Everyone who has ever dared to venture into the realm of horror has at least heard the word: Lovecraftian. Many people through the ever-expanding behemoth that is pop-culture have heard the name of The Priest From R’lyeh, Cthulhu, or any of his other incorrect pronunciations, for the human apparatus, was never meant to utter such horrid things.

Lovecraftian is a word often used to describe experiences, pieces of fiction, or describing creatures whose existence lies outside of the human spectrum, things that should not be, things that if we so much as glanced at, would make us go insane by the sheer revelation of our insignificant place in the uncaring, unfeeling totality of the cosmos.

Cosmic Horror, also known as Lovecraftian Horror, focuses more on the psychological terror from the unknown rather than gore and cheap shock. And from the brief introduction I’ve given this set of ideas, it must sound like quite the chilling experience, something not for the brave of heart, but those with the most iron-clad mental fortitude, right?

And yet, this genre has become very popular but not as well regarded when compared to other genres, at least when it comes to the mainstream audience of horror, be it written or filmed. Now, why may that be? Is it because so many people have misrepresented the genre? Yes, but the problem is a little more societal and has to do with how we have developed as human beings throughout the years, allow me to explain.

The Idea Of Lovecraftian Horror

Lovecraftian Horror and Cosmic Horror are often used interchangeably, mainly because they are different labels for the same set of ideas that sometimes when done properly, even to this day, instill horror within those that threaten to open that eldritch can of worms.

The idea behind this genre is the deep fear that humanity is not in control of its own fate. We don’t like to think that there are things outside of our control, which is why we often tend to blame ourselves when things don’t turn out the way we want them to be. The reason you didn’t get the job you wanted wasn’t because of luck, it was because of something you did, even if you don’t know what you did that was so wrong, but still, at least you know it was your fault.

But luck? That’s not something you can reason with, not something you can control, not something you can grasp with your hands. Luck is outside of your control. And that fear is what Howard Philip Lovecraft takes advantage of to make you feel powerless and insignificant.

Just a regular family meeting. Art by Oinkaizer

The man himself wrote his stories during The Interwar Period, the period of time between the end of the first World War and the start of the second one. Astronomy and Quantum Physics were starting to emerge. The universe was becoming larger, more alien, and colder. Lovecraft was an ultraconservative contrarian in a world where what was thought of as familiar was rapidly becoming alien and alienating. Lovecraft focused specifically on questioning humanity’s place in the universe, saying that humanity itself was an unimportant part of an uncaring whole that could be wiped out at any moment.

The fear that all your dreams, aspirations, goals, and deeds are utterly inconsequential in the face of existence, that even your own worst imagination cannot describe the true horrors that have been inhabiting the universe, even before your kind crawled out of the mud.

This scared everyone because all of them have ingrained in themselves the idea we are the top species to ever exist, we also have an idea of what looks “natural” and “right” in animals and other species and what doesn’t. The sheer idea that there is something out there that breaks all the molds we have built up over the course of millennia of evolution, that is what’s most terrifying.

Lovecraft speaks of the fear of the “other”, the fear of helplessness, insignificance, and futility, and many of his characters feel the weight of those insecurities. They feel uncertain about their bloodlines, their heritage, their origins, and even the stability of their minds. But to better illustrate this point, let me submit you to an experiment;

Think of an ant. Now, whenever you are in the presence of such a small thing, it’s like you don’t even notice it unless you explicitly go and look for it.

When you stop in front of an insect and step on it or don’t even notice it and still terminate it, you don’t really feel anything, because it’s so beneath you that its existence doesn’t even register in your mind.

In the perspective of the insect, you are so unbelievably alien, in your thoughts, your actions, your intentions, and your physical makeup. That whenever they look at you, it serves as a reminder that they are not the “top dog”, that they are just tiny, insignificant, limited, primitive, and weak compared to you.

Now I want you to use your imagination and ask yourself this, what if there was something right here on earth, or out there in the universe, that puts us in the same position as the ants?

A creature identified as “The Wandering Faith”. By Trevor Henderson (@slimyswampghost)

And the image above doesn’t do justice to the idea, what about a creature that is galaxies large? One that lies at the center of reality? A creature that is completely and utterly indifferent about your existence and all the suffering you have gone through. That is Lovecraft, and the main theme of all his literary works; the inhumanity of the cosmos.

Something so outside of our comprehension that makes us look tiny, insignificant, limited, primitive, and weak compared to them? Do you see my point here? Lovecraftian Horror is meant to prey on such feelings, on such ideas. But the scarier thing was how humanity, both in the collective and individual level, are portrayed in Lovecraft’s works.

Humanities & Entities In Lovecraft’s Works

During most of human existence, we have indulged in the idea of anthropocentrism, the idea that humans as a whole are the most important entities in the universe. Lovecraft and Lovecraftian Horror take these ideas and do the equivalent of putting them in a paper shredder, putting these shreds into a box, put that box in a rocket, and launch that rocket into space, its direction course being the sun itself.

To put this into perspective let us give you some insight into one of Lovecraft’s most recognized characters; Abdul Alhazred.

He was also known by the epithet of “The Mad Arab.” He was an Arab man born in Damascus in 730 AD and was born with a dangerous of passions; discovery. He initiated rituals consisting of contacting those beings which make us feel like ants, he excavated tombs, ancient burial sites and consulted with many fellow practitioners. He would go on to create the book of ultimate evil, al Azif, which would later become known as the iconic Necronomicon.

There are many conflicting takes on what exactly happened to him. One of these accounts comes from Ebn Khallikan (12-century biographer) who reported to have seen The Mad Arab to have been running through a busy bazaar until he was then seized by an invisible creature in broad daylight and devoured.

This character shows that Lovecraft believed that if humanity was ever undone, then it would be because of something greater than ourselves, or because of our own unquenchable desire to understand that which should not be understood. To look into the abyss, have it stare back, and have it stalk you for the rest of your life, that was Abdul Alhazred’s fate. This is what happens to all humans who search for greater knowledge of their universe.

It should also be noted that the character itself, though nicknamed “The Mad Arab”, doesn’t seem to have an Arabic name, the correct way his name would be said or spelled would be Abd al-Hazred or as it appeared in Arabic texts: Abdullah al-Ḥaẓrad (عبدالله الحظرد). The name itself was one of Lovecraft’s pen names which he created as a child, the name also being a pun, the last name Alhazred being an abbreviated and broken English version of the phrase: “All has been read.”

Now, to hammer it in, to make this nail sink deep into your skull, let me tell you something. Let me tell you the origin of humanity, in the Lovecraftian Universe, spoilers for At The Mountains Of Madness below.

If you wish to feel the sheer weight of all this then I recommend reading the story At The Mountains Of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft. It all dates back to the very beginning of our world, one day an ancient race of extraterrestrial demigods decided to establish their civilization on the still primordial environment of planet earth.

And even though they appear only once, in the story I previously mentioned, they hold quite a lot of importance. They stand roughly six feet tall, barrel-shaped but tapering off at the ends, with appendage similar to those of a starfish. They have five of everything: eyes, mouths, wings, etc. They have five stalks adorned each with one eye at each end; five eating tubes and a set of cilia for seeing without light, and five retractable wings.

They were known as: The Elder Things.

A fan-made representation of the species, only this one was chosen as there too many to take into account.

They came to earth and near the south pole, they created a great city and populated much of the planet. During their stay, they also warred with many other alien races, notably Cthulhu and his Star Spawn, the Mi-Go, and the Great Race Of Yith. They also created their own servitor race, known as The Shoggoths. Shoggoths are vast protoplasmic creatures made of black slime, which can create mouths, eyes, and any other sort of organs or limbs as necessary.

Artwork by Nottsuo

Thankfully, these creatures were kept under their control using hypnosis. They were commanded to construct cities, walls, and even other organic structures. Unfortunately, they eventually rebelled and killed most of their masters, and though The Elder Things are believed to have been able to reproduce through spores, they always controlled this act to keep their numbers from overexpanding, which ended up contributing to their downfall.

Supposedly, after they were all gone, either sleeping under the waters or dead, one Shoggoth survived, never frozen by the cold, growing grander, gibbering, and vast.

This primordial, bubbling soup of appendages and alien technology never stopped working and unintentionally from all it touched, created the prototypes for all life on earth, animal, plants, and even humanity itself. All things on this earth were birthed by this Shoggoth, a Shoggoth by the name of Ubbo-Sathla.

Humanity is nothing but an insignificant accident, created by a misshapen, abominable servant. But perhaps some could live with that, but there is also the matter that Ubbo-Sathla is sleeping, and one day he will come back to the surface and return life to the primordial soup that once was. Everything was made from Ubbo-Sathla, and everything shall return to Ubbo-Sathla.

Christ. Lovecraft was never one to mince his words, he showed human insignificance and the horror it produced in people from having the concept of their very existence be dissected and called into question, that’s mainly why so many people today still enjoy Lovecraft and his collaborative work from other authors to this day and yet we haven’t seen many people outside of said circles and fandoms talk about Lovecraft other than to both complain about how racist he was (I mean, there’s no debating that, just google the name he gave his cat) or to mention him as the person who created Cthulhu and inspired other authors such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and many others.

But while Lovecraft has inspired many people with his works as well as those that partook in writing for the same mythology he had created, his presence over the world as a whole has been dimmed. His horror, while not completely defanged, has been said by some to not have as much impact.

It does not matter what exactly brought you to Lovecraft, be it his monsters, his complex mythology with so much inbreeding that, while the Greek pantheon is a circle, the Cthulhu mythos is more akin to a fifth-dimensional dodecahedron, his thoughts on philosophy or even studying the way his ardent xenophobia shines through in the way he structures some of his characters and stories (which if you wish we can cover in a different installment), chances are you will find something that will keep you coming back.

But now, after an overly long preamble explaining the background, the beginning of the Lovecraft universe, and what he intended for his works to represent, we can move on to what I believe has brought Cosmic Horror/Lovecraftian Horror from its previous mythical status.

Misrepresenting A Genre

Who wants to look at a movie about a hotshot rookie pilot in the 1930s fighting against eldritch abominations with machine guns, flamethrowers, and the help of his eccentric, yet reliable occultist friend and his admittedly replaceable love-interest?

I do, no sarcasm here, I would love to watch a movie like that someday, but that is not what Lovecraft is about and many people have missed that. Hell, some have even done the exact opposite and only taken Lovecraft in name, but having the show or movie have absolutely nothing to do with Lovecraft, more as some sort of marketing ploy.

What I described in the first paragraph is more akin to something out of a Pulp Fiction Magazine, morally grey heroes and all, or even this thing called Lovecraft Lite, a genre meant to take the ideas of Lovecraft and what his monsters/gods represent to tell a different and far more optimistic story.

Lovecraft’s stories themselves were written in Pulp Fiction Magazines in the 1920s, but they were a departure from the usual power-fantasies of the time. The genre itself is a sharp contrast towards such fiction, to make the hero, or the reader themselves, feel powerless. This could also be the reason why video games don’t get Lovecraft, since a video game is meant to be actively empowering toward the player.

Those in charge of adapting his works often miss the idea of Lovecraft, merely thinking that it’s all about monsters, and how humanity deals with them. The ideas, context, subtext, and all is often missed in translation from one medium to another because of the choices these people make, I have already made an entire blog on the subject of why most movie adaptations suck, so I will not expand too much on this.

I can already imagine the conversation:

“What could we use as source material for our kid’s movie?”

“How about an eldritch abomination that turns anyone who looks at it completely insane?”

“John, you are a fucking genius!”

But the main problem is, surprisingly, the nature of Lovecraft’s works and his style of storytelling.

You know the idea of “show, don’t tell”? The idea that all writing programs beat into you with the force of an angry parent? Well, Lovecraft didn’t use that as much, I mean, he described plenty of things, from people, to environments, but when it came to those same monsters that escape human understanding, he never used that rule. His way of writing was more akin to “tell, don’t show, but tell in such a way that it feels like showing,” if you get what I mean, which can be considered as another challenge of adapting his work.

And while there are many works of fiction that nail down the themes of Lovecraft, very few can land the way he presented those themes to his audience.

Life & Fear Has Changed

Nihilism has become the worst thing it could ever be; popular. We live in an era in which we can communicate across thousands of kilometers and yet we use it to contemplate the idea of never wanting to be born, not to want to die, but merely for the cease of existence, of wanting to be born in different eras, an obsession with nostalgia for times we have lived and miss, or times in which we were never born at all. If anything, social media has done much to exacerbate the condition of isolation we feel in the modern world.

Lovecraft predicted many of the attitudes we see today, mostly concerning human futility. Many people, not just pessimistic philosophers such as Emil Cioran, have said in their self-pitying and unwillingness to let go of such notions, that life is just a failed experiment at best and that god was an immature craftsman.

But the thing that makes Lovecraft seemingly inefficient on us is that we have, at least mostly, accepted our place in the universe and our insignificance, but while some rebuke and despise it, others embrace it, because if nothing matters and we are all mistakes, then why take things so seriously? We’ve accepted that life is riddled with uncertainty which is endemic of life in the modern age:

What if someone steals my identity?

What if I lose my job for saying the wrong thing on social media?

Will I have a future after graduating college?

Why doesn’t anyone care about me?

Our view of Lovecraft hasn’t changed, but our world and fears have. Attitudes regarding humanity itself have changed, attitudes that were previously seen as fringe philosophical standpoints, such as the meaninglessness of existence and whatnot, have become more mainstream and in some ways, more accepted by the younger generations.

We know that there are stars several times grander than our sun, that stars are dying by the billions per second, and we can’t even see them, that there are deep sea creatures whose biology fools our understanding. We know that there was an instance at the end of the second world war when a sound was heard, a sound millions of times louder than the sound made by a blue whale, the largest animal on earth, henceforth known as The Bloop.

There’s even proof of a Lovecraftian horror existing out there in space, not a Yog-Sothoth, not a Nyarlathotep, not even a Shoggoth, but something called The Great Attractor.

Panoramic view of the entire near-infrared sky. The location of the Great Attractor is shown following the long blue arrow at the bottom right.

This isn’t some mass of flesh gagging and mewling in pain and madness in the middle of the universe. All we know is that this is something, something that is so massive that it diverts the path of entire galaxies. This is the single most massive thing in the known universe, we know next to nothing about it and we have no control of when we will know more.

Lovecraft wasn’t scary back then because of his imaginative creatures. He was scary because he could be right, and he was.

It might sound dramatic and a little pretentious on my part, and I am ready to admit that, but maybe the reason the ideas of Lovecraftian Horror are somewhat familiar to people is because the same point of view that the author held, which was considered fringe in his time, are now mainstream.

Insignificance, human insignificance, existential dread, anti-humanism, all have been so contemplated and explored by the human race to the point that the idea of not being the peak of all existence no longer bothers us. We accept that we might not be the greatest at our favorite sport, we accept that we might die without finding the love of our life, we have come to accept that which in our perspective seems inevitable and grander than ourselves.

To an extent, we have all come to accept our place in the universe, and maybe rebuking the idea of cosmic indifference, hanging on to the notion of our supremacy as a species and that there are things in the universe that we might never understand, was what gave Lovecraft and his abominations the power to horrify and mystify us.

But all of these things are just my ramblings, as I am no closer to the truth behind everything as other bloggers on the same level.

Conclusion

Lovecraft’s stories are still good, despite their flaws like the mechanical prose, the overuse of adjectives, and the dissonance in cultural values. I still read essays, hear of entire games, and much more inspired by Lovecraft, whispers of people discovering his horrors for the first time and being incapability to look away.

But I could not recommend you read the works of H.P. Lovecraft without talking about a little something; racism. This won’t take long, don’t worry. Howard Philip Lovecraft was a product of his time, someone who held opinions most of us thankfully find detestable today. I am not defending his opinions; I am just explaining their origin. Lovecraft was scared of everyone who wasn’t white, Christian, and from his homeland of providence, which just went hand in hand with his hermitic lifestyle.

And while that trait is something that burdened him in life, that is not the reason he is famous, he is famous because of his imagination, his drive, and passion for writing. If you dig long enough, you will find that a huge chunk of historical figures were indeed racist and we still talk about them because, in general, it’s what a person does that’s important. Again, I am not defending his regressive attitudes, nor excusing them and I admit that such attitudes are present in some of his works.

If the presence of such xenophobia troubles you and you don’t want to read his work, then don’t, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. I am a Latino, and it personally doesn’t make me uncomfortable.

And if you don’t care about the racism, then good for you, and I wish you good luck in the almost endless ordeal of finding your favorite story in the whole Cthulhu Mythos. I am still deciding…

So, are there any good Lovecraft works, even movies that you could watch and enjoy? I know you didn’t ask but I did and now I am going to use this as the perfect segue to introduce my superior taste in everything, as I am sure you all know.

If you are interested in Lovecraft’s mythology, I must first warn you that it is somewhat inconsistent, which comes with the territory of having multiple authors working on it, akin to comic books if you will.

I suggest you start with his “short” stories to dip your toes in the water, which I totally assure you isn’t completely infested with piranhas. I suggest you start with those that were done both by him and other authors, mainly because many people, not just Lovecraft, were paramount for the creation of his universe.

For short stories, I recommend:

–The Shadow Out Of Time by H.P Lovecraft

       –The Hounds Of Tindalos by Frank Belknap Long

       –At The Mountains Of Madness by H.P Lovecraft

       –Ubbo-Sathla by Clark Ashton Smith

       –The Yellow Sign by Robert W. Chamber

       –The Call Of Cthulhu by H.P Lovecraft

Interestingly, The Cthulhu Mythos are somewhat like professional wrestling, as there are hundreds of different storylines and you can choose to follow whichever you like the most.

So, after reading ant of these stories you can start following the narrative trail of your choice (which in this universe’s case are called Cycles), there are also many guides about them online so if you feel lost, do not hesitate to see them, here’s an example.

To close this long blog with a golden brooch, I would like to tell you some good-ish Lovecraft movies, although here the definition is kind of mixed, mostly because while there are some movies that nail down the themes of Lovecraft and pay tribute to the genre itself, to me, there are very few actual film adaptations of Lovecrafts stories that are done remotely well, outside of those made by the Lovecraft Historical Society.

But if you have any you would like to share some of your own movies or force my enslaved soul to make a review of them, then make sure to tell me.

They are as follows:

The Thing [1982]

Perfectly portrays the fear of the “outside” seeping in as well as a good representation of what a lovecraftian horror might possibly look like.

Annihilation [2018]

An incredible exploration in regard to the classic Lovecraft scenario: “concepts that escape human understanding”.

The Lighthouse [2019]

More inspired by Poe than Lovecraft but still contains much of his elements as well as the mystery of oceanic depths, something that the man himself was obsessed with.

And now, after so long and my fingers getting incredibly sore from typing, I bid you all a very fond farewell, take care, may god be with you and I wish you good luck in all your future endeavors.

I wish you all a very good day.

The sovereign ruler of all life in the universe.

• Ernesto I. Gomez Belloso.

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