Blogpost 5: Cosmic Horror: The Ultimate Horror

Here is a quote that came from a book entitled "Supernatural Horror in Literature" written by H.P Lovecraft himself in the site I found "www.hplovecraft.com".

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

The work of Lovecraft display different ideas about the supernatural entity and universal elements. It basically tells the readers that imagination is a definite requirement to comprehend his spectral art. Even though his works are sophisticated, with the right attitude and optimism, you can absorb every rich detail and unexpected horror from it. I myself have tried viewing his literary works. It was very difficult to understand at first but just like what Lovecraft said, a bit of optimism and imagination would do to uplift the reader, then all my struggles were gone.

Here is another idea from the same article:

"The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life. 

 Like what I mentioned, it takes a certain level of comprehention to fully perceive his "out of the world" ideas. Through his clever works, he can pierce and distort the mind of the audience to inject a necronomical phenomena. It is natural for us to fear the unknown yet it is "unknown". Why? Because we have this added curiosity and tendency to produce evil, disturbing emotions and thoughts, maybe because of our evil nature. Kids will always be afraid of the dark, men will always panic upon what the future has mysteriously stored for them.

To tell you a bit about Lovecraft, his full name is Howard Philip Lovecraft. Based on an article entitled "Things We Were Not Meant To Now" by Mack Knopf I found at "www.strangehorizons.com".

According to the article, Lovecraft died in poverty at the age of 47. His works were no longer in print. Scorned by most magazines, he sold almost exclusively to Weird Tales. Only one story of his, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," was published in book form in his lifetime, and it was a miserable failure, riddled with publisher's errors. Of the four hundred copies printed, only two hundred were actually bound; if you had a copy of the book now, it would be quite the collector's piece. By 1937, he had written no known original fiction in a year, supporting himself on ghostwriting and textbook work. His last words were "I am providence."

Though he died poor and all, He was recognized as one of the most diverse writers of all time. Nowadays, we remember him as the greatest creator of "Cosmic Horror" also known as Lovecraftian horror, which will be the main focus of this post. Let's expand on it.
I found this in the same book entitled "Supernatural Horror in Literature" by H.P Lovecraft in the site "Yankee Classic" and it will be the most precise definition of what cosmic horror is.

This type of fear-literature must not be confounded with a type externally similar but psychologically widely different; the literature of mere physical fear and the mundanely gruesome.

To elaborate, cosmic horror is a weird fiction that combines supernatural, eccentric, primitive, cultural, and erotic concepts with a bit of quantum physics and unholy dimensions. An aesthetic wonderland for a writer like me. "Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large." -- just as Lovecraft said. It brings us a horizon of horror, indeed. It takes aways every comfort and replaces it with madness and terror. The unnatural is much more significant than humans itself. In this vein, how did he portray man? His characters fall into two major types, the ignorant masses and the knowing few. This is elitist, but Love- craft's overall view of man is as a miniscule, pathetic failure. The difference between the ignorant and the knowing is not one which can save the latter. His characters are almost always male too. This reveals something about his psychology – he was extremely antisexual. If one views man as essentially a failure, one won't have too high a view of human pleasure. But Lovecraft goes further than this. He eliminated it from his universe, both in his life and in his art. Such a profound break with pleasure indicates how deep his tragic view of man was. Knowledge, in his world, means despair and doom.

 

So how would we know if a story is cosmic horror? I collected some data from an article entitled "Lovecraft: Nobody Expects Anything Of A Letter" by Brian Clark in the site "Schmeldritch".

According to the article, a Cosmic Horror Story doesn't just scare you with big, ugly monsters it can depress you with the fatal implication of being powerless before such vast, unknown and fundamentally alien entities. It sometimes lies near the cynical Despair Event Horizon. If you aren't sure if a work is a Cosmic Horror Story or not, ask yourself these questions:

• Is the antagonist evil or uncaring on a cosmic scale? We're talking a Big Bad who is capable of destroying humanity, planet Earth, the universe, or all three and doing so with very little or no preparation and/or intent, and with about as much effort as it takes to swat a mosquito that's landed on your arm.

• Is the attitude of the antagonist towards humanity disregard, simple pragmatism, or incidental hatred? (A godlike antagonist that actively hates humanity and its works is more in line with Rage Against the Heavens or God Is Evil.) Does the antagonist have a worldview and motivations that doesn't really seem to take humanity into account? Are the motivations of the antagonist difficult to explain using human terms?

• Are the antagonist or its minions so alien in appearance or mentality that simply being near them or seeing them is sufficient to drive a human to madness?

• Are the antagonist or its minions indescribable -- literally? Lines like "I cannot find the words to describe the vile thing I saw..." are a hallmark of Cosmic Horror Stories.

• Is the tone of the work deeply pessimistic about the possibility of the antagonist being defeated completely? If it isn't, the work is more likely to be Lovecraft Lite. 

So this are the primary requirements of a cosmic horror. Nevertheless, cosmic horror continues to influence every horror writer and director today especially to their audience. Who knows? You might encounter something unnatural these days, beware.

Blogpost 4: Horror in Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Possibly the scariest game ever made, Amnesia: The Dark Descent is one hell of a nightmare. From the weird and mysterious start where the protagonist, Daniel, lost all his memory( He reads a note stating: "I can't tell you why, but know this; I choose to forget," and it was dated August 1839). To the very thrilling middle game and of course to the multiple endings, Amnesia is worth every second of your time. And if you never tried it before, I'm telling you dude, you are missing out on all the fun and scare. Although some soft hearted players cursed the game and never wanted to play it again, there are still a higher percentage of players who actually enjoy Amnesia, especially with the storyline and roaming the medieval Prussian castle. 

As I scavenged for articles I found this article in entitled "Amnesia The Dark Descent Review" written by Nathaniel Berens in the site "Adventure Gamers". It was a review of the game and he had some pretty sick thoughts.

Nightmarishly, unrelentingly scary; incredibly atmospheric graphic and sound design; puzzles are logical and use physics to great effect; perfectly paces supplies to be scarce without ever trapping the player; clever use of light as a limited resource.

 Madness is the word. I was trying to play the game and I had my hands placed on my eyes and ears. Amnesia is terrifying indeed. The rapid breathing and slow footsteps, the dark hallways and random shrieks, with only a lamp and yourself, I was like F***, I can't take a second no more. When things were going smooth all of a sudden the atmosphere turns into a bloodish nightmare and fiends appear from nowhere. You will get plunged into a disturbing situation and all you can do is to hide also in darkness, helpless. How ironic. But I am not ashamed to admit that I'm scared. The game developers really did a great job with the overall effect of the game to normal people like me. And if you want a diet, you might want to try it yourself too. For horror games like these burn the most calories. LOL.

As a conclusion, yes, Amnesia is a brilliant and unique. Everything is in harmony for the perfect scare. Amnesia delivers the full package. The intense gameplay, monsters, graphics and sound form an aesthetic wonderland of horror as I learned in an article I scanned entitled "Amnesia Review: Horror Done Right" by Adam Biessener in the site "Game Informer".

While the gameplay would probably be terrifying even with dated graphics, it certainly doesn’t hurt that Amnesia’s visuals are fantastic.

According to the article, Amnesia may be simple just relying on a single castle the whole gameplay, but it pretty wicked and puzzled. You have the tendency to go insane why playing the game. You have this so called sanity that drops whenever you go in the dark and freshens up when you are in the light. Also, Danie's heartbeat that represents his life or hit points. The cool effects and creepy sounds are just perfect. It's a pain that your only ally in the game is yourself and nobody is really there to help you. It has been a great step for the creators to create a game in that you will be emerged in an environment where you can't grab any arsenal, just your legs when you're running from a monster. LOL.

Beware for this game is not for the faint hearted. But if you are a person who enjoys terror, you could spend 12$ to purchase it legally. It has all that a horror game could possibly ever have. 

Blogpost 3: Classical horror

Oh classical horror. This is what started it all. From the first ever horror film by George Mellies in the late 1980's, the Le Manoir du diable (The Haunted Castle) and to the others like Japan's Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei, both made in 1898, and also Frankenstein, all of which created the starting point of Horror.

I like discussing about classical horror since it gives us an overview of how horror came to be, how it evolved through time. Aesthetics has played a big role in this changes. Most basically because of the advancement in technology which resulted to better animation and setting. But yeah, credits to classical horror which started the idea. And now we are left with a question, what influenced these changes? Well in fact, it all originated from cliches in a movie. Here is something from an article entitled "Influence of Hitchcock's Psycho on Culture and the Movie Industry" written by L.Vincent Poupard in the site "voices.yahoo.com"

"Psycho, at it's basis, inspired many of the serial killer and slasher movies that we see today.

Many people have considered this to be one of the most influential horror movies ever made, if not one of the most influential movies of all time. The influence of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho has been mutated into some of the most common horror movie clichés of all time. Since Hitchcock's concept of Horror mostly show gore, violence, and sexual content, the culture adapted this concept and is now using it as a common horror basis and a nightmare to many people.

While Psycho was undergoing supremacy (sh*t, i don't care heh-heh-heh-) another classical horror enters my mind and creates a new outlook. It was a man's adventure to hell. Oh yes, Dante's Inferno. The perfect interpretation of HORROR.

Dante's Inferno best known as The Divine Comedy is a great classic of the west. It is about the venturing of Dante and Virgil to the 9 vestibules of Hell experiencing the lamenting tortures and eternal suffering in flames especially the to the centre of hell, the lair of Satan.

What intrigues me the most is how they interpreted this masterpiece. I was able to scan through an article entitled "Classical Horror in Dante's inferno, Cantos XIII and XX" by M.G in Digital Dante. Here is what I found:

When we speak about the nature of horror in literature and art, we may imagine horrid ghouls and demons ripping apart helpless mortals, blood and gore in prodigious amounts, and eye-popping special effects that would terrify all but the most staunch movie- goer.

The article talks about the techniques in creating horror by using evoking techniques. They used the visual of hell to terrify the audience. Just imagine those demons and monsters surrounding a particular are and torturing everything. I never realized any of these until I had the guts to really research about Dante's inferno.

According to the article, in Canto XIII, we see Dante himself emerging from the valley of Phletgethon only to arrive in the Woods of Suicides. The statements are so strong themselves that you don't really have to exert much effort to imagine everything being brought up. We have different interpretations of the imagery used so we have different perspectives of the work. If only each and every person could paint want they have imagined, then we can have different manifestations of horror art.

That's why Dante's inferno would be a perfect example to generate the classical idea of art in Horror. And to picture everything that the article mentioned here is the map of Hell.

Original image can be found here

Classical horror has become a basis for modern horror today. It has a wide variety of concepts and modern writers, poets, directors have derived ideas from. Horror is something that started since the beginning of time. It's up to the person on how he/she would interpret.

Blogpost 2: The Visual Of Fear

After a long time of hard thinking, I came to a point of decision. Where the hell will I direct my blog. We were given 7 branches of studies and was told to pick one. All of them were catchy, but what my heart desired is the concept of Aesthetics since I was really in to art and the beauty of stuff.  So what is aesthetics? Its basically a nature of art. In horror's case it has something to do with visual and audio aspects.

Many film writers succeeded into creating the perfect horror. Most famous would be Stephen King. Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, and yes, all of them are worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent works are Cell, and Bag of Bones, Everything's Eventual, Hearts in Atlantis all of which are from the famous Dark Tower novels.

But I'm not really a fan of Stephen King. But he inspired me to look deeper into the perspectives of Horror. Especially when it comes to aesthetics. Most likely, this is the reason why people love being scared a lot. So here is something from an article I entitled "Why we crave horror movies" by Stephen King that I found at www.vcsd.k12.ny.us.

When we pay our four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-row center in a theater showing a horror movie, we are daring the nightmare.

Stephen King's article explains the overall thought of what horror has to offer. In fact, this article is well known to the approach of this particular topic. He emphasizes the insanity in each person. By watching horror we exercise our tendencies to go insane without action. He writes, "horror provides psychic relief on this level because this invitation to lapse into simplicity, irrationality and madness is so extended so rarely." There is the potential to manifest insanity in each person and the concept of horror let's that bit of one soul go screaming and this is all because of the visual fear of horror.

Blogpost 1: Gratum Inferno!

This is the ultimate must-read for horror and non-horror fans out there. So sit back and relax. Get ready to be informed and horrified!

 

Me and Horror

        I'm Paolo Matias and I was just a kid when I watched my first horror movie ever. It was Darkness Falls. A 2003 film about a revengeful tooth fairy. Basically, it was the most horrying I have ever seen in my life. The following days after I viewed the film, I couldn't sleep properly, I was afraid of the dark, and i never wanted to lose a tooth because I fear that the creepy tooth fairy would come and get me. It literally haunted me. So I cursed that movie and never want to see it again, ever. Enough said? Horror is definitely influential but still thrilling for people like me (except for Darkness Falls).

What is Horror?

 Here is a quote from "Dance of Death" by Stephen King I found at "Goodreads".

The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it's when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. 

       Based on Stephen King's definition, horror is something that is unusual or out of this world. Something that you would not expect to be living or existing. They convey a negative feeling, a sense of fear, panic, alarm, violence, and dread from an evil force, person, or event or even mythical creatures such as ghosts, vampires, and zombies.

        For me, horror is an intense dislike of anything. We can encounter horror everyday. It's not only enclosed to the concept of films. For example, your friend is wearing an ugly outfit. We usually say "Dude, you look horrible."

Horror as an emotion

A scene from Insidious (2010)

       Horror, just like what I wrote, is something that disturbs or displeases us intensely in anyway. One of the articles entitled Horror (like emotion) by farizzada at Digital Karma mentions that horror is the feeling of despair that usually happens before something frightening is experienced. It is also coming to a realization that something dreadful has shown up. It is when we come to a realization that something frightening appeared and the only option we have is either to face or run. When I was just a kid, the closet has really been an enemy of mine. I am scared of stuff that might be inhabiting my closet. Anytime, a monster could jump out and kill me, sometimes, I think that they watch me when I'm sleeping. Those simple feelings tend to create tension between stuff, so that's what really horror is. Fear of the unsure.

Horror as a film genre

       Horror is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's primal fears. Horror films often feature scenes that startle the viewer; the macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes. Thus they may overlap with the fantasy, supernatural, and thriller genres. Horror films often deal with the viewer's nightmares, hidden fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown.

       Horror movies are the most well-known form of horror for anyone. Most of you hate these kinds of literature while some would actually pay to see it. I've watched a hundred of these films and my favorite kinds are those that make me put my hands in my eye while I cover my ears up.

The first ever horror film was created in 1896 entitled Le Manoir du Diable which means"The Manor of the devil" a french film by Georges Méliès which lasted for only 3 minutes. It was considered the first horror film even though it was intentionally made to amuse people. Here is the clip:

 

It's funny how people in those times would actually panic over this. We are lucky and at the same time pitiful by the fear we get from the modern horror films.