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5 - Shock and Awe: Cosmic Horror as Existential Crisis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2021

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Summary

Horror has traditionally been a window on the unthinkable; our limits as a species. It has ultimately revealed to us what we do not wish to see, a reflection of ourselves as we really are. Often, the films covered here attest to the simple revelation that what horror presents to us is an unmasking of what makes us who we really are. Underneath the superficial coverage of our supposed rationalist civilization is still, at heart, the stark reality of what darkness lies beyond the campfire. As Eugene Thacker has thoughtfully posited:

The world is increasingly unthinkable-a world of planetary disasters, emerging pandemics, tectonic shifts, strange weather, oil-drenched seascapes, and the furtive, always-looming threat of extinction. In spite of our daily concerns, wants, and desires, it is increasingly difficult to comprehend the world in which we live and of which we are a part. To confront this idea is to confront an absolute limit to our ability to adequately understand the world at all-an idea that has been a central motif of the horror genre for some time. (1)

Cosmic horror ddefies easy categorization or indeed even boundaries. As Roger Luckhurst states, ‘the weird concerns liminal things, in between states, transgressions always on the verge of turning into something else’ (Lovecraft, Classic , xvi). At the heart of cosmic horror are the autoimmune metaphors: survival, transmutation, death and extinction (each will be dealt with here). Eugene Thacker also referred to the sense of threat coming from within; ‘a blurring where biology and theology are always intertwined in the concepts of contagion, corruption and pollution’ (105). This has been seen in previous examples, where the cannibalistic and vampiric acts can be seen to exist within the symbolism of the Eucharist. Indeed, Thacker goes on, ‘considering the extent to which genre horror deals with the themes of death, resurrection, and the divine and demonic, one could argue that genre horror is a secular, cultural expression of theological concerns’ (113). Thacker suggests that following the ancient mythological era, the theological concerns of the medieval pre-modern age, and the scientific focus of our own recent past, we now live in an existential era, ‘a questioning of the role of human individuals and human groups in the light of modern science, high technology, industrial and post-industrial capitalism, and world wars’ (3).

Type
Chapter
Information
Contemporary Gothic and Horror Film
Transnational Perspectives
, pp. 103 - 126
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2021

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