If you haven't read it yet, Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood trilogy works as an anti-Lovecraft, a cosmic horror built from love. It may be part of why a movement arose to replace Lovecraft with Butler as the image for the World Fantasy Awards.
I am WOEFULLY deficient in my Octavia Butler. She's a name I know and even respect by reputation but I've never actually sat down and read her. Your description there sounds intriguing, maybe I'll start there
@@ThatDangDad pls. :c parable of the sower is an excellent grass roots description of a societal collapse in progress, it's something a most works in the postapocalyptic genre just skim over.
They had me since Resolution precisely because the bromance is so sweet and filled with undeniable love. I don’t quite remember the plot details, but I’ll never forget how endearing the duo relationship is.
You might honestly love the magnus archives. How you talk about these creators speaks to how Jon, Martin, Tim, Sasha, et al, experience cosmic horror initially as a phenomenon to research, then as something to defend those you care for from
I always found the reading of Lovecraft to be a man who fears the unknown and is looking to justify that fear through moral stories that prove his point. His problem is that that goal was founded on his racism and his fear of the wonder of a world broader than his own, and I think part of what the best shit to come after him always has to do, is show how embracing the unknown is the only thing that saves us, and that the unknown is not so much what we should fear, but rather that we should fear others acting as if they have total control over it, or that they can dictate it without fault.
I think the reason Lovecraft has lasted, though (we're still talking about him right here, after all) is that he *was* all the things you say... *and* he was also a genuinely curious guy who was excited about science and smart enough to know that science meant exploring the unknown. If he was a hundred percent "shut the door and latch the shutters and don't look under the bed," we wouldn't still know his name. There's a lot of *flashes* of that other approach in his work: the narrator does manage to discover all this stuff about the Cthulhu cult in Call, and there's the portrayal of the previous inhabitants as sympathetic and admirable pentalobed scientists in Mountains of Madness, and so on.
Lovecraft literally lived at a time period where we had JIM CROW LAWS on the books and had A SITTING PRESIDENT who openly anr PUBLICLY sympathized with the Klan. He won TWO PRESIDENTIAL TERMS.
I love their films, it's basically a Materialist approach to the unknown, where instead of the characters being like every helpless idiot in a horror film with zero curiosity and pattern recognition, they think. I always enjoyed how much their characters act like actual people encountering something strange or off-putting, they don't just react like they're having a nervous breakdown, they analyze the situation and think about what's going on. One of my favorite scenes from "Spring" involves a syringe and a situation that, if any other filmmakers made it would not have been the way it went in the film, but, if you've ever walked in on a person experiencing a medical emergency, it totally plays out like this and not the Hollywood over the top absurd dramatic way. Their films treat people as inquisitive and intelligent enough to be normal, unlike a lot of other movies that just buy into the logic of the unknowable and all the characters do to; to this day I've never understood what the fuck demonic possession is supposed to get anything for the demons, I mean, they don't do anything enjoyable or fun, and they seem to just seek out exorcists for no understandable reason; i mean, it would at least make sense if they were masochists or some shit. So often "The Unknown" is just used as a copout in storytelling for not defining anything and just explaining away crazy shit and allowing things to be evil for no reason other than being evil, which isn't much of an explanation of any motivation.
I love these kinds of narratives. Cause remember, the madmen in Lovecraftian works may be insane, but only because their sanity is a more cosmically aligned such. One that can cope with, or at least attempt to cope with, a universe of things well beyond you that don't care. Nodens was just as mad as the people who scribed the Necronomicon, and both are capable of treating with Godlike beings.
Being a horror fan, I remember watching cosmic horror movies like The Endless and not being able to put my finger on exactly what I felt was different from Lovecraft's work, besides the aesthetics, time period, and so on. This video makes me view cosmic horror with a new lens and it makes so much sense!
Yeah, I had the same feeling first time through. Like, there was this energy that was just different then your usual stuff. That's half the reason I like writing scripts for videos is that it allows me to "think through my thoughts" better and figure things out for myself
Reminds me of the comment I left about how I don't want to be a Lovecraft protagonist either. I want to be one of those degenerates that faces down the bleak reality of things and still pushes on and works within that reality to do what they can to survive and if possible thrive. Sometimes you need to retreat, sometimes you need to make less than savory deals, but never does the situation call for deluding yourself. Trust your senses you are not insane you are awake within the dream. Lucid and aware and it is time to start rowing.
I don't even think their confidence that they can understand what's going on is unearned. If we get to have a reasonably good childhood and adolescence, we will have a well of experiences to draw upon where we have solved problems by understanding them and then using the power that comes with that to do something about it. Not shying away from a problem you don't understand and instead being curious about it is a sign of an at least decently healthy mind.
I think that we should be fighting the urge to struggle against meaninglessness and hopelessness. To embrace the idea that life has no purpose, that the universe is uncaring and that even if the entire (I mean every person who has and will ever exist) human race acted in concert it would be inconsequential is incredibly liberating. If nothing matters all that matters is whatever you want to matter
This is a similar theme I want to convey with a Tabletop RPG I was/am working on. Embrace the unknown, sometimes the bizarre is just a normal we don't understand. I want to create a world of Cosmic Optimism through Absurdism, because I'm so tired of the postmodern nihilism that our fiction has become in the last few decades.
Ooooh. Okay. I love cosmic horror so much. And like, there are so many different ways of grappling with/understanding it. I still don't *quite* have a handle on how I like to look at it, but yeah. Lotsa thoughts lol. Also, I say I love cosmic horror (and I do), but I can't watch horror movies lmao. Like, I usually just kinda nope right on out of there cuz scary movies, as fun as scary stuff is to make, are *not* my thing. At all.
Never heard of these filmmakers before, but I'll definitely look into them now. I love this inversion of an axis I hadn't even really perceived in Lovecraft previously. Even just hearing about it brings a level of hope I hadn't seen.
I think this one of the best, more concise and on point explanations of why lovecraftian aesthetics/philosophy is an useful/attractive/meaningful lens for both the left and the right! Great work!
While I can’t do films like these anymore for a whole list of boring reasons, I really enjoyed hearing about them and find it all…intriguing (hmmmm). Maybe recently rewatching Doctor Who feeds into that connection to “investigate and figure it out” sensibility rather than immediately “run away and close your eyes.” But the descriptions of the films also reminded me of the novel “14” by Peter Clines, which I really loved and has a very similar feel. Always appreciate when you expose me to something I would otherwise probably never have encountered, thanks!
yuss !! cosmic horror was my vote ! so stoked for this ! (im typing this part of the comment at the beggining of the video). I love this analysis of the benhead duo! especially with the ending , it's been rough out there and believing that despite everything, better things are possible. well it's the bit of hope that gets me by. once again an amazing video !
Great video! I think this is the first time I have encountered a succint explanation for why the tropes and themes of Lovecraft works resonate so deeply with modern audiences, even though their foundational beliefs are diametrically opposed.
Hell yeah. Great vid, great conclusion. You've given me some ideas for a call of cthulhu adjacent rpg campaign, too... maybe one that cuts the sanity meter.
aye these are all great movies! two indie film makers that everyone should give a watch. the endless is definitely the easiest for the normal movie goer to get into :)
I've not seen these films but House of Leaves feels like it fits in the same space, or possiby that it layers these more optimistic reads with Lovecraft's pessimism. Navidson works to understand the room and eventually ends up recording it, not quite understanding it and moving past/through it. Johnny Truant falls into the story and breaks apart, disappearing into the Zapino's essay and losing his mind in the process. There's literally a cypher that reads 'love' at the dead centre of Navidson's story too, which is a bit gimmicky but a fun way to interact with the book once just reading it gets old.
I'm going to let this video play beyond the first 2 minutes (so RUclips doesn't think I don't like this content) even though that's where I've stopped watching it because I've already decided to watch these movies before I watch this video. Be back in a few days/weeks...
This is interesting, but I find it strange how people in the comments are riffing against Lovecraft and more typical cosmic horror. I think all sorts of horror is good. In Lovecraft's universe and its derived works, it isn't just that the universe doesn't care about you: it is actively hostile in many ways, and it is filled with various things and beings that fully intend on destroying the world. It's comparable to the existential dread people may feel about climate change and nuclear war, except humans can quite literally do nothing to stop it and things are gonna be even worse. You can't just decide to "make things better", there is little to no making things better, not without deliberately exposing yourself to the horrors of the universe and systematically destroying your sense and mind (i.e. Delta Green). Sanity, that is, society as we know it and its values, cannot really coexist with the horrors of the universe, and it only survives through the sacrifices of various people as they willing choose to be chewed up and destroyed in its place. I like Something in the Dirt, but I find it weird how people seem to pendulum swing between extremes when dealing with horror, and frankly that's also applicable to how people think of Lovecraft, but then again that's life so whatever. Good video though, very nice stuff.
Lovecrafts version is the old dude telling you "this is how the world works" Sounds like these guys are the activist telling you "this is how we can change the way these things work"
Had a comment thoughtfully typed out and accidentally hit the back button on my mouse and lost it!!!! It went a little like this: "Cosmic" horror tends to be cosmic because of the futility that comes with trying to understand it, but I rather like this take on it that we can, at the very least, combat the soul-crushingness of it. Will definitely check out these flicks! btw the tracks in this vid are sick! Does has more?
The thing about being a Lovecraft protagonist is that noone wants to be one, but you cannot choose that. It is sort of like getting Alzheimers, you live in a shitty world that eats your sanity through no fault of your own. In a way that is what is most appealing about Lovecraft. The horror comes from seeing incomprehensible beings that you cannot do anything against. In a way I feel somewhat similar about AI and expect with a 30% probability that something like a paperclip optimizer will eat all of us in 10 years. The only way to avoid being paralyzed by that horror is to ignore it. That is why Lovecraft said that humanities ignaorance was a strength. That it was neccessary to keep sane.
Dang it, Dad! How did I miss this??? I loved the Endless and I’m definitely not drawing parallels between Ben-head’s movies and deconstruction from fundie faith nope 100% NOT doing that. (I’m doing it a little)
You might like Skinamarink, definitely gives "cosmic horror" vibes throughout the whole movie. No critique of the system but definitely a visceral experience.
Spring is the best one! Its basically the same as these films except the strange that is encountered plays out as a love story. I need to watch the new one, wasn't fussed on Synchronic.
Oh hell yeah, should have waited to the end before posting. Duh. For real, Spring is one of my most favourite films of modern times. Its kind of like Bones and All, with which it actually would make a great double bill, its situated in the horror genre and has a horror film premise, but isn't actually that scary, or shocking, only a little bit gross and really really sweet, a bit clever, occaisionally funny and just looks amazing with a great atmosphere.
Hey, making a second comment to mention another Lovecraftian subgenre: Post- Lovecraftian. Now, I haven't read any post-Lovecraftian books but two video games come to my mind on it: Paradise Killer and Death Stranding. I don't want to spoil too much on both but Paradise Killer takes place in a world where the horrors of life are things that the most privileged of us are trying to resurrect yet those with power are the ones committing the worst atrocities and who are self-sabotaging by their nature. DS, well, it's a game about embracing life despite the horrors and conquering those horrors through the power of community. Both of these games treat horror of Lovecraft as the natural state of things and basically peer into how we thrive in such environments. PK says that there's no horror too abstract that it can't be touched and we can't beat it, one way or the other we will, and it'll be us that the horrors will depend on. DS says that horror is all around us but so is life and hope and those two things are our greatest weapons when we work together. There's a video on RUclips titled "500 million, and not one more" that speaks about our defeat of Smallpox that the video describes as a mad god that kinda speaks to the attitudes of both games.
Paradise Killer is so good... I've wanted to make a video about it for the longest time I just don't know what I want to say about it. It's just so... MUCHHH
I've recently come to the "sister" of this "Cosmic Optimism", Cosmic Tranquility. Where the point is to live in harmony with the things we can't control by way of making oneself something those things can't harm. By making one's will unbreakable and one's empathy overwhelming, to treat the abstract not as things but wills that have to contend with you as much as you have to contend with them. The closest pieces of literature I can find on this are all religious, whether it be the Hindu Brahma, Abrahamic God, the Tao, etc., it seems that religion and faith are means to which we as humans try to push for a relationship with the abstract.
I have not watched any of these films, and this is the first video I see on this channel here. But my impression is that those films are not about cosmic horror, but more about existential dread. Thus I think they are more in conversation with Sartre than with Lovecraft. I could o course be completely off, since like I said, I have not watched any of those films and thus have no foundation for such an analysis which makes me interpretation a shot from the hip at best.
I just figured out how to get youtube to show me Super Thankers and oh my god, you sent this so long ago! -_- extremely generous, i'm very grateful. have a wonderful day!
♥ Daddy! Moorhead & Benson sounds like cigarettes. Two packs of M&B, please. Spring is the only one I've seen, and I didn't know about them until now. I still dream of Bari. One thing of note, Spring has more than one gender at least. I get that it is better for people to write about the people they understand, but I hope they can branch out from white-passing dudes in the future.
Hey Daddy, I think you know I'm ND, just in case, I think I don't always express myself the way I intend. I don't want you to think I'm attacking you. Sometime when I think I'm being supportive, I come across as a d-word. Keep up the great work!
Just thought you should be aware that Sam (from We're in Hell) is trying to make a comeback on social media. Might be a good idea now to denounce him and let people know you aren't affiliated with him in any way.
I addressed the situation on Twitter at the time and other than that, I have nothing to say about him. It's a disappointing situation that shattered a friend group, so I'm not going to turn into a big spectacle.
lovecraft's protagonists, especially in his earlier works, really come across as pearl-clutchy reddit intellectuals a lot of the time. it DOES reframe and reduce the horror. or maybe i'm a monster-fcker degen, maybe that's it...
Re-re-re-re- -latable! (Look this comment is really funny to me but I’m not going to share more about my life here than I have with anyone in order to explain the joke.)
@@ThatDangDad I'm not gatekeeping the cosmic horror aesthetic. You can do whatever you want, I'm just letting you know that if the ending is optimistic, it's not actual cosmic horror.
![Gunna - HIM ALL ALONG [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HiCxoDeo0hc/mqdefault.jpg)
If you haven't read it yet, Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood trilogy works as an anti-Lovecraft, a cosmic horror built from love. It may be part of why a movement arose to replace Lovecraft with Butler as the image for the World Fantasy Awards.
I am WOEFULLY deficient in my Octavia Butler. She's a name I know and even respect by reputation but I've never actually sat down and read her. Your description there sounds intriguing, maybe I'll start there
@@ThatDangDad Fair warning, her books will wreck you. She's that good of a writer.
@@ThatDangDad pls. :c parable of the sower is an excellent grass roots description of a societal collapse in progress, it's something a most works in the postapocalyptic genre just skim over.
We kicked cthulhu's ass with a tiny boat I think we're gonna be fine
that's low-key the absolute funniest thing about the entire mythos. PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWE- "oy cap'n, let's ram 'im w' the boat!"
They had me since Resolution precisely because the bromance is so sweet and filled with undeniable love. I don’t quite remember the plot details, but I’ll never forget how endearing the duo relationship is.
You might honestly love the magnus archives. How you talk about these creators speaks to how Jon, Martin, Tim, Sasha, et al, experience cosmic horror initially as a phenomenon to research, then as something to defend those you care for from
Yes! I've also just commented same! Here's to hoping TDD goes down the rabbit hole!
I always found the reading of Lovecraft to be a man who fears the unknown and is looking to justify that fear through moral stories that prove his point. His problem is that that goal was founded on his racism and his fear of the wonder of a world broader than his own, and I think part of what the best shit to come after him always has to do, is show how embracing the unknown is the only thing that saves us, and that the unknown is not so much what we should fear, but rather that we should fear others acting as if they have total control over it, or that they can dictate it without fault.
I think the reason Lovecraft has lasted, though (we're still talking about him right here, after all) is that he *was* all the things you say... *and* he was also a genuinely curious guy who was excited about science and smart enough to know that science meant exploring the unknown. If he was a hundred percent "shut the door and latch the shutters and don't look under the bed," we wouldn't still know his name. There's a lot of *flashes* of that other approach in his work: the narrator does manage to discover all this stuff about the Cthulhu cult in Call, and there's the portrayal of the previous inhabitants as sympathetic and admirable pentalobed scientists in Mountains of Madness, and so on.
Lovecraft literally lived at a time period where we had JIM CROW LAWS on the books and had A SITTING PRESIDENT who openly anr PUBLICLY sympathized with the Klan. He won TWO PRESIDENTIAL TERMS.
I love their films, it's basically a Materialist approach to the unknown, where instead of the characters being like every helpless idiot in a horror film with zero curiosity and pattern recognition, they think. I always enjoyed how much their characters act like actual people encountering something strange or off-putting, they don't just react like they're having a nervous breakdown, they analyze the situation and think about what's going on. One of my favorite scenes from "Spring" involves a syringe and a situation that, if any other filmmakers made it would not have been the way it went in the film, but, if you've ever walked in on a person experiencing a medical emergency, it totally plays out like this and not the Hollywood over the top absurd dramatic way. Their films treat people as inquisitive and intelligent enough to be normal, unlike a lot of other movies that just buy into the logic of the unknowable and all the characters do to; to this day I've never understood what the fuck demonic possession is supposed to get anything for the demons, I mean, they don't do anything enjoyable or fun, and they seem to just seek out exorcists for no understandable reason; i mean, it would at least make sense if they were masochists or some shit. So often "The Unknown" is just used as a copout in storytelling for not defining anything and just explaining away crazy shit and allowing things to be evil for no reason other than being evil, which isn't much of an explanation of any motivation.
I love these kinds of narratives. Cause remember, the madmen in Lovecraftian works may be insane, but only because their sanity is a more cosmically aligned such. One that can cope with, or at least attempt to cope with, a universe of things well beyond you that don't care. Nodens was just as mad as the people who scribed the Necronomicon, and both are capable of treating with Godlike beings.
Wow what insane timing, I binged all of their films last week
Wild, something something coincidences
Precisely why I love Moorehead and Benson movies. Thanks for putting it into words
Cosmic Horror vs Mutual Aid
Being a horror fan, I remember watching cosmic horror movies like The Endless and not being able to put my finger on exactly what I felt was different from Lovecraft's work, besides the aesthetics, time period, and so on. This video makes me view cosmic horror with a new lens and it makes so much sense!
Yeah, I had the same feeling first time through. Like, there was this energy that was just different then your usual stuff. That's half the reason I like writing scripts for videos is that it allows me to "think through my thoughts" better and figure things out for myself
Reminds me of the comment I left about how I don't want to be a Lovecraft protagonist either. I want to be one of those degenerates that faces down the bleak reality of things and still pushes on and works within that reality to do what they can to survive and if possible thrive. Sometimes you need to retreat, sometimes you need to make less than savory deals, but never does the situation call for deluding yourself. Trust your senses you are not insane you are awake within the dream. Lucid and aware and it is time to start rowing.
These movies sound awesome! Thank you for shining a light on them.
I don't even think their confidence that they can understand what's going on is unearned. If we get to have a reasonably good childhood and adolescence, we will have a well of experiences to draw upon where we have solved problems by understanding them and then using the power that comes with that to do something about it. Not shying away from a problem you don't understand and instead being curious about it is a sign of an at least decently healthy mind.
I think that we should be fighting the urge to struggle against meaninglessness and hopelessness. To embrace the idea that life has no purpose, that the universe is uncaring and that even if the entire (I mean every person who has and will ever exist) human race acted in concert it would be inconsequential is incredibly liberating.
If nothing matters all that matters is whatever you want to matter
This is a similar theme I want to convey with a Tabletop RPG I was/am working on. Embrace the unknown, sometimes the bizarre is just a normal we don't understand. I want to create a world of Cosmic Optimism through Absurdism, because I'm so tired of the postmodern nihilism that our fiction has become in the last few decades.
Ooooh. Okay. I love cosmic horror so much. And like, there are so many different ways of grappling with/understanding it. I still don't *quite* have a handle on how I like to look at it, but yeah. Lotsa thoughts lol.
Also, I say I love cosmic horror (and I do), but I can't watch horror movies lmao. Like, I usually just kinda nope right on out of there cuz scary movies, as fun as scary stuff is to make, are *not* my thing. At all.
Never heard of these filmmakers before, but I'll definitely look into them now. I love this inversion of an axis I hadn't even really perceived in Lovecraft previously. Even just hearing about it brings a level of hope I hadn't seen.
I think this one of the best, more concise and on point explanations of why lovecraftian aesthetics/philosophy is an useful/attractive/meaningful lens for both the left and the right! Great work!
While I can’t do films like these anymore for a whole list of boring reasons, I really enjoyed hearing about them and find it all…intriguing (hmmmm). Maybe recently rewatching Doctor Who feeds into that connection to “investigate and figure it out” sensibility rather than immediately “run away and close your eyes.” But the descriptions of the films also reminded me of the novel “14” by Peter Clines, which I really loved and has a very similar feel. Always appreciate when you expose me to something I would otherwise probably never have encountered, thanks!
yuss !! cosmic horror was my vote ! so stoked for this ! (im typing this part of the comment at the beggining of the video). I love this analysis of the benhead duo! especially with the ending , it's been rough out there and believing that despite everything, better things are possible. well it's the bit of hope that gets me by. once again an amazing video !
Great video! I think this is the first time I have encountered a succint explanation for why the tropes and themes of Lovecraft works resonate so deeply with modern audiences, even though their foundational beliefs are diametrically opposed.
After I shared this (second) video with my best friend, I had to subscribe. Great essays! Great work, keep going, please:)
will do!
Really enjoyed the music in this one. Also I need a shirt that just says "Anxiety" lol
Hell yeah. Great vid, great conclusion. You've given me some ideas for a call of cthulhu adjacent rpg campaign, too... maybe one that cuts the sanity meter.
I'm not saying the system is going to lose. I'm saying I'm going to make it crush me cus I will not comply
Resolution and Endless are fantastic films. thanks for introducing their other titles too!
Spitting fire😮 I will check out their filmography
Never heard of any of these. Need to check these outs. Thanks :)
aye these are all great movies! two indie film makers that everyone should give a watch. the endless is definitely the easiest for the normal movie goer to get into :)
Wow, I haven't heard of any of these movies and I'm really feeling like I'm missing out.
According to someone else, most of them are available free on Tubi. Miss out no longer!
I've not seen these films but House of Leaves feels like it fits in the same space, or possiby that it layers these more optimistic reads with Lovecraft's pessimism. Navidson works to understand the room and eventually ends up recording it, not quite understanding it and moving past/through it. Johnny Truant falls into the story and breaks apart, disappearing into the Zapino's essay and losing his mind in the process. There's literally a cypher that reads 'love' at the dead centre of Navidson's story too, which is a bit gimmicky but a fun way to interact with the book once just reading it gets old.
Yeah SOMETHING IN THE DIRT reminded me a LOT of House of Leaves in a couple ways
I am going to go watch these films. As a life long cosmic horror fan, and huge critic of Lovecraft, your analysis here is fascinating. Thank you!
I love the way you talk about media. Thank you for this.
💜
Thank you, great video. ❤
Now I have to watch Moorhead and Benson's movies.
Love from a HunterAvalone and Vaush fan!
I'm going to let this video play beyond the first 2 minutes (so RUclips doesn't think I don't like this content) even though that's where I've stopped watching it because I've already decided to watch these movies before I watch this video. Be back in a few days/weeks...
enjoy the ride!
I have read most of those CoC books propped up in the background. Ia! Ia! my droog.
Is the blue book from Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea?
.......I got to 2 minutes, saw that clip and turned this off, becaue you sold me on that film. I'll be back after I watch it, TY.
yessss
This is interesting, but I find it strange how people in the comments are riffing against Lovecraft and more typical cosmic horror. I think all sorts of horror is good.
In Lovecraft's universe and its derived works, it isn't just that the universe doesn't care about you: it is actively hostile in many ways, and it is filled with various things and beings that fully intend on destroying the world. It's comparable to the existential dread people may feel about climate change and nuclear war, except humans can quite literally do nothing to stop it and things are gonna be even worse. You can't just decide to "make things better", there is little to no making things better, not without deliberately exposing yourself to the horrors of the universe and systematically destroying your sense and mind (i.e. Delta Green). Sanity, that is, society as we know it and its values, cannot really coexist with the horrors of the universe, and it only survives through the sacrifices of various people as they willing choose to be chewed up and destroyed in its place.
I like Something in the Dirt, but I find it weird how people seem to pendulum swing between extremes when dealing with horror, and frankly that's also applicable to how people think of Lovecraft, but then again that's life so whatever. Good video though, very nice stuff.
Lovecrafts version is the old dude telling you "this is how the world works"
Sounds like these guys are the activist telling you "this is how we can change the way these things work"
Had a comment thoughtfully typed out and accidentally hit the back button on my mouse and lost it!!!! It went a little like this:
"Cosmic" horror tends to be cosmic because of the futility that comes with trying to understand it, but I rather like this take on it that we can, at the very least, combat the soul-crushingness of it. Will definitely check out these flicks!
btw the tracks in this vid are sick! Does has more?
The title/end track in this are stuff I did under the name GL1tch R0mney - soundcloud.com/gl1tchr0mney
The thing about being a Lovecraft protagonist is that noone wants to be one, but you cannot choose that. It is sort of like getting Alzheimers, you live in a shitty world that eats your sanity through no fault of your own. In a way that is what is most appealing about Lovecraft. The horror comes from seeing incomprehensible beings that you cannot do anything against. In a way I feel somewhat similar about AI and expect with a 30% probability that something like a paperclip optimizer will eat all of us in 10 years. The only way to avoid being paralyzed by that horror is to ignore it. That is why Lovecraft said that humanities ignaorance was a strength. That it was neccessary to keep sane.
Dang it, Dad! How did I miss this??? I loved the Endless and I’m definitely not drawing parallels between Ben-head’s movies and deconstruction from fundie faith nope 100% NOT doing that.
(I’m doing it a little)
You might like Skinamarink, definitely gives "cosmic horror" vibes throughout the whole movie. No critique of the system but definitely a visceral experience.
First 😊interesting video😊
Um rude? All of his videos are interesting.
Spring is the best one! Its basically the same as these films except the strange that is encountered plays out as a love story. I need to watch the new one, wasn't fussed on Synchronic.
Oh hell yeah, should have waited to the end before posting. Duh.
For real, Spring is one of my most favourite films of modern times. Its kind of like Bones and All, with which it actually would make a great double bill, its situated in the horror genre and has a horror film premise, but isn't actually that scary, or shocking, only a little bit gross and really really sweet, a bit clever, occaisionally funny and just looks amazing with a great atmosphere.
Hey, making a second comment to mention another Lovecraftian subgenre: Post- Lovecraftian. Now, I haven't read any post-Lovecraftian books but two video games come to my mind on it: Paradise Killer and Death Stranding.
I don't want to spoil too much on both but Paradise Killer takes place in a world where the horrors of life are things that the most privileged of us are trying to resurrect yet those with power are the ones committing the worst atrocities and who are self-sabotaging by their nature. DS, well, it's a game about embracing life despite the horrors and conquering those horrors through the power of community. Both of these games treat horror of Lovecraft as the natural state of things and basically peer into how we thrive in such environments. PK says that there's no horror too abstract that it can't be touched and we can't beat it, one way or the other we will, and it'll be us that the horrors will depend on. DS says that horror is all around us but so is life and hope and those two things are our greatest weapons when we work together.
There's a video on RUclips titled "500 million, and not one more" that speaks about our defeat of Smallpox that the video describes as a mad god that kinda speaks to the attitudes of both games.
Paradise Killer is so good... I've wanted to make a video about it for the longest time I just don't know what I want to say about it. It's just so... MUCHHH
@@ThatDangDad Right? It's like FLCL- weird as all hell, short, but has so much to say on the things it wants to talk about.
I'm a poor disabled person who lives in New York City - Section 8 is a cosmic horror - really relate
What is the weird camera thing happening to the rightmost books above the sofa?
idk but it sounds spooky. let's make a documentary about it
Yikes! Saw it, and felt compelled to keep an eye on them through the whole video! Unsettling, intended or not 🫣
I've recently come to the "sister" of this "Cosmic Optimism", Cosmic Tranquility. Where the point is to live in harmony with the things we can't control by way of making oneself something those things can't harm. By making one's will unbreakable and one's empathy overwhelming, to treat the abstract not as things but wills that have to contend with you as much as you have to contend with them. The closest pieces of literature I can find on this are all religious, whether it be the Hindu Brahma, Abrahamic God, the Tao, etc., it seems that religion and faith are means to which we as humans try to push for a relationship with the abstract.
What a neat idea!
Love this
I have not watched any of these films, and this is the first video I see on this channel here. But my impression is that those films are not about cosmic horror, but more about existential dread. Thus I think they are more in conversation with Sartre than with Lovecraft. I could o course be completely off, since like I said, I have not watched any of those films and thus have no foundation for such an analysis which makes me interpretation a shot from the hip at best.
Liked & subbed, no notes at this time
Iä, Iä, all the power to the working class!
(Vote for Cthulhu: because it's time to ditch the "lesser evil")
Thanks!
I just figured out how to get youtube to show me Super Thankers and oh my god, you sent this so long ago! -_- extremely generous, i'm very grateful. have a wonderful day!
Ok but have you beaten the Darkest Dungeon yet 🤔
I got all the way to the end and somehow wiped like 3 parties on it and got so mad i never played again lol
Optimistic cosmic horror?
Cosmic solarpunk?
♥ Daddy! Moorhead & Benson sounds like cigarettes. Two packs of M&B, please. Spring is the only one I've seen, and I didn't know about them until now. I still dream of Bari. One thing of note, Spring has more than one gender at least. I get that it is better for people to write about the people they understand, but I hope they can branch out from white-passing dudes in the future.
Hey Daddy, I think you know I'm ND, just in case, I think I don't always express myself the way I intend. I don't want you to think I'm attacking you. Sometime when I think I'm being supportive, I come across as a d-word. Keep up the great work!
cosmic horror analysis hell yes. watch more academic talks & lectures on youtube tbqh
Apropos of nothing, have you ever seen the movie "Lunopolis"? It reminds me of the topic.
I have! If you liked that, check out Banshee Chapter
please put your outro music volume down
that's it though your content is interesting
Just thought you should be aware that Sam (from We're in Hell) is trying to make a comeback on social media. Might be a good idea now to denounce him and let people know you aren't affiliated with him in any way.
I addressed the situation on Twitter at the time and other than that, I have nothing to say about him. It's a disappointing situation that shattered a friend group, so I'm not going to turn into a big spectacle.
lovecraft's protagonists, especially in his earlier works, really come across as pearl-clutchy reddit intellectuals a lot of the time. it DOES reframe and reduce the horror. or maybe i'm a monster-fcker degen, maybe that's it...
we support monster-fkrs on this channel
Okay now explain the irs.
someone read the Latin in a forbidden book and now here we are
Re-re-re-re- -latable!
(Look this comment is really funny to me but I’m not going to share more about my life here than I have with anyone in order to explain the joke.)
If there's optimism in your cosmic horror, then it misses the whole point. Unless the optimism is meant only to highlight the coming despair.
orrrr maybe people can do unexpected things with familiar tropes!
@@ThatDangDad I'm not gatekeeping the cosmic horror aesthetic. You can do whatever you want, I'm just letting you know that if the ending is optimistic, it's not actual cosmic horror.
I'm starting to think you're a Lovecraft fan lol. Me too. As far as bigoted science fiction novelists go, at least he's dead.
Well, the least I can do is use his work to talk about justice, equity, and building a kinder world. Suck it, Howard!