Interesting essay about 20th century horror, featuring Lovecraft

[Aaron Vanek]

http://zocalopublicsquare.org/thepublicsquare/2011/10/30/my-horrific-philosophy/read/nexus/

This was an interesting essay on horror, suggesting that 20th century
science made the world much, much scarier.
Lovecraft was the first and perhaps best exemplar of this, of course.

Thoughts?

Aaron

[avid fan]

Certainly true of The Whisper in Darkness, The Color out of Space etc.
Although Meteors had been hitting the earth since forever.
Remember that the Siberian Meteor hit when Lovecraft was 18. He surely
would have heard about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

What about The Horror at Red Hook? Here we find Lilth from Adam and
Eve. Adam's ex wife.

What do I put Lovecraft's effectiveness down to?

1. Intensity. A lot people criticise Lovecraft's writing. I find that
his writing brings out an fear and paranoia that would infect a person
placed in a similar situation and is sometimes strangely lacking in some
horror writers.

2. Fear of insanity.

Bram Stroker's Dracula used 1-2 very effectively.

3. The Horror may go away but Lovecraft always leaves you with the
feeling that it just over the other side ready to come back.

4. Tentacles Until Lovecraft monsters were pretty much Vampires,
Werewolves, Ghosts and maybe Zombies. God was always there to protect
you. Demons?

You do not need science for tentacles you just need to visit your fish
market.

The writer of the article is wrong about the electron microscope.
A conventional microscope will show you some truly frightening creatures
in pond water.

[avid fan]

Nobody else wants to join in. Aaron what do you think about what I have
written?

Could you also start a thread about the HPL film festival and what you
thought of the films? Favourite bits? I here they have HPL stand up.

[Aaron Vanek]

On Nov 1, 3:25 am, avid fan <m...@privacy.net> wrote:

> The writer of the article is wrong about the electron microscope.
> A conventional microscope will show you some truly frightening creatures
> in pond water.

I agree with the point of the article, which is that things are
scarier with 20th century science than they have been. Cosmic horror
is new, as the scary stories of pre-HPLF were often of the good vs.
evil sort, outlined by Caitlin Kiernan's great "Left bank vs right
bank horror" essay (not sure if it's available online).

The article was more about modern horror, not Lovecraft. So I don't
see how your points (which I snipped) are apropos to the argument.
I don't disagree with them, but I don't see them having much to do
with the original story.

This last point, above, however, isn't quite accurate: sure, there are
scary things in pond water. But the electron microscope shows us that
scary things are in the air, on our skin, in our bodies, all the
time.

I didn't reply because I didn't see much to reply to, except the last
point on the microscope.

To your next email:

Feel free to start a thread about the HPL festival. I did my big write
up at Unfilmable.com here: http://unfilmable.blogspot.com/2011/10/aaron-vaneks-epic-hp-lovecraft-film.html

I forgot to spread the link around; I'm very bad about marketing
myself or things I do, sorry.

Aaron

[avid fan]

On 02/11/11 22:23, Aaron Vanek wrote:
> On Nov 1, 3:25 am, avid fan<m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>> The writer of the article is wrong about the electron microscope.
>> A conventional microscope will show you some truly frightening creatures
>> in pond water.
>
> I agree with the point of the article, which is that things are
> scarier with 20th century science than they have been. Cosmic horror
> is new, as the scary stories of pre-HPLF were often of the good vs.
> evil sort, outlined by Caitlin Kiernan's great "Left bank vs right
> bank horror" essay (not sure if it's available online).
>
> The article was more about modern horror, not Lovecraft. So I don't
> see how your points (which I snipped) are apropos to the argument.
> I don't disagree with them, but I don't see them having much to do
> with the original story.

Ok I see your point the Cthulhu Mythos and number of other stories
mention Non Euclidean geometry, Space time curvature. General Relativity
was published by Albert Einstein in 1916.

I would argue that things got a lot weirder after Quantum Mechanics got
going and Schrödinger's cat.

I would argue also that alternate universes such as the source of the
color out space have little to do with Einstein are pure Science fiction
and probably date back to the first telescopes and the fact that viewers
failed to see God or Heaven. The Color out of Space is more about what
happens to the Gardner's and Lovecraft makes us terrified of a new color
and sells it beautifully

The Horror at Red Hook.
The Shadow over Innsmouth
Herbert West Re-animator.

Did not require any of these things and are still great stories. Indeed
the The Horror at Red Hook came after his Cthulhu Mythos stories.


If you look at The Dunwich horror and The shadow over Innsmouth and
Cthulhu. Tentacles play a big part in the monsters. Lovecraft
introduced new monsters into horror.

If you doubt the effectiveness of these monsters look at The Thing 2011
or Carpenters 1984 version and a host of other horror films.

I do not see what Freddy Kruger has to do with cosmic horror. Freddy
Kruger is the Bogey man around as long as humans could speak to children.

I think 20th century horror is scarier mostly because relaxation of
censorship and TV. My mother saw Frankenstein in 1931 and had
nightmares for three nights. I think I watched it when I was eight and
thought it was lame.

Thanks for your blog reference.

[Todd A.]

On Nov 2, 4:23 am, Aaron Vanek <goo...@somecompanyfilms.com> wrote:
> On Nov 1, 3:25 am, avid fan <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> > The writer of the article is wrong about the electron microscope.
> > A conventional microscope will show you some truly frightening creatures
> > in pond water.
>
> I agree with the point of the article, which is that things are
> scarier with 20th century science than they have been. Cosmic horror
> is new, as the scary stories of pre-HPLF were often of the good vs.
> evil sort, outlined by Caitlin Kiernan's great "Left bank vs right
> bank horror" essay (not sure if it's available online).
>

I think your oversimplifying thinking from before the rennaisance and
the industrial revolutuon. Those periods saw a great
'rationalization' which could only have taken place in Euorpe because
of the long centuries of ignorant fear of everything seen and unseen
around you. What makes these modern trends, so well represented by
Lovectaft, seem so different is that they are finding that fear of the
unseen again within an industrialized, atheistic view of the world.

[avid fan]

On 03/11/11 01:44, Todd A. wrote:
> Lovecraft, seem so different is that they are finding that fear of the

> unseen again within an industrialized, atheistic view of the world.

Yeah I think you have a real point with that. Cool Air, Pickman's
Model, Rats in the Walls did not need Cosmic Horror. The stories that
used Cosmic horror totally disregarded Christianity.

[Todd A.]

That is what I think makes 'cosmic' horror, really - the ability to
create the same sense of futility, servitude, and fear of expected,
but unseen forces all about us without the dependency on (sorry
Christians) the Judeo-Christian teachings and mythology that spawned
the Dark Ages. For me, Lovecraft brought back the same sense of
dread and powerlessness in a completely atheistic (or at least
agnostic) perspective. There are a lot of good scary stories, but
that kind of 'cosmic' reach is what makes a story's effect last when
you read it last week and you hear a creak in the room upstairs. That
noise used to be ghosts. Now it's an Old One.