Recent Cosmic Horror Movies
Review series on Recent Cosmic Horror Movies Cosmic horror, also referred to as Lovecraftian horror, has seen a rise during the last decade or so, especially as small low budget indie flicks which often goes under the radar in the mainstream due to bad distribution, lack of advertisement, and, let’s face it, their underground nature. Though a few of the movies in this series rather a big budget Hollywood movies and hardly indie at all, the majority are pretty unknown to most audiences and very deserving of attention. My aim is thus to spread the word of their existence and to share my impression of them, describe their aesthetics and the moods they convey.
Now, cosmic horror may be a familiar concept to the readers of this blog, but for the uninitiated, I will give a few directions of what I understand as cosmic horror. The genre has its roots in H.P. Lovecraft’s writings and the worldview that they communicate. This entails the notion that the universe is not a friendly and harmonically ordered place; that its harmony is in fact disharmony and that it hides unspeakable horrors if we were to lift the veil and experience its true nature. In this horrific cosmos, mankind is essentially insignificant and when faced with this reality the options are either our demise or descent into madness. Mankind is, in all possible scenarios, displaced in the cosmos we inhabit and essentially doomed. In terms of genre, cosmic horror can take many forms. It can deal with themes of cosmic or biological phenomena, aliens, monsters, scientific experiments, ancient cults, God(s) and demons. The occult has always held a central place in cosmic horror, but simple themes of demonic possession etc. are not cosmic horror unless they ponder more philosophically about mankind’s role within this cosmology and essentially deems it insignificant and bound for a horrific end. This series of reviews contain movies that take up themes such as the pending extinction of mankind, alien abduction, occult rituals, pacts with the devil, medical experiments gone wrong and weird cosmic and biological phenomena. They fall under the genres of sci-fi, occult horror, body horror, and fantasy (or something close to that) but are united by their overarching thematization of mankind’s (dis)placement in cosmos.
The Void (2016)
Now, the first movie that I am going to deal with is the Canadian indie flick The Void from 2016 (aired in theatres in the Spring of 2017) written and directed by Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie. This was the movie that lead me down the path to explore more recent cosmic horror movies and which inspired me to do this piece at Kaltedur., so how can I convey to you just how cool this flick is? Well, imagine if John Carpenter met with David Cronenberg in 1982 and decided to make a movie together. Sounds pretty awesome, right? The majority of the movie is set at a hospital where a group of locals has locked themselves in to escape a mysterious group of hooded people outside who is out to get them. Inside the hospital or protagonist, Deputy Daniel Carter who is played by Canadian actor Aaron Poole faces a series of horrific events of people turning into murderous tentacled monsters that he and his companions must battle.
As the plot unfolds, the story delves deeper into occult territory mixed with medical experimentations and portals to other worlds, but that you will have to experience for yourselves. The Void masterfully blends body horror elements with cosmic and occult concepts, and its locations and effects – all mechanical and without the all too often poorly executed CGI – function really well. The overall aesthetic and mood of the movie is quite dark and twisted and is reminiscent of eighties classics such as The Thing (carpenter) and The Fly (Cronenberg). The acting is far from sublime, but it is good enough not to ruin any of the cool retro-feel and good, though not overly original, storyline. So the bottom line is if you like the classic horror movies of masters such as John Carpenter and David Cronenberg you should definitely give The Void a go.
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