Category: Philosophy of Horror
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A Little Horror
Welcome to the web, fans of darkness. I come before you today to offer a decided change of pace. You see, a good number of column-inches have been presented here of late, touting the work of the late H.P. Lovecraft, the father of Cosmic Horror. I’ve enjoyed the work of the Master, and have commented,…
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Cosmic Horror Without Lovecraft?
Cosmic Horror without Lovecraft. Hm. Yet that is what someone on Twitter proposed in response to my previous post. So I asked myself how about sword and sorcery without Robert E Howard? Or Sword and Planet without Edgar Rice Burroughs? Nah. Not possible. When a writer is responsible for creating or defining a genre or…
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Facing the Sinister
The other week someone asked me about the symbolism behind the emblem of the Office of Unidentified Phenomena (OUP). The fictional agency for which my paranormal investigator Pierce Mostyn works to save America and the world from those things that make big bumps in the night. It’s a good question, because the design wasn’t haphazard.…
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The Catacombs of Horror
Last week, our very capable colleague CW Hawes looked into the specifics of one man who saved one publication, which in turn went on to give voice to much of what we call modern horror. This week I propose to take a look at the whole shooting match, horror, terror, suspense, thrillers, and attempt to…
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The Beauty of a Horrible Book
Welcome back, loyal readers, and today I’m going to compare books and movies as art forms, and how the media of the presentation affects horror in particular. Adaptations of books exist across every genre, and you’ll frequently hear people opine that books are superior to their big-screen productions. I’m firmly in that camp. The obvious…
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Fear Is Always With Us
A week and a half ago, Jack Tyler opened our discussion by talking about fear. The fear we choose to enjoy. In this post, I’d like to personalize Jack’s post: the fear I choose. In his classic essay, Supernatural Horror In Literature, HP Lovecraft noted that “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear,…
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The Fear We Choose
Horror may seem an odd choice for recreational reading, and to a person who doesn’t get it, there is no explanation you can offer that can make it reasonable. After all, our most visceral fear kicks in when our lives are in danger, and who in their right mind wants to have their lives in…
Threads that Bind 