There are roughly eighteen thousand, nine-hundred and fifty two listicles on the internet declaring unambiguously to be the definitive listicle of COSMIC HORROR MOVIES. I don’t wanna post any of 'em. I wanna talk about mine. And yours. If you find this concept valid and worthwhile, that is. I wanna know what you all consider “cosmic horror.” I wanna know what falls under the banner. Because Lovecraft wrote about a number of subjects, not just colossal and incomprehensible alien entities. He also wrote about incomprehensible shadow entities. And undead things. And dreamscapes. And nightmarish revelation. The connective tissue is there on the sidebar. “Violation of the order of nature, preferably indescribable.” To paraphrase. So what is it to you, dear audience? [he inquired, whether the audience be dear to him or not]

On my mother’s grave, these I declare the finest examples of the indescribable put to visual media - in no hierarchical order. Exhaustive? No. Personal? Absolutely. Check them against your own, and despair. Or discuss.

• The Void. Every list must begin with The Void, for some reason. I mean, it’s just got everything. It’s the poster child for the genre.
• Re-Animator. Campy. Fun. Jeffrey Combs. Delightful.
• The Endless. Modern low-budget done absolutely right. If you don’t have money for wild otherworldly effects, tell the human side. It’s the Lovecraft way.
• The Color Out of Space. Nic. Cage.
• Alien. Geiger, O’Bannon, Ridley Scott come together to create a cinematic titan.
• The Thing. Carpenter’s flop is a staggering masterpiece of paranoia and human vs otherworldly nature.
• The Lighthouse. A tale of madness and isolation. An ethereal nightmare. Two powerhouse performances.
• Annihilation. An adaptation that communicates the abstract into the (vaguely) narrative. Ponder the foundations of your existence.
• The Evil Dead. You read from the book, didn’t you?
• Event Horizon. “Where we’re going, we won’t need eyes to see.” Well, fuck. We’re leaving.
• The Blob. It’s a creature from space that absorbs everything. And it looks awesome.
• The Mist. Yes we’ve seen monsters encroach upon our fragile world from another dimension, yes we’ve seen a group of ordinary people turn on each other during times of crisis, but have we seen it directed by Frank Darabont and adapted from a novella by Stephen King? I think not.
• Hellraiser. “We have such sights to show you.” Shivers.
• From Beyond. Another fun Stuart Gordon/Jeffrey Combs/Barbara Crampton collab. This one has BDSM and a skeletonized Ken Foree.
• Messiah of Evil. Creepy, slow-burn 70s horror-thriller with some very unique and interesting characters. This thing is all atmosphere.