The essence of horror: why true horror is hard sci-fi and cosmic horror

The universe is a cold and uncaring place. Man is smaller than a spec of dust in the scheme of things, and there are creatures vast and beyond our comprehension waiting out there in the darkness which will one day crush our entire world without even realising it.

It's a vision that HP Lovecraft first introduced to the world in the early 20th century - a new kind of horror built around what science was discovering about our universe and our place in it. From being at the center of the universe with an all-loving god looking down upon and protecting us, science has shown us a reality that to many in Lovecraft's day was truly terrifying: a universe which is vast beyond comprehension, and no sign of a god - or if there is a god, it is a being that simply does not care about our small little planet.

Most people think of horror in terms of classical mythological beings: ghosts, vampires, werewolves etc. Used effectively, these things can be scary, and with the right atmosphere (and careful use of jump scares) these beings can be made to feel almost real - but deep down we know they are not.

What horror as a genre should aim to do is within the word itself: horror should horrify us, not merely spike adrenaline through jump scares and fictional beings that we know can not exist.

Cosmic horror is based around Lovecraft's vision of a vast universe in which strange beings may lurk. Modern science is progressively finding that the universe we live in is stranger than we ever thought. Quantum physics has shown us that classical mechanics does not truly exist at the lowest levels of reality, and the standard model of spacetime our brains have evolved with can simply become inaccurate when exposed to the stranger parts of reality that may await us in future.

Science fiction routinely exposes us to aliens, but most works of sci-fi show them to be startrek style humanoids with funny faces - it is rare to see aliens that are truly alien. In fact, it is unlikely that any alien life in reality would even remotely resemble life here on earth, even the basics such as having DNA are unlikely to exist in reality.

Reality, in other words, tends more towards the visions of Lovecraft than it does towards any other horror writer. To date, what we have observed about reality suggests that if we ever encounter the creatures seen in horror it is most likely that they will be true abominations to us - alien life will be beyond our comprehension when we first encounter it, if we ever encounter it - for the universe may in fact be cold and empty.

'Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying' - Arthur C Clarke

If we are alone in the universe, this is fundamentally a sign that our own existence is both unique and paradoxically meaningless - for it is a fundamental fear of isolation that drives people to madness when they are left alone for long enough.

The classic hard sci-fi Tau Zero is about a ship that travels far beyond any previous ship and due to relativistic time dilation eventually sees the end of our universe and the birth of a new one. While on this journey, the knowledge of how deeply alone the crew is leads to the slow but sure demise of their mental health, but one point alone stands out in particular to me.

Found in the voids between galaxies, they notice planets in the darkness - long ago ejected from their original star systems. The protagonists remark that they hope no life exists on these worlds, for it would be truly alone in a vast cosmic void. The ship stops in one of these voids for engine repairs, and the protagonists remark on what a true horror it would be to drift away from the ship in that void - lost forever in a starless black abyss.

This is the essence of cosmic horror - and for cosmic horror to truly work it must respect reality - it must therefore be what is essentially hard science fiction. If the reader is able to comfort themselves with the thought that ultimately the horrors described can not be real then the writer has failed.

Lovecraft has been parodied many times so that this true essence of his work has been lost - the true essence of his work was his vision of a vast uncaring cosmos that may or may not be filled with creatures beyond human comprehension. Cthulhu is only the start.

Truly, there are likely to be things in our universe that appear to our brains impossible and patterns of sensory input exist which could cause the equivalent in our brains of a computer crashing - these are the things that should not be, the blasphemy against all that we all know.

Whether or not conscious beings exist beyond the earth does not matter - if we expand our knowledge long enough we will eventually discover, as Lovecraft wrote:

We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.