T w e n t y S i d e d

General news update. Probably one or two other things. The latest Galactic Season has started in Star Wars: The Old Republic. As expected and understood, there is no real story for this season and no voice acting; a facet of the game that has been a prominent feature until the last year or so. There is an ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike against performing in video games, and a handful of attempts to “go around” the strike have been caught by the strikers. It has been interesting to watch Reddit discussions on this feature, as it shows how many people are actually noticing the lack of voice acting AND how many players of the game seem to know *why* there is no voice acting already. The primary functionality of this season is playing “Uprisings” with new stimulants that have unknown effects. SWTOR Uprisings are four-player, existing-open-world short missions that essentially work like those “survive X waves of assault” and/or “while moving from point A to point B.” They are meant to be kind-of “short” Flashpoints for multiplayer content. I don’t play them myself, although I don’t rule out maybe trying them in the future. I have a couple of characters geared up and playable enough to not embarrass myself, I think; but I just don’t do hardly any multiplayer. The biggest prizes of “beating the season” so-to-speak seems to be the same combination of mounts, pets, appearance armor, Cartel Coins, etc.; so I’m taking part of course. It’s free appearance stuff!

The Steam Spring Sale is going on right now. This includes almost everything Final Fantasy, which means some of the things I don’t have yet on PC I might pick up. There is a decent, but not fantastic, discount on Final Fantasy 4, 5, and 6 Pixel Remaster. Final Fantasy 8 Remaster, FF 12 Zodiac Age, the add-ons for 13, and 15 are all 60% off but I’m not getting to any of those soon. I am planning on playing the remake version of 7 but the first game isn’t on sale; only the “combo” package of Remake and Rebirth. The Tomb Raider Remaster of 1 – 3 was cheap, though; so I picked that up right at the beginning of the sale. I actually got the notice that the Tomb Raider game was on sale a day before I received the Spring Sale notification, so maybe that was separate; I don’t know.

I did get my glasses in. One pair works great for indoor and computer use, while the slightly-less-comfortable-but-better-looking pair works great for going out. It *has* solved the hunching problem, although I tend to forget. I tried bifocal lenses and got into the habit of tilting my head up to look through the bottom of the lenses for up-close magnification, and that doesn’t work anymore. I am having to re-train myself to always look through the center of the lenses. I can also read the volume level on the receiver from across the room (in the living room; I had mentioned I am trying to spend more time away from the computer on a daily average), so I don’t have to get up for that. Or try to peer through the very edge of the glasses by pushing them up. Just as with the computer, my phone, or a tablet; looking through the center is the best policy. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but anything that has a variable numerical indicator has to be even or evenly divisible between the two nearest major divisions. For instance, my car radio spends most of its time set to between 28 and 38. Acceptable volume levels are 28, 30, 32, 34, 35 (because it evenly divides 30 and 40), 36, and 38. And so on, if you need to extend the range. This applies to the receiver in the Living Room which has to be set to 60. If I adjust it, I adjust it in two’s. The TV stays at 50, the recommended output level if you have external speakers connected. Incidentally, if you go looking for an advertising image of a receiver showing the volume indicator, you will have a *hard* time. (Sure, I could take a picture; but do I really want that level of intimacy?) The people who sell receivers want you to think about the *features* that a receiver has, such as advanced internet connectivity or sound processing modes. A cheap stereo receiver will be shown set to the most advanced “activity” the marketer can think of, such as “Bluetooth” or “Blu-Ray.” Nobody sells a receiver based on the ability to *adjust the volume* of connected devices, weirdo. Except to me, as the ability to connect the audio output of the TV, which has all the video game systems connected to it, was all I cared about.

I talked about Cosmic Horror not too long ago. I defined Cosmic Horror as a normal human being confronted by something so horrible or world-breaking the experience induces madness and eventually, inevitably by the core definition, death. The stories of H. P. Lovecraft are generally considered the archetype, if not the absolute progenitor, of the concept. The idea and the interpretation diverge a bit, as the idea is by its very nature impossible to portray…you can only show the effects. Most Lovecraft that people consider is based on the idea of ancient extra-dimensional aliens so horrible and powerful that even a glimpse of their actual being within our own dimension can drive one mad. The storytelling usually centers around a protagonist with occasional allies coming in contact with one of these beings’ cults or courts through several encounters, resulting eventually in the aforesaid madness or death. This idea lends itself, of course, to action movies with horror elements…or even fairly typical slasher-based or monster-based horror movies.

I tend to think of true Cosmic Horror movies as psychological horror movies with effectively no real answers. Heck, even if you provide “the answer,” *we the viewer* aren’t going to understand it. It is beyond our comprehension and the horror of the movie comes from how the protagonist(s) of the movie deal with their predicament and suffering. As an example; “The Box” short film I previously mentioned. However, while I am very familiar with the Lovecraft-based monster movies, and even enjoy many of them; I only recently discovered that “Cosmic Horror” is much more frequently associated with those movies and other movies that feature powerful aliens or “hell” associations. The apparent trick is to play “degrees of separation” from Lovecraft. I.e. most things by, or influenced by, Clive Barker are fair game because he cites H. P. Lovecraft’s influence on his own work. A few Hellraiser movies are often included on the resulting lists, although In the Mouth of Madness usually tops them. Event Horizon is brought up quite a bit as well, which according to some is “Hellraiser in Space.” Anything that draws directly from Lovecraft and had any kind of wide release shows up, like Dagon, pictured above. You will frequently find John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse” movies cited, which includes In the Mouth of Madness as well as The Thing and Prince of Darkness. I certainly grant the Lovecraftian influence on all three movies with some bonus points to Prince of Darkness, but these films all fully occupy existing horror sub-genres. There is an identifiable thing coming to get you and the action is based on trying to survive that thing. Barker and Carpenter both use the narrative to indict existing institutions. This is commentary, sometimes even very good commentary. The thing coming for you may be inevitable…or maybe not. Sam Niell’s character in In the Mouth of Madness is a highly unreliable narrator by intention. His view of the end of the movie may be accurate or just the ravings of a highly affected mind.

To that extent, I prefer something like Dagon *in this category* of horror. I am not arguing that Dagon is a superior film to, say; The Thing. Only that Dagon gets one of the most important elements of Cosmic Horror right: the truth is absolutely inevitable. The opponent already won. The battle was over long before (in this case) Paul ever came to the Village of Imboca (Innsmouth, narratively). Dagon fails in two other prime storytelling requirements: the “monster” Dagon is actually shown and, of course, no one went insane. And we have no real fear that the unknowable evil is coming for *us*. In fact, it’s more-or-less presented that the major conflict of the movie is resolved by the end. Carpenter’s movies end with “is it real or not” for In the Mouth of Madness,” “THE END (or IS IT?!?) from Prince of Darkness, and “One of these two guys are The Thing, you better hope the right one wins in the end” from The Thing. Considering the story pumps up MacReady as the hero, you end the movie with confidence that he can beat The Thing. Yes, you can make an argument that HE is The Thing, but I would be willing to bet most viewers end the movie believing MacReady is going to win. While Carpenter leaves the question open in each case, no one is finishing these movies feeling helpless. They aren’t with Dagon either; but arguably Dagon tried a bit harder. Most horror, in fact; ends with the idea that “the evil” is still out there, even though it was defeated or survived *in this specific event*. I would argue that the best of Cosmic Horror ends in failure by the protagonist and dread by the audience, *without* cheating the narrative (which rules out Fallen. Technically Fallen fails in the identification of the mystery as well, but as that is tied up in how the narrative cheats, it’s not worth getting into.)

“Disease-based” movies tend to get included on “Cosmic Horror” lists as well, on the grounds that, at least in some of these movies, the disease is communicable and unbeatable. My own argument is that Disease-based horror is its own genre. Whether the disease can be defeated changes who the movie is about inherently, but you can actually tell the same stories either way. I have noticed probably half of these particular movies will reveal at some point the specific confluence of events that led to the events of the movie are actually ongoing or repeatable, which of course calls in question the average dangerousness of the disease. You could regard this as a form of “cheating the narrative” as well, but I think it’s actually just lazy storytelling/writing most of the time. The central failure of most disease-based horror movies in regard to Cosmic Horror is that the source and method of communication is known…and defeat-able. They just don’t in some cases. Just as with any zombie movie that tries to develop lore, you either have to delve into commentary or just make the same horror movie over and over. You can technically do both, and choosing either or both options isn’t an impediment to making money. BUT Cosmic Horror inherently requires a story that intends and accomplishes certain objectives. A story can not be “coincidentally” Cosmic Horror. And to bring up Dagon once again, a story that fails to hit certain check-marks fails as well.

I want to be clear, my own definitions are *not* the common usage. You will most often see “Cosmic Horror” restated as “Lovecraftian Horror,” and that itself will bring you examples of stories about powerful aliens bent on dominating the universe through shear unstoppable power. To me those films fit fine within existing horror tropes, though. And if you do a search for “Cosmic Horror Movies” on YouTube, be prepared for a hundreds of lists of dozens of movies you’ve already seen, and probably didn’t know were “Cosmic Horror.”

That’s all for now, see you next week!

Paige Francis He/him