Call of the Weird

   People have forgotten what made Cthulhu such a strange, and indeed terrifying concept. Cthulhu is not scary because he's going to come and destroy a city like Godzilla. He's not a giant monster that will wreck nations with a stomp of his foot. His terror is more subtle, more primordial a concept. The fact that a being can cause madness and deranged behavior simply by existing, by being near, relatively, to other creatures, its thoughts and dreams and nightmares echoing out from it and causing hysteria - that is what makes him terrifying.

   But people have lost sight of this. A lot of people don't understand what a subtlety is anymore in relation to horror. Horror has become a vehicle for instant-gratification, something our current culture seems obsessed with to an alarming degree. This is apparent in how big movies with "jump scares" got around 2003-2013 . Paranormal Activity became a phenomenon, and its tricks were all the same: something bumps or moves or screeches and we're supposed to get scared at that moment. Much of western horror seems to have taken to this idea, and while the jump scare is not in of itself a bad tool, it's something that can be used to incredible effect if it is utilized properly, but overstuffing any media with it becomes exhausting.

   Subtle, weird horror seems to escape creators, or studio heads at least, in favor of what makes money. Though there is hope, somewhat, for the sub-genre. Recently, a game called Bloodborne was released to high acclaim, which explored many, many themes found in things like HP Lovecraft's works or Poe's, revealing an immense primeval, otherworldly force of the mind controlling a plague of beastly creatures within a "dream". A recent film called The Babadook also took a stab at creating a strange fiction around its monster, that seemed come to life simply by the thoughts of those afraid of it, after reading about it in its book. Hopefully, more subtle takes on the sub-genre like these inspire people to remember that strange horror is perhaps some of the best, because its not bound to tropes we've become so accustomed to.