10 Cosmic Horror Films To Scare You Into Oblivion

Annihilation is the 2018 film from sci-fi writer/director, Alex Garland.

In many cosmic horror films, we are faced with a monster from another dimension. Something horrifically alien that we cannot possibly comprehend.

Annihilation gives us this in the form of a geometric, undulating, metallic mass. However, it also turns the tables and shows us something more familiar.

The monsters that lie within the Shimmer aren’t extraterrestrial. They are all Earthlings; their biology has just been scrambled to create something new. Even Lena, played by Natalie Portman, realises that her own cells are starting to break down and mutate into something other than human. The alien influence of the Shimmer is moving through her body like a cancer.

One of cosmic horror’s main themes is a horrific truth. Something so terribly unfathomable it drives people into insanity. The horrific truth in Annihilation is the delicacy of our own biology. Something we consider as sturdy as our own DNA falling off the tightrope of health into the abyss of mutant aberrations.

Cosmic horror also takes things we know, such as our Earth environment, and shows us that underneath the surface it is as confusing and mind-bending as any deep space critter.

Annihilation has brought this genre into the 21st century, leaving behind tentacled Lovecraftian beings and instead focusing on something more internal - our own self and the world we live in.