10 Perplexing Sci-Fi Film Problems Solved By The Internet

3. What Makes Cthulhu So Terrifying?

Lovecraftian horror is like no other form of horror fiction. It's not about gore, or monsters, or anything that we could imagine being terrifying in real life. Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is scary because there may actually be a power tool-wielding maniac out there in the Deep South, ready to chop you up and eat you for tea. The eponymous horrors of the Alien series aren't like anything we currently have on Earth, but they're still physical threats that, thanks to the twisted mind of designer HR Giger, are innately terrifying to look at. Lovecraft's Eldritch Horrors, the Elder Gods, are chilling for an entirely different reason. The horror in his stories (besides all the racism and stuff) is more on the cosmic, universal level. The narrators in Lovecraft tales aren't hunted by beasties, or haunted by ghoulies, but driven mad by the existence of evils that are beyond the comprehension of a feeble human mind. It's pretty intense. But don't we already manage to get our heads around unknowable concepts like quantum physics, the Higgs Boson etc? And isn't Cthulhu just a big squid? Oh, how naive of us. As Reddit so kindly collated for us from the smattering of Lovecraft short stories and the wealth of Eldritch-related materials that have been produced since his death, the Elder Gods aren't just big squids. They're beings that exist in a different dimension and actually are beyond our human comprehension. Looking at them, trying to wrap your head around them, would melt your brain. They're totally incomprehensible. As one user succinctly put it, we can wrap our heads around paradoxes, but that doesn't mean we understand them or how they can exist..