History CosmicHorrorStory / Film

* ''Film/{{Alien}}'': Before ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' and the following franchise gave the Xenomorph an InsectoidAlien coded hierarchy with a Queen, Drones and Warriors, the depiction of the original and the film itself give strong Cosmic Horror vibes. It presents a crew responding to a DistressCall in the middle of nowhere in deep space that is coming from a disturbing AncientAstronauts relic where one of them is infected by a parasite that pops out of a TimeAbyss egg. Then the parasite dies, only for the crew to remain stuck with an ImplacableMan EldritchAbomination that burst out of the infected man's chest and effortlessly begins snatching and killing anyone trying to stop it, all while they have no way of calling for backup, and in the BittersweetEnding the last survivor is left to an unknown fate drifting off in the vast and uncaring cosmos. Tellingly, ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'' served as an inspiration for the story. Later installments of the series like ''Film/AlienVsPredator'' (which takes place in MysteriousAntarctica) and ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'' (which discouraged Creator/GuillermoDelToro from making his own adaptation at the time) would take way more obviously clues from Lovecraft's book, although the monsters and the advanced aliens having their own bodycount puts them into LovecraftLite territory compared to how seemingly unstoppable Kane's Son was presented.

* ''Film/{{Alien}}'': Before ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' and the following franchise gave the Xenomorph an InsectoidAlien coded hierarchy with a Queen, Drones and Warriors, the depiction of the original and the film itself give strong Cosmic Horror vibes. It presents a crew responding to a DistressCall in the middle of nowhere in deep space that is coming from a disturbing AncientAstronauts relic where one of them is infected by a parasite that pops out of a TimeAbyss egg. Then the parasite dies, only for the crew to remain stuck with an ImplacableMan EldritchAbomination that burst out of the infected man's chest and effortlessly begins snatching and killing anyone trying to stop it, all while they have no way of calling for backup, and in the BittersweetEnding the last survivor is left to an unknown fate drifting off in the vast and uncaring cosmos. Tellingly, ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'' served as an inspiration for the story. Later installments of the series like ''Film/AlienVsPredator'' (which takes place in MysteriousAntarctica) and ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'' (which discouraged Creator/GuillermoDelToro to make his own adaptation at the time) would take way more obviously clues from Lovecraft's book, although the monsters and the advanced aliens having their own bodycount puts them into LovecraftLite territory compared to how seemingly unstoppable Kane's Son was presented.

* ''Film/{{Alien}}'': Before ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' and the following franchise gave the Xenomorph an InsectoidAlien coded hierarchy with a Queen, Drones and Warriors, the depiction of the original and the film itself give strong Cosmic Horror vibes. It presents a crew responding to a DistressCall in the middle of nowhere in deep space that is coming from a disturbing AncientAstronauts relic where one of them is infected by a parasite that pops out of a TimeAbyss egg. Then the parasite dies, only for the crew to remain stuck with an ImplacableMan EldritchAbomination that burst out of the infected man's chest and effortlessly begins snatching and killing anyone trying to stop it, all while they have no way of calling for backup, and in the BittersweetEnding the last survivor is left to an unknown fate drifting off in the vast and uncaring cosmos. Tellingly, ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'' served as an inspiration for the story.

* The 1975 movie ''Film/{{Bug|1975}}'' (not to be confused with the Creator/MichaelShannon movie [[Film/Bug2006 of the same name]]), is about blind, pyromaniac [[CreepyCockroach cockroaches]] who emerge from a fissure in the ground after an earthquake. A local scientist named Parmiter becomes curious about them, which gradually [[MadScientist turns into an obsession]] until it's apparent that something else is compelling his actions, particularly cross-breeding them with regular cockroaches, so that the subterranean insects can survive on the surface, and this is after one of them kills his wife. [[spoiler:It turns out that it's the roaches themselves compelling him.]] True to this genre, the movie ends with [[spoiler:the insects' final form, now with eyes and wings, thanking him by dragging him back to Hell with them]].

* Creator/JohnCarpenter's "apocalypse trilogy" (''[[Film/TheThing1982 The Thing]]'', ''Film/PrinceOfDarkness'', and ''Film/InTheMouthOfMadness'') is an escalation of the trope over the 3 movies: first, a [[ShapeShifting protean]], [[TheVirus invasive lifeform threatening to subsume in itself every living thing on the planet]] in [[MysteriousAntarctica a desolate antarctic setting]] reminiscent of Creator/HPLovecraft's ''At The Mountains Of Madness''; then a liquid [[TheCorruption corruption]] that turns out to be {{Satan}}, and whose goal is to bring to our world its ''true'' father, TheAntiGod, in an old church being investigated by academics from an establishment similar to Miskatonic University; and finally, [[EldritchAbomination ineffable, unreal horrors]] attempting to find purchase in our reality through the writings of a MadArtist and his previously-fictitious TownWithADarkSecret in the middle of LovecraftCountry, all the while [[MindScrew screwing over the protagonist]] in such a way that it was formerly the TropeNamer for ThroughTheEyesOfMadness.

* ''Film/TheEmptyMan'' [[spoiler:Veers ''hard'' into this after detective Lasombra starts investigating [[ChurchOfHappyology The Pontifex Society]].]]

* ''Film/DontLookUp'' is a rare example of a Cosmic Horror Story PlayedForLaughs. On the surface, it could be read as a straight example without any LovecraftLite elements to soften the blow barring the lack of a supernatural force. Two scientists, Dr. Randall Mindy and his student Kate Dibiasky, discover [[CometOfDoom a comet on a collision course with Earth]], and slowly but surely GoMadFromTheRevelation as they realize just how small and meaningless humanity's accomplishments are in the face of an unthinking, uncaring cosmic force that will do to humanity what the Chicxulub meteor did to the dinosaurs. [[spoiler:And in the end, the comet hits Earth and the most that the protagonists can do is FaceDeathWithDignity, and while it doesn't quite kill ''everyone'' on the planet (Jason survives, and others may have done the same), it definitely knocks what's left of humanity back to the Stone Age.]] The difference is that it's done as a ''comedy'', specifically a very dark [[ClimateChangeAllegory satire of climate change and humanity's response to it]]. Kate's descent into madness is illustrated by her having a meltdown on national TV that [[MemeticMutation goes]] [[InstantHumiliationJustAddYouTube viral]], Dr. Mindy's is illustrated by him having an affair with a morning show host and basking in his newfound celebrity because he's decided that nothing matters anymore, and the reason the rest of humanity doesn't go insane upon learning of its impending doom is because, as far as this film is concerned, we're ''already'' living in a WorldGoneMad.

* ''Film/DontLookUp'' is a rare example of a Cosmic Horror Story PlayedForLaughs. On the surface, it could be read as a straight example without any LovecraftLite elements to soften the blow barring the lack of a supernatural force. Two scientists, Dr. Randall Mindy and his student Kate Dibiasky, discover [[CometOfDoom a comet on a collision course with Earth]], and slowly but surely GoMadFromTheRevelation as they realize just how small and meaningless humanity's accomplishments are in the face of an unthinking, uncaring cosmic force that will do to humanity what the Chicxulub meteor did to the dinosaurs. [[spoiler:And in the end, the comet hits Earth and the most that the protagonists can do is FaceDeathWithDignity, and while it doesn't quite kill ''everyone'' on the planet (Jason survives, and others may have done the same), it definitely knocks what's left of humanity back to the Stone Age.]] The difference is that it's done as a ''comedy'', specifically a very dark [[ClimateChangeAllegory satire of climate change and humanity's response to it]]. Kate's descent into madness is illustrated by her having a meltdown on national TV that [[MemeticMutation goes viral]], Dr. Mindy's is illustrated by him having an affair with a morning show host and basking in his newfound celebrity because he's decided that nothing matters anymore, and the reason the rest of humanity doesn't go insane upon learning of its impending doom is because, as far as this film is concerned, we're ''already'' living in a WorldGoneMad.

* ''Film/DontLookUp'' is a rare example of a Cosmic Horror Story PlayedForLaughs. On the surface, it could be read as a straight example without any LovecraftLite elements to soften the blow barring the lack of a supernatural force. Two scientists, Dr. Randall Mindy and his student Kate Dibiasky, discover [[CometOfDoom a comet on a collision course with Earth]], and slowly but surely GoMadFromTheRevelation as they realize just how small and meaningless humanity's accomplishments are in the face of an unthinking, uncaring cosmic force that will do to humanity what the Chicxulub meteor did to the dinosaurs. [[spoiler:And in the end, the comet hits Earth and the most that the protagonists can do is FaceDeathWithDignity, and while it doesn't quite kill ''everyone'' on the planet (Jason survives, and others may have done the same), it definitely knocks what's left of humanity back to the Stone Age.]] The difference is that it's done as a ''comedy'', specifically a very dark ClimateChangeAllegory. Kate's descent into madness is illustrated by her having a meltdown on national TV that [[MemeticMutation goes viral]], Dr. Mindy's is illustrated by him having an affair with a morning show host and basking in his newfound celebrity because he's decided that nothing matters anymore, and the reason the rest of humanity doesn't go insane upon learning of its impending doom is because, as far as this film is concerned, we're ''already'' living in a WorldGoneMad.

* Creator/TobeHooper's ''Film/{{Lifeforce}}'' ends up being this. It starts with astronauts finding an EldritchStarship trailing Halley's comet, filled with dead, dessicated bat-things, and three strangely human-looking (and attractive) survivors; it all goes downhill from there. [[spoiler: By the end nearly all the hero characters are dead or servants of the ship. Then the ship, after its snack (read: pretty much all of London's population, if not more), goes off on its merry way to devour other planets. The one survivor who knows anything about what actually happened probably won't be believed, so there will be little to no preparation for the thing's inevitable return.]]

* ''Film/DemonKnight'' is centered on the final stand of a man rendered ageless to protect a key from demonic collectors who want to take it in order to revert the entire universe into a dark chaos thriving with demons. [[spoiler: And there's no resolution in the ending: both the hero and the collector die and leave successors that [[NeverendingTerror continue the chase]]]].

* ''WesternAnimation/PussInBootsTheLastWish'': One one hand, the main characters and antagonists want to retrieve the celestial Wishing Star that has fallen from space into the "Dark Forest" mutating its landscape into an alien, dangerous and constantly-changing environment almost like a family-friendly version of the Shimmer from ''[[Film/Annihilation2018 Annihilation]]'' (except changing to reflect the nature of the characters and their philosophies instead of BodyHorror). On the other, Puss is horrified by an ImplacableMan, fearsome Wolf bounty hunter [[spoiler:who turns out to be TheGrimReaper itself, that has decided to torment Puss into fearing death because he has taken all his previous 8 lives for granted all while foolishly saying that he "[[DoNotTauntCthulhu laughs in the face of death]]". Only at the very end, when Puss overcomes the fears of his mortality and fights him claiming that he will never stop fighting for his last life that he wants to enjoy to its fullest, the Wolf/Death respectfully leaves him in peace, but tells Puss that he'll return when his time will truly come, as he will do with [[TheFourthWallWontProtectYou all of us too, someday]]]].

* ''WesternAnimation/PussInBootsTheLastWish'': [[spoiler:The red-eyed Wolf that stalks Puss is in fact TheGrimReaper. [[DoNotTauntCthulhu Taking offense to Puss wasting his eight lives in stupid ways while boasting about his invincibility, he has decided to come and claim the ninth and final life himself]]. The Wolf is a teleporting InvincibleVillain and thus Puss cannot fight or meaningfully escape him. [[CharacterDevelopment Only in the end of the story when Puss demonstrates that he has finally learned the value of life, as well as face death itself down without fear]], does the Wolf decide to give Puss another chance and let him live the rest of his last life until his time truly comes.]]

* ''Film/{{Glorious}}'': Once, there was an all-powerful entity who existed alone in the endless nothing. Possessing the power to turns its thoughts into reality, it could not control this power, creating offspring with minds of their own. Its oldest child tore open the primordial god, as its blood created the universe, the stars, and life itself. Despite making a deal with its offspring not to destroy this new life in exchange for being allowed to heal its wound, the god created another child, Ghatanothoa, whose sole purpose was to wipe out all creation when he reaches physical form, before his siblings sealed him away in the aether. The elder god is still searching for this child, who has since [[AntiAntiChrist rejected his calling]] and now wants to preserve this beautiful world.

* ''Film/DemonKnight'' is centered on the final stand of a man rendered ageless to protect a key from demonic collectors who want to take it in order to revert the entire universe into a dark chaos thriving with demons. [[spoiler: And there's no resolution in the ending: both the hero and the collector die and leave successors that continue the chase]].

* The 1975 movie ''{{Bug|1975}}'' (not to be confused with the Creator/MichaelShannon movie [[Film/Bug2006 of the same name]]), is about blind, pyromaniac [[CreepyCockroach cockroaches]] who emerge from a fissure in the ground after an earthquake. A local scientist named Parmiter becomes curious about them, which gradually [[MadScientist turns into an obsession]] until it's apparent that something else is compelling his actions, particularly cross-breeding them with regular cockroaches, so that the subterranean insects can survive on the surface, and this is after one of them kills his wife. [[spoiler:It turns out that it's the roaches themselves compelling him.]] True to this genre, the movie ends with [[spoiler:the insects' final form, now with eyes and wings, thanking him by dragging him back to Hell with them]].

* ''Film/EventHorizon'', in which [[spoiler:"Hell"]] is the easiest way for the characters to describe [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace hyperspace]], but some elements suggest it to be far, far worse. ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' fans like to joke that the film is a prequel.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfMarkTwain'': The Mysterious Stranger creates a miniature civilization out of clay figures and bestows life on them only so that he can snatch it away again. He points out that he does not do this out of malice, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality as he has no concept of human morality]].
* Phil Tippet's postmodern masterpiece ''WebVideo/MadGod'', takes place in a disturbing and nightmarish hellscape full of deformed horrors and horrific abominations. It goes on step further towards the end of the film [[spoiler: when we see that the entire universe of the film has been meddled with at the start by a black hole in space is sending monoliths to come down and ruin worlds]].

* ''Film/AM1200'' features an Eldritch creature; the viewer is only able to see its eye and gaping maw through a deep hole in a cellar floor. [[spoiler: The protagonist is lured into servitude to the creature after being drawn into a mysterious, abandoned radio station]].
* ''Film/Annihilation2018'' give us [[TheVirus The Shimmer]], a strange, complex alien entity that arrives to the Earth [[CameFromTheSky via a strange meteorite]] and does not one bit adhere to the law of physics as we know it, emanating a ever-growing dome of radiation that horrifically mutates every lifeform it comes into contact with, mashing together the DNA of things like Play-Doh, which creates vicious, [[BodyHorror disgusting]] monsters out of the wildlife. And it's left entirely vague whether or not it is a malevolent entity seeking to destroy everything out of irrational hatred, or if it's so utterly alien to the point it doesn't even comprehend it's own existence, making it essentially an oversized cancer cell.

* The 1975 movie ''Bug'' (not to be confused with the Creator/MichaelShannon movie [[Film/Bug2006 of the same name]]), is about blind, pyromaniac cockroaches who emerge from a fissure in the ground after an earthquake. A local scientist named Parmiter becomes curious about them, which gradually turns into an obsession, until it's apparent something else is compelling his actions, particularly cross-breeding them with regular cockroaches, so the subterranean insects can survive on the surface, and this is after one of them kills his wife. [[spoiler: Turns out, it's the roaches themselves compelling him.]] True to this genre, the movie ends with [[spoiler: the insects' final form, now with eyes and wings, thanking him by dragging him back to Hell with them]].

[[/folder]]