The horror genre is one enormous tent filled with smaller, narrower categories — from slashers and eco-horror to ghost stories and folk horror. Most are pretty self-explanatory but one subgenre stands out as a bit more difficult to define, and it's called cosmic horror .

Birthed from H.P. Lovecraft's novels and short stories, and sometimes even referred to as Lovecraftian horror, cosmic horror is all about complete and overwhelming dread. Specifically, it's dread formed from our fears of the unknown and the discovery that we are merely an inconsequential mote of dust in the universe's grand scheme. Cosmic horror can come from the realization that there are intelligent beings beyond our scope of understanding, and any attempt to pry open the door between us and them — particularly effort

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