Personally, I find any fate involving infinite or near-infinite time dilation/looping to be the most unsettling. The concept of eternity is already so far beyond our human ability to functionally grasp and a bit disconcerting even in the best of situations. If such an eternity involves purposeful torment, the result is just horrifying to me. In other words, I’m most afraid of those situations that make death by even the most excruciating mechanism seem like a mercy. SPOILERS AHEAD for “The Endless” (film) and “The Long Dream” (short story) For instance, in the film “The Endless,” the scene in which a character is forced to relive a gruesome death for eternity in a singular, seconds-long loop — all while maintaining an ongoing line of consciousness — has always given me the chills. After countless repetitions, the looping death would almost seem like an afterthought in comparison to the hopelessly inescapable nature of your plight. If we count Junji Ito’s short story/manga “The Long Dream” as cosmic horror, the concept of an increasingly long series of phantasmagoric nightmares (making it such that you spend millions or even billions of years trapped in a hellish, alien dreamscape each time you sleep, while everyone else experiences time normally) also freaks me out.

My first H.P. Lovecraft purchases were the Del Rey paperbacks. Nothing has ever come close to Michael Whelan's "Lovecraft's Nightmare" diptych that he did for the covers of those books. Just black, white, and red, the paintings are evocative rather than literal interpretations of HPL's stories. Some of the 60s and 70s pulp paperbacks had trippy covers (I got one from the library that featured Brown Jenkin and it was unsettling) but nothing like Whelan's. Do you have any favorite covers?

Saw the Void was mentioned. Did any of you watch "Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities"? The Autopsy is wild, and the ending is brilliant... if you can sit through it hehe

I just did a writeup for a book I finished over a weekend called The Breach (normally not that fast of a reader but this one had its hooks in me). Excellent piece of sci fi cosmic horror for those interested - reminded me a ton of 14 by Peter Clines which is one of my favorite books of all time. What stuck with you that you enjoyed over the past month that you think everyone should check out?

I found out about this one from horror blogger Stacie Ponder and it is one of my favorites. Arletty, a young woman, comes to an isolated California town looking for her father, who has gone missing. The town's past is coming back in strange and unsettling ways. Arletty teams up with a trio of other outsiders to try and find out what is happening and where Arletty's father is. If you want something that *feels* like Innsmouth in the 1970s, this is it. There are some jump scares, but most of the movie is mood. It is designed to unsettle rather than to scare. Is it cosmic horror? Maybe. It is definitely Lovecraftian, and it ends with a pretty strong implication that the world as we know it is coming to a close. Right now, it is available free (with ads) on Tubi. It pops up on Shudder frequently, if you subscribe.