Rija Faisal
(Q). Reyes (2014), describes Body Horror as being a “fictional representation of the body exceeding itself or falling apart, either opening up or being altered past the point where it would be recognised by normative understandings of human corporeality.” How do The Colour out of Space and Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth make use of this definition to explore themes of the unknown?
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Shadow Over Innsmouth is a tale by American writer H.P. Lovecraft. The tale can be viewed as Lovecraft’s own comment on the advancement of technology that was beginning to emerge in his time and of its growing influence on the lives of American people and on their lifestyle, and of the potential dangers such an influence could pose.
After the Industrial Revolution, the early 1900s saw a great boom in technological development and the field of scientific research. Lovecraft uses The Shadow Over Innsmouth to explore the danger humans were exposing themselves to by exploring new and unfamiliar territories, and by seeking unknown knowledge that could potentially end up being more destructive rather than beneficial for the human race.
In The Shadow Over Innsmouth, the unknown elements of this new ‘scientific’ age of humans is represented in the form of a character named Zadok Allen. In the novel, Zadok is a representation of the knowledge the human race could gain by pursuing scientific interests. At the same time, Zadok also represents the terrible consequences that could befall the human race if they were to acquire such knowledge.
This idea of technological advancement being seen as something to fear rather than to pursue is further highlighted in a more subtle way, as well, by the mention of railroad tracks. For the narrator of the tale, the railroad tracks represent an escape route from Innsmouth, but the tracks are rusty and abandoned. This neglected state of the rail tracks implies how a part of technology has been abandoned before in the past, and thus should be left as it is and not be taken up again. And even when the narrator does manage to escape from Innsmouth, his escape does not save him in the end. Even with technology’s help, he is not saved. This is the writer’s way of implying that technology, therefore, could potentially end up being a lot more trouble than its worth.
In Lovecraft’s writing of the tale, we can clearly see that the concept of placing oneself and the situation in the hands of forces that are beyond our control or understanding is not portrayed as a favourable thing to do. In the case of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, this is applied to technology. The writer distrusts the largely unknown world of science and all that science attempts to explain.
I believe The Shadow Over Innsmouth does make use of the Reyes (2014) description. In his tale, Lovecraft is commenting on the dangerous, but inevitable, path that humans are choosing to tread- the path of technology- which might potentially lead to the downfall of society. In this tale, technology can be viewed, metaphorically, as a sort of alien deity. While Lovecraft acknowledges that technology could hold value for society, he also points out that, just as a deity, technology holds the ability to be far more superior to humans, and it cannot be fashioned to become our servant.
Humans and technology exist in an equilibrium, but what might happen if technology, our own creation, turns on us someday? What would it turn us into?
What would become of the human race then?
Colour out of Space
The 2019 film “Colour out of Space” is a science fiction body horror film based on the The Colour out of Space, a short story by H.P. Lovecraft. The film deals with a meteor that lands in the house of the Gardner family, after which they find themselves battling an extraterrestrial organism that infects the mind and body.
I believe the Reyes (2014) description of the “body exceeding itself or falling apart, either opening up or being altered past the point where it would be recognized by normative understandings of human corporeality” applies perfectly to this movie, as the entire plot deals with the mutant organism infecting the minds and bodies of humans, leading them to experience bursts of insanity. The human body loses control of itself, and takes on aggressive qualities, transforming the human being into something entirely inhuman, into an alien creature. This fear of becoming something other is the main focus of the film’s plot, and what the story is actually about, the fear of the Gardner family not knowing what the alien creature will do to them, and whether there is any way to stop it or to get free from its hold.
We can view the aftermath of the meteorite landing and the “birth” of the Colour- the purplish hue the sky turns to after the meteorite lands- as seeming to point towards some sort of alien testing. It is shown that the Colour only effects a small, remote region, almost as if this is only the beginning stage and some sort of preliminary sample, and the worst is actually yet to happen. This appears to be done to gain information about humans, judge the Earth itself, and to take a sample for next time, almost as if the worst is yet to come.
We as the viewers know that even if the danger is temporarily over, traces of the extraterrestrial material the meteorite brings with it are still present in the sky, and no one knows what that might lead to. There is fear over the unknown. The uncertainty of not knowing what will happen could itself drive the humans in the film towards madness, and that, I think, fits in with the description of Body Horror very well.
References:
(n.d.). Literature/ The Shadow Over Innsmouth tvtropes.org Retrieved from: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth
Daniel Kurland (JAN 24,2020) Color Out of Space Ending Explained screenrant.com Retrieved from: https://screenrant.com/color-space-movie-ending-explained-lovecraft-alien-threat/
Pop Genres 2020 