For those unfamiliar with the concept of the "uncanny valley" I've included a short video on the subject.

[www.youtube.com]

The second half of the video refers to games specifically, but it's a good primer.


I was going through some images inspired by eldritch horror concepts and it struck me that most visual representations tend to rely on the "uncanny valley" as a means of evoking horror.

There are literally millions of examples of this on the web which you can easily google, but for video the best example I can give would be the movie "Dagon" which is based on the "Horror over Innsmouth" by Lovecraft (the title was taken from another unrelated Lovecraft story).


HIGHLIGHT BELOW THIS AREA TO REVEAL SPOILERS.

In the opening of the film an woman is seen in a dream as a mermaid. She is beautiful and erotic, however the dream becomes a nightmare when her mouth is revealed to be filled with razor sharp, fish-like teeth. Later the main character meets her in real life when he runs into her bedroom while she is sleeping in an attempt to escape from a group of cultists and monsters. She hides him, telling the person at the door that she is alone. He is enraptured with this woman from his dreams and she entices him to kiss her. As they kiss he moves the covers she was lying under and discovers that instead of legs she has tentacles. Once again a physical revelation turns beauty into horror.

END OF SPOILERS.

I'd be interested to see what others think about this aspect of eldritch / psychological horror.

It's considerate of you to warn of spoilers but it does make it
hard to discuss your example without referring to them. No prob.,
just mentioning it as I intend to mention that "tentacle" scene
so if any reader hasn't seen it - oh well!

I do agree that the scene is an uncanny one but I"m not convinced
the revelation of what's she's hiding under the sheets is the
principal reason behind the eeriness of the whole scene. IMHO, that
whole film does an pretty good job of sustaining The Uncanny throughout.
Personally, I would credit the camera work/direction and Macarena
Gomez's heavy latent sexuality as infusing a lot of this quality into
and throughout the film. By the way, although pulling back the sheets
does reveal her tentacled nether regions I don't think she meant to
flash them - I think she was encouraging him to get to work !

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall there is a cinematic term,
"Unseen Presence" that is a suspense device often associated with Horror
Film. For example, crawling the camera around corners in the set in a way
that makes thhe audience wince - They just KNOW something's going to pop
out at them. I think this technique is used very effectively in the Girl-
Squid scene and in many other places in the movie, "Dagon". Is there a
connection between Uncanny Valley and Unseen Presence ? I'm still thinking
about that one.

Cathexis