Creepy Images: Something About Cats

Cats are majestic creatures, but none can fully forget that they are well behaved predators brought into our homes, miniaturized versions of wild murderers who still run wild. The unusual dichotomy cats hold in our lives and in weird literature has been noted for quite some time. Stories like H.P. Lovecraft's "The Cats of Ulthar" and Algernon Blackwood's "Ancient Sorceries" were major attempts at charting the murky and weird territory felines hold in the human psyche. There hasn't been a legendary horror story based on cats for some time, but that study of their weird facets has hardly ceased.

I daresay the exploration of feline creepiness has moved into more visual types of art, many of which are housed online. The modern investigation utilizes simple techniques and talented artistic energy. The picture above is little more than a simple "mirror" effect likely done in Photoshop, but its unsettling implications are obvious. It illustrates how subtle changes in the form of a cat can render biting results. A double dose of weirdism is delivered via the cat's altered characteristics that eerily approach anthropomorphism.


It doesn't get much more demonic than this. Like the first picture, this one uses a simple software tool to generate nightmarish results. The most malicious nature of the cat is sewed up in this image. The Ulthar demigod that is all tooth and claw lives in this pic, and perhaps it was a face like this that lorded over the elderly couple in Lovecraft's story as they received punishment for killing a fellow feline.


When it comes to outlandish depictions of cats, a discussion is incomplete without mentioning Louis Wain. The Victorian painter is found today in psychology textbooks everywhere for an infamous case of schizophrenia that manifested increasingly strongly in his cat art as he aged. It seems Wain, like Lovecraft, truly adored cats. That doesn't absolve his art, including the many pieces he created during his "sane" and liminal periods, of having a fear inducing quality. Wain's hellcats hold a certain mystery that even the boldest worshipers at the feline alter may not dare to know.


This surreal painting also highlights the wilder side of cats. The ominous display of fangs and dead eyes places this cat depiction nicely in the taxonomy of the unusual. This cat, with its distorted predatory expression, is something one would encounter in a dream--though probably not for long. It's a blessing that the quickness of cats often means a graceful end to any haunting nightmare that puts you on the wrong end of unspeakable feline things.

-Grim Blogger