What is Horror?

I have an issue with modern horror: it has become too logical, relying too much on cause and effect. It has been reduced to a mathematical equation waiting to be solved. Stephen King’s IT is a prime example. While the story was highly successful, spawning films and miniseries, the source of the "horror" was ultimately just an entity hiding in the sewers that could be defeated through mental games. To me, that isn't true horror; it’s simply an algorithm that must be processed to kill a monster.

You don’t solve horror; you experience it. I am firmly in the H.P. Lovecraft’s camp where true horror is incomprehensible, something to which we simply cannot apply human logic. This makes sense: if horror is rooted in the supernatural, why should it follow our rules? The supernatural realm should be seen as an entirely different dimension operating under its own laws and precepts. Those rules would be fundamentally unknowable to us.

Even when horror is grounded in our own universe, such as with the Old Ones, the same principle applies. These ancient beings may have existed in our cosmos since the beginning of time, but we must ask: how much do we truly know of the universe compared to beings who have seen the birth of countless galaxies? The essence of the "alien" is that it is truly alien. Their logic and cognitive processes would be so removed from ours that they might as well be from another reality. Stumbling across such a being would be indistinguishable from encountering an incomprehensible god. That is where H.P. Lovecraft got it right. If we encountered something so alien, so incomprehensible, so beyond our normal experience, would not our minds break?

In my story, "Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?", I avoided clear logic. While I included the cause and effect of seeing the Sign and being trapped by it, I purposefully blurred the lines between the two. The sense of continuity is an illusion. The protagonist believes he is unraveling a mystery, only to discover that the mystery may not even exist. In the end, all he possesses is his experience, and that experience changes him forever. To me, horror is the encounter with the unknowable, something that can't be solved with logic and tricks. It is an experience that fundamentally and permanently alters a character at their very core, forever.