the plot was a bit so-so, but this came together with a lot of really excellent themes. the eroticism and deathly fear of it, the dialectic of violence represented in the monster’s conclusion, the goo and themes of degeneration and bodily transformation. degeneration being a key concept of reactionary thought since the onset of modernity, lovecraft being a big reactionary thinker and his work being a core aesthetic representation of fears associated with the onset of modernity, i have to wonder if the 80s lovecraft films that emphasize body horror over atmosphere are perhaps more appropriate to “cosmic horror.”