by Stef Nunez
Obviously, it’s been a while since I’ve tickled your eyes with a movie review or gushed about tidbits of horror lore that are haunting me. It’s a new year, I live in a completely different place, and I don’t have the same access to interestingly niche horror events and screenings as I used to. But I’m still the same passionate fan with way too much to say.
Just to keep things funky & fresh, rather than a movie review, I’m coming out of my blog hiatus with a monster movie pitch. This wasn’t just for funsies, though. I had the immense pleasure of taking a class called “Monsters in Literature” and this was an assignment from my first week. It was the most fun I’ve ever had as an adult in higher education, and I’ll cherish it always because everything only gets harder from here on out in the journey towards my second degree.
I hope you enjoy as much as I did!
Introduction
With the success of Guillermo Del Toro’s iteration of Frankenstein (which was his life’s desire to create), I want to create a cosmic horror entity but capitalize on it not inherently being a monster just because it’s other but rather the HORROR of the human beings who seek to control it and use it for their own nefarious purposes. In the 21st century, “otherness” is often viewed as a threat by default. Immigration and border politics revolve around a fear that can’t be neatly categorized.
When something cannot be understood, humanity’s first instinct is not curiosity, but control.
Negative Space (a working title)
A deep-space observatory detects an anomaly quietly drifting toward Earth. It emits no signal, carries no heat, and alters nothing in its path. It’s not arriving, it’s just passing by.
Scientists struggle to describe it. The anomaly resists scale, language, and measurement, bending instruments as if offended by human certainty. In the absence of understanding, institutions intervene. It’s given a designation, a threat assessment and a cage. Because, of course, we have the nerve to assume we are the authorities of the universe.
Inside containment, the entity reacts only when it’s touched. While its responses are catastrophic, they are also unmistakably defensive, like an animal thrashing from within a trap that it cannot comprehend. Each escalation is documented and classified as proof that the entity was dangerous all along.
As fear manifests into policy, swift and aggressive military control replaces curiosity. A lone researcher begins to suspect the truth: the anomaly is not hostile, and not sentient in any human sense, but it’s deeply intelligent and profoundly vulnerable. It was never meant to be held, let alone contained.
In a final breach, the anomaly dissolves into the fabric of space, leaving behind warped gravity and many unanswered questions. Humanity will survive, albeit wounded by its own certainty. The real horror isn’t what came from the cosmos, but how quickly we chose domination over mercy and named it survival.
Stef Nuñez (she/they) is Co-Editor-In-Chief of Sage Cigarettes Magazine as well as (former) unhinged co-host of A Ghost in the Magazine & The Annegirls Podcast. She is a feral horror mami and artist who specializes in tiny and/or strange pieces. When she’s not working her fashion job or posting here, you can find her haunting the stretch of road between North Carolina and Virginia in hopes of becoming a legendary cryptid.
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