H.R. Giger’s Necronomicon

 

If you are not familiar with the works of Swiss artist Hans Rudolf Giger, you are probably familiar with movies that use his art: the Alien series, Poltergeist II, Batman Forever, and Prometheus among others.  Though his works are considered surreal or of science fiction rather than horror, to me there seems to be something of an unstated horrific element to them and therefore I have included them as tonight’s post.

Perhaps a more tangible connection between Giger and the world of horror is that his book, upon which the original Alien design was based was entitled H.R. Giger’s Necronomicon, after, of course, the fictitious Necronomicon of H.P. Lovecraft.   Here I quote a short article on it from Wikipedia:

“Necronomicon was the first major published compendium of images by Swiss artist H. R. Giger. Originally published in 1977, the book was given to director Ridley Scott during the pre-production of the film Alien, who then hired Giger to produce artwork and conceptual designs for the film.

“The book was originally published by Sphinx Verlag and was republished in 1993 by Morpheus International with additional artwork from Giger’s Alien designs. A subsequent collection of his images followed as H. R. Giger’s Necronomicon 2, printed in 1985 by Edition C of Switzerland.

“Giger’s Necronomicon is named for H. P. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire Lovecraft invented and used as a plot device in his stories. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon was a compendium of pre-human lore compiled by the fictional mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, circa 700.^[1]“

Giger’s works are a fascinating foray into the surreal, erotic, and horrifying possibilities of the world of biomechanics.  A quick search in Google images for “Giger art” or a vist to hrgiger.com will prove quite rewarding.  Here are a few examples to whet your appetite (please note that all images used in this post are copyrighted by the author/artist and are used here only under US “fair use” guidelines) .

 

 

 

Thoughts?  Comments?