The Sea Raiders

The story I have liked best so far in this philosophy of horror class is "The Sea Raiders" by H.G. Wells. This is a story of gargantuan man-eating cephalopods. The main character, Mr. Fison, has found a group of live Haploteuthis ferox devouring a human corpse. Trying to disengage the giant squid from the human remains, he ends up drawing their attention to himself and they chase him. I do believe this is an art horror story; there is an obvious repulsive and disgusting monster. They don't necessarily have supernatural smarts, like that of Jaws, because cephalopods are known for their unique intelligence anyway. They have been known to watch others perform a tedious task and using the knowledge of successful tactics that the other used, the one watching can perform the task in mere minutes compared to hours of the first. Their intellect as well as the size and agressive behavior as in this story are all reasons to beware. Especially being known for their man-eating tendencies causing them to be supernatural. Just thinking about giant, murderous squid is a frightening thought. This story had me on edge thinking of Mr. Fison. If I were him, already having been chased by the beasts, I would not have been able to go back out to look for the remains of that person on a boat in the middle of their turf. The ‘edge of the seat’ feeling together with the dread of the monster and the unknown is the intention of an art horror piece. Even if the monster is disgusting and repulsive alone, it feels like it is lacking as an art horror; those artistic features though, along with that edge of your seat feeling, is how horror works to exemplify the genre. I was getting nervous the more I read about them attacking the boat and it was hard to stop reading at that point. I needed to know if they would make it out so I could once again be able to go out on a boat without worrying about giant man-eating cephalopods. Seeing as they consumed a whole family of ten including a child, that will not be possible anymore.