“The Vision of the Valley of the Dry Bones” by Gustave Dore in 1866 – from the Book of Ezekiel 37:1-14, a passage evoking horror fiction (public domain)
(4) BIBLE & BIBLICAL MYTHOLOGY
Wait – what? The Bible or Biblical mythology as horror?
I mean, have you read the Bible?
In fairness, the Bible and Biblical mythology tend not to be directly horror, except perhaps for the book in my next entry.
Rather, they tend to be more indirectly horror – that is, they or elements within them tend to be tropes of, or readily adapted to, horror. Indeed, there’s a whole sub-genre of horror fiction that just does the latter – religious horror.
Of course, the focus of religious horror tends to be the figure literally named as the adversary in the Bible, Satan, or the other lesser adversarial figures under him. Satan and his demons are somewhat muted (and mostly absent) for horror in the Old Testament, but the New Testament ramps them up in horror, not least in its stories of demonic possession or exorcism which continue to be tropes in horror fiction. The story of the demon Legion remains genuinely terrifying, not unlike The Exorcist film in its narrative.
The underworld of the Bible and Biblical mythology remains the most horrific of any mythic underworld, both of itself and for its demonic denizens, although again this is muted or mostly absent in the Old Testament and ramped up in the New Testament.
Mind you, even the supernatural force of God or forces of Heaven can be terrifying, whether in visions or intruding into our own world. “Be not afraid” as Biblical angels say to soothe the terror from their appearance – and it does not take too much to reimagine encounters with angels, such as Jacob wrestling with the angel (or whatever you interpret it to be), as horror.
Outside the supernatural elements, the Bible or Biblical mythology leans more towards slasher horror with its human violence – or inside its supernatural elements for that matter, with God as arguably the biggest slasher of all. The Plagues of Egypt – or cycles of punishment for Israel – can read like the Saw films.
Finally, there are many episodes, passages or stories within the Bible that are easy to reimagine as horror in one form or another – for example, the Levite’s concubine or the Witch of Endor, I’m struck by how often that has effectively been done by artists – and by just how many artists have done Biblical horror art, as it were. Durer, Dore, Bruegel, Dali, and so on – enough for the subject of its own top ten list.