“Death on a Pale Horse” (and all hell followed after him) – Death as the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, 1865 engraving by Gustave Dore (public domain)
(5) APOCALYPSE
As I said in my previous entry, the Bible and Biblical mythology tend not to be directly horror, except perhaps for the book in this entry – the Book of Apocalypse.
The Book of Apocalypse pretty much reads as horror fiction, with faithful Christians as the final girl.
Beyond that, it has many elements or figures that recur as tropes in horror fiction, not least the Beast, the Antichrist figure most famously adapted in The Omen film franchise. Even Apocalyptic Jesus can present as a terrifying figure, what with that sword coming out of his mouth and all.
Of course, these tropes loom largest and in their most literal form in religious horror – but they recur in more metaphorical form in other sub-genres of horror fiction.
For a quick apocalyptic roll call, it’s literally one damned thing after another – or one beast after another, as the Great Beast or Beast of the Apocalypse as it is called, is not the only beast in the Apocalypse. You have the Four Horsemen, Star Wormwood, Abaddon, the Locusts of the Bottomless Pit, the Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun (the latter something of a final girl herself), the False Prophet, and Mystery Babylon.
O – and whole swathes of humanity die.