Cover art for the Blu-Ray Collector’s Edition of the 1988 film by horror director Wes Craven The Serpent and The Raiinbow – a lot of Hollywood voodoo going on in that art (fair use)

(10) VOODOO

What else to round out my top ten mythology horror list but voodoo? The very name evokes horror, at least in the Hollywood version of voodoo. There’s even the trope for it of Hollywood Voodoo – Baron Samedi, voodoo dolls, and even shrunken heads.

Even when it reflects its more religious elements, voodoo still evokes horror – such as with its ritual spirit possession. I mean, you don’t get more horror than a religion in which The Exorcist is a sacrament, right?

But voodoo’s here for one thing above all else, particularly in its Hollywood version – zombies. Of course, the voodoo zombie is very different from the viral zombies of modern zombie horror films and their tropes of zombie apocalypse, although I would love to see a voodoo zombie apocalypse. Even so, the voodoo zombie is the origin of the name and concept, albeit the voodoo zombie was reanimated by magic (or a living person enslaved into a zombie-like state by various means).