This almost looks like a cheerful party, except for the dead babies – Francisco Goya’s “Witches’ Sabbath”, oil painting 1798 (public domain)
TOP 10 MYTHOLOGY HORROR
Horror is a genre of fiction that seeks to elicit fear or disgust.
That always prompts me to think of Greek dramatic tragedy and its quality of catharsis proposed by Aristotle, arousing intense feelings of fear and pity in its audience.
However, thinking about horror also prompts me to think that horror, or at least feelings or forms of horror, extend well beyond the genre of fiction labelled as such. Indeed, there is horror to be found throughout the subjects of my top ten lists, most obviously with the heart of horror genre fiction in my lists for film or fantasy and SF – but somewhat less obviously for poetry and literature, comics, television, music, and tropes, all of which are surprisingly prolific for feelings or forms of horror. More surprisingly prolific but even less obviously still is the horror to be found in science and philosophy or history.
Mythology on the other hand may not be so surprising for horror, given that it is easy to trace the origins of horror to mythology itself.
“The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore and religious traditions focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic, and the principle of the thing embodied in the person.” (Wikipedia, “Horror Fiction”)
Also, mythology was the usual subject of that Greek dramatic tragedy I referenced at the outset for its catharsis. I stand by that comparison between Greek tragedy and the genre of horror, at least as holding up in similar qualities of catharsis. And it wouldn’t take too much to tweak most Greek tragedies into horror films.
Hence, this is my Top 10 Mythology Horror list. Obviously, horror in mythology tends to be from supernatural sources, but then my own tastes in horror similarly lean towards dark fantasy or supernatural horror so it’s a good match. For that matter, horror films or horror in fantasy literature also frequently lean to adapting the horror in mythology.
A particularly horrific scene, as depicted in William-Adolphe Bougeureau’s 1850 painting “Dante and Virgil in Hell” (publlic domain image)
(1) UNDERWORLD
Chthonic horror!
God is a hole in the heart of the world and he’s hungry – omnipotent, omniscient, omnivorous.
Yes, I know my top entry for mythology horror is a common denominator across mythologies – dare I say lowest common denominator in a different sense – rather than any specific mythology.
But you don’t get more horror in mythology than chthonic horror, the horror of the underworld.
Even when it isn’t literal hell or pandemonium, the underworld is a bleak and dark place, that hole in the heart of the world.
Even when its gods aren’t literal demons or devils, they are those hungry gods representing the force of death in a world of the dead. The underworld lies between death and destruction or between the proverbial devil and the deep blue sea – the adversarial forces of nature between predation and parasitism, between evolution and entropy. Or is that devolution (heh)?
And of course its denizens are the dead.
While there tends to be mythic horror in descent into the underworld, literally or metaphorically, particularly if one remains there for good or rather for evil (heh), mythic horror usually involves the underworld or its supernatural forces moving in the other direction, invading our own world. For that matter, that’s usually the default plot or premise of horror fiction, literally or metaphorically.
Hell, even the intrusion or invasion of mythic worlds other than the underworld into our own can be terrifying. “Be not afraid” as Biblical angels say to soothe the terror from their appearance.
The bedsheet ghost – that common visual representation of ghosts in Western popular culture. And what better illustration for one than a Scooby Doo villain – Phantom from “Hassle in the Castle”, Season 1 episode 3 “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?” (fair use)
(2) GHOSTS
Ghosts – shades, shadows, apparitions, haunts, phantoms or phantasms, poltergeists, spectres, spooks and wraiths – the stuff of folklore, as belief in ancestral spirits or spirits of the dead is nearly universal in world folklore or mythology.
And ghost stories or hauntings are nearly universal as the default plot or premise in horror. Even when the plot of horror fiction does not involve an actual ghost, it tends to involve haunted house or place in one way or another – giving rise to the so-called haunted house problem so that the plot can occur, or why don’t they just leave? (Usually the answer is some variant that they can’t).
The only reason ghosts aren’t in the top spot is because they are a subset, albeit a large one, of my top spot entry of the underworld.
Note their incorporeal nature, which distinguishes them from my next entry for the hungry, corporeal dead.
Not all ghosts are equal. There’s nice or benign ghosts – something you might expect for your own ancestral or familial spirits. And some ghosts are just a**holes. I guess being dead can do that to you. Japanese ghosts – those stringy-haired ghost girls – are particularly nasty, attacking people for no particular reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And then you have the weirder, otherwordly “ghosts”, that aren’t even people but things – haunted houses or locations (which are ghostly entities of themselves, apart from any individual ghosts that may be hanging around), ghost ships, ghost trains, and phantom vehicles.
Santanico Pandemonium poster art Season 2, From Dusk Till Dawn TV series – one of my favorite female vampires. Yes – it’s not Salma Hayek from that scene in the film but Eiza Gonzalez is more vamped up in the poster here
(3) VAMPIRES
And now we get to the hungrier folklore of the dead, distinct in their corporeal form from ghosts – back from the dead as revenants. They came back wrong. Not much good comes out of coming back from the dead as a rule. It usually involves preying upon life to sustain one’s unnatural, undead being – treading water, but in blood, as it were.
There is a whole host of vampiric or ‘vampire adjacent’ beings or creatures in folklore and mythology, going all around the world and back to the dawn of history or beyond.
While the archetypal vampire of European folklore – “the folklore for the entity known today as the vampire” – is relatively recent, originating “almost exclusively from early 18th-century southeastern Europe”, the broader archetype of the hungry corporeal dead goes back at least to ancient Mesopotamia, as John Blair points out in his book Killing the Dead.
And so too does killing the dead (again) as per the book’s title – the various means of preventing vampires (as in the various means of preventing a corpse from becoming a vampire, or at least causing too much trouble as one), identifying vampires, and most importantly of all, protecting against or destroying them.
When the dead aren’t ghostly in horror, they’re hungry. The corporeal dead, and killing them, is a substantial part of horror fiction.
“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.
“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.
Yeah, they tear him apart after what we see here – and one of them is his mother. Pentheus being torn apart by maenads in a Roman fresco in Pompeii (public domain)
(6) CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY
Remember my introduction’s reference to modern horror fiction prompting to mind Greek dramatic tragedy and its catharsis – its intense feelings of fear and pity?
Well, here we are, as classical mythology was the usual subject of that Greek dramatic tragedy and catharsis. Or for that matter, the usual structure of Greek dramatic tragedy of hubris followed by nemesis, with the latter usually personified as the goddess Nemesis or similar figures such as the Furies.
And as I said, it wouldn’t take too much to tweak most Greek tragedies into horror films.
The Bacchae by Euripides demonstrates the horror inherent in classical mythology. The tragedy is based on the myth of Pentheus, king of Thebes, who is opposed to the new god Dionysus and his cult. It’s easy to see it as modern horror fiction, from the folk horror of The Wicker Man to cosmic horror – Dionysus as Yog Sothoth, perhaps?
A conflation of folk and cosmic horror pretty much sums up the horror of classical mythology, particularly the latter with brutal divine punishments or cruel divine wrath. There are also monstrous creatures and the body horror of metamorphoses, often combined – and both tend to be instruments of divine punishment or wrath. Even when your adversaries or antagonists are human rather than supernatural in classical mythology, it often resembles slasher horror.
As for the Bible and Biblical mythology, modern horror fiction tends not to adapt classical mythology directly – few or no minotaurs, sphinxes, chimeras, or hydras for example – but instead draws on its themes, tropes, and above all its templates of dramatic tragedy.
Arguably the most horrific scene of the 2026 Nolan film from the promotional trailer, evoking Goya’s painting Saturn Devouring His Son (fair use)
(7) ODYSSEY
Let’s face it – the Odyssey is essentially monstrous survival horror.
And divine survival horror – or slasher horror, with Poseidon as the slasher and Odysseus as the final girl.
As some observed upon watching Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey film, some of its scenes – particularly the Cyclops and Circe, although I think that overlooks the underworld – evoked horror, prompting speculation of Nolan’s untapped potential as a director of horror.
Certainly, however, the original epic evokes much of the same horror as elsewhere in classical mythology, not to mention that it is the literal epic template for horror fiction, as it is for all Western literature.
It prompts to mind the interpretation of Robert Graves that the Odyssey is one underworld scene after another, including the actual descent into the underworld. For that matter, that descent into the underworld – or katabasis – is reminiscent enough of horror, what with setting out the blood for the dead to feed and all. Who are these coming to the sacrifice, indeed…?
“Odin and Fenris” 1909 illustration by Dorothy Hardy in Myths of the Norsemen by H.A. Guerber – I own the book with this image (public domain)
(8) NORSE MYTHOLOGY
Norse mythology is essentially the cabin in the woods, metaphorically as the horror trope.
Arguably even literally as the 2011 film of that name, as elaborate and deceptive machinations behind the scenes – primarily by Odin – for ritual sacrifice to keep the world-destroying eldritch abominations at bay.
But certainly at the metaphorical level of the horror trope, Norse mythology is the cabin in the apocalyptic woods.
The apocalypse, that is of fire, ice and darkness – embodied or represented by giants, monstrous wolves or serpents, and the evil dead of Hel. An apocalypse that the gods can only hope to keep at bay but will ultimately overwhelm them and destroy the world – an apocalypse where even the greatest of gods will be swallowed up by wolves or drowned in venom.
Sure, Asgard and Valhalla might be much grander places than the usual cabin in the woods to bunker down and party up in preparation for the apocalyptic horror.
Sure, the gods are much more powerful than the average horror protagonist in the cabin of the woods. Well, with the exception of Ash Williams in the Evil Dead franchise, but we all know he’s a dead ringer for the god Tyr, even down to the sacrificial loss of his hand.
The gods can even have a bit of fun and adventure before the metaphorical lights go out, aided to some extent by limited co-existence or détente with antagonists that are not quite as adversarial as the average horror antagonists, at least for a while.
But in the end, Norse mythology is the cabin in the woods, besieged by apocalyptic eldritch abominations.
As with the Bible and classical mythology, modern horror rarely adapts the eldritch abominations of Norse mythology directly – with the notable exception of the 2017 film The Ritual (and the book it adapted)– but instead adapts its ambience, template and tropes for the cabin in the woods.
Illustration of Grendel by Joseph Ratcliff Skelton for “Stories of Beowulf” in 1908 – love the handbag! (public domain)
(9) BEOWULF
Haunted Heorot – haunted by monsters.
After the Odyssey (as the epic template of everything), Beowulf is the epic template for horror fiction, endlessly adapted for dark fantasy horror ever since.
It has the classic horror fiction scenario – where humans have trespassed into the territory of something much older and darker, that now emerges at night to prey upon on them.
It even has the classic horror fiction twist – that the first monster Grendel is not the last and the initial victory of slaying him is only a brief illusion, the eye in the storm, as an even more dangerous monster takes its place. In Beowulf, that’s Grendel’s mother, seeking vengeance for her slain son – and unfortunately she does not usually look like Angelina Jolie.
O – and there’s a dragon but that doesn’t come close to the horror or suspense of Grendel and his mother, even when Beowulf dies to slay it.
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).
