Do you like demons in horror movies? Do you like movies that involve demonic possession and other kinds of hellish hauntings? You’ve come to the right place. Grab your crucifix and your holy water. We’re about to get knee-deep in some horror movie demons and demonic possessions.
Demonic Forces: Frightening and Fascinating
What is it about demons that fascinates mere mortals like us? Why do they scare us? The answer has to do with storytelling. Long before the printed word existed, demonic tales circulated through oral traditions and storytelling. They were told around the fire or the dinner table, passed from one generation to the next like horrifying heirlooms.
Demons are interwoven within mythology, religion, and popular culture. They represent evil in its many forms. They can also be used for “instructional” purposes, a warning to stay on the righteous path.
When it comes to horror films, demons help writers and directors scare the hell out of their audience. Have you ever watched a horror movie like The Conjuring or Insidious in the theater, surrounded by strangers? If so, you’ve probably heard the collective gasp that arises during creepy scenes. Maybe you’ve seen people peeking through their fingers to watch. Maybe you’re one of those people.
While writers and directors have many ways to frighten viewers, demons rank near the top. There are several reasons for this, in my view:
- They can move about undetected, often hiding in plain sight.
- They’re usually filled with hate and enjoy human suffering.
- They often have supernatural powers (possession, telekinesis, languages).
- They reflect our earliest learning of right and wrong, good versus evil, etc.
I believe it is this combination — creative freedom and the ability to scare an audience — that lures novelists and screenwriters into the world of demonology. Within the context of horror movies, demons give creators a blank slate to work with. You can use them however you want. And there are so many to choose from!
7 Scary Demons Who Appear in Horror Movies
Let’s start with the obvious disclaimer. Demons aren’t real. While they populate fiction and mythology and religious stories, demonic forces don’t actually roam the earthly realm in search of hapless victims. They’re supernatural bogeymen. Myths and legends.
However, the seven horror movie demons featured below did actually come from the Bible, Greek mythology, ancient religions, and/or demonology texts. So they’re “real” in that sense. They weren’t created just for the movies. They have a history that predates their film appearances.
With that little disclaimer out of the way, here are seven demonic possession horror movies and the troublemaking demons who made them possible…
- Abalam, from The Last Exorcism (2010)
- Beleth, from Marianne (2019)
- Lamia, from Drag Me to Hell (2009)
- Mammon, from Constantine (2005)
- Paimon, from Hereditary (2018)
- Pazuzu, from The Exorcist (1973)
- Valak, from The Conjuring II (2016)
1. Abalam, from The Last Exorcism
Several “reference” books on demonology mention Abalam. This demon shows up in the Ars Goetia, Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, and the Dictionnaire Infernal.
In all cases, Abalam is described as a kind of servant companion of Paimon (another demonic figure on this list). When Paimon appears in response to a summoning or invocation, Abalam and Beball (or Bebal) usually come along for the ride. Or so it is written.
Apparently, if you summon or invoke the demon Paimon, you have to make some kind of offering or sacrifice. Otherwise, he gets cranky. If King Paimon shows up alone, you have to make another sacrifice to summon Abalam and Bael. Overly complicated, if you ask me.
But getting back to demons in horror movies…
Abalam played a central role in the 2010 demonic possession film The Last Exorcism, as well as the 2013 sequel The Last Exorcism II. In the first of those movies, an evangelical minister and self-described exorcist visits a farmer to help the man’s possessed daughter. No spoilers here. Just know that this horror movie features demons, a satanic cult, and a disturbing scene involving broken fingers.
Congratulations, Abalam! You’ve achieved “horror movie demon” status.
2. Beleth, from Marianne (French TV series)
I just started watched Marianne, and I can tell you it scores highly on the creepy scale. This French TV series has gotten a lot of buzz and boasts a respectful 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.
How’s this for an RT critics’ consensus: “Smart and scary with the most unsettling pair of eyes since Nicolas Cage in Vampire’s Kiss, Marianne is pure nightmare fuel.”
This show offers an intriguing premise, as well. A famous horror writer is compelled to revisit her hometown and soon realizes that the evil spirit who haunts her dreams is now wreaking havoc in the real world.
And from what I’ve read, a demon lurks at the heart of this horror TV series. A demon by the name of Beleth.
Beleth has been around for a long time, in terms of supernatural belief. According to the old demonology texts, Beleth is a powerful demonic king who commands 85 legions of lesser demons.
According to witchcraft and demonology references, you can summon Beleth to help you accomplish certain goals or tasks. And if you do it right, following the rules and rituals to a T, it might work out. Or it might go south. Let’s not forget that Beleth is a demon, and powerful enough to bring all sorts of horror into the world.
(But again, these are just stories. So don’t go sacrificing any goats, you whacky kids!)
3. Lamia, from Drag Me to Hell
Lamia is another demon that appears in horror movies. Writer and director Sam Rami (of Evil Dead fame) incorporated Lamia into his 2009 horror film Drag Me to Hell.
No spoilers here, just a summary…
In the movie Drag Me to Hell, a bank loan officer named Christine pisses off the wrong woman and ends up having a curse assigned to her. Here’s the short version: the demon Lamia will torment Christine for three days, before dragging her to Hell.
And boy, does he torment her.
This movie is a demon-fueled funhouse thrill ride, and well worth your time if you’re into that sort of thing. Horror genre fans should find much to like here.
The origins of Lamia, the demon, go back to Ancient Greek mythology. But she wasn’t always a hellish monster. As the story goes, she was once a beautiful queen of Libya. But she hooked up with Zeus, and Hera (Zeus’s wife) went all gonzo on her. Hera forced Lamia to eat her own children and gave her permanent insomnia.
From then on, Lamia served as a kind of “night haunt,” a demon who visited people at night … often eating their children.
In mythology and demonology, the demon Lamia is often depicted as having a goat’s body, huge testicles, and fish-like scales. Gotta love those god-fearing Greeks.
4. Mammon, from Constantine
Constantine was a mediocre movie about a guy with supernatural gifts who sends troublemaking demons back to Hell. It’s based on the DC comic-book series Hellblazer.
The demon Mammon plays a central role in this movie. In early Christian belief, Mammon was one of the seven princes of Hell, each one personifying one of the seven “deadly sins.” Mammon represented greed, and that explains his over-ambitious pursuits in the movie Constantine.
In some European countries, the term “mammon” is currently associated with money or material wealth. That’s not by accident.
If you go back far enough, you’ll encounter conflicting reports as to Mammon’s identity and origins. The Byzantine philosopher and theologian Gregory of Nyssa believed that Mammon was another name Beelzebub, the major demon. But throughout the Middle Ages, most scholars and theologians settled on the belief that Mammon was a separate demon, one associated with riches and greed.
Mammon also appears in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. As one of the fallen angels, Mammon tries to convince the others to be content in Hell. He says they should strive to remain “free, and to none accountable, preferring hard liberty before the easy yoke of servile pomp.” That’s quite a contrast from the ambitious and aspiring demon who appears in the movie Constantine.
5. Paimon, from Hereditary
Hereditary is a stone-cold shocker of a horror movie with a demon / possession theme that runs throughout. Several scenes in this movie made my jaw drop, literally. And that doesn’t happen often.
Here’s the official IMDB description for Hereditary:
“When her mentally ill mother passes away, Annie (Toni Collette), her husband (Gabriel Byrne), son (Alex Wolff), and daughter (Milly Shapiro) all mourn her loss. The family turn to different means to handle their grief, including Annie and her daughter both flirting with the supernatural. They each begin to have disturbing, otherworldly experiences linked to the sinister secrets and emotional trauma that have been passed through the generations of their family.”
Generations. Sinister secrets. You can see where this is going.
Hereditary starts slow but ends with a bang. This movie delivers a chilling, horrific, peeking-through-your-fingers climax you won’t soon forget. I promise you that much.
Spoiler alert: The portion below mentions a central theme of the movie.
So, the demon Paimon plays a central role in this horror movie. There’s a whole lot of Paimon love going on, conjurings and invocations, naked people running around, etc. Paimon is a demon king mentioned in several of the demonology texts or “grimoires.” He is said to be highly loyal to Lucifer himself.
In this film, Paimon’s worshippers are just as scary as the king demon himself. They will stop at nothing to please their king. Their devoutness empowers them — and not in a good way.
Hereditary is a solid horror movie that incorporates demons, demonic possession, and satanic worship. It also further illustrates the staying power of demons within popular culture.
6. Pazuzu, from The Exorcist
Pazuzu is arguably the best-known demon in horror movies. Or in books, for that matter. Pazuzu is the ancient demon who possesses young Regan MacNeil in the classic horror film The Exorcist (based on the equally classic novel by the same name).
William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel, The Exorcist, shocked the world when it first came out. It became a huge hit in the U.S. and overseas. Director William Friedkin retained that shock value when making the movie version, which came out two years after the book. There are some truly unsettling scenes in this film, all of which stem from demonic possession.
Here’s a fun fact about the demon Pazuzu. He is never mentioned by name in the movie version. Not once. There’s plenty of talk about “a demon” possessing Regan, but the name “Pazuzu” is never used within the script. Fathers Merrin and Karras don’t even use the demon’s name during the exorcism ritual. They just refer to it as “demon.”
But we know it’s Pazuzu because his image appears several times in the movie, in statue form and also in a scary bedroom scene toward the end.
In the ancient Mesopotamian religion, Pazuzu was the king of the wind demons and son of the god Hanbi. He has the body of a man, the head of a lion or dog, taloned feet, two sets of wings, a scorpion’s tail and a serpentine penis. (You read that last part right.) In statues and iconography, Pazuzu is usually holding his right hand up and left hand down.
The Pazuzu demon of ancient mythology is a lot more chill than the version who appears in The Exorcist. In Mesopotamian belief, he was believed to frighten away other evil spirits, protecting humans in the process. That’s quite different from the hateful entity that torments Regan in the novel and film.
7. Valak, from The Conjuring II
We end our little tour of demons in horror movies with a stopover in The Conjuring universe. In the first film of the franchise (The Conjuring, 2013), a family is tormented by the spirit of an accused witch named Bathsheba. But the second film takes a left turn into demon country.
In the second movie (The Conjuring 2, 2016), we are introduced to a demon named Valak who harasses a family in the London suburb of Enfield. In the UK and Ireland, this movie was marketed as The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case.
The demon in this horror movie bears little resemblance to the similarly named “Valac” from old mythology. They share a name, but that’s about it. The writers of The Conjuring 2 used some creative freedom when introducing Valak in their movie, at one point depicting her as an evil nun (who later starred in her own lackluster movie).
The “real” demon Valac — that is, the one featured in the old demonology texts and grimoires — is described as a winged, angel-like boy riding a two-headed dragon. That Valac (sometimes “Ualac” or “Volac”) is sort of a mid-level demon with the ability to summon and control serpents.
Valac the demon is not nearly as frightening as some of the others featured in ancient belief systems, religions and mythology. From a demonic standpoint, he’s pretty approachable. The Conjuring 2 writers and directors created a much scarier version for the film.
In the movie, Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) says to the demon: “You are Valak, the defiler, the profane, the marquis of snakes.” That whole title was created just for the film. The Valac of old mythology and demonology was never labeled as a profane defiler.
That’s the beauty of storytelling. You can take demons from the past and reshape them to fit your needs. It’s the demonic version of world-building.
Unnamed Entities from Other Films
The list above includes named demons that appear in horror movies. In addition to those, there have been many unnamed demons featured in films. Movies like Annabelle, Insidious and Paranormal Activity incorporate demonic forces and possession within their stories. But they don’t go so far as to name the demons.
In some ways, this makes the malevolent forces even more frightening. It brings a touch of mystery into the picture. We, as viewers, are just as clueless about their identities as the terrified characters in the films.
Honorable Mention Goes to Lamashtu
The horror movie demons above are pretty terrifying. But there’s a lot of uncharted territory here. There are soooo many demons named and described in the old grimoires. Some of them make the demons listed above look like altar boys.
For instance, let us consider Lamashtu.
Lamashtu comes from ancient Mesopotamian mythology. (Mesopotamia occupied the area that is now Iraq and Syria.) Lamasthtu, daughter of the sky god Anu, was a really nasty demon. Sometimes she is described as a female demon, other times a demigoddess or monster. Regardless of the label, she brought nothing but trouble into the earthly realm.
Lamashtu was said to haunt women during childbirth. She would also steal children away from their mothers as they were breastfeeding, gnawing their bones and drinking their blood. Lamashtu had the head of a lion with donkey teeth and ears, a hairy body, and sharp talons on her bird-like feet. I know … sexy, right?
The point here is that there are plenty of scary demons out there, just waiting to make the jump into horror movies or novels. Demons that have never been introduced to modern readers and moviegoers. If you’re a writer looking for a fresh take on the demonic horror genre, start with this list.
Find something horrifying, something that has never been done before, and put your own spin on it. Create your own “marquis of snakes.”