Religious Cosmic Horror (Part 2)

Cosmic horror often approaches its subject matter with philosophical themes that have little or nothing to directly do with religion, but religious cosmic horror is not a contradictory subgenre.  It simply approaches a more explicitly philosophical kind of horror that involves intentional religious themes.  As explained previously, while "traditional" cosmic horror focuses on somewhat nihilistic or absurdist concepts, religious cosmic horror focuses on the terror of being on the wrong side of morality or divine fury [1].

A somewhat recent example is the video game Agony, which features imagery and dialogue inspired by the book of Revelation--and features plenty of occurrences in hell that are utterly antithetical to Biblical theology and justice [2].  Still, the atmosphere of this game is one that embraces its religious nature thoroughly without toning down its horror elements.  The pseudo-Christian aspects (and I emphasize that they truly are pseudo-Christian at best) are actually there for cosmic horror effect.

Visual and verbal allusions to "Babylon the Great," the "beast that came out of the sea," and other Biblical phrases remind players that, while there are plenty of unbiblical additions, a thoroughly religious conception of hell is at the core of the game.  In directly focusing on the landscape of hell, Agony reaches beyond the thematic nature of most horror that stops at how individual people are affected by tragedy or supernatural entities while still living; in (very loosely) basing some of its lore for hell on Biblical theology, it at least attempts to portray how terrifying some aspects of Christianity could be.

While Agony as a whole suffers from inconsistent production values, it at least does exemplify the conceptual potential of religious cosmic horror.  Indeed, there is genuine philosophical depth to exploring how divine justice and moral depravity connect with humanity's helplessness as compared to the power of superhuman beings.  Cthulhu and other eldritch beings are simply replaced by either the Christian deity or some other take on the uncaused cause.

It is ironic that more conventional types of horror regularly deal with overtly religious concepts like demonic possession and divine power over demons, yet the subgenre of cosmic horror is often associated with atheistic or apatheistic (that is, apathy towards the issue of God's existence) themes.  Cosmic horror addresses existential concepts by nature, but this does not mean that its horror cannot be coupled with religious concepts.  If certain religions are true, after all, there is much that some people have to fear about reality.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/07/religious-cosmic-horror-part-1.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/06/game-review-agony-switch.html