Fifty Horror Clichés That Need to Die in a Fire

#32: Demons Are Sexy

  When you think of the traditional demon in horror fiction, what do you imagine?  If you are a hardcore fan of the writing genre, then you probably imagine some horrific looking creature sporting a pair of black horns.  Their faces look like the worst raw beef, with golden or red eyes that seemingly sear into your innocent soul.  They can be humanoid in shape, but due to the creatures usually loving to take on more beastly forms to be more intimidating, their forms take on something equal to nightmare fuel.  The most common of these forms usually is a commonly feared insect like a spider, or an animal with supernatural roots in folklore such as the wolf.  No matter what that form is, it can generally agreed upon by horror fans that demons when given a physical form are quite terrifying.

  If you are only a casual horror fan, you probably think of blood red humanoid creatures with the same black horns as in the other example.  They usually sport bat-like wings, and additionally share the first example's golden or red eyes.  These demons tend to look masculine in general, sometimes sporting muscle.  Beastly black claws fester out of their hands and feet in a frighteningly glistening glare.  These creatures are mostly lacking clothes, and hold some type of pitchfork to poke people with.

  Then there is the example of demons that have come up more recently that make entirely no sense to fit the criteria of a horror story.  These demons are almost entirely human shaped, with the only difference between them and regular people being potentially their eye color.  Almost all of these demons are male, sporting attractive features such as jet black hair and six pack abs.  Their clothes mostly consist of black, usually with an eighteenth or nineteenth century theme.  The only thing that would give anyone indication of this character being a scary demon at all would be their ghastly abilities and very mischievous natures. 

  If you are thinking of the third example, which I expect most people to have chosen, then you have just stumbled upon the cliché of making demons wrongly attractive.  Demons in horror fiction are not at all meant to be a potential next date to the prom like the characters in The Vampire Diaries TV show.  They are supposed to reflect the worst aspects of human nature, showing the ugliness of our hidden natures.  When it comes to a well written horror demon character, the best way to depict them is as undesirable and creepy, like in my first example.  All of them are supposed to put chills up our spines when we take even the smallest glance at them.  That is the point of the horror genre's appeal of spine chilling scares.  Why suddenly demons are suddenly becoming more sexy in horror fiction is beyond me.

  Not only does this cliché seem like a bad excuse to add romanticism in horror fiction, but it takes away the creativity of the demon character as a whole.  If you remember from what I said before about demons, you would see that I mentioned that demons could take on many forms and not just those that are more humanoid.  Demon characters can be molded to any degree you want, created to best reflect the fear in question that you are trying to depict.  The level of terror you want to add to these creatures depends solely on your taste and personal preferences.

  Let's take for example a demon character I have created in the past; a gluttony representative I call Lang.  To represent the theme of endless hunger in the demon, I gave the creature three jackal-like heads, taking inspiration from the greek monster Cerberus, the three headed dog.  As punishment for his misdeeds, the three parts of his being constantly fight against each other for the next meal, creating easy bloodshed.  All three of his necks are covered in icky green scales like a snake's, since Lang tends to swallow most of his food whole.  His body is a huge plump pumpkin with a huge mouth in the middle of it that can leak out seeds and drools constantly for more food.  For this idea, I had two inspirations; The Other Father from the film Coraline and Dusknoir from the fourth generation of Pokémon.  To make him intimidating in size, I fashioned Lang to have bulky arms and legs that could easily break stone.  Around his wrists and ankles, I gave Lang heavy as heck chains, depicting the fact that he is being eternally punished in the fires of Hell.  Adding extra intimidation factors to his design are a pointed tail shaped like a knife, and boils protruding from multiple parts of his body.  Finally, there is the manner of Lang's name, which is after the scheming manipulator from the TV show American Horror Story: Murder House, Tate Langdon.

  Like with my example of the demon character Lang, you have complete creative freedom when it comes to creating a monstrous character.  Even if my design to some may not be the most original, I still used the needed basis of the worst aspects gluttony has to offer in order to create a decent enough prompt.  That is how greatly terrifying demon characters can be created, usually in a step by step journey.  They are not supposed to make our hearts stop in lust.  Demons are meant to scare the living daylights out of us!

  So if you consider creating demon characters in the future, try aiming for a more terrifying angle.  Do not limit yourself in the details of making this creature ghastly or just chilling to look at.  Remember, you do not want to take this demon to the prom.  Save that role for characters such as Sebastian from Black Butler, who still manages to be quite intimating due to his mysteriousness and very calculating nature.  Aim for something scary that audiences will not soon forget about.