Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
- The Angels of Laguna. Imagine angels from the Scripture turned up to eleven in terms of Body Horror, malice, and physical anatomy. Their bodies have an exoskeletal structure made of gold and marble, and many appear to have human faces that are non-threatening and child-like in appearance, but beneath the skin are monstrous features like gaping maws or slanted-pupil eyes which Bayonetta exposes as she attacks them. There's an endless amount of these things, they get weirder the higher their ranking is, and they're constantly gunning for Bayonetta. Even worse, they can't be seen by regular humans, but are no less deadly as Luka's father can attest when they ripped him apart by his arms. Luka's response when he actually seems them using Cereza's glasses in Bayonetta: Bloody Fate sums it upLuka: I thought angels were supposed to be pretty and play harps! These guys are monsters!
- Contrasting with most of the game, there's the flashback to the death of Luka's father, where we see four angels grabbing him by the arms and legs, and Gory Discretion Shot occurs as they tear him apart.
- They also have no respect for humans and will kill them with impunity and use their souls to make more angels, or just manipulate and try to kill them all just For the Evulz.
- In order to gain their incredible power, all Umbra Witches must make a pact with an Infernal Demoness to sponsor them and allow them to improve their power. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of the Umbra With getting their soul Dragged Off to Hell by whatever demon they made a deal with when they die. They need to kill angels everyday to stave off their demonic benefactors, but that only lasts for so long. This fate includes Jeanne, every Umbra Witch who died during the Witch Hunts, Bayonetta's mother, and eventually Bayonetta herself. You actually get to see this happen to any boss that you kill; it gets dragged kicking and screaming to Hell by a bunch of clawing red arms. The same thing happens to Bayonetta on the Game Over screen if you choose not to continue.
- Failing to save Cereza from the disguised Joy results in the Joy successfully escaping with her into Paradiso, leaving behind her cat doll to fall onto the ground. The Game Over screen then showcases said doll, and if you chose not to continue, a clawed red arm will snatch it.
- Father Balder. If his voice and control over Angels doesn't unnerve you, his plan to destroy and remake reality by summoning a Mad God will. He's also no slouch in combat; he easily manhandles Bayonetta in their first meeting and even kills two of her demon summons with ease.
- Many of Bayonetta's Torture Attacks and Climax Attacks (her ways of sacrificing angels to her demonic summons) are equally cool and horrifying. Many angels are torn apart or crushed into fleshy bits before being dragged off to Hell. Bayonetta herself seems to greatly enjoy watching them suffer, and considering all the grief they've caused her, it's no surprise.
- The Witch Hunts were pretty gruesome. A whole clan of powerful witches and warriors get slaughtered by the full wrath of Heaven descending upon them and the humans who attacked them after being weakened by many years of Umbra Witch-Lumen Sage wars.
- The research halls of the Ithavoll building feature racks of many giant test tubes filled with blood, which also happen to be shaped like iron maidens and have a giant needle piercing through where the person's chest would be. Concept art confirms that they have corpses inside them
◊. Presuming that these corpses are Umbra Witches, it can be horrifying to guess how these factor into Father Balder's plan for the resurrection of Jubileus. - Jubileus is a pretty disturbing take on God. She's the top angel in Laguna and all the ones in Heaven pray to her, but when she's summoned incompletely, she starts to randomly destroy reality. Even Father Balder is terrified of the armageddon she would cause if left unchecked. Even worse, Word of God says Jubileus' real personality is that of an average 15 year old human teenager, and as you know, Teens Are Monsters.
- Did you crash the Final Boss into a planet? The planet explodes with her perfectly intact, then she glares at the camera with a Nightmare Face and lunges at it, followed immediately by "THE WITCH HUNTS ARE OVER".
- The nature of the afterlife is pretty much Religious Horror for humanity in the Bayonetta verse. One side has Paradiso with the aforementioned nightmarish angels and their lack of care for humans, and the other side has the Inferno, with its wide assortment of unholy monsters who will gladly eat or torture any human souls they get their hands on. Mankind is screwed the second they take their last breath.
- The Angels are fairly horrifying, but Jesus fucking Christ are the Auditio, the game's main four bosses prior to the final three, top of the line in this regard. And worst of all, none of them fear death; Sapientia even laughs as he's dragged to hell.
- Fortitudo is initially fairly tame; just a two-headed dragon who acts fairly reasonably and docile until directly challenged. But then we learn his 'heads' are actually just arms, and his real head is his torso, which has an emotionless face on it.
- Temperantia is also rather tame, and unlike Fortitudo, he never really gets all too visually horrifying, but his sheer size and the storms he creates would leave anyone unlucky enough to get on his bad side shivering with fear.
- As far as the Auditio go, none are as downright disturbing as Iustitia, whose chaotic appearance◊ is basically a Quintesson-esque group of rotating faces with tentacles, except it also has tentacles coming out of its mouths that have fucking faces on them, and you remove them by making him cough up a part of them and then cutting them off from there. The entire fight is just horrible from a visual standpoint, and even worse, he's described as being the Virtue closest to hell; yes, this thing is genuinely a step away from being an actual demon. Iustitia also has an overpowering theme and a bizarre high-pitched voice as opposed to the other much deeper-toned Auditio.
- Sapientia is definitely the least terrifying in terms of appearance, going more for spectacle. However, its sheer size is fairly intimidating.
- You'd basically have to be trying to see it, but if you fail to escape a Beloved's grab attack, you see it crush Bayonetta to death in one hand with audible crunching sounds before throwing her dead body to the ground and reducing it to a bloody pulp in one stomp. The unsettling brutality makes being cut to ribbons by wrathful Affinities seem downright pleasant by comparison.
