Here is a subject I want to explore that I wish I could be more intelligent and eloquent about. Though being a blogger this consideration never stopped me before.
I wonder what connection there is, if any, between the increased loss of faith and the increased interest in horror movies?
As for myself I have been a long time fan of horror movies and the types of films that appear on the B-Movie Catechism. Growing up my father, brother, and I wold go to the drive-in for double and sometimes triple doses of horror movies. Which meant a lot of Hammer films. Throughout life I have always had a fascination with this genre. I would often stay up late at night when I could to watch those classic horror films along with all the schlock. When my father became one of the hosts of Sinister Cinema, a local TV show in Portland, Or that showed 2 horror films on Saturday, I was delighted to do some research for the movies to play that week.
The question I am pondering is to what extent my atheism led to my love of these movies? In a horror movie you get to go beyond materialism into a world full of the supernatural. There are spirits and things that go bump in the night. Things come back from the dead. In horror movies the atheist gets to pretend that he realizes:
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
In horror films there is some echo despite how warped and faint it might be of the resurrection of our bodies. A purely materialistic horror film would be rather boring. The insane killer gets shots and that’s the end of the movie. Any supernatural events just get diagnosed in some psychological fashion. The haunted house is just a problem of old pipes. Something goes bump in the night and you call a plumber.
We instinctively know that there is something more than materialism and horror movies give us some sense of the preternatural. When our philosophy denies such we look for it in other avenues. Or at least that is my guess.
What say you?
4 comments
[…] Another very individual blogging voice is The Curt Jester, AKA Jeff Miller who describes himself as “a former atheist who after spending forty years in the wilderness finds himself with both astonishment and joy a member of the Catholic Church.” Today he opens a debate and muses out loud on the sort of topic that fascinates us too at Give Us This Day; is there any connection between the increased loss of faith and the rise in popularity of horror fil… […]
I enjoy horror movies of the “occult” genre. Those ones where the somewhat flawed exorcist-priest stops the Devil from breaking into the world and causing hell on earth (like “Constantine”).
I don’t consider hack and slash movies as horror. I don’t find them horrifying, they’re just gross. Same with zombie movies, chainsaw stuff, etc.
About 20 years ago, E Michael Jones (publisher of Fidelity Magazine) analyzed classic ‘horror’ stories and found them to be very Catholic, indeed, for this reason: in ALL the cases, the protagonist had done some evil deed, and was (usually) killed following that.
Hitch’s “Bates Motel” is one contemporary example, but Shelley’s work fits there, too.
I’m a big horror fan – although I’m drawn more to the supernatural type rather than slasher movies. Slasher movies are just comical. Movies such as the “Exorcist” or “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” get to me because they’re within the realm of possibility. “The Rite” I loved simply for the scene where the priest finally admits he believes in Satan – which at the same time confirms his belief in God. Good stuff.