Why Are So Many Horror Films Christian Propaganda?

By Josiah M. Hesse
October 19, 2016

When it comes to Christian propaganda films, most people think of the obnoxious God's Not Dead, or Nic Cage's get-me-out-of-IRS-debt Left Behind—criticially reviled assaults on the secular world that occasionally make a lot of money. But there's another genre that seems to have the same proselytizing agenda that champions Christianity and demonizes all other faiths (including the faithless): horror movies.

Every year we endure more of these predictably edited, laughably plotted thrillers centered around a young girl foolishly toying with the tools of Satan (usually a Ouija Board), becoming possessed by a demon, and then being exorcised by a priest who was struggling with his faith but now sees the error of rational thinking.

It's true that not all horror films serve as mouthpieces for Christianity—there are even a few examples that condemn church leaders—but nearly any horror film that touches on the supernatural will either condemn the faithless ( The Conjuring, The Rite ), frame non-Jesus religions as spooky (The Wicker Man, The Exorcist, Sinister ), or claim that Biblical prophecy is coming to pass (Legion, The Omen). Even slasher films with no ties to religion often dabble in moralistic tropes against drugs, premarital sex, or doing anything the least bit salacious.

When I was a kid growing up in the satanic panic of the early 90s, I was never allowed in the horror section of our local video shop. We were evangelical Christians who believed in "spiritual warfare," the idea that angels and demons are around us at all times, fighting for our soul. Watching movies like The Craft or Bram Stoker's Dracula could be an invitation for demonic possession. Looking back as an adult atheist, I don't see very much distance between the message I was taught by the church (Satan is everywhere, and you need the Bible to protect you) and that of many scary movies. It would make sense for Christian parents to show these movies to their kids as a biblical version of Schoolhouse Rock!

http://www.vice.com/read/why-are-so-many-horror-films-christian-propaganda

This doesn't explain Chuckie.