Oh Lord, Oh Jesus Christ! – Does The Horror Film Hate Religion?

July 2, 2013
Craig Stewart

Like most abusive relationships, horror films and religion rarely show their true colors toward each other while guests are around. Don’t be fooled. Beneath their simplistic veneer are complex associations culminating in a macabre maelstrom of give and take – love and hate. They are in constant collision with one another; all the better to hide their forbidden embrace.

When considering horror from the pulpit’s perspective, one can’t help but conjure the wagging finger of condemnation declaring these insidious films as blasphemy. It is true the horror film exist to push boundaries and delve into the forbidden, two things that religion hates. These films show you the human as meat. Images of sadistic bloodshed are splattered across most of their frames combined with rampant explicit sexuality. Resist the temptations! The wagging finger commands you! Horror shows a side of human nature often suppressed by spiritual thinking. While theologians usually delight in elevating the individual from just another animal into a sacred child of the almighty, horror nihilistically keeps the individual down in the muck, usually by depicting a decapitation or two or the murder of innocence, that sort of thing. Wonderfully tasteless films like Friday the 13th, The Hills Have Eyes and even modern classics like Saw or Martyrs seem to celebrate the measurable earthly limits we find ourselves in. They don’t pretend you live forever, they don’t pretend your body wont rot into nothing and they certainly don’t pretend it wont hurt. Perhaps blasphemous is the right word after all. These materialist notions form a full-fledged attack on the human spirit as defined by religion. Yet, when we move beyond a surface level critique, we find that morality gives religion and horror a level ground for them to kiss and makeup… or make out… feverishly.

There has been much written regarding the strong moral compass of the slasher film subgenre and most of those refer to Friday the 13th. We’ve all heard the list: you have premarital sex and you die, you do drugs and you die, you are mean and make bad decisions and you die. Now, reread the list only this time replace the word “die” with the phrase “go to hell”. We begin to see some common interests starting to emerge. Is it just me or did this date suddenly take a turn for the better? Perhaps a flirtatious eye from horror coupled with some wondering hands from religion. Watch it you two, or you’ll end up just like one of those hormonal teens at Camp Crystal Lake.

The truth is religion has utilized horror stories to push its ideology from the moment of its birth. The threat of hells everlasting fire does more than get people’s attention, it makes them complacent in fear. Do you want to burn in hell forever? No, then listen up. Do you want Jason to split you down the center with his machete? I didn’t think so, so keep it in your pants. Most people would find the story of the crucifixion to be fairly grotesque, just ask anyone who has seen Passion of the Christ. Matching that grotesquery, in Friday The 13th Part 4: The Final Chapter, Crispin Glover is nailed by his palms to a doorframe in true crucifix fashion – sadly there was no resurrection for him. Nothing controls like terror does, as religion can attest to. So, although the extreme shock of most slashers can be considered offensive, religion should find the morals and the approach in implementing them quite agreeable.

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