Christian Horror | Renegade Cut
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- čas přidán 23. 08. 2024
- Why are Christian exploitation films filled with Evangelical Protestant values and supernatural horror films filled with Catholicism? How are supernatural horror movies made by Hollywood inherently Christian? Support Renegade Cut Media through Patreon: / renegadecut
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Very few people get blocked in my comments section, but if you spam reply after reply every few minutes until I answer your question, and then I tell you not to, and THEN you reply with an attitude, expect to get blocked. It's not in my channel's best interest to block liberally, but I have my limits. Don't be a jerk.
@Ominous Pictures That's actually pretty close to the Gnostic conception of the Old Testament God, Demiurge I think they called him.
@Ominous Pictures Not to the best of my knowledge, though, now that I think about it, it might have been an influence on Clive Barker's novel Imagica.
So I've noticed that it's almost never grown men who are possessed in these sorts of movies. Young girls, women, and sometimes young boys, but never grown men. They tend to be the protagonists, too. Especially noticeable since a lot of other forms of horror films, a woman is generally the protagonists. I find that all quite interesting.
Huh! Good detail.
The corruption of innocence is used to heighten the horror. Some movies also use it to allow "pure young women" to behave wantonly to both further the idea that such behaviour is bad/evil, and to titilate the usually male audience "guilt free" since the person is now an evil entity/whatever.
Plus then the manly men can fix everything and have a love interest/damsel in distress built in.
Check out "the Rite " with Anthony Hopkins
@Christopher Green Actually you're all wrong. Grown men can be possessed by demons too. Men are Worser than Karens.
*hums menacingly in Patriarchy*😈
I was waiting for you to bring up Scooby Doo. You never disappoint.
Yeah, never realized the standard Scooby plot had such deep roots.
@diamond dogs No shit? Happy birthday, Scoobs!
In a world filled with shaggys I'm glad we have Velmas
Just when I thought I’d be clever, the closing segment had Scooby Doo.
But considering the movies with genuine monsters where skepticism turned out to be wrong...well at least Jesus wasn’t the answer.
I was about to write: "What about the plot of every Scooby Doo episode ever?", but luckily he put some clips at the end.
I'm a big horror fan and it because so tiring for every haunting/possession movie to demonise/mock the token skeptic and athiest. One underrated movie I love that didn't go so hard on this was "Ava's Possessions" which I love because it picks up where most possession movies end and seems to take place in a world where possession is a known thing and has group support therapy. There's no point where an atheist is mocked as possession is a rare but accepted thing, but the support group incentivizes expelling a demon through force of will rather than overt faith. It also tackles the idea of where the possession comes from and whether it is always wholly a bad thing.
Well, now you're making me look at how Scooby-Doo as a television series was always about greedy, cruel humans and as a film series it's about how monsters are entirely real.
I want to say you’re the first person online I’ve seen call them con artists, I’ve seen CZcams channels do videos on the Warrens, mention the sketchy things they’ve done and still try to say they were good warriors of God.
It’s nice to hear another person actually say they were scam artists.
Crazy how Scooby-Doo of all things subverts supernatural worldviews left and right (mostly, there are exceptions, of couse)
Well you have to subvert expectations otherwise you become too predictable
I love how Carpenter turned this concept on its head in Prince of Darkness by making the Catholic Church merely a cover-up for the much more "Lovecraftian" truth. People would be much more likely and willing to believe in the supernatural stories of God, Jesus and the Devil than in cosmic beings and anti-beings because it boils concepts way too enormous to comprehend down to understandable archetypes. The Catholic priest turns to scientists to solve the mystery, because the secret order of priests were merely the keepers of the secrets while the solution lies with science.
I find it very disappointing for its lackluster incorrect use of science in the movie. Carpenter should've made a better research there.
I love John Carpenter movies as it seems like issues and people in real life starts to be like characters and scenes in his movies.
Thank you for calling out the Warrens, too few people talk about that when talking about those films.
Right?!? I was practically cheering lol
I hated terms like 'the west' and 'western nations' because it really just means 'murica and whatever country I want to include at that point in time'. As someone who lives in what would broadly be considered a 'western nation', I always find very little cultural significance in that term. My country's media in general is secular and the deep catholic/christian overtones in American horror movies or even just regular media always bothered me and very much stood out.
What country is that?
I'll admit that when it's done well, supernatural horror is one of my favorite subgenres- The Exorcist, Carrie, The Shining, and Rosemary's Baby are among my favorite films, but you do bring up a very interesting point. I'm not a religious person (not really an atheist, but I don't belong to any organized religion of definitive belief in any deity or supernatural presence), but I've always had a love for the spooky and surreal, which is why the horror genre in general has always captivated me. I'd be very interested in seeing a supernatural horror film that takes the perspective of a different culture or mythology. When I was a little girl I would read books about monsters, demons, and ghost stories from all around the world, and always thought that they'd make for a great film.
Carrie is a bit of an inversion of Christian horror in that her mother's fanaticism denied her the love and care she needed to handle her life or her power. I also see it as an ominous harbinger for school shootings that have since become infamous from the 1990s on.
I was just thinking about Scooby Do when you mention skeptics being the hero - that’s the entire formula of the show :D
I think you just made me realize why I like The Hound of the Baskervilles so much. A perceived supernatural terror allows for easier manipulation of the public by those in power. Deduction, trusting our senses, and not allowing our perception to warp reality via our easily influenced amygdala (fight/flight/freeze mammalian brain) end up giving us the real answers & showing us who's pulling the strings. Great video : )
Hollywood isn't run by the Pope, thank God.
I see what you did there.
Love what you did there.
This is why the haunting of hill house is the GOAT. The ghost are secular and the story is about the people and the trauma they endure. The show is a story with ghosts in it, now a story about ghosts. That is how ghost stories should be written.
I've always wondered if this Christian horror is more scary to people who were raised Christian. Even though I enjoy horror, I kind of hate most movies that conclude in "and so it was a demon/witch/satanist". I've always found Witch movies, especially, uncomfortable. I understand the horror behind the Christian idea of a witch, but it just feels really disrespectful if they're set in somewhere like Salem because it's like claiming all of the innocent people who lost their lives to witch hunts actually DID deserve to die or WERE evil.
I definitely enjoy non-supernatural horror a lot more, horror that sort of focuses on humanity. Or a good creature film that isn't about demons.
I assume Christian horror is scary to people who haven't read a history book.
I have mixed feelings about the movie VVitch for this reason.
On one hand it clearly portrays the paranoia and extreme abusive dynamic and fundamentalism in a 1600s puritan family as their own downfall.
On the other It plays the evil witch trope and women falling for satan completely straight. One could interpret that satans character sorta manipulated all the events in the film to happen by exploiting the family
On the other other it’s a breathtakingly well made film that’s just the right amount of unsettling and birthed the meme “aren’t you tired of being nice, don’t you wanna just go ape shit”
@@Joyride37 I didn't personally enjoy VVitch, but as a student of history I actually thought it was excellent to see a movie that portrays the Puritan worldview so totally and effectively, no flinching away to make audience and their modern sensibilities more comfortable.
The past was a different place whose people thought about the world differently than we do today. Most people don't understand *how* differently.
Here is an idea I find interesting. What if there was a witch hunt movie BUT the witches were actually dudes and they were the guys running the trials in an attempt to shift blame from themselves and to like have people killed for like an evil sacrifice or something
Not all of them, but some of them certainly did.
Witch-related media is one of my favorite themes in media, and I always remember that I am enjoying it in defiance of the establishment, and in support of our culture's rebel girls.
Dude I am mega feeling the witch vibes. Witch renaissance.
I kinda lol'd at the genre for years, as a materialist/atheist, until I grokked that deeper layer of cultural rebellion.
Can we also add that in instances where the “creepy cult” is portrayed by Christianity in these types of horror stories, it’s always one that’s twisted hilariously out of proportion to be seen just as much as a perversion as the pagan cults.
Can we have a horror story where the creepy killer cult are, IDK, Southern Baptists. One where the supernatural threat is allowed to happen by a neglectful, careless, and apathetic god. One where mankind is forced to find a solution in modern science rather than old faith? Please?
Do you mean real life?
Ghostbusters?
Check out Midnight Mass. It’s a pretty good horror show that includes a skeptic figure who isn’t discredited in the end. Kinda stereotypical creepy catholic stuff, no southern baptists, but still.
Why can't we have more classic-scooby-doo-like plots?
If you think about it, the first RDJ Sherlock Holmes film was a Scooby Doo plot for adults.
I mean...it's probably because Scooby Doo ruined it. Introduce a supernatural plot, end with a Scooby Doo villain reveal, and people are gonna be PISSED. "Aw man, it was just an episode of Scooby Doo!" will be their refrain.
Zelkiiro I once read a review on the film Unfriended where that would have been a really good twist. “Laura” taunting her bullies could have been instead a hacker ruining their lives with false information and invading their privacy all for the sake of revenge for what they did to Laura, becoming a bully themselves and going too far. It would have been quite a twist, that’d actually have made the movie more interesting.
Netflix's Castlevania is great portraying the church as pretty distinct villains and women of science branded witches as the victims
Ah, there's that old episode of the series Kung Fu, where a village is is held hostage by a "magician" who's powers feel very real. However our hero overcomes the magic simply by not believing in it. We need more stories like that these days.
That is one of the first things that came to my mind while watching this vid. It's a classic about how faith/belief can be misused by charlatans and maybe a greater commentary on such as well.
The ending was perfect! I was thinking to myself, "Scooby-Doo pretty much ruined the pro-skeptic approach." I see that thought didn't escape Leon either.
Seriously though, I found this video quite interesting. I think horror is in a really good place right now and I think a lot of the movies mentioned in this video are legitimately good but I never really thought about the implications. And to be honest, I'm guessing most of the writers and directors nowadays don't really either, I think they just wanted to see a return of sorts to older style horror like The Exorcist, The Omen, or Amityville Horror and have carried over many of those tropes. I think a clever filmmaker could probably do something really clever with a demonic possession story to really turn things on its head. Here's a few ideas:
A priest, who is confident in his faith, gets called in to do an exorcism but he realizes their is no possession and the person is actually the victim of abuse from their ultra fundamentalist family so the priest has to find a way to save them.
A person is suspected of being possessed after exhibiting powers/hearing voices but it turns out they are actually a legit prophet or maybe even the second-coming of Christ. This could be a good avenue to explore the failure of contemporary American Christianity to actually live by any semblance of actual Christian values.
Finally, a movie where the demon is actually the good guy, empowering their host to create positive change in their life. You can even throw in an exorcist coming to realize this, effectively moving him from a position of strong faith at the beginning of the film to one where he is questioning it in the end.
As to that second idea, track down Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov. There's a vignette in it that has a nice, cynical take on a Second Coming of Christ which might help with that plot seed.
It did a great public service. It taught kids there are no such things as ghosts and spooks. Just adults trying to scare you. And that they never want to pay full price for real estate.
House on Haunted Hill (1959): some rich guy invites a bunch of strangers to spend the night in an allegedly haunted house ; it turns out to be (most likely) just a hoax.
House on Haunted Hill (1999): some rich guy invites a bunch of strangers to spend the night in an allegedly haunted house ; it turns out to be (without a doubt) absolutely fucking haunted.
This, exactly this. I'm a practising Witch and I love horror, but most of these movies are frustrating and dull. I like it when it's portrayed as a story, rather than being real and true. I can enjoy Christian and Catholic lore, but not when it's framed as truth.
As a Witch I always go for the mundane answer first. Being paralysed by demons at night? You've probably got a sleep disorder called sleep paralysis. Aliens are visiting you and making you see flashing lights? Maybe you should get a eye test or brain scan. Been diagnosed with a medical problem that requires meds? Please take them, don't just use alternative therapies.
Only when all other possibilities have been exhausted do I go down the supernatural route, because it's probably something normal that's happening.
The new Sabrina. Yuck!
same, coming from a Catholic-raised witch. we don't dabble with demons as witches. we don't even believe in demons, in that sense. the witchy life is my true calling, and i know we don't worship a devil. there's really no such thing. so merry meet, and blessed be.
What do modern witches do? I'm very curious
This makes me think about how a lot of international Asian horror films always tend to surprise me because the horror elements that are assumed are so drastically different than Western horror movies. I also feel like the idea of "folk horror" is refreshing for a similar reason. The accepted truths in these groups/ societies are so far removed from Christianity.
This is a tangent but one of the many things that makes me like the original Castlevania series over LoS is that, although the Church does play a pretty significant role in the series as a whole and the Belmonts fight demons with holy weapons, it isn't nearly as religious. It includes no overt Christian ideology and concepts. Holy weapons are just what kills vampires. The Belmonts' own religious views are irrelevant (and the Netflix adaptation really portrays the Church in a bad light. Despite Trevor's use of holy weapons, he really hates the Church, for understandable reasons).
As religious horror films go, I think "The VVitch" nailed it. It isn't about Wicca and doesn't pretend to be, since Wicca existed circa 1950 and "The VVitch" is based on authentic eighteenth-century Puritan perceptions of witchcraft.
I wonder if the drop in "Skeptic was right" stories are because creators are scared of their serious stories being associated with Scooby Doo.
That's the theory I subscribe to. Nothing will take the air out of a serious film like being comparable to Scooby Doo.
I think it has more to do with fear over Christianity dying.
@@eartianwerewolf of course, their fear is correct. At least in the West.
You know it's really funny when a video describes plots like the one talked about at 17:38, think, "Hey, that sounds like Scooby Doo!" then the video creator actually has a clip from the show at the end. Sure, I doubt many people would consider the show "horror" but it is pretty interesting to think how that show almost always had the supernatural just be some jerk in a costume.
Stephen King can be credited for taking the supernatural story away from the church.
The biggest credit for that in the 20th century America goes to Lovecraft, who was an actual materialist atheist, unlike King, who's a believer.
We seem to go through these cycles of what 'horror' is, and what causes it or can stop it, depending on the social/political era we happen to find ourselves living in. Right now, we're (unfortunately) in a climate that embraces and enforces conservative Christian values. In the 1950's, it was fear of 'the bomb', and what monsters nuclear power could bring about. But, because we live in a predominately Christian culture, the 'heroes' of many supernatural horror films are Christian - and since the Catholic Church has a long history of focusing on sin, formal rites to deal with it, the 'weakness' of women and their supposed susceptibility to demonic forces - that's what comes through in these films. And, because we live in a culture that prizes youth and beauty; we've also seen the 'body horror' films, where torture porn focuses on young, pretty people. When religion had a less powerful hold on society, and economic fears were predominate - pre-WWII - ghosts and demons were more easily portrayed as mere tricksters and scammers in disguise. Who knows what form horror in film and literature will take in the future? My guess is, because of climate change, it will be Nature itself that becomes the antagonist in horror. We've already seen that in films like 'Bird Box', the unfortunate 'The Happening' and even as far back as 'The Birds'.
@s p Solid analysis there. You got it spot on and that water tight breakdown of cultural interpretation through the decades makes me want to shake your hand...If I may add though. In the nuclear age of the 50s we, America, had the Red Scare occurring so the fear of "The Other" which, although ever present in horror throughout recorded history, was I would say the most prevalent here with our undermining fear of foreigners (Russians, Chinese, other Communist centers) made us question even our own people's loyalties to mainly the state. These ppl were seen as less than human see Invasion of the Body Snatchers (which had a better more undermining scary version in theb1970s).
'My guess is, because of climate change, it will be Nature itself that becomes the antagonist in horror.'
You can already see this in video games, ever notice how almost all modern zombie video games point out that the origin of zombification is some sort of pathogen/virus? Older zombie media was about consumerism and originally magic (aka foreign religion.). There are also a number of games where the antagonists are responding to human activity ie: Gears of War.
@@clapattack7235 Invasion of the Body Snatchers beautifully reflected changes in society in each of its versions.
@@clapattack7235 Thanks, and you're right - I did forget the whole 'Commie-threat' aspect of '50s films. 'Body Snatchers' is a good example. :)
Don't forget about natural catastrophy films, like Volcano, Dante's Peak or almost everything by Roland Emerich. Or the disaster films of the 70's. The trend of nature being the antagonist has a long history. Although you probably meant nature as antagonist in supernatural form.
I just watched an Italian horror movie I really liked, "Il Signor Diavolo" (Mister Devil), and I really appreciated the ending
SPOILER ALERT, though I'm not sure if it'll ever get released outside of Italy
The movie's protagonist starts of skeptical of the Devil's existence, but has to twist an investigation over religious crime, to make it look like the church had no hand in it. As he learns the story of how a boy killed a deformed kid of his own age, believing him to be the Devil, the protagonist starts to believe the boy's version of the story. We have the climax when the sacristan leads the detective into the crypt, where allegedly the corpse of a girl, torn and devoured by her Devil-brother, lies. The corpse is found (but if you're not too afraid to look well, you'll see that the corpse is just decayed, not torn) but the sacristan closes the door to the crypt, leaving the detective alone, and revealing that he was working together with the child-childmurderer all along. At a first watch many believe that this boy was actually the real devil, but that doesn't make sense storywise. Then you notice that all of the supernatural happenings appeared only either in nightmare phantasies or in the story told by the child-childmurderer, which was so riddled with folklore elements, that it's easy to brush it off as a clouded version of the happenings. My interpretation is that the sacristan has invented over and over new horror stories to scare the people and have great control over the community.
But explaining it all to someone who hasn't watched the movie is difficult, so recommend to everyone to just trying to watch this film
I kind of enjoy some cases of how Doctor Who has dealt with faith. I can think of two particular favourite stories where faith was a major point, but without Christianity being played as the best/only "proper" faith, as well as the concept that sometimes a loss/breaking of faith is good or necessary. (And please hear me out on this - I know for a lot of folks DW is just cheesy schlock sci-fi, but sometimes it does stuff)
The Classic Doctor Who story "The Curse of Fenric" deals with faith as a tool/shield for repelling the antagonist minions, the Haemovores. It works, but the primary characters who are at some point defended by their faith are not using faith in a religion or god. There is a Christian minister who tries to use his faith in God, but it fails because, as the viewer has already been made aware, his faith faltered some time ago due to current events (the story is set during WWII).
The Doctor himself uses faith in his various companions (there's a scene where, to repel Haemovores, the Doctor starts to mutter something to himself. If you pay attention/lip read, he's reciting the names of prior companions who have travelled with him) and, later, the Doctor is forced to break his current companion Ace's faith in him so that the main Haemovore can approach and, thanks to the scenario, destroy not our heroes, but Fenric, the eldritch being who had instigated the shenanigans.
Modern Who has dealt with the problem of faith as defense as well, most effectively in "The God Complex" where the Doctor and companions encounter creatures, the Minotaurs, who feed on faith, thus giving individuals with little or no faith an edge in survival. Initially the Doctor mistakes the Minotaurs feeding on faith as feeding on fear, leading him to encourage clinging to some sort of belief in the other characters. Through a combination of agnostic-ish companion Rory surviving despite a lack of any strong beliefs, and the companion Amy losing her faith in the Doctor, they get things worked out in time. There's also plenty of revelation that the Minotaurs weren't malicious - they were just surviving in a situation that allowed them to (whether they liked it or not)
I just like stuff that addresses that belief in something can be helpful - but scepticism has its definite place too, and if you do have belief, it doesn't have to be in a god or a church. It can be your fellow beings or yourself, instead of some religious thing.
Premiering around the 50th anniversary of Scooby-Doo. Coincidence?
I guess this is why Lovecraftian horror is all the rage these days. It's essentially atheist horror, with the ultimate evil being alien and totally detatched from christianity. No catholic Preist is gonna kill Cthulu. That doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't carry some of the same baggage though, Lovecraft distrusted foreign religions much like white christians, perhaps even worse since he was very racist. Voodoo, wikka, ancient religions, and even the inuits for some reason are treated as being more in-line with the chaotic primordial evil.
Arguably this is the point where Lovecraft doesn't just pick up chrisitan baggage, but takes on more baggage in the form of racism/eugenics. He views foreigners as primitive corruptions, and views genetic impurity as bringing someone closer to the ultimate alien menace. The only "good" people in his book are English descended upper middle class but-not-too-inbred white men.
So Scooby Doo was actually a pro-skeptic show with the unmasking of all these monsters and supernatural horrors as people they know or those people's doings. Thanks for refreshing my memory!
In most of the media I’ve watched, “good” Christianity is represented by one or two characters. Not the “church” as a whole, which in film includes evil, plotting, conservative, and cynical people. The “good” Christians are more excepting, investigative, and open to experimentation or taking chances. “Good” is in the individual, not the group. And most heroes are skeptics who learn to have the minimum of faith , or believers who learn that the faith they follow isn’t accepting of larger truths.
Thanks for pointing that out, my friend. You pretty much summed up my own counterpart outlook on the assertions presented here.
And this is why healthy skepticism is being derided these days. At least Scooby doo is carrying the tradition forward.
Still no explanation for the floating sandwhich though.
I was never raised religoius. I was born Native but even that wasn't drilled too much into my head. I've only got tidbits of our lore. But with Vampires, I always thought faith had to do with believing you can actually kill the vampire while holding the Ts or using the stake. In fact, I thought it was just with the crosses, but I didn't know they had any kind of meaning until I was like a teen. I just thought a lot of people loved the lower case T in a very sick way.
What does born native mean?
@@NoNoseProduction Native American, I assume.
This was always my problem with the Scooby Doo movies that tried to shake up the formula and make the monsters "real this time" (most notably Scooby Doo Zombie Island and the first live action film).
If the original show had a theme, it was the importance of rational thought and skepticism. The gang never would have thwarted the bad guys' plans if they gave into their irrational fears and accepted the supernatural as a legitimate explanation. Their skepticism was framed as brave, rational, and the only true way to discover the truth. It taught kids that monsters didn't exist and that through exploration, we can solve life's biggest mysteries.
Boy, I was hot and ready to deliver an angry comment about how you had that whole discussion on 1930s films featuring the skeptic being right and NOT bringing up Scooby Doo, and your credits section saved it.
Coppola's Dracula is such an awesome movie. Sure, it's cliche and sure, there are bad accents but visually it's beautiful and it really goes all in on the genre.
I'm reading the exorcist by William P. Blatty so this is perfect timing for me. I'm just feeling so bad for Regan and mad at the church more interested in finding evidence of possession than helping a mentally ill girl.
What if there was an exorcist who combated supernatural entities using Jungian psychology to unlock the human being possessed?
I've also read the book and am a fan of the movie. I disagree. The church wasn't more interested in finding evidence of possession than helping a mentally ill girl. Chris, Regan's mother, is an atheist, and starts out thinking Regan is mentally ill, but ultimately is the one who goes to the church for help. Fr Karras, who represents the church but is also trained as doctor (psychiatrist), also thinks and *insists* that whatever is plaguing Regan is also psychologically based and should be treated in a hospital. He even tells Chris that an exorcism would make things worse. He needed to gather evidence because the church needs to be sure that they are in fact dealing with something demonic, because they begin with the premise that the person is mentally ill before going to supernatural explanations.
I have a real strong hypothesis that Regan's possession is an allegory for child sexual abuse (at the hands of one of her mother's friends). I've never read the book but I've seen the movie like a dozen times and there are a handful of clues that, when taken together, make a strong case for the abuse theory. It's not my original idea and I don't know if it's a 100% accurate reading of the material, but there's a compelling argument to be made there, I think. I'd go more in depth about it, but frankly, I'm kinda sleepy right now...happy reading! :)
Thanks so much for this, I felt like I was the only one who was really put off by this kind of horror. Ive always called stuff like the conjuring, the exorcist etc. christian supremacist movies
Kinda surprising that the only exception to your descriptions of horror movies featuring exorcism are the Amityville movies.
It’s easy to forget, but in the first two movies (the only ones featuring exorcism), the priests FAIL (and in the second movie, gets possessed).
Great points! The classic 1959 version of The House on Haunted Hill with Vincent Price traffics in skepticism as well.
One of my faves! You have good taste, sir.
I really really want to see a horror movie set in the witch hunting era from the perspective of a woman accused of being a witch. The vvitch is the one that comes closer to that. But in that world witches seem to actually exist so in the end the puritanical family was partially right
That's a Vincente Price movie called Witchfinder General. Is kind of exploitative, and some historians believe that most scenes were fiction, but is still aclaimed as a refreshing take of the witch hunt genre, showing the witch hunter as the vilain.
Belladonna of Sadness ( NSFW)
Its not centered about the witch, but I found ParaNorman to be an interesting take on the supernatural, viewing ghosts as largely benevolent but misunderstood entities, and the conflict arising from people being afraid of new ideas, of what they do not understand. The witch in ParaNorman may have supernatural powers, but the negative ones only came about because she was a little girl murdered by a puritan mob. And the evils are vanquished not by blind faith and ritual, but by understanding and compassion. Idk if its reading too much into it, but the story of an outcast boy spending time among other outcasts and using love and forgiveness to heal the harm of the past, while acknowledging that no one is truly evil or beyond saving seems to have a strong christian undertone, though in this case not an unwelcome one.
Witchhammer (1970) tells the story of witch trials in the 1600s in Bohemia. The judge is portrayed as a power-hungry hypocrite who bends the Bible to his liking and tries the accused witches to get their property or silence criticism. It was also a metaphor for the communist regime in Czechoslovakia at the time. There's nothing supernatural, but the realism makes it far more terrifying than made-up demon stories.
The John Constantine comics occupy an interesting and rare position, in that they are based on the idea that the basic supernatural world posited by Christianity exists (heaven, hell, demons, angels)...but the heaven/god/angels side is NOT clearly preferable to the hell/demons side in that both are treating humans as pawns and don't seem to care if a lot of suffering results. Constantine himself is deeply flawed, kind of a trickster character, but he has a humanist morality that often leads him to stand up for humans against either side...which one can't help but feel is admirable even if it is kind of suicidal given the world as it is presented.
Which is probably why the classic version of him is usually a junkie who's gone from drugs to magic as his fix and has frequent burnout periods where he can't face the world.
Actually, aIl this gave me an idea drawing on Medieval demonology which essentially takes the whole Christian horror script and flips it, because the antagonist would be an Avenger of Evil - which is to say, one of the *angels* guarding hell, who are let out to demonstrate God's displeasure with the mortal world, and are noted even in the original canon to be hasty and quick to judge, not caring who they hurt in order to punish the sins of those who they came out for.
The climax would be revealing that the "sin" was a complete accident done by an innocent child, normal exorcisms don't work on an angel, and ultimately a local skeptic turns out to be an actual occultist who studies the Ars Goetia style of magic in his free time on a lark, and uses his knowledge of geometry to trap the Avenger in a banishing circle, and the climax plays out like a typical "faith reignited" ending - except the faith reignited is in Satanism, as the skeptic is newly fascinated in the power of the occult, the priest character curses a God who would create such monsters, and for a final insult, it turns out the skeptic's initial belief that a "possession" was a fake turns out to be mostly correct, the person "possessed" was simply having a nervous breakdown after seeing the Avenger. It really wouldn't be a happy ending, because the whole idea would be the revelation is that God, or at least His prison guards, aren't trustworthy.
this is maybe the most compelling thesis I've seen in a video essay. it invites constructive discourse in terms of arguing around it, and even how to move forward taking its points as true. genuinely have so many questions that aren't answered by watching it alone and comes with its own areas of nuance built into the argument, like all of my friends are discussing this video right now
Whats funny is the classic universal monsters were non catholic. The mummy was from egypt and was defeated by his own religion, the were wolf is defeated by getting hair (or killing) the wolf that bites you, the gilman is just a fish man and can be killed with guns and violence, and while there are religious implications in dracula, in the book he's just stabbed to death, and Van Helsing wasn't a priest or anything, hes just a doctor.
Also, I always hated how in Paranormal Activity, the ghost turned out to be *DUH DUH DUNNN* A dEmOn!!!11!!! WHY! Why couldn't have remained ambiguous? Oh its WAY more scary now since its a demon! Its so tacky and self important of a western culture, you know other cultures have evil spirits too! What if it had been a japanese ghost? Then you have to get a shinto priest (A kannushi) to come and and excise it or help with it or who knows because im not familiar with that religion. Having it be yet another demon is just so old hat.
I agree so much. I remember being so frustrated in the Paranormal Activity series when the entity was revealed as a specific demon. Ambiguity is underrated.
May I suggest you watch "Prince of Darkness" sometime...It's plays with Theology and Horror in a very interesting way.
One of the only Carpenter films I have yet to see. I may need to rectify that.
@@renegadecut9875 You should...I'm also trying to think of other horror movies that just use an non specific idea of goodness and purity to combat the Evil.
The only ones I can think of right now are "The Gate" and...well..."Ernest Scared Stupid."
I'd second that. It's surprisingly creepy and plays with a lot of the themes spoken about here
Thank you for just calling the Warrens scam artist, it was very cathartic
Still my favorite type of horror theme because slashers often are just boring, empty and horribly written something that these kinds of horror movies rare are. Supernatural horror isnt something that needs to be taken as a lesson in spirituality I think. I see them as mythologically inspired movies rather than trying to champion faith. Ive seen anime where Shinto and Buddhism are the forces that win in spiritual battles and its because that their religion but I dont think they are procelitizing. I just think that these movies are using these religions in a creative way.
This is the only channel that makes me grateful for the implementation of the bell icon. I just found your videos not too long ago and got hooked! You're doing awesome work!
"...and I would've if not for those meddling kids!"
By and large, I've seen Christianity do more harm than societal good in my part of the world. Southern Baptists are nasty AF when it comes to anybody who doesn't follow their tune, be they locals or outsiders. Do I even need to say how they patronize those films described above like crazy? Outside of Hammer Horror, most of those are boringly predictable.
My favorite two counter examples to the boring "Christian tradition saves the day" crap is Ghostbusters (super science kicks ancient evil's ass) and the Netflix animated series of Castlevania (Catholic Church triggers Dracula, leaving three outcasts to clean up the subsequent mess).
@@timothymclean It's just the old story, adapt or die. You're not doing one, you're doing the other.
@@geoffreyrichards6079 Famous atheist and science fiction writer Dr. Issac Asimov made that same point by quoting this gem of a verse from Exodus in his autobiography: "Vexeth not a stranger, for ye were strangers in Egypt." Before and after, he noted how that lesson was continually lost on far too many Christians.
I'm guessing the church didn't like Scooby Doo. Their demons would literally get uncovered.
And I would have had my megachurch...if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!
Thank you for this it helped me understand so much of my frustration with horror as a horror fan & former catholic
"Pazuzu, you ungrateful gargoyle! I put you through college, and this is how you repay me?!"
How do you see movies using Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos fitting into all this?
If I may be forgiven inserting my two cents, they don't. When done correctly, neither ignorance nor knowledge is a guarantee of safety in such films. The Great Old Ones are closer to natural disasters than anything as predictable as God or the Devil.
In Lovecraft's mythos, humankind is more or less powerless. There's no hope in them, which is the main thing that sets them apart from Christian or other religious-themed works. Christianity holds it as a given that humanity has the capacity to withstand evil, as all evil is just deception and corruption by Satan. That's not logically wrong, as the biggest evil is always perpetrated by misguided, delusional people. In Lovecraft, there's only a small hope of how much a human character can withstand evil. Their only weapon is their intellect and pure Anglo-Saxon genetic origin, of course.
About Pazuzu;
I think it's funny the Exorcist made Pazuzu into such a bad guy and put just him into such a bad light. Yes Pazuzu is known as a wind demon who brings famine during dry seasons, and locusts during rainy seasons. But he's also used as a kind of protection against the goddess Lamashtu, people believed she caused harm to mothers and their children during childbirth. There's as well the belief that Pazuzu drives and frightens away other evil spirits and protects humans against plagues and misfortunes.
What would you say about the fanatic archetype? You know, the one in the horror movie that’s *too* religious, who often makes matters worse for the protagonists. Could that be commentary on fundamentalism or Evangelicals? A somewhat recent example would be the captain in Alien: Covenant who dooms everyone with his faith-based decisions.
Okay, here is my idea for an anti faith-based horror movie.
A college student working on their phd goes out to a religious compound/community in the middle of (basically) nowhere. She wants to study the rituals and habits of the organization. Upon arrival, she notices that a handful of the population are currently under quarantine, and are regularly having exorcisms performed by a local priest. As time goes on, more and more members of the community are being poisoned, and the local priest is warning that this is the cause of a demonic presence.
Periodically, she begins experiencing strange events in the home she is staying in within the town. She is also plagued with bad dreams. More and more of the town is falling ill, and requiring exorcisms by the church.
One day, as she is inspecting the church, she notices that there is a boarded off area. She investigates, and discovers that the entire building is lined with lead.
For most of the film, you will notice that members of the church only drink from disposable water bottles, as does our protagonist (due to a mild fear of poor water filtration in the compound). She is only exposed to the natural waters of the town when she showers, which she doesn't do often because of those fears mentioned earlier. The times she does shower are when she is feeling ill or experiencing the hallucinations.
The big revelation is that the knowingly placed radioactive material into the local water supply in order to bolster the concept of demons to the members of the community who had been considering leaving.
I don't know how I would have this resolved but that was my idea after watching this video.
i saw this Christian time travel movie as a kid, guy from like the 1800s goes to the future, freaks the hell out when he went to a movie theatre and they said "god damn" it was unexpected and hilarious
This is exactly why I love Ghostbusters so much. The film features 4 regular guys (whose religious beliefs are mentioned only once in the entire movie) who use science and technology to overcome supernatural evil. It's not overtly Christian, as the big bad is revealed to be an ancient Sumerian god, but none of the supernatural threats are dispelled by religion or mysticism. Only teamwork and knowledge can defeat the ghosts and demons.
I’m seriously amazed by how you can do all this analysis and magically not spoil a film. Like how??????
A favorite movie of mine since childhood was The Name of the Rose, adapted from an Umberto Eco novel. It's not exactly a horror movie, but it was a good example of a movie with religious themes and a murder mystery, in which the skeptic is victorious in the end.
and yet it wrecks the book's original message and glorifies religion
What an absolutely fantastic analysis of the genre, I'm excited to see what you make in the future and what other treasures I can find on your channel.
I thought this video was going to talk about the small market of Evangelical horror like “Evil Behind You”, “The Hangman”, and “Escape From Hell”
I think Netflix's recent Dracula mini series would be a nice counterpoint. It features a complex villain who constantly plays around religious misconceptions people hold about him, and a protagonist who is initially presented as a clerical figure, but then quickly revealed to be just a really rational person.
I think fright night is the one of the few movies that almost gets christianity right.
Actually frailty did too, but you really have to pay attention when you watch it and really think SUPER SUPER critically about it. And it doesn't get it right in the way you night think. Basically bill paxton axe murders people after a spiritual encounter, but he didn't follow the Christian principle of "testing the spirits"
And this is pretty much why I've given up on a lot of horror movies, when I used to love the genre. I couldn't stand the christian propaganda anymore.
Having been raised catholic, in a catholic majority country, I find it funny that in other but also christian cultures catholicism's imagery is seen as foreboding, for me it's all just extremely boring; churches and candles and saints and priests and altars, all that stuff only reminds me of being a kid and bored out of my mind, so seeing them as elements of action gives me a weird dissonance.
This is why for me horror works best when the antagonist/evil force comes from yourself and not a demon that can be defeated by praying really, really hard. When the horror results from your own psychological problems, trauma or other toxic things, it's much more effective and becomes a metaphore. Of course, this doesn't mean that there's no overlap but generally speaking there is a trend in separating the two and I find "evil" born from our own flaws more compelling because it means we have to confront our own mistakes and make amends while an emphasis on Christian belief system is basically "If you pray hard enough, good will happen. If bad things happen to you, it's your own fault for not living the right (Christian) way and not praying/believing hard enough. Sucks to be you."
We can see this belief in how many Christians treat poor people, POC, women and aid/humanitarian work and how abusive people are excused while victims are blamed for their own trauma.
Also, since you mentioned the use of other religions as evil: growing up in a conservative Christian family I know how these type of Christians rationalise it first hand. "They" - whoever these non-Christians are - pray to the wrong gods and thus *chose* evil and therefore deserve to be punished (they should have known better basically). Anything that is not the Christian god is automatically evil and if you point out how the Christian god can historically be traced back through various millennia, cultures and regions and how he's based on a couple of different gods, be prepared to be labelled evil, bad, a Satanist and be physically and verbally abused because they do not like to be questioned in any way.
It never made sense to me how for many Christians being historically aware is tantamount to blasphemy. Which in my opinions shows how fragile their belief is if any form of critical thinking is deemed evil and must be punished and silenced.
I once dared to say that the Bible is a heavily edited book and compiled a bunch of people who sat down to decide what texts go in the Bible, how they are translated and how humans were the authors and thus each text is prone to bias and mistakes, often filled with prejudice and hatred. I got screamed at for hours and verbally abused for weeks. Weeks!
May I recommend Under The Shadow, an Iranian horror film that uses the never seen menace of a djinn to shine a spotlight on the repressive regime that sprang up from the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War? As in Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, the horror is used to critique systemic evil far harder to defeat than any demon. I think you can still find it on Netflix.
@@johnathonhaney8291 I've seen both films already but thanks for the suggestion. :3 I should rewatch them, soon. I only have a hazy memory of both and watching a film more than once really helps see things from different perspectives thanks to new experiences and knowledge.
This, the Masters of Universe and the David the Gnome one are my fav videos of you so far. I like that your videos are open enough for me to question things and think about it later on my own time. Idk, just saying your videos are amazing.
I was thinking Scooby Doo the whole time and then you put it at the end. Well played, Renegade! Very well played.
Part of why it's necessary to make religion literally and absolutely true in supernatural horror is how the camera functions in film language in ways that weren't set in stone in the earlier the-skeptics-were-right films you discussed-it's presumed that the camera is omniscient, that it gives us a view of objective truth within the story. Contradicting that, making our own eyes unreliable narrators, is extremely difficult. I'd argue that the advent of film has culminated in a great loss of metaphorical thinking in our culture which manifests as biblical literalism in religious contexts.
That same omniscient gaze can theoretically be used to slice into literal religion, surely? I think of the hyperkinetic style of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, which itself followed a the-skeptics-were-right plot.
The concept of an atheist vampire is one I find interesting and one I only remember seeing once. Lestat in the Vampire Chronicles I believe.
God’s Not Dead is the best Christian horror film. I get spooked every time I watch it and it’s sequels.
For as much as it’s a matter of “default Christianity” it’s about as clear and correct as the Trumpist “American default Christianity.”
It misquotes the Bible, and doesn’t even get the theology correct.
Wow, I’ve been totally wondering about this for a while
My youtube recommendations brought me here, which is weird, because this is a great video and a channel I'm actually interested in. Go figure!
The bit where you mention "outsider" religions targeted by Christian horror made me really curious as to whether you've covered (or found much about) antisemitism in horror media. It's been a while since I watched the Possession, but I remember it being "interesting" in it's use of a story initially based around Jewish mysticism and history, and I'd love to hear your take on it.
(As an illustration/comics type person, I recall typically Jewish/Jewish-coded traits being straight up taught as useful visual cues for designing "evil" or "scary" characters. Similar to Christianity in horror, anti-Semitic imagery is a trope that's been repeated so much that it's seen as value neutral, from what I've observed.)
I'm also interested in the way that the fictionalized, spoooky idea of witches often intersects with Jewish-coded characters, and whether that's explored in any of your other video essays.
ANYHOW, really interesting video!
Loved when you called out the Warrens as hacks, and the whole time I was thinking about Scooby Doo only for you end with it 😁
Scooby's last two animated movies BTW have retconned the past few times it did use supernatural as "unsolved" cases and leaned on removing the supernatural from them, which I'm totally digging.
I think you give these movies far more credit than they are due. The writers of these movies seem to have an extremely juvenile world view, which tends to work well for their rather juvenile (in a literal sense) audiences. In that case, extremely "black and white" thinking is an advantage, not a detriment, to the film and a naive conception of "Christianity", as a nebulous catch-all, tends to fit the bill well enough with the least amount of mental effort. I'm not sure there is much more to it, in the vast majority of cases, than mental laziness.
The ending of this video made me realize there's another level to Scream, at least the original. As a critique of slasher movies through a skeptical mind it makes sense. Think about it: Jason, Freddy, Michael, all supernatural death proof evil figures that cannot exist in the real world. And then you have Scream, where the killer seems that way in the beginning (spoilers ahead) only to be revealed as a team, which then makes all of the death defying double presence scenes make sense. He didn't teleport, he didn't magically heal, they were two different people working as a team! The concept of them being literally Ghost Face makes that message even more obvious: there's nothing supernatural here, you were just tricked to believe that. Especially the fourth movie fails in that message, but I still like it. Its the atheist slasher movie. No rising from the dead, being shot 7 times and walking away, being born of a raped nun to become a pedophile nightmare creature, it's just people. People in masks, with motives, sometimes mannipulated, mental illness and real consequences to being struck upside the head with... what was it? A trophy? I forgot.
Another movie that I recalled during the whole video was 1920 (I believe it can be found on CZcams, that's where I watched it). It's your typical exorcism movie mixed with a love story, sure, but it'll twist you up in the end and mock your beliefs (if you're christian) in a really interesting way. It stuck with me. It's message (spoilers again) is that hindu religion is the true religion cause christianity will fail you. You can be charitable and say that it meant to say there are more than one religions and they're not all untrue, just happened that hindu saved the day this time cause the demons were... hindu... But I don't think that was the message.
And, as always, a movie I'm dying to rewatch came to mind: The Exorcism Of Emilie Rose. Once you see that movie, you'll never see an exorcism movie, as catholic as it may be (looking at you, Ritual) the same way again. Catholic exorcism horror movie "based on true events", but, you see, (spoilers again) there's a scene at some point where it is explained how possession cases are often psychological, happen in other religions and are worsened by the cultural belief surrounding the person. BUT IT DOESN'T STOP THERE! I think, if I remember correctly, that there is an out to religious "treatment" where, although it's not the most effective in most cases, it can, sometimes, help the person rid themselves of the belief that they are possessed. Maybe I made that up, I'll have to check (when I watch it again, it's on Netflix).
That said, of the movies mentioned I loved most of them (not the conjouring series. Sue me), especially the classics (where's Rosemary's Baby, by the way?) and renewed/discarded my will to watch the ones I haven't. But... Emily Rose first.
Oh, right: The Scream thing? Relates to the Scooby Doo thing too. Duh. Obvious. Although, they tend to reveal themselves, not be revealed by others, but... Still.
As an atheist, I would enjoy these types of movies on a "horror FANTASY" type level, but I never REALLY thought about these points til just now, and it's fascinating.
Because you're absolutely right; whether intentional or not, these movies reinforce the agenda that religion , and more specifically Christianity, is not only the default position but the only REAL solution to the "Evil" that plagues society.
I'm not gonna call for an atheist boycott of supernatural movies or anything LOL. But it's certainly some points worth pondering.
Great video.
And they would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling Renegade Cut!
A religious horror film is a comedy to an atheist
I got soooo excited when I saw this video pop up on my feed!!! Love you, keep it up!!!
I strongly recommend the WNUF Halloween Special, a 2013 found footage film which features hilarious parodies of Ed and Lorraine Warren, as well as a really good non-supernatural explanation.
A great movie that goes against this mold is George A Romero's "Martin". Should definitely give it a watch!
"believe it, or else"
-moral orel
This is incredibly interesting to me as a nonreligious westerner who isn't from the US, because I have never read the christian symbolism as reassurance of the faith, but as the scary part, as I do not have that faith. The reliance on the religion and the sceptic proven wrong plays more into my own fears of "believeing wrong", since I was brought up in a predominantly lutheran country but I have never been able to believe in abrahamic god. I prefer supernatural horror to slashers etc. because I want to be scared, and if the villain is human, I can come to understand their actions through psychology or sociology or whatever, and I can also fight them physically. You can empathize with the supernatural monsters, but in some cases (usually the best films) you wont be able to do anything about them, which I find to be the scariest part.
By the way, couple of recommendations (that people don't usually talk about, so leaving out the Babadook and It Follows etc): The Tall Man (2012), The Shrine (2010), Don't Knock Twice (2016) and if you want to see the tropes talked about in this video done well and with absolutely gorgeous writing and acting check out The Hauntig of Hill House (2018 10 episode series) on Netflix. :)
My favourite horrors are Alien and The Fly. Not usually into supernatural stuff. Exorcist movies bother me the most as I believe exorcism is often the abuse of the mentally ill. There's a real world problem with children dying at the hands of these so-called exorcists.
If I was to make an exorcist movie I'd advertise it like a horror, even have the first half filmed like a horror, but then after the child dies halfway through it becomes an investigation and courtroom drama, completely pulling the rug out from under the audience, in which skeptic detectives and psychologists reveal everything seen in the first half to be delusion.
If I had film-making and writing skill that is.
God I despise the Conjuring "saga." This is the major reason why right here (also a horror movie isn't scary when you just tell the audience exactly what the threat is in the first 3rd of the movie).
As someone who grew up around Christians, I think the simplest answer to why Horror films tend to portray the supernatural as Christian, and the protagonists as believers, is that those who truly believe in Christianity will be completely sold.
The Conjuring, for example, is a passable horror film on its own. Some designs, such as the crooked man, are neat. But other concepts such as Annabelle or possessed children are not particularly creative or engaging concepts. And the majority of the horror is jump-scare dependent, and it can get old.
However, if you watch the movie with the pre-conceived notion that, not only is Christianity 100% real, but that the Warrens were not scam artists and pretty much everything in all the movies happened beat-for-beat in real life, the movie is absolutely horrifying. And that's what seperates the Conjuring from a mediocre horror, to a franchise capable of a sequel and 5 spin off films.
Skepticalism is not nessecerally anti-religion. It can also be used as a awarness ideoligy, to not to be a fool and as George Carlin said, "Keep thou religion for thy self".
Sometimes, even Japan, a country of budist majority, doesn't escapes of using christianity as a default in his horrors. That can be a little frustrating. If you have some interesting horrors that explores the fears unique in budism, hinduism and islam, i wold like recomendations, please.
Got a good one from Iran, Under The Shadow. Ostensibly, the monster of this film, set in mid-1980s Iran, is a djinn. But the real horror is the repressive society that has sprang up in the wake of the Iranian revolution and the then-current Iran-Iraq War. That society puts our heroine in the djinn's path as she tries to escape it.
@@johnathonhaney8291 Thank's God, Ala, Buda and Brahman for the iranian cinema
thats why i prefer Lovecraft. cold benevolent beings who are totally indifferent to our beliefs or desires. showing how insignificant and alone we truly are in the grand scheme. peoples superstitions and imaginary friends cant save them from the darkness
But knowledge is no shield either in those stories. Crawford Tillinghast getting consumed by the invisible creatures who now see him...Walter Gillman finding the right mathematical formula that puts him in Keziah Mason's sights...Charles Dexter Ward following his ancestor Joseph Curwen's trail with horrific results...the consequences always outstrip the process.
It really shouldn't be any surprise that Western horror is so steeped in Judeo-Christian images and themes, as almost all aspects of our western culture from our legal system to our sense of human rights to our ideas of family and ethics are framed by a Judeo-Christian background. The question of why Catholicism though, has less to do with the ideas of real Christian beliefs. It's more the idea of "Christian magic". Using the magic words of a secret prayer (the rite of exorcism) in a secret magic language (latin) allows a specially trained magic man (a catholic priest) to control and banish supernatural forces. These films are looking for a "good wizard" to fight the "evil magic" and are looking for a more socially acceptable framework than going full Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.
I think it's largely because Catholicism is much older than most other forms of Christianity, especially in America. The majority of American Christians are protestants and the Protestant Reformation only dates to the 16th century. Even then, evangelical protestant denominations, which are even younger, are more popular in America than the mainstream protestant ones. Facing an ancient evil with a religion that's younger than film itself doesn't seem believable plot-wise.
@@morganwhaley9119
Catholicism isn't really older in the United States. It was seen as a strange foreign version of Christianity as late as the election of JFK when one of the major debating points was "Is America ready for an openly Catholic President?". The slight otherness even today of traditional Catholic ritual is what draws the film makers interest, while still being safe within a Judeo-Christian mythology.
When I stopped believing in god when I was 12 I couldn't tell anyone cos everyone I knew was a christian, that was also same time I stopped being scared of horror movies of any kind though I still like watching some of them cos I like watching believers reactions to them, plus my imagination is pretty good so I can get a thrill out of putting myself in the protagonist shoes. Good video RC.