In the last News Digest published by Novus Ordo Watch a link was shared to an article on which a novus ordo jesuit priest claimed to examine the spiritual dimension of horror movies. A "theology of horror" if you will.
It is always very interesting to me how some believers think they can find Jesus in pop culture. I wished to offer my thoughts on the article, and explain to you why I think "Fr." Roy Dun misses the mark.
Horror Considered on Itself:
Horror is a genre for storytelling aimed at scaring people and/or make them feel uncomfortable. The buildup of intense feelings is relieved at the end and often leaves a pleasant sensation, known as catharsis.
There are two aspects of consideration in horror:
The horror aspect aims at making you feel disgust and abhorrence for what you see.
The terror aspect aims at raising your adrenaline levels and provoke the sensation of fear.
Having said this, it is important for our discussion to consider the effect of horror in the person. The greatest majority of people should be able to watch horror movies without endorsing anything of what they see. However, it is often forgotten that in fiction the writer might accidentally glorify something by the mere act of showing it on screen.
This happens if you show people killing themselves: those vulnerable to despair of their own lives will often imitate what they see fictional characters do. I don't understand how anyone would want to play with a Ouija board after seeing The Exorcist or any possession movie, but they do it and experience suggests these stories are not helping. Exposing viewers to things that normally would not even cross their minds might help to dilute the lines of good and evil and turn you into a nihilist.
Another thing to consider is the violence. While ridiculously over-the-top gory movies might not incite you to hurt other people, the unstable, the impressionable and the young might start believing violence is something to love. Even among those who do not develop the wish to harm others, the violence they have consumed might facilitate aggression against their very own selves. We should not forget those who learn to genuinely enjoy violence by exposing themselves to it.
The final element I would like to mention is the morbidity element. It is the unspeakable feel that you need to know "how bad" something really is. This is dangerous because is a manifestation of risky curiosity; there are some things you really don't want to know and that are quite frankly useless. This is not to condemn the genre per se, only to point out its risks.
Horror and "Conservative"
The jesuit "Fr." Dun attempts to defend horror movies by calling the genre itself "conservative"
Here, he is claiming the movies are conservative because they remind people that they are "small" (ie; there is something greater than themselves and their planet) but such doctrine is not unique to conservatism. The problem of calling something "conservative" is that this word is an umbrella term used to define people of radically different ideologies. Furthermore, even "leftists" can believe there is something greater than themselves, like new atheists for example. Have you never seen them talking about quantum?
Furthermore, this idea can be found in some horror movies, but forgive me if I don't see the transcendental on a dude with a lame Halloween mask killing blonde girls.
Dun also says horror movies are conservative because the protagonists have "shared values" with us and the viewers supports the victims, not the monsters.
Claiming that this makes horror movies "conservative" is laughable, because even if you root for the victims you still see how they get mutilated or killed in ridiculous fashion. Some horror movies are so poorly acted / done that any feeling of empathy for the victims is null.
This is even more insulting if you know anything about writing stories.
You see, the best horror movies are not the scariest or the darkest, they are the ones that are well written. And in order to have a well written movie, you need to help the audience to empathize with the characters. If you empathize with the characters, you will want to stay just to see how they survive the monster. One easy way of making this possible is to give the characters values similar to those of the audience. Plus, what "shared values" are we talking about? Killing innocent people is bad? Life is worth living? None of this values is strictly conservative.
Dun also attempts to claim horror movies for the right by claiming that horror movies are about the restoration of order. However, this belief is not unique to conservatives either! Does anyone think this idea would be repudiated by the Chinese Communist Party? Also, has this guy never heard of Stephen King? To say that man hates religion and conservatives is an understatement.
You see, the movie gives the message the writers want to give; if the writers are progressivists, the movie will have this elements therein.
+ Carrie, for example, implies the disturbing behavior of the titular character is partially caused by her religious mom.
+ A movie was recently released about a gay kid with homophobic parents who is haunted by an entity.
+ The lore of Jurassic Park is rooted in a naturalistic setting. No one condemns the dinosaurs because of the laws of God, but because of the laws of nature, which wasn't necessarily created.
+ In The Exorcist we see a profaned image of Mary. No real conservative catholic would do this.
+ In Alien Prometheus, we are told that humans were created by an alien bodybuilder who drank black fungi and disintegrated into the water bodies of earth.
+ Let us also not forget those movies were scary nuns kill people
He also failed to consider that just because the characters are trying to restore order doesn't mean they will get it. In some horror movies, the story is centered on a world where rules are only an illusion and nothing ever matters. Blurring the lines of reality does bring unspeakable terror but I fail to see how it could teach to people that we should try to order our lives.
Here are some examples of horror movies were "order" doesn't exist:
+ In "Mouth of Madness" (1994), a writer somehow makes his horror entities become alive and they take over the universe, driving everyone to madness.
+ In "Annihilation", a group of explorers visit a shimmering mist were nothing makes sense and that is why it's scary
+ In the urban legend known as "The Backrooms", a mysterious labyrinth similar to human habitations dwells "outside of reality", were plenty of rules we are used to are non-existent.
+ The SCP foundation, an urban legend co-written by multiple people, is an organization tasked with containing anomalies who break laws of reality. (eg., The concrete statue that breaks your neck if you blink, the white man who kills anyone who sees him no matter the obstacles). A similar concept can be found in the multiplayer Lethal Company and in the Trevor Henderson creatures.
+ In "Scream" (2006) we follow teenagers who live inside a serial killer horror movie
+ What exactly drove Jack Nicholson to madness in "The Shining?" One of the reasons why that movie is unsettling, is because reality seems broken in Hotel Overlook.
+ The clown Pennywise twists reality in order to scare children with their greatest fears. A similar concept happens in Event Horizon and Silent Hill.
+ In the Lovecraft stories (and the movie adaptation), the universe was created by a massive meatball thing with eyes everywhere. It dreams reality into existence, and when it wakes up, it will be all over. The gods? All of them are like Satan.
+ And Freddy Kruger somehow kills people in their dreams.
There are other movies that deal less with relativism, but still order is never restored. Whether it is because of a final jumpscare or because Hollywood wants to make more money from a franchise, order barely ever returns, at least for our plucky protagonists.
Conclusion.
Attempting to claim an entire genre of writing for a particular political group is absurd, because the writer can do whatever he wants with his stories. It is equally absurd to claim that undefined ideas of "order" "shared values" and "transcendence" make a movie worth watching. If anyone gets a good message from this movies that is fine, but let it come naturally to the normies. Forcing a "christian" message into a movie is more likely to arouse mockery rather than serious meditation.
This will be part 1 of our critique. Stay tuned if you want to see me analyze the rest of the article.
