Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Religious Music & Entertainment
The Strange, Moral Horror of ‘Unfriended’ and ‘It Follows’

The Strange, Moral Horror of ‘Unfriended’ and ‘It Follows’

Last updated on: April 20, 2015 at 4:10 pm by Paul Asay

The Strange, Moral Horror of ‘Unfriended’ and ‘It Follows’ 2015-04-20T16:10:28-06:00 Paul Asay

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Most evangelical Christians don’t cotton to horror movies. Ever since King Saul and the Witch of Endor spent some scandalous time together, we’ve been cautious of anything that carries the tang of the occult—the bread and butter of most horror flicks. They’re typically filled with all sorts of issues that we call out at Plugged In, and some Christians believe they’re the work of the devil.

Given the general evangelical loathing of fright flicks, it’s interesting how oddly moral they can be.

I reviewed Unfriended last week—the story of a young high school suicide victim who scares the jeepers out of her frienemies before killing them. A couple of weeks earlier, I saw It Follows, in which a girl and her friends must outrun and outwit an ever malleable demonic entity.

The movies felt entirely different, but they did share some commonalities. Both looked like they were made for about what Avengers: Age of Ultron spent on hair gel, for instance. Both were surprisingly well-received (Rotten Tomatoes gave Unfriended a 64 percent “freshness” rating; It Follows’ marks are at awhopping 95 percent). And both were unapologetic morality fables, dishing out secular sermons with some seriously bloody garnish. These aren’t just movies: They’re extended PSAs with casualties, spiced with a hint of brimstone to boot.

Take a look at Unfriended. Laura Barns is the movie’s big bad, returning from the grave to haunt, troll and kill a clique of her former high school comrades. But she’s not just out for blood: She’s out for revenge. Each one of her would-be victims had a hand in her suicide a year before. The movie tells us that Laura was bullied to death.

YouTube provided the trigger: One of Laura’s victims posts a scandalous, embarrassing clip of the girl, explicitly telling her to “go kill urself.” Hundreds of like-minded comments follow, at least some of which were written by her “friends.” And during the horror-fest that follows, each tormented high schooler discovers that Laura knows not just about their secret bullying activities, but all the other horrible things they’ve done to each other … making them divulge each sordid secret one by one. And how could she know? Because a record of every vile deed is stored somewhere on their computers or the Internet. And death has really improved Laura’s ability to hack.

And just like that, *Unfriended’*s supernatural bogeyman gives us two sermons: Been told that what post online could haunt you forever? Unfriended takes that cautionary message quite literally. Already know that bullying can hurt? Through Unfriended, we see it can be painful for the bullies, too—at least if there’s a blender nearby. Moreover, Laura’s victims don’t just get their comeuppance for their bad behavior; they die because they lie. Confession, we’re told, is about the only way to avoid a particularly vengeful online ghost.

Unfriended follows, in some ways, the template of many a teen slasher flick. Jason and Freddy and Michael Myers always seem to kill off a movie’s biggest “sinners” first—the ones who do drugs or have sex or are just plain jerks. And those bogeymen, in turn, are just the latest in a long litany of twistedly moral monsters. In 1931’s Frankenstein, the titular scientist was tormented by his creation because he was audacious enough to play God by creating him. Even from 1922’s Nosferatu, we learned that characters with the purest of hearts and the cleanest of motives have the best chance to live to the credits. But even with this pedigree, it’s rare for a teen-centric horror flick to tie the sin so directly to a character’s bloody doom.

Well, with the exception of It Follows, of course—which if anything makes the links between sin and death even more explicit.

Jay (Maika Monroe) plays our heroine—a girl who made the (ahem) grave mistake of having sex with her boyfriend (Jake Weary). The guy, Hugh, turns out to be a loutish lout of a lout, who simply wanted to pass on the creepiest venereal disease in history. Hugh hurriedly tells her the lay of the land: From here on out, Jay will be stalked by a demonic specter that can take the form of anyone, living or dead. If it touches her, Jay will die (fairly horrifically, as it turns out), and the demon will begin stalking Hugh again. If Jay has sex with someone, though, the demon will stalk them until they’re dead, then return its murderous gaze back on Jay.

As a morality tale, It Follows has an obvious flaw: The premise turns into a lethal pyramid scheme. It behooves Jay to sleep with as many people as possible to keep death away from her own door. But even so, It Follows is a clear safe-sex parable. The theme of a lost childhood comes up again and again here: Innocence is a thing to be truly treasured, and anyone in Jay’s world who stays true to their promise rings will stay absolutely safe.

None of this is to say that Christians should be morally compelled to embrace these, or any other, horror movies. As I get older, scary movies get harder and harder for me to watch.

And yet by their very nature, some horror movies aren’t as far afield from Christianity as we think. What other genre allows for such frank discussions of good and evil? Where else can we sometimes find God’s power so alive and real? (Some such movies spend so much time talking about God that, if they weren’t horror flicks, they’d be labeled Christian.) And even movies like Unfriended and It Follows, where the name of God is only uttered as a curse, are not afraid to preach. Their messages aren’t strictly Christian, necessarily, but they’re often compatible. Be kind to others, even if they don’t deserve it? Don’t have casual sex? Tell the truth? Yeah, I think lots of us can get on board with what these movies say—even if we loathe how they say it.

“Repent!” they say, “for the end is near!” When we hear a street preacher start wailing about our sin, we’re liable to turn around and walk the other way. When a horror flick does it, we’ll slap down twelve bucks to hear it.

Previous Post

April 17, 2015

Just What Is CW's The Messengers Trying to Say?

Next Post

April 24, 2015 A Digression: The Little Prince

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books celebrities Editor's Choice games movies music news sports superheroes television Uncategorized

Select a Month May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 December 2025 October 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 September 2023 March 2023 February 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 December 2021 October 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 October 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: John's Gospel identifies Jesus as 'the Lamb of God' in the first chapter.

Select your answer to see how you score.

FALSE TRUE

Books by This Author Books by Paul Asay

See All Titles »