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Should Christians Watch Horror Movies?

Should Christians Watch Horror Movies?

Last updated on: October 11, 2015 at 7:57 pm by Paul Asay

Should Christians Watch Horror Movies? 2015-10-11T19:57:53-06:00 Paul Asay

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The Exorcist

October is the season for scary movies.

So says Redbox, anyway. The movie rental company polled its users about their Halloween-season viewing habits, and about half said they typically watch at least one horror movie during the month of October. Among those, more than half say they won’t watch scary movies alone, and 50 percent admit to having freaked out over strange noises after watching.

Yeah, I’d be one of those. I always know when I’ve watched or reviewed a particularly effective scary movie when I check the back seat of my car before driving home.

Redbox also asked respondents what they thought was the scariest movie of all time. The winner: The Exorcist, a decision I heartily agree with. A Nightmare on Elm Street finished second, followed by The Shining, Halloween and The Silence of the Lambs.

Lots of well-meaning Christians, of course, don’t like scary movies one bit. Many believe that fright flicks spark an unhealthy interest in the occult, and some insist that horror movies are, quite literally, the work of the devil.

Which makes me, perhaps, something of an outlier among evangelical Christians. I find that many horror flicks are, in their own way, surprisingly pious.

Most other movie genres are positively terrified of faith, it seems—rarely mentioning God or Jesus or some higher power unless they absolutely have to. Horror movies, on the other hand, ask big, bold, spiritual questions: What happens after we die? In what do we place our hope? Are there realities we can’t see? What is evil, anyway? We don’t talk much about spiritual warfare these days, but in fright flicks, supernatural manifestations of good and evil sometimes duke it out right before our eyes.

The Omen

I know a couple of folks who became Christian after watching The Omen. The well-respected Exorcism of Emily Rose was directed by Christian Scott Derrickson, who sees the genre as something that can help us better define good and evil. William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist, intended the novel as a “sermon no one can sleep through.”

“Suffering is ultimately a mystery,” Blatty told The National Catholic Register regarding the suffering found in The Exorcist. “But it has a lot to do with salvation. Try to imagine a universe in which there is neither suffering nor the possibility of suffering for any living creature. Could there be any virtue, courage, kindness? If you want to be steel, you have to go through a crucible; you can’t be handed spiritual food stamps. Christ on the cross showed us how to do it.”

There are only two movie genres where you’re likely to see people explicitly turn to God for help: Christian movies, of course, and horror movies. In last year’s seriously creepy The Conjuring, exorcists call on God to save the day (which He does). I just watched Stephen Spielberg’s 1982 movie Poltergeist the other night and was kinda surprised to hear mother Diane Freeling (Jobeth Williams), as she’s trying to yank her two youngest kids from a hellish maw that supernaturally opened in the kids’ closet, utter an anguished prayer of sorts. “God, give me strength!” she says. And maybe He did: The maw, at least, didn’t swallow any kids.

There’s a lot of prayer and God-talk going on in these supposedly God-forsaken films.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Christians should watch horror movies. I don’t think there’s any Christian virtue in being purposefully scared. But I do suggest that horror movies are not necessarily the work of the devil. God speaks to us through lots of different avenues, and scary movies might sometimes be a pretty effective conduit.

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