Horror without God isn’t scary. Christian horror shaped the genre, from Dracula and Frankenstein to The Exorcist and The Conjuring. We compare classic horror movies with modern horror like Hereditary and ask what happens when you cut God out of the script.
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CHAPTERS:
0:00 – Horror Without God Isn’t Scary
3:06 – Evil Needs a Standard
8:01 – Horror’s 4 Christian Tropes
11:15 – Just Another Mythology? Stephen King’s Answer
14:54 – Hereditary: Horror Without Hope
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What's your favorite horror movie and why?
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It's actually the opposite, I watch horror for the gore, when you add Religion it just gets preachy which breaks my immersion. Give me a slasher villain over some dumb ghost any day of the week, the more spiritual your horror is the more time is being taken away from the gore!
I never understood Hereditary.
The entire movie moves through this family struggling with grief- and at the end- it was all supernatural? WHEN? WHERE? HOW?
The biggest enemies in that movie were chocolate and a phone pole! I dont get it…
I dont think a presence of religion is what makes a good horror.
Hereditary didn't suck because God wasn't central to it. It sucked because possession came out of nowhere when the movie initially revolved around real-world trauma.
I just finished the movie long legs and it reminded me of this video. It was scary until the religious mother turned out to be a Satanist and it completely killed it. The ending sucked, and it sucked exactly for the same reasons you highlighted. There's no God in the movie, so there's no good, and no hope. Making the entire thing worthless in the end. Good video.
This whole comment section is just an echo chamber the "religious" movies you mentioned barely scratched the threshold of what can truly be considered a horrifying experience. Whereas horrors without God have no way out and that's what makes it terrifying the clash of impeding doom and the urge to survive. Not to mention horror isn't dependent on religion because of ultimate good. It's simply based on motive a mad man killing innocent people and skinning them will obviously be the antagonist you don't need objective morality for that
I kinda liked the fact that there was no possibility of winning in hereditary. I don’t really like that Hollywood always likes to make happy endings in their movies. It’s kinda why the empire strikes back was so revolutionary. It’s rare for movies to end where the bad guy wins. No country for old men is also one of my favorite movies for this reason
Wrong on so many levels. Since others have replied on other aspects, I will just say the following: there is absolutely no need for an absulute morality or absolute concept of good and evil for horror (as movie genre or even as a concept) to exist. Good an evil are absolutely abstract concepts that are determined by what we are taught troughout our lives. Different societies and cultures will have different views on it, and even different situations will call for interpretation on what would constitute a good or evil action/choice. Also no matter how much you argue that horror as we know it today historically borrowed iconography and morality from christianity, it says nothing beyond of how much sociopolitical power christianity has had on western societies, dictating what they should see as good or evil, desirable or undesirable, scary or not. Christianity just drew from a few of our most primal fears as a species and used them to manipulate and to mantain power. The fear of death, the fear of pain, the fear of suffering. "Believe and you will live forever in heaven. Otherwise be burned at the stake and suffer for eternity in hell!". TLDR: the ammount of christian influence in horror is nothing if not proof of how much our upbringing, culture and society dictates what we believe, and consequently, what we fear.
Evil is not what balances Good. Sin is the corruption or rusting of Goodness. Good can exist without evil.
As a Christian writer, I've struggled for a long time with whether or not i'm "allowed" to write horror, as I worried it would somehow galmorize the enemy. But learning about how many Christian writers used horror to make hopefuly statements about Christ, rather than deny Him, was really inspiring. I needed this. I think other Christians might need this too. Thank you.
Its incredibly fitting that Hereditary is named so, as by inheriting Adam's sin nature there would be no hope without Christ.
Hereditary is actually about a family that chooses not to resist a generational curse, but to go with it's flow, resulting in the family being sacrificed by the generational cult. The movie ends with the cult literally rejecting the Trinity. It shines light on what happens in many families…
11:35 this is such a mind numbingly inaccurate take at best. horror has existed as long as humans have been telling stories, ofc it’s going to look like the cultural anxieties surrounding it. but to just ignore how biased and deeply western your thesis is. gothic horror is less about “the power of god “and more about our fear of those we deem as “other”. the genre began in a time in which the world was becoming increasingly globalized, western medicine was becoming more advanced, and the industrial revolution was going on. this feels like you looked at the style rather than the substance and had a field day. i am writing some horror shorts currently, one of them does sort of deal with god, the other has no religious imagery whatsoever. both are more or less an exploration of human nature in two very different forms of isolation. when a filmmaker makes something in horror gross, they’re usually trying to make you uncomfortable, they’re trying to make you think. nihilism can be a strong source of horror, because surviving people still have to live, find moments of levity, invent threads of hope.
17:55 dorito lol
I can't dislike this video so I'll just comment saying I think you're completely wrong and I'm pissed YouTube suggested this shit to me
Christians will make anything about god
"They hate right angles" is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
There are tons and TONS of GOATED horror movies with no notion of God, Jesus, the holy Spirit or any other silly ol "The Big Bibble" character. Your big "Jebus was am super duper the real boy" line was extremely telling. I WILL say that some of the better horror movies abandon hope, or when the protagonist reaches for God only to stumble on the face. To say hereditary, widely scoped as one of the best horror movies EVER, doesn't work, I think maybe you better stick with romcoms buddy.
Bravo! Loved your video! A great one to share for non-trick-or-treater Christians!
3:28 The first issue here is that it presents a false dichotomy between moral interincisal and moral relativism, ignoring other forms of moral realism such as moral objectivism. The second issue is that I don't exactly see what morality necessarily has to do with horror here. Sure, we can debate outside the context of danger whether or not a monster or serial killer can be called evil. That being said, were I a moral relativist and in one of these situations, I wouldn't say "ah, well, I don't want to die, but since I can't say that there's anything objectively morally wrong with this, I'll just go along with it. Carry on, old chap!"
I was going to reply to more than that, but I failed to see a point beyond what I just responded to over the next few minutes aside from "Horror has prominent Christian influence." I feel that this observation has as much weight as saying that modern American law has prominent Roman influence. Is this factual? Yes. Should the influence be credited? Sure. Does this mean the Roman empire has a right to sit on western law forever and never adapt past their level? Definitively no. If that's where the thesis of the video is going with Christianity and horror, then I don't see how it doesn't fall for the same logical reasons.
If your thesis relies on your point about objective morality, then that ultimately fails because:
A. I don't care if the horror is evil according to some cosmic arbitration if it's trying to kill, hurt, or otherwise torment me; it's a threat nonetheless.
B. Granting objective morality, the existence of God does nothing for morality that can be done without it, let alone the very arbitrary Abrahamic God and his very arbitrary interpreters. If the Christian God were Plato's Form of the Good, he wouldn't have a will to enact, merely an existence for others to align with. And the same Church which once held that it is ( and still holds that it was ) right and lawful for a merciful man to be burnt alive for being an anabaptist now holds that even thinking a sex offender should be painlessly executed is inadmissible.
Hereditary and the VVitch both presented events where the characters' choices didn't matter. Completely dull and uninteresting once the credits rolled. No growth, arc, anything to ponder.
No, horror doesn't belong to Christianity nor did it originate it. Many cultures have had their own horror for centuries. They have even had their own versions of vampires. You are talking about specific eras in Western horror.
Horror exists in life. With or without Christianity.
There is a good thing in the end regarding the crafting of horror stories: we have different options to explore it and people will like one type or another. Horror can explore a lot of themes and even mix them, but I agree that religion and christianity is on the background on most cases since it is a big thing in our lives.
The Thing debunks the entire point of this video
It's only scary if you can fight or flee. We fight because we have faith that fighting will accomplish something, and religious icons are physical examples of faith. There's not that much of a difference in a horror flick between 'the power of Christ compels you' and ' God gave me this flamethrower'.
15:22 the jews worship the devil, they reject Jesus Christ. When they say god, they are referring their god Satan. Maybe that’s why in his film the demon had unlimited power and was destined to win, they worship that kind of stuff. Demons are not viewed negatively in Judaism, they are teachers, guides, helpers, sometimes real physical entities walking around
5:47 Not Bocchi AI Slop😭
The worlds gonna end I swear
Speaking of horror in video games. Major's Mask has been on my mind lately.
This was such a beautiful video. I totally love this.
I've heard people diminishing faith on media and art, and it's refreshing to see how much faith has done and gave to the world. ❤❤❤❤ Thank you so much.
Buddy, cover the Malfoid trend.
19:06 19:15
1:05 Jesus sacrificed his blood on the cross, so we (people) could live; Dracula takes blood 🩸 so he can live
A thousand In Praise of Shadows' screamed in repulsion as you claimed that horror monsters are objective evil and not minorities
Don't you know that all horror is leftist, chud? Please do not think about how I both mock conservatives for feeling scared and that I claim that conservatives are incapable of horror for that very reason
Horror without God is actually scarier because you're not expecting some benevolent, all powerful being to save you. You've got nothing, like in reality. I was raised Christian. Evangelical. Fundamentalist. It ruined my life. That was my horror movie. But the concept of a loving God makes things less scary. Or maybe it's more scary because God COULD save you, but for either bored or amusement, he chooses not to.
I dont like horror at all but watching this gave me a new perspective. I cant believe i could still worship God with watching horror. I will be looking for Him now in the horror media i consume. Looking for the light in the dark. Jesus is truly king in all domain 🤍
Someone tell Allie Beth Stuckey
I mean I can see why horror is scary with God. But there are so many more horrific things out there I have nothing to do with God. They would be scary whether you even had a concept of God or not.
Have you ever seen any of Satoshi Kon's works? I'm not certain on what his views were, but he definitely had a better understanding than even most Christians. 'Perfect Blue' is considered the most terrifying animated horror. I rewatch it every Halloween just because there's always something knew to gather from it. Conversely, his Christmas film 'Tokyo Godfathers' does a better job incorporating the original Christmas story into the narrative than most Christmas films and is also the best Christmas film in all of Asia, if not a candidate for one of the 10 best Christmas films ever made. With only 4 films & a 13-episode series to his name, he did more in his time than most could in three times his tenure.
I’m glad someone is finally talking about this.
So basically Christianity has been using fear as a tool for so long that most western horror movies have been so deeply ingrained with it that most people can only see evil through a religious lens.
Though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil for my shepherd walks beside me who promises life everlasting
Absolute yappin
I'm just happy that I'm not the only one who thought Hereditary wasn't scary. I describe it as an upper class middle age mom's horror movie. Just didn't do it for me. Excellent acting, though.
Castlevania bro
Stephen King is notorious for his negative portrayals of Christians. Even Nostalgia Critic (raised Christian, but not Christian himself) calls it out.
So, while, yes he does use a lot of Christian imagery, I'd find it hard to believe he's Christian himself.
Although, I'll admit, Desperation (or was it Regulators) had a thinly-veiled Christ allegory character in it. And was overall a positive portrayal. Maybe he's changed over the years?
Doritos
I've always said how Horror that goes into gnostic explanations always turns it into just sci fi.
Resident Evil is a good example, on it's surface its scary but as you learn more about it, it's just a science experiment gone wrong sort of thing.
This sums up what I’ve been trying to figure out for a long time! Lots of horror these days suffers from some bleakness, that overtakes the entire story. It makes movies like The Lodge and Hereditary feel upsetting, sad, gross, but most of all… boring. There’s nothing to fight for if these characters don’t have their free will. That’s the lesson.