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View Full Version : Christianity in the Hollywood Horror Howlers



saidevo
22 October 2008, 01:02 PM
In these days of dwindling faith in Christianity in the USA, the Hollywood howlers that go by the genre name of 'horror movies' come in handly in blending grotesque, gross technology with the ghastly aspects of the Christian faith. With some sly wits typical of a missionary, they can even sandwich some evangelism and heretical dogma, ensuring at the same time that the evangelical core does not seep much into the story and deter the mainstream modern materialistic audience who don't give a hoot to religion and dogma.

Today the dark, Satanic force in horror movies manifests in weird creatures spawned by computer graphics and invade the surroundings of urban life all over. Gone are the days when this force of Satan took possession of a young girl (Exorcist) or even took avatar as a young boy (Omen). Today the force in many movies manifest in zombies and weird creatures of metallic machinery, giving powers so enormous, indefatigable and even invincible that would make the Biblical God turn ruddier with envy and anger.

Well, this thread is not for discussing or reviewing movies. My intention is to show how the Hollywood movies and their characters, for all their heroism, daredevilry and heights of techonolgy and artistry, are dumb and irrational in their stark Christian religious outlook on life and death.

Stephen King's The Mist, a 2007 American horror film is a case in point. A big, electric storm knocks out the power in a small town and the neighbours flock to the local grocery store to stock up their provisions of food and drink. And inside that food store, they are all trapped. The trapped include the hero and his young son (who leave the mom at home), three men from the military, a lawyer friend of the hero and a bunch of neighbours that includes a woman evangelist.

A strange, dense and widespread mist, heading from the direction of the local military base, surrounds the store, cascading a series of horrific incidents. When receding death wails of people who intially come out of the store are heard, the other people shut themselves up inside, locking all the doors and windows of the store, which are all glass panels. The generator develops some problem, the hero and some other men venture to the back of the store to check, find the back entrance shutters rattle, and when they lift it up partially, a man is seized by long and massive tentacles of an apparently lurking monster and ripped off. The hero manages to cut a piece of a tentacle when they finally muster enough strength to pull down the shutters.

In a typical American mindset of belief in disbelief, the people in the store divide into two groups of rationalists and believers of the weird incidents. The rationalists argue about venturing out to procure outside help (since the phones lines and cellphone network are also dead), the believers try to argue them out, three or four people from the rationalist group do venture out, only to be eaten up or (preserved for hatching as they later find out) by the weird monsters which spawn gruesome flying bug-like insects that chirp with a metallic sound and feed on human flesh.

Now we come to the sandwich part of the story: the believers divide into two groups: those who believe that God is wrecking disaster on mankind as described in the Bible in revenge to its material progress that mocks at their Creator; and those who believe that there must be a rational explanation for the mist and the weird, attacking creatures.

The woman evangelist trapped in the store actually forms and leads the group of people who think it is all God's wrath against man. She reads out from the Bible to convince her group and make her points:

• If I can save a few...even one...then my life will have counted
for something. (praying secretly to God)

• "And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed."

• The end time has come, not in flames, but in mist.

• There is one God. The God of the Israelites. And he is a stern and vengeful God, and we have been mocking him far too long, and now he demands retribution in blood.

• It is time to declare yourselves. Take sides--the saved and the damned.

• Read the Good Book. It calls for expiation. Blood. Little Normie was first, and now God calls the rest of us.

• The bill is due. It must be paid. As Abraham prepared to sacrifice his only son to prove his love for God, so--

• They'll come tonight, and they'll take someone else. See if they don't. And when they do, you will cry to God, and you will beg Mother Carmody (the character in the film) to show you the way.

• "They came out of the smoke, locusts upon the earth, and unto them was given power even as the scorpions of the earth have power."

• "And there came a voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, 'Go your ways and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth."'

Finally it transpires that the mist could have been the result of a monstrous military project that accidentally opened a 'window' to a world in another dimension; the 'window' turned out to be a 'door', inviting the monstrous creatures from the other world to cause havoc. (No comments on such 'scientific' explanation!) The miliatary man who confesses to some sketchy knowledge about the project, finds his two other colleagues dead by hanging, having committed suicide due to the pangs of guilt.

With her Biblical quotes, the evangelist successfully brands the remaining military man as Judas and goads the people in her group to offer him as a 'sacrifice' to God's wrath as a means of their expiation: the man is stabbed and pushed outside, and the creatures promptly seize him up.

With no solution in sight, she calls for the sacrifice of the hero's boy! At this point, someone knifes and kills her (lest the film should lose the 'faith' of the modern audience!). A civil war is about to break out, but the fires of passion are quickly doused by a lone revolver somebody manages to point at the Biblicists.

The movie ends in a most illogical note: those who are interested in the ending might look up the Wikipedia entry or even watch the movie!

This message of the movie, however, has a point:

"People are basically good, decent. My God, David, we're a civilized society. Sure, as long as the machines are working and you can dial 9-1-1, but you take those things away, you throw people in the dark, you scare the **** out of them, no more rules, you'll see how primitive they get."

It is such situations, real or perceived or exaggerated in fiction and films, that come in handy for a missionary.