God, Screams And The Silver Screen

Marginalised since its creation, the horror film has been long dismissed as little more than an excuse for blood and gore, rarely receiving the critical consideration and interpretation allotted to more "serious" cinematic works. As a result of its commonly violent nature, the horror film has also been attacked as immoral as well as insignificant cinema. Films with explicitly gory sequences have been placed alongside video games, heavy metal/rap music, and violent television programs as contributing factors in the much discussed moral decline of younger generations and society as a whole. Yet contrary to the popular stigma often attached to the genre, a thread of morality does run through many horror films: a Christianity morality. Christianity can be found at several levels within the horror film: at the most basic symbolic and literal levels, at an ethnocentric level in which other forms of religion are discredited, and at a more abstracted moral level exemplified by the so-called "teen-slasher" sub-genre. Although commonly perceived as chaotic and meaningless bloodfests, by observing the recurring images, themes, and characters in horror movies we can see that many examples of the genre are in fact conservative Christian morality plays.

Literalism
Christian imagery within film is obviously a broad topic. Within the standard forms of comedy and drama, Christian imagery can be used for limitless purposes, just as it can in literature. However, in the context of films which deal with the supernatural or paranormal, the presence of Christian imagery implies a far more specific series of assertions. Consider such popular films as The Exorcist and The Omen. Both employ Christian concepts as central plot devices: demonic possession and the Apocalypse, respectively. Both films were critically acclaimed (The Exorcist won an Academy Award for its screenplay) and each generated enough revenue to warrant the production of several inferior sequels. Simply put, both films attained complete mainstream acceptance and success. Yet when they are viewed at the literal level, they imply a viewpoint not necessarily shared by the majority of the film's audience.

In The Exorcist, a demon takes control of a twelve-year-old girl, and causes all manner of destruction before it is expelled by a pair of priests employing holy water and the recitation of prayer. The exorcism comes at the cost of the priests' lives. The Omen adheres perhaps even more to a literal interpretation of Christian doctrine. The birth of the son of Satan, manifested in human form, heralds the coming Armageddon as foretold in the book of Revelation. The Antichrist in The Omen, a boy named Damien, even has "the number of the beast" (666, as counted in Revelation 14:18) on his body. Damien's foster father comes to realise his son's true nature, but is killed before he can rid the world of the Antichrist.

Another, less successful film which portrays evil as described in the Bible as a very real and powerful presence is Angel Heart. The film follows a private investigator hired by the devil (this time incarnated in human form and operating under the name of Cyphere, a pun on Lucifer) to track down a man who is revealed to have sold his soul. The devil toys with the P.I., Harry Angel, who is possessed by the soul of the very man he is pursuing, and commits murders whilst under the control of the renegade soul. The film is laden with Satanic imagery: inverted pentagrams and crosses, the desecration of the Bible.

When they are taken as simple entertainment, The Omen and Angel Heart can be said to use Christian imagery and mythology as a means of captivating and frightening their audiences. Yet when they are approached as works operating at deeper levels, the Christian aspects of these films suggest concepts which go beyond mere entertainment. At the most basic level, all three films maintain that the Judeo-Christian God exists. There is nothing particularly shocking about a lavishly produced Hollywood film suggesting this; it is shocking when the existence of God is inferred only through the existence of Satan, as his is the predominant force in all three films. That priests are able to defeat a demon in The Exorcist proves the power of God, although in The Omen the Antichrist is the only example of any active higher power; that God exists must be inferred solely from the fact that prophecies as foretold in the Bible are coming to fruition. We must assume the same from Angel Heart; God must exist because Satan does. That Satan emerges victorious in Angel Heart and The Omen plays to a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint by demonstrating the very real power of Satan, and the impending apocalypse. The Omen takes this assumption of Armageddon and describes its coming in detail. Thus, in these films the Bible is not just a series of parables set forth to prescribe God's will, but a literal depiction of the past and future of mankind. The religion of these films, especially that found in The Omen is not the soft, spiritual presence of a higher power, as found in modern, liberal approaches to Christianity, but rather an extremely conservative, literal interpretation of the only God.

Ethnocentrism
The use of film as a propaganda tool has been common practice since the medium's creation. The first film to codify to the standard practices and conventions of film production employed to this day, The Birth of a Nation, was a blatantly racist production in which a Southern belle is trapped in her home by hundreds of rioting slaves, and is saved by Ku Klux Klansmen on horseback. The theme of extreme nationalism in film perhaps peaked in the 1980s with the hugely popular Rambo films. Film has also presented Christianity in a positive light as compared to other religions, and the supernatural nature of the horror film has allowed this to manifest at the level of sheer fantasy, or perhaps worse, at the level of misconceived and exaggerated stereotyping.

The Jewish legend of the golem, an animated clay being used to protect Jews from Christian persecution, is exploited in three films, The Golem, The Golem and the Dancer, and Golem: How He Came Into the World. These films were produced between the years of 1914 and 1920 by Paul Wegener, a German director who used the golem legend as a means of supporting anti-Jewish sentiment. The films take place in the 1500s, and are loosely based on the actions of an historical rabbi, Rabbi Loew of Prague. Through the manipulation of history and myth, Wegener's golem comes to represent a Jewish threat aimed at Gentiles. Not content with stereotyping Jews as otherworldly cave-dwellers, Wegener goes so far as to accuse Jews of dabbling in black magic. In Golem: How He Came Into the World, a rabbi summons a demon to assist him in the creation of the golem which later runs rampant, killing innocent Christians, including a young knight romantically involved with the rabbi's daughter. In death, the knight's body mimics Christ's, a none-too-subtle insinuation of Jews being Christ's killers. That the knight is punished for an interracial romance suggests to Gentile audiences not only that it is wrong to pursue such romances, but also that Jews are unnaccepting of Gentiles as potential mates. When placed in the context of German anti-Semitism in the mid-war period, the moral attitudes of these films become even more clearly ethnocentric.

A more recent example of Christian bias can be found in the depiction of Haitian voodoo in film. There have been several less than complimentary portrayals of voodoo in film, such as The Serpent and the Rainbow and The Believers, but the aforementioned Angel Heart makes a direct connection between voodoo and Christian perceptions of devil worship. There are numerous references to voodoo practices which imply that the religion is little more than devil worship operating in disguise. Angel Heart makes no exploration of voodoo as anything more than the practice of dark rituals, a fact which is highlighted by a scene depicting a bloody animal sacrifice. The lines between voodoo and devil worship are blurred, leaving the viewer with the perception of voodoo as a distinctly evil and anti-Christian practice. These films, then, place Christianity above all other religions, not only at the level of practice and ceremony, but also the morals underlying religious faith.

Not only are Jews seen as an evil presence in the golem films as a result of their bizarre rituals, but also because of the motives upon which those rituals are based. That Wegener's rabbi basks in the praise of his fellow Jews while his creation runs rampant casts him clearly as a villain. While such character flaws obviously pale in comparison to the mayhem caused by the golem, it is important to consider what judgements an audience might infer from Wegener's depiction of Jews. While the image of the Jew as a sorcerer who animates clay will be dismissed as sheer fantasy, the perception of a Jew as a conniving and dastardly conspirer against Christianity clearly took hold of the German populace. That the actions of the Jews are fantasy, but the motivation behind the actions are real, is the moral message conveyed by the golem films.

Furthermore, such ethnocentricism robs other religions of any existence independent of Christianity, especially in the case of Angel Heart. Religions are not judged on their own merits and faults, but rather on the basis of their relation to Christianity, depicted as the centre of the religious world; the moral barometer by which other faiths are judged. The thought of an independent religious system so foreign to Western perceptions of religion as voodoo is inconceivable. Voodoo is thus amalgamated with Satanism, a far easier concept upon which to place moral judgement.

Morality
When the horror film is studied at the moral level, when the lessons or instructions that can be taken from it are examined, the Christian elements of the horror genre can be seen as especially meaningful and purposeful aspects of the genre. The moral judgements of horror films are obviously more subtle than the overt and blatant Satanic or religious imagery previously discussed, but as mentioned in relation to anti-Semitism, it is important to note that the messages behind the fantastic violence are the concepts which audiences are actually being given, the blood and gore typically dismissed as meaningless entertainment.

Hellraiser tells the story of a man who has somehow escaped the clutches of the demons he has sold his soul to. He returns to Earth, where he enlists his brother's wife (whom he'd had an affair with while he was alive) in helping him return to human form. The man's niece (not the daughter of her father's current wife) soon stumbles across the murders and atrocities committed by her uncle and step-mother.

The entire film is laden with the theme of sexuality. The step-mother, Julia, is portrayed as an evil temptress. Not only is she cheating on her husband, but she later seduces men in order to kill them to aid her lover's reconstruction. At numerous points in the film, a sharp contrast is established between the overtly sexualized Julia and the innocent, virgin niece, Kirsty. While there are several scenes depicting Julia making love with Frank, her husband's brother, there is special attention drawn to Kirsty's innocence: she is shown sleeping in the same room as her boyfriend, but care is taken to place the boyfriend on the floor, far away from the chaste Kirsty's bed. The notion of virginity as a reflection of a person's character is a recurring one in horror films. Frank, it is revealed, has sold his soul in order to attain forbidden extremes of pleasure and pain, which are viewed as one and the same in the film. Frank is punished for his sexual curiosity. The moral that comes out of Hellraiser is that sexuality outside of societal norms is evil. When this moral is viewed in contrast with the bizarre religious motif found in the film, the brutal death of Frank at the hands of the demons comes across as a punitive judgement from God. Parallelling the notion of original sin, Frank has overstepped the human boundaries established by God, and incurs God's wrath as a result. The pure Kirsty is the only survivor of the film.

The slasher sub-genre follows a pattern which is rarely transgressed: a crazed killer stalks and kills a group of teenagers one by one. The slasher film is best exemplified by the film Halloween, which to this day remains a hugely popular and frightening film. Halloween opens with a six-year-old-boy, Michael Myers, killing his older sister (immediately after she has had sex with her boyfriend) on Halloween. On the same night, years later, Myers escapes the mental institution he has been locked away in, and sets upon a group of teens in his old neighbourhood. Myers himself is depicted as a nearly mindless sociopath. He possesses superhuman strength, and seems indestructible. A psychiatrist in pursuit of Myers describes him as being "purely and simply evil," and of having "the blackest eyes, the devil's eyes."

The protagonist of the film, Laurie, dresses conservatively, and is studious and responsible. Her friends, Annie and Lynda, dress provocatively, smoke, drink, and are sexually active. While Laurie babysits, her friends are abandoning their responsibilities and frolicking with their boyfriends. Because of their immoral ways, Annie and Lynda (along with a randy boyfriend) are killed by Myers. Again, the virgin is the only survivor of the slaughter.

Halloween has more or less set the standard for slasher movies. From it stemmed a series of conventions rarely swayed from in the genre. In the horror movie spoof Scream, these rules are described while the characters breaking them are being stalked and killed: "You can never have sex. Sex equals death. You can never drink or do drugs. It's a sin."

Religious imagery is kept to a minimum in Halloween. Besides the likening of Myers to a devil, the only overt religious aspect of the film is a scene in which one of Myers' victims is laid in a crucifixion pose, the tombstone of Myers' dead sister above her head. Instead of relying upon imagery, the Christian elements of the slasher film are found in its moral messages; that promiscuous adolescents who experiment with drugs must be punished. Consider the target audience of slasher films: teens and young adults, who see themselves reflected in the on-screen victims. In an increasingly secular society, the image of God as a punitive force becomes less and less believable, especially in the eyes of young Westerners. Thus, the source of punishment in slasher films has been shifted away from God and towards an increasingly popular object of fear: the psychotic killer. The moral views expressed by that killer are still traditional conservative Christian values: abstinence outside of marriage, the villainy of aggressive female sexuality, and the evil nature of drugs and alcohol. The slasher film contextualizes Christian morality for a secular world, updating the methods used to deliver moral messages. The film Seven draws attention to the secularization of Western society and how this relates to morality. The killer in Seven selects victims who have committed one of the seven deadly sins: gluttony, pride, greed, sloth, lust, envy, and wrath. The irony of the situation, as the killer points out, is that these sins have become commonplace in the modern world, and that the commands of God have been forgotten. The real conflict in Seven exists not so much between the killer and those tracking him, but between conflicting codes of behaviour: that outlined in the Bible and that commonly adhered to in Western society. Seven serves as a disturbing mid-point between death as manifested by the wrath of God and as brought about by a lone killer.

There are numerous other moral and social attitudes which are reflected in horror films: the fear of foreign invasion as represented in films of the Invaders From Mars variety, the fear of and fascination with the �other' (foreign or otherwise) found in vampire films, the critique of consumer-driven, faceless Western culture hidden in the Night of the Living Dead trilogy. The issue of Christianity within the horror film, however, is of a peculiar nature because of the contradictions which seem to arise out of a search for morality within a form of entertainment which revolves around violence, if not blatantly glorifying it. Yet this contradiction can perhaps be understood if the horror film is seen as the product of a society struggling to ratify centuries of Christian-dominated culture with a comparatively new secularized set of standards for behaviour and morality. The horror film attempts to synthesize these two conflicting world views by supporting its tolerance of violence and terror with the hidden notion that God is still somehow present behind the virginal screams and rivers of blood.

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