More Omens

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Brushing up on my eschatology, I watched The Omen again.  The original, that is.  One of the underrated aspects of cinema is that people learn their theology from it.  Movies tend to be more memorable than sermons.  It is opined among some that The Omen is responsible for the prevalence of dispensationalism among many Americans.  I’d put a bit of a finer point on it in that The Late Great Planet Earth was being raptured off the shelves all the way through the seventies (I personally bought two copies) and it caused a feedback loop with The Omen.  Many mainstream ministers, without benefit of a Fundamentalist upbringing, were caught unawares, I expect.  Scholars of religion have noted how several aspects of the narrative—the character of “the Antichrist,” the rapture, indeed, the Apocalypse—have been read back into the Bible by credulous believers.

What I found interesting in this viewing is the debt owed to The Exorcist.  Of the two there’s no doubt as to which is the superior film.  The name Damien in The Omen, I read somewhere once upon a time, was taken from Fr. Damien Karras.  During the late seventies and early eighties, unruly boys were routinely called “Damien” by frustrated camp counselors and others.  Apart from this nod, if true, is the fact that the abruptly introduced character Karl/Carl Bugenhagen is an archaeologist exorcist.  (He’s the guy who gives Robert Thorn the knives, if you haven’t seen it for a while.)  The scene shot in Jerusalem (said to be Megiddo) underscores that Fr. Merrin is also being channeled here.  I suspect that the film was getting a bit long in the tooth and some explanatory material on Bugenhagen was left out.

It has also been suggested that the number 666 entered popular culture because of The Omen.  I would temper that a bit with the fact that a lot of people were reading Hal Lindsey’s new apocalypse as well and the two of them got the job done.  There’s no doubt that after the film the evil number took off in a direction that would’ve left John of Patmos scratching his head.  This brings me back to the point that belief is influenced—sometimes constructed—by movies.  The Omen was a huge success at the time, despite the fact that many critics (also not raised Fundie) thought the premise was silly.  Most people aren’t film critics.  The Bible can be pretty impenetrable as well.  Preachers may not be inspiring.  Movies, however, wrap it up neatly and tell you what to believe.  Perhaps it’s some kind of sign.

Squeaky Clean?

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A New York Times story, apart from the expected misunderstanding of actual Evangelicals, made me sad.  The article points out that, especially since 2016, “Evangelicals” have taken to soft-core porn, cussing, drinking, and premarital sex.  In other words, Trump has given them license to behave like secular folks while still claiming the name “Evangelical.”  Why should this make me sad?  I lament the loss of place for those who grew up, like me, striving for clean living.  It’s an image—a mirage—rather than a reality, of course.  But still, if conviction holds, you can get pretty close to the ideal.  That vision of life has been occluded by a guy who runs for President because he cares only for himself.  Jesus, on the other hand, was all about caring for others.  Going as far as, if the Gospels are to be believed, sacrificing his own life.

Like fiscal conservatives, such legitimate Evangelicals now have no public voice.  One of only two political parties has become identified with an individual rather than ideals—what used to be called a platform.  I have Republican friends.  I grew up identifying as a Republican.  I also grew up as an Evangelical.  I studiously avoided things like bad language, sex, tobacco, and alcohol.  Even at Evangelical Grove City College I was a bit of an outlier for how seriously I took all these things.  Of course, studying history can be dangerous, particularly for ideologues.  Still, “clean living” had its own virtues.  Those who continue to try to live that way are swimming into a rip tide, it seems.  For some Trump seems like the Second Coming, sans the white horse.  And this, above all, is sad.

There are those who claim, often loudly, that religion is bad.  I agree that when a religion tries to force others to obey its standards it can quickly become evil.  Still, the baby should be left behind when the bathwater’s discarded.  Religion has led to much good in the world.  Hospitals, charities, and yes, “clean living.”  These things, along with retirement homes and affordable apartments for low-earners in their autumn years, are necessary to pick up the slack that the government leaves.  It is cause for sadness that the clean living camp has succumbed to Trump-style hypocrisy.  Heck, religion gave us the word “hypocrisy.”  The standards of classical Evangelicalism are often impossibly high.  If we look at current Evangelical leaders we find many, many skeletons in a house with many closets.  And a wagging finger warning the young, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Showing Gratitude

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Stealing is something that we all, except some capitalists, know is wrong.  I think quite a lot about the land that was stolen to make America possible and I know that simply giving it back isn’t an option.  Nevertheless, I do believe that we should listen, and listen attentively to those who’ve been here longer than Europeans.  Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass is an important reflection of this dilemma.  Kimmerer is Potawatomi and she’s also a professor of Environmental Biology.  The book is a series of essays that focus mostly on plants and what we can learn from them.  It also brings in indigenous teaching, contrasting the outlook of gratitude against that of greed.  By turns sad, funny, and profound, Braiding Sweetgrass contains a message that is vital to counter climate change.  To correct our attitude before it’s too late.

There’s so much in this book that it’s difficult to know what to touch on in this brief notice.  Throughout, Kimmerer notes that the First Nations viewed life as a gift.  The earth is constantly giving and the native way was to be thankful and to accept the responsibility of being given a gift.  Seeing how the European attitude was “take until there’s no more to take,” she points out that taking what you need and leaving for others is a way out of our current dilemma.  She does this, most strikingly, by the story of the windigo.  The windigo has become popular among monster fans as a consuming beast, but Kimmerer shows how the story has a profound point.  If all you do is consume you become a monster.  You stop a windigo by showing gratitude.

Perhaps the most striking thing, to me, was how Kimmerer describes her own experience becoming a scientist.  How standard academics refused to believe they had anything to learn from Native American outlooks, especially when borne by a woman.  How she was told she couldn’t be a scientist, not with that outlook.  And how she learned the European way but didn’t give up her native understanding.  How she brings two worlds together and does so with a sense of urgency and hope.  Things have gone too far simply to turn back the calendar and say that our ancestors had it all wrong, but it’s not too late to learn from those who lived for millennia on this land and were untainted by ideas of private ownership.  Those who knew how to live sustainably with nature.  Those who knew, and still know, how to defeat monsters.

Forewarning

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The Devil’s Advocates series, as you learn from pitching and writing one, promotes alternative views on horror films.  Adrian Schober’s treatment of The Omen doesn’t disappoint.  Each time I read one of these little volumes I’m always amazed at how many ideas can be packed into such a small space.  Schober’s take on the film is that Damien’s role is left intentionally ambiguous.  There was disagreement between the screenwriter (David Seltzer) and the director (Richard Donner) on that point.  Donner wanted it to be left up to the audience whether Damien was the Antichrist or not.  Seltzer, not being a believer himself, wanted to be clear that the boy was evil.  As portrayed in the final film, however, Damien seems awfully vulnerable, in retrospect.  (I rewatched the movie before reading the book.)

I’ve seen The Omen a number of times.  It has never been my favorite movie and I actually read the book (a novelization) before I ever saw the film.  Having grown up as a fundamentalist, I believed that we were in the end times (which only really seemed likely starting in November 2016).  The movie had to wait until I was an adult (I read the novelization when the film first came out).  I can see the ambiguity now, having read this book.  There remain, however, some things difficult to explain about the presentation—how Fr. Brennan knows Katherine is pregnant and that Damien will be the cause of her miscarriage.  The extreme coincidence of both the priest and the boy having the same birthmark that looks like 666.  And that someone would go through the trouble of burying a jackal and Thorn’s actual son in an obscure Etruscan cemetery just in case the Ambassador ever got suspicious and wanted to check it out.  

Interestingly, different markets altered the ending, enhancing the ambiguity.  The final scene had originally been shot with three coffins rather than two, and that changes things, doesn’t it?  Movies are, of course, subject to interpretation.  Any form of media is.  The fact remains that many viewers flocked from theaters believing Damien was the Antichrist.  Schober’s book would give pause, however, about rushing to conclusions.  The idea for the movie was suggested initially by a marketer who was a true believer in premillennial dispensationalism (essentially the worldview of Keith Jennings in the movie), and some Catholic officials objected.  Different Christian sects have very different interpretations about the end of the world.  And this movie is subject to different interpretations.  This brief book might just change your mind.

A Different Legion

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Religion and horror can play well together.  They can also be unevenly matched.  Although Legion has been on my list since shortly after it came out, my impression after having watched it is that the angels are strangely corporeal.  Their fights are physical with very little supernatural involved.  I suppose that’s why it’s generally classified as “action,” but the premise is one that suggests a bit more supernatural would’ve been welcome.  The writing suffers from any number of ailments, and the ending leaves you wondering just how good God is supposed to be in this telling.  I suppose a plot synopsis might help.

A pregnant waitress in a remote diner is nearly at term.  The Archangel Michael has come to earth in Los Angeles (get it?) and has armed himself to protect this unborn baby.  He comes to the diner where the owner and his son, his cook, and four customers are holed up against what they think is a demon attack.  Michael eventually reveals that the arriving hordes are not demons, but humans possessed by angels.  God has decided to wipe out the human race again, this time with angelic mercenaries.  If the waitress’s baby survives, however, the world will be saved.  So there’s lots of shooting, and although a white guy dies first, the only two Black characters are the next victims, of course.  To kill angels, it turns out, you have to shoot them.  Who knew?  In the end, which pits Gabriel against Michael, it’s revealed that God was testing the loyalty of his angels by giving them this task.  Mindless obedience, God thinks, is wrong.  If people have to be killed to prove it, so be it.

The theme of the messianic baby stays intact but goes nowhere.  At the end it’s unclear if the angel attacks are still going on, but the waitress and her boyfriend, along with the baby, drive around heavily armed, ready to fight.  Did the angels get the message that they are being tested by God or are they, like many Republicans, simply following the “leader”?  Seeing the title and knowing nothing of the story, I had assumed this was a movie about demons.  The “Legion,” of course, is angelic but there’s not a lot transcendent about them.  Even the use of wings (which are bulletproof), makes this feel like Dogma without the humor.  I knew religion would be involved in this horror, but I didn’t know how poorly it was played out.  Still, it would fit into Holy Sequel, if it ever happens.

Sequel Pondering

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Of course I’m working on another book.  I can’t say what it is at the moment, but one of the projects I’ve long been contemplating is a kind of sequel to Holy Horror.  The problem is that if the first book didn’t sell very well (the premise is perhaps too academic), a sequel couldn’t be expected to do any better.  I’m still working on sloughing that academy skin.  But I keep watching what we insist on calling “horror” and the more I do, the more I find the Bible in it.  Others have taken up the gauntlet—mostly academics who have jobs that encourage such behavior—of connecting horror and religion.  The Bible’s role, while a subset of the larger field, has its own particular parameters.  In one of my notebooks I have a list of 23 movies to add to my analysis.  I know that there is a twenty-fourth, but it’s only streaming on an exclusive service and still costs a bit too much for something that doesn’t come with a plastic case.

In any case, Holy Horror just scratched the surface.  One of the factors I’ve mentioned before is that there is no database of the Bible’s appearances in film.  It would be an extensive list altogether, and a substantial number of horror films would be on it.  In general, it seems, people really aren’t too interested or intrigued by this fact.  I certainly am.  Our society is a curious mix of sweet and salty.  We want to think we’re too sophisticated for religion, but religion undergirds just about everything we do.  Otherwise it’s pretty difficult to explain how the Bible keeps showing up in horror.  Usually as a mysterious artifact.

I recently saw myself referred to as a biblical scholar.  There’s no doubt that I taught biblical studies for many years.  I even wrote a book interpreting one aspect of the Good Book.  My degree, and my interest, however, has always been historical.  I follow this history of ideas.  Although many people don’t understand my current horror fascination, it’s clear this is another jog down a trail of history.  How did we get to the point that a totemic (the scholarly phrase is “iconic”) Bible became a stand-in for God in movies?  I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to write Holy Sequel, although, if my profession ever permitted it, I’d certainly have the interest in doing so.  There’s a lot to be learned from such explorations.  That’s true even if the books containing the information only appear on a few dusty library shelves.

Sinful Thoughts

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The driving force behind Holy Horror is the fact that the Bible appears in lots of horror movies.  More than might be expected.  Although I’ve moved on to other projects, I still keep an eye out.  There may not be time or opportunity in my life to write a sequel, but you can’t unnotice the Bible in The Sinners.  The title drew me in, as did its free status on Amazon Prime.  It’s a Bible-based flick, for sure, but even the basic description gets religion wrong.  I generally like movies by female directors, and this one was a project of Courtney Paige whose name, for some reason, sounds strangely familiar.  In any case, one of the biggest blunders movies like this make is that the religion doesn’t hang together.  Of course, it doesn’t say what variety of Christianity it is, but it’s of the literalist stripe.

Seven alpha females at a Christian school in a Christian community form a clique in which they’re each characterized by one of the seven deadly sins.  They’re lead by the pastor’s daughter, of course.  One of the girls keeps a journal in which she confides that she confessed their activities to the pastor.  The betrayed girls decide to scare the offender but she escapes when they’re intimidating her.  She’s found dead but then the other sinners start being murdered.  The police aren’t really effective and the girls try to figure out who’s behind this.  I won’t say who but I will say that it doesn’t really make much sense.  Scenes jump around and characters appear with little or no introduction—it’s disorienting.  But that religion…

I know enough PKs (preacher’s kids) to know they often aren’t as innocent as dad thinks (and it’s generally dad).  I also know that forced conformity of religion builds resentment and resistance.  But there’s something wrong here.  The pastor drinks wine.  Even the truly religious girls drop f-bombs.  One even attends a Satanist meeting with no explanation.  The pastor’s wife is having an affair.  The school librarian has sex with her husband at the school between classes.  They can all quote scripture, and often do.  What religion is this?  I couldn’t really engage with the movie because there were too many distracting religious gaffs.  Hey, I don’t mind when movies show the problems with religions—they’re fair game for commentary, after all.  But if you’re going to do it, try to understand the mindset of the religion you’re criticizing.  There’s a lot to think about in this movie, and it really isn’t that bad.  But for those who know religion there’ll be some question of which it is that’s under fire.  If I ever get back to Holy Horror I’ll say more.

Truthful Fiction

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Octavia E. Butler is a name I’ve known for some time.  Various people, most of whom I don’t know, had recommended her books, particularly Parable of the Talents.  It turns out to have been one of the scariest novels I’ve ever read.  It’s not horror—it’s science fiction.  It’s scary because it’s just too plausible.  The first inkling I had that something was amiss was when I read how Andrew Steele Jarret ran for president to “make America great again.”  Jarret pretends to be Christian to get the vote and America suffers terribly when he’s elected.  I flipped back to the copyright page.  1998.  I read on anyway.  It’s not too often you find a sci-fi book about someone starting a religion.  And named after a biblical story, as well.  I was doing fine until Jarret’s supporters destroyed Olamina’s peaceful community and enslaved the survivors.

It’s all just too plausible.  Of course, there’s a lot going on here.  Butler was an African-American whose ancestors had been slaves.  The religions presented in the book are a bit too black-and-white, but the followers of Christian America behave like many followers of Trump.  Butler saw this two decades before it happened.  The slavery part of the book was difficult to read.  There was so much pathos here, so much deep memory.  Although Olamina is a flawed character, she is a visionary with the best interest of the human race at heart.  This dystopia is perhaps a little too close to reality.  Those who recommend the book say that it’s hopeful, so I kept on reading.  And yes, there is a hopeful ending.  Getting to it left me floored.

Religion defines us.  In the growing materialism—false, as anyone who feels deeply knows—the idea that a story could be built around religion seems unlikely.  Butler has done that, and done it in spades.  I was surprised to learn that she’d studied at the Clarion Workshop, not far from where I grew up.  Being from an uneducated family I never heard of the Workshop until I was an adult.  And besides, it left Clarion, Pennsylvania for Michigan before I even got to high school.  Still, it gives me a sense of connection with a woman who saw more than many did.  Although Parable of the Sower is earlier, I’m not sure that I have it in me to pick it up.  At least not right away.  I’m still trembling a bit from Butler’s second parable.

Cinematic Demons

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It was because I read The Exorcist Effect.  I realize that there are lots of movies that I could’ve watched for Nightmares with the Bible, but with limited time, limited budget, and limited social contact, I made choices without all the data.  I guess no one ever has all the data, really.  In any case, I could’ve discussed The Crucifixion.  I’ve been taking a bit of a break from exorcism movies, but since this one was based on a true story I’d not heard before Exorcist Effect, I decided to give it a go.  Although highly fictionalized, the movie crew did pick up on significant details from the case of Maricica Irina Cornici, who died after an exorcism in Romania.  The framing story is that of Nicole Rawlins, a journalist who wants to learn the truth.

In fact, the story is really about how Rawlins comes to faith after confronting the demon Agares.  Rawlins has guilt over being an atheist, unable to convince her dying mother to try new treatment and then by letting her die with the knowledge that her daughter has no faith.  In Romania Rawlins drives around a lot and, in one of the most difficult to accept aspects, everyone freely gives information.  Sister Adelina Marinescu, the victim, we’re led to believe, picked up a sexually transmitted demon in Germany.  Her brother, and friends, even the bishop, all freely share their opinions.  Rawlins develops a crush on the local priest, Fr. Anton.  He wants her to regain faith since, as an atheist, she’s an easy target with a demon on the loose.

It turns out that the demon was actually transmitted from a possessed priest, who got it from a possessed farmer.  It then passed to Sister Adelina and from her to Rawlins.  Her possession becomes apparent on the farm of the original possessed man and Fr. Anton performs an unplanned exorcism to save Rawlins from the same fate as Sister Adelina.  Rawlins comes to believe; she saw her mother during a brief moment when, it’s implied, Nicole died.  The film has a rather convoluted plot and many scenes where logic seems to break down, but it is certainly a passable horror film.  Rawlins earns sympathy as the lead, and the Romanian setting is a nice (if historical) touch.  The local festival “like Halloween” adds intrigue.  The movie didn’t rock the critics, but it seems like it works for what it is.  And if I even write a follow-up to Nightmares, it will definitely be included.

Salem Away

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I can’t help but think the term “witch hunt” has been cheapened in recent years as a prominent, wealthy white man has been claiming to be the victim of one.  Nevertheless, America was actually home to an infamous witch hunt some centuries ago.  I’ve read a few books about it and there are many more yet to be read.  The thing Emerson W. Baker’s A Storm of Witchcraft has going for it is the broader context he gives the events.  Not only the events but the town of Salem also.  Older than Boston, and a major city in its day, Salem had more history than the trials for which it is famous.  Baker does a nice job of describing the ambivalence that residents have felt, and still feel, towards its past.  Tragic, yes, but fascinating also.

I fell in love with Boston the first time I set foot in it.  I made quite a few trips to Salem during my years there, drawn in by the history.  So much isn’t recoverable.  One of the aspects that comes clearly through Baker’s treatment is just how much of a Puritan problem witches were.   And not just witches.  Puritans didn’t care for those who differed from them.  Quakers could be just as bad as Devil worshippers.  And the tragedy of Salem illustrates that the Puritans didn’t much care for one another either.  Religion gets that way when it’s weaponized.  Baker points out the many pressures of what was essentially a frontier town on the coast.  War with American Indians was still a reality.  And Salem wouldn’t be innocent of the slave trade some decades later.  But it all seems to keep coming back to 1692.  And the death of the innocent.

Baker also points out how Cotton Mather covered his own tracks, justifying what he knew was wrong in order to keep privilege in its place.  We tend to think of that as a modern trait, but clearly clergy were well aware of it back in the early days of this nation.  Religions always do have a difficult time admitting it when they make mistakes.  I think they’d find that people can be pretty forgiving, though, especially since they often advocate forgiveness themselves.  This book is a thought-provoking treatment of Salem.  The events that took place there have shaped this county in unexpected ways.  They made the case, centuries ago, for tolerance of those who are different.  It’s a lesson we still have trouble learning.

Not What It Seems

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Now for the local news.  The ironic thing is I know very few people locally and even though folks are friendly around here nobody really wants to get to know you, it seems.  But that’s not unique to this area and it’s off point.  No, locally some months ago The Satanic Temple (which I’ve written about before) tried to start an after school club in an eastern Pennsylvania school in response to an explicitly Christian after-school club receiving sponsorship.  Of course it caused local furor.  That’s what the Satanic Temple intends to do.  The members do not believe in, let alone worship, Satan.  They exist to try to counter Christian hegemony, often in the form of courthouse lawn Christian imagery, or, as in this case, biased treatment to Christian groups wanting to use public property, such as school facilities, to promote their religion.

The reason I’m bringing this up is to show how the Christian agenda raises your taxes.  According to the ACLU, this school district, after challenged in court, has agreed to pay $200,000 and it must allow the Satanic Temple to meet if it allows Christian groups to meet.  That hefty chunk of change (enough to buy a house in this area) has to come from taxpayers because the school board (until a recent election) was controlled by a right-wing group that played the Christian narrative and apparently supposed the Satanic Temple was really a Satan-worshipping group.  It’s not.  The Satanic Temple is a national organization whose goal is to maintain freedom from religion in government and publicly funded spheres.  “Satanic” causes shock and panic and the sheep scatter.  And local citizens foot the bill.

Although I understand what they’re doing, I really don’t like to see my taxpayer dollars having to be spent to coddle the egos of groups who spread the narrative that Christianity is the only religion allowed in America.  In fact, one of the truly fascinating things about this country is the wide varieties of religions that exist in it.  Although the melting pot metaphor has fallen on hard times lately, I’ve always felt this was one of America’s biggest charms.  We’re a Frankenstein’s monster of a nation that’s just like the creature—not really a monster, but not like anything else you’ve seen.  Cookie-cutter populations seem to lead to wars and hatred.  Celebrating difference, indeed, encouraging it, leads to peace and shared prosperity, if we’ll let it.  It’s only when we want to keep all the good stuff for ourselves that things begin to break down.  And your local taxes go up because a faulty narrative is on the agenda.

Biggest Book

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As a bibliophile it’s kind of embarrassing to admit that I’ve only just learned about the world’s largest book.  If you’re like me you’re probably imagining an enormous tome that required acres of trees and fifty-five-gallon drums of ink to print.  But that’s not it at all.  This particular book is located in Mandalay in Myanmar.  If I say it’s a religious text you might be clued in that it represents the Tripitaka, or Pali Canon.  These are Buddhist scriptures.  They are extensive, as scriptures tend to be.  I’m certainly no expert on religions in that part of the world, but it’s clear that the world’s largest book, as a monument, required a massive amount of effort to put together.  Housed at the Kuthodaw Pagoda, the texts were inscribed on stone housed in 729 stupas that are stunningly beautiful.  (Take a look for other photos online—it’s impressive!)

Photo credit: Wagaung at English Wikipedia, published under GNU Free Documentation License

The monument was completed in 1868.  When the British invaded southern Asia, however, there was much looting and damage was inflicted on the shrine.  It was eventually repaired and still stands as the largest book in the world.  It’s no real surprise that this honor would be relegated to a religious text.  Bibles of all sorts become symbols and their symbolic nature often supersedes what’s written inside.  The idea of the sacred book has an unyielding grip on the human psyche, whether we think the book comes from God or an enlightened human being.  Indeed, the sacred itself is an integral part of being human.  When one group wants to dominate another, it often goes for its sacred artifacts.  Cathedrals as bombing targets in the Second World War demonstrate that well enough.  Ironically, we’ve ceased paying much attention to the sacred but we still revere it.

Books represent the best of our civilizing nature.  They’re ways of coming to see the point of view of others.  It really is a privilege to read.  Banning books is, in its own form, a crime against humanity.  Those who ban almost inevitably end up promoting yet more sales of the offending book.  I often see books that make me angry or upset.  My knee-jerk reaction is to want to deface them—this is a human enough response.  But taking time to reflect, I realize that these writers are entitled to their opinions, benighted though they may be.  A civil exchange of ideas is essential to getting along in a world with billions of different opinions.  Every nation should have a monument that shows its love for books.

Not Grant

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Grant Wood’s painting, “American Gothic,” is undoubtedly his most famous work.  The image is so evocative and suggestive that countless interpretations have been offered for it.  The idea of debilitating isolation suggests itself.  An unhappy self-reliance that has taken its toll on an aging couple (some say the woman is his daughter) often comes to mind.  For some it suggests a movie.  Normally I like horror films from the seventies and eighties.  There’s almost an innocence to them that gets lost in the new millennium.  On a rainy weekend afternoon when I couldn’t be mowing the lawn I found American Gothic on Amazon Prime and it had received four stars and even IMDb showed it as better than average.  The longer I watched the more I was inching toward “bad movie” territory, but I had to see how it ended.

Six young people, four of whom are distinctly unlikeable, have plane trouble and get stranded on a lonely island in the Pacific northwest.  They discover a house furnished from the twenties and it turns out there’s an older couple there who don’t really cotton onto strangers.  As the plot unfolds it turns out they have three adult children who think they’re still adolescents.  And—this is the good part—they are a very religious family (in part.  Again, as often happens in such films, the writers really don’t understand religion).  In any case, the predictable killing off of the kids starts to happen when they continue to be rude and insult the family.  Since we’re in slasher territory here, there’s a final girl—one of the two sympathetic women—who ultimately takes over the house.

Part of the problem with the film is the utter paranoia with which it treats mental illness.  The family clearly has problems and, in a way typical for the genre, they turn toward killing.  Ironically, Pa, when he finds his family has been killed by the one mentally ill visitor (everyone with psychological problems in this movie turns to murder), renounces God and sells himself to Satan.  Interestingly, he doesn’t survive long enough to do anything about it.  Reading about this movie after watching it I came across a new word: hixploitation.  Exploitation movies are familiar to anyone who watches much in this genre, but I’d never considered that Deliverance and company exploit “hicks.”  It’s all about how others look at you.  And, as a movie made in Canada and the UK, it shows us what others see when they look at us.  There’s some ground to explore here in a sequel to Holy Horror. 

Calculating Christians

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I know some calculating Christians.  I use “Christian” as religion scholars do—it is the way people identify themselves, not necessarily what they are.  For example, I grew up learning that Christianity was God’s excuse for throwing a bunch of unknowing people into Hell.  Laughter all around!  Then I did something radical.  I started reading the Bible.  Spoiler alert: as you start to get near the end, you learn that Jesus and his early followers (except maybe Paul) promoted the idea that God is love and the only correct response to that is to love other people.  Of course, a religious founder, deity or not, can’t control what his/her followers will do.  Christianity quickly became judgmental.  “I’m going to Heaven and you’re not!”  Laughter all around!  In my life I’ve been the recipient of calculating Christians more than once.

Calculating Christians are those who, like ein U-boat Kapitän, try to figure out the best way to do the most damage to those they don’t like.  They will destroy your career—torpedoes away!—and then get on their knees to thank their vengeful god for sinking a satanic vessel.  And all the lives of Christians onboard are counted as collateral damage.  God’s good at sorting things out.  Laughter all around!  I’ve also known “Christians” who will target a family member when he’s down, and stressed out to the max, only to tell him he’s going to Hell and they’re just fine with it.  Laughter all around!  They do this without ever asking about the two seriously ill people in a family of three, or how you’re doing with that therapy you’ve had to start.  Jesus would do no less than kick a confessing sinner when he’s down.

There’s a reason Christianity is developing a bad name.  With the first compassionate Pope in centuries we find doctrinaire Catholics condemning his compassion.  Among the Fundamentalist camp we find those who would gladly die for the most hate-filled politician ever elected on these shores.  Calculating the end of the world is, after all, a tiring activity.  No matter that you’re wrong (you never consider the possibility and you never, ever try to weigh the facts), you calculate how to blow it up for everybody.  Laughter all around!  The only thing that keeps me sane, I believe, is knowing that many actual Christians out there know that such actions are taking God’s name in vain.  And that, they know, is against the commandments so prominently placed on courthouse lawns.

Pietro Perugino, The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John, Saint Jerome, and Saint Mary Magdalene [middle panel], public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Banned Monk

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One of the strange things about gothic fiction is that, although often set on the continent, the early practitioners—inventors, if you will—were English.  Three names among them stand out in many treatments of the genre: Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, and Matthew Lewis.  I’ve read the former two and have long supposed I should read the latter’s The Monk.  This 1796 novel made the author famous, but it is long.  And written in the often florid style of the age.  Still, there are plenty of swoons and thunder-plagued nights.  Set in Madrid with a cast of closely related characters, the novel has a twist ending that I did not see coming, which is pretty amazing considering that the book has been out for over two centuries.  (I may have read about the ending before, but had forgotten, if that was the case.)

The novel intertwines two stories that revolve around Antonio, the eponymous monk.  A paragon of righteousness, he heads an abbey in Spain and all are in awe of his piety.  Until sex breaks through his vanity (so we are told; his piety was based on too high a self-regard).  Once seduced, he can no longer maintain his status as chaste, and this sets in motion a tragedy that will leave innocent people dead and lives ruined.  Lewis, it’s famously known, used the novel to critique excesses of the church.  Its power, the novel demonstrates, corrupts.  Still, at the end I was left feeling sorry for Antonio.  He was set up by the Devil and his chances of winning were quite slim from the beginning.

Although PG-13 by today’s standards, the novel scandalized English society when it came out.  The sex scenes were too explicit for the day, especially since they involved the clergy.  The story has quite a leisurely layout, and only after 200 pages (in the edition I read) does the supernatural enter the picture.  Once it does the pace begins to pick up.  The weird thing is, despite its length, this story works.  It’s considered a classic—although often dismissed because gothic literature generally is—it nevertheless delivers.  Antonio is shown to be subject to weakness, and while vain, not inherently evil.  He’s a victim of human vulnerability.  Readers in the late eighteenth century couldn’t see beyond the sex, but there is a tragic human story here.  Castles, abbeys, ghosts, and subterranean passages, murder and torture, it’s gothic through and through.  Although it took most of September to get through it, it feels like I accomplished something worthwhile.  And I finished just in time for Banned Book Week.