Yesterday at lunch, a friend and I were discussing horror films. She is not a big horror fan, but has seen some and says they’re hit or miss for her.
“Some of them just make me feel heavy afterward,” she said. “Like, after Nefarious, my fiancé and I had to pray just to reset our minds away from such heavy things.”
And I get her concern. Horror is supposed to be unsettling. It doesn’t always make you feel good afterward. But we shouldn’t conflate an emotion of discomfort with actual spiritual attack.
You can’t ‘catch’ a demon by watching a film.
Now, I have never said that people need to watch horror films, or that Christians are missing something by choosing not to see them. My irk is when people say things like, How can you be a Christian and watch horror movies?? (read this old post for more on that)
But then my friend asked me, “Do you think the enemy [satan] can actually use horror films to come against us?”
I said, “I think he could…but I think he uses shows like Friends, New Girl, or Seinfeld far more often.”
She looked confused.
“Well think about it,” I continued, “Those shows feel harmless and light and fun. They make the world feel light and harmless. And all the characters are sleeping together and hooking up with strangers and hurting one another constantly, not to mention that they are endlessly, solipsistically obsessed with themselves. And the world consumes those shows like calorie-free popcorn. If I was the devil, that’s the avenue I would use to pull people away from God and into self- and other-destruction.”
She nodded and told me it was a good take.
I mean, if you think about it, the question isn’t ‘What type of media shows more demons, witches, vampires, etc?’
It’s ‘If you were the devil, how would you go about messing up the most people’s lives?’
Hint: it probably wouldn’t be by jumping out and yelling, ‘Here we are!’
I added, “In most horror movies, the bad, evil thing is blatant and labeled as bad and evil. So in some ways, horror movies do a much better job at saying ‘this bad, evil thing is bad and evil,’ than a lot of those shows that make sin seem guilt-free. I mean, The Conjuring was directed by Christians who wanted to remind people of the reality of the spiritual world. Not to glorify it, but to make it feel real and dangerous.”
How many people’s lives and marriages and relationships have been damaged by lust, porn, casual sex, and gossip? Yet we continue to consume those shows and films as if they’re harmless. Meanwhile, the general Christian mindset toward horror is that it’s ‘bad and demonic.’ All while it is the genre exposing evil things for what they are. It all seems incredibly ironic to me.
Now, I’m not saying don’t watch Friends or whatever. Just watch everything with your brain turned on. To my friend’s point, I think the enemy slips in most easily when we turn our brains off and passively consume entertainment without critically thinking about it. The world succeeds when it makes sin appear harmless and guilt-free.
‘No one will be hurt by all this casual hooking up,’ it tells us, while all real world experience tells us otherwise.
I’ll be transparent and say that I did have to stop watching the show New Girl because I found that it was so sexually charged, after every episode, I was so turned on which led to acting out in ways I didn’t like. This isn’t a prescription for everyone – but pay attention to how the media you consume lingers in your mind and affects your thoughts, which always affect your life.
For me, horror films don’t lead me to sin. But for others like my friend, they cause lingering fear and anxiety, so I say, avoid them!
The bottom line is, consume everything – music, TV, movies, social media – with your brain turned on. That is the Christian way to approach media.
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