Immediately upon reading the headline there will be questions. What kind of horror? After all there is no such thing as a genre without sub-genres and sub-sub-genres etc. Also – what faith? Where? What are you talking about?
Fair enough. There should be questions. Let’s get into some of the specifics and set the stage.
When I am speaking about horror what I mean is that foundational genre that (arguably) started it all off – supernatural horror. I say arguably because everything is arguable.
I am thinking specifically of film but could also be refering to fiction as well (we’ll have to ask the expert Stephen King and see what he has to say).
What do you mean by “post-faith” anyhow? Well, I am specifically thinking of the traditionally Judeo-Christian western world wherein the horror gets most of its tropes. One can easily reference past census data to see a significant decline over the years in those who align themselves with any faith.
The question is – does the supernatural horror scare people as much as it used to (or is the author just getting old)?
Why ask this question?
Well, if I must be honest, the trigger was entirely personal.
Recently I decided to rewatch The Exorcist for maybe the 12th time. As an avid consumer of the horror film, partcularly the supernatural horror, I consider The Exorcist to be the pinnacle of the genre.
What are the attributes of a good horror film? Well, first and foremost it must scare the bejeebers out of the audience. I mean REALLY scare them. This is key. Not simply a jump or gross-out scare, the scare must build over the length of the film and have people walking out of the theatre would up like a spring.
Additionally it should be a good film. This sounds like a no-brainer but it is remarkable how many genre-specific films seem to sacrifice basic quality in an effort to highlight the genre-specific characterists.
The Exorcist is a good film. It is a an adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s incredibly well written (and often overlooked) novel of the same name. It probably helps that Blatty himself adapted his novel to the screen. The film is well cast with the actors presenting compelling performances. Every aspect from the music to the cinematography comes together to create a masterpiece in supernatural horror doing what such a film should do as I mentioned earlier – it leaves the audience would up tighter than a $10 watch having scared the actual hell out of them.
ASIDE: Other films at the top of the genre would include The Grudge, The Ring, Pet Semetary, The Shining (although the director leaned into psychological while the book is solidly planted in supernatural), The Conjuring, both versions of Let the Right One In, and others.
FURTHER ASIDE: The two Japanese horrors here work exceptionally well (I think) because they come out of a tradition where the supernatural always wins. There is no real battle between good and evil…just the natural and the supernatural…aka there is no hope available in these films.
At any rate I thought The Excorcist was the a good horror film. At least I thought it did.
In my most recent watch I set the stage as best I could. I turned off all of the lights in the house. I watched it alone because my wife was not up for it this time around. This almost changed my mind but I persevered and I watched the entire film alone, in the dark of my 135 year old house, on my 55″ 4K flat screen television.
By the end of the film it had done nearly everything it was supposed to as a horror movie. It was a measurably good film (perhaps the best of the genre) but I wasn’t scared. In fact my spring was not even remotely wound up.
Maybe I had finally seen it too many times. Maybe the film just bored me.
This is silly and leads me to another hallmark of a good horror film. It should maintain its scare in the same way closing your eyes and stepping in to traffic would scare someone. No matter how many times you do it, you are still scared when it happens.
So what changed? Why was the film not scary to me? How was it possible that, after the film was done I could casually get up and wander to bed without any kind of fear and have a restful night’s sleep? I mean it was still a good film experience in a non-genre way but it seemed to be missing that critical scare.
What changed? I think I changed. Over the years I have found myself moving from a position of deep, Judeo-Christian faith, through faith in a more general, spiritual sense, to what I would now consider agnostic atheism. What the heck is agnostic atheism? Simply not being willing to go full atheist because one cannot be 100 percent certain from an evidentiary perspective of the lack of a supernatural order to things.
I think I was the factor that changed the impact of the film. I no longer believe in demons and ghosts, in gods and devils, in possession etc. Without the personal underpinning of these things the critical aspect, no matter how small, of “it just might be possible and it could happen to me” faded away and I was left watching something more akin to a fairy tale.
I don’t know if I am correct in this. I have not done the empirical research but it feels right.
What is scary? Well people are scary. People have always been scary because people are always there, right around the corner. This is why films like The Silence of the Lambs is scary…the very reall possibility of Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter lurking right around the corner ready to grab us or our loved ones scare us.
Nuclear war, climate change, other existential threats, these scare us. This is why films like Godzilla and Don’t Look Up scare people, just not in the way The Exorcist or The Woman in Black scared people.
I’d love to ask Stephen King what he thinks about this. It would be great to add his perspective to whatever this piece is and the conclusions it is trying to draw.
Whatever the case I know this – I am not as scared of The Exorcist as I used to be. I am not as scared of any supernatural horror as I used to be. Maybe this is sign of getting old. Maybe the fading of faith really does impact the experience.
The bigger question I suppose is – can anything replace the supernatural horror for the bone-deep dread it could create?
Harnessing Chaos 