I’ve always had a sneaking fondness for horror films. Growing up, my favourites were the old-school ones with dodgy prosthetics, creaking doors, flickering candles, and Indian burial grounds.
There was something cathartic about watching scary things happening to other people, knowing you were safe in your room… or were you? (Hollow laughter echoes). Plus you felt secure knowing that you were smarter than the idiots investigating the creepy noises, in the cellar, by themselves, in their underwear.
Now that I’m a Christian I think differently about horrors. I’m more discerning about what I watch. I don’t see media consumption as purely entertaining. It’s all part of a mental ‘diet’ that can be healthy or not, and let’s face it, so much of horror movies is simply junk, and demeaning junk at that. But then again, ‘junk’ is a label you could apply to lots of different genres. And the danger is that other genres fly under the ‘junk radar’. Think of some of the awful messages you could imbibe from a junk romance:
