Bring Out Yer Dead!

One of the things that's really started to bother me about some horror movies is the way that they function as Christian propaganda. This is most prevalent in vampire movies, but it's not exclusive to them. The Exorcist, for one example, is one of the most cunning pieces of Catholic propaganda ever filmed. This is, of course, the nature of the beast. Most horror movies postulate a supernatural universe, so it's almost inevitable that they would turn to conventional religion as a counterweight to the forces of darkness. There is, however, a smaller subset of movies in which religion itself represents the forces of darkness. Movies about the horrors of The Inquisition, for example, or movies about sinister priests. It's a rare movie that tries to have it both ways. Such a movie is Black Death (2010, directed by Christopher Smith), in which the forces of the Church and the forces of secularism are two sides of the same rotten coin.

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