Christian Horror is growing in the genre and is taking much more space in the last decade. It has many faces, and Christian Denunciation Horror is one of them, told and explained by Kasey Hill.

First Of All, A Little About Kasey Hill

Kasey Hill has lived in Franklin County, VA, for most of her adult life. Spending two years in journalism in high school and has a few articles published in the Franklin News-Post. She built much of her young adult life around reading and writing. 

After being away from the craft for a few years, she returned to the creative writing flow. She has several novels published and many more stories circulating for anthologies as she pushes her passions forth into the writing community. 

Having published several poetry books and a nonfiction book about Wicca, she began her path of becoming an established author. 

A Peek Into One Of The Faces Of Christian Horror

The horror genre is meant to evoke disgust and fright in its audience. Since the dawn of the slasher era, it has gained more notoriety than the early days of Dracula and Nosferatu. 

As the ages have come and gone, the topics have accumulated. Exorcism was the first foray into the Catholic horror scene. Considering Catholicism is part of the Christian religion, all Catholic-based motifs are included in the Christian horror genre. 

The Jewish possession movies followed Catholic possession movies, and a whole genre was born that has been minimised to Christian horror. 

The Mix Between Christian Horror And Catholic Horror

However, at its bare root, Christian horror is not Catholic horror, even though Catholic horror is Christian horror. When most hear Christian horror, they immediately think of demons, possession, and exorcism books and movies. 

Contrary to popular belief, and even those that consider those Christian horror genre topics, they are not what is regarded as Christian horror. Those topics are more appropriately considered Catholic horror because not all Christians believe in possessions and exorcisms. 

Christian horror encompasses a more extensive range of topics other than those displayed in classics such as The Exorcist Franchise, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Conjuring Franchise, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Omen Franchise, among others. 

You have dark, supernatural horror such as those titles, and then you have sinister movies that dive deep into society’s modern problems.

They/Them Is So Christian! Buckle-Up Buttercup!

So, what is Christian horror if not everything we have been taught is Christian horror? Have you watched They/Them, starring Kevin Bacon? Buckle up because you are in for a ride!

They/Them started with a group of young adults arriving at a campground in the middle of nowhere. 

The writers of this film start by making us believe that this camp is inclusive to the people who have shown up since they are all members of the LGBTQ+ minority. 

Even the head camp counsellor touts that he knows they are there because their family is making them attend. They hope the camp will turn them around on their “decision” to be who they were born. 

It felt heartwarming as they opened up and were sectioned off into groups of girls and guys. This plot turned sharply into “What the fuck did I just watch?” 

It is a conversion camp that implements torture to turn these adolescents into “upstanding heterosexual members of society.”

But Dark Wasn’t Enough; It Had To Drag You To Hell, Too!

This movie got dark and got dark fast. The Christian agenda against the LGBTQ+ movement was at the core of its plot. The vitriol and hate spewed for decades were violently displayed in this movie directed by John Logan, a member of the LGBTQ+ community. 

Logan delivered his sickening peek behind the curtain of what had happened secretly—not so secret in modern days. It happens among Christian communities that tried to “pray the gay away” by sending family members away to camps or communes.

They even brought in the psychological treatments used in asylums when members were sent there to be tortured through electroshock therapy to convert them back straight. 

That sad fact also included teenagers and people in their young adulthood once reaching majority age. 

This Is Christian Awakening Horror

*** Often made by creatives to denounce injustice ***

Sickening, disgusting, horrible, all of these words aren’t descriptive enough to explain how gruesome this movie was. The targets are LGBTQ+ characters. That’s saying something since the gore level wasn’t very marginally high. 

Very few horror movies or TV shows have tried to illuminate the insidious motives behind Christian conversion therapy.

One of the few that comes to mind is season two of American Horror Story: Asylum. It shows the conversion took place in a licensed asylum and was less Christian motivated. 

Denunciation Of Christianity Through Horror

One of the critical factors that made this movie such a hard blow to the gut was knowing that everything that happened, even though it is an entirely fictionalised plot, actually did happen in society. 

It reveals who the actual monsters are in the world. Much akin to the beloved cartoon and now called, “Scooby-Doo Effect” that all humans and, in this case, the very people most outspoken about the LGBTQ+ community, Christians are the monsters. 

True-life horror is always more frightening than fictional horror, and Christianity Denunciation Horror, although a fictional genre, is a very real-life horror scene. It’s not just fiction in that genre.

Kasey