Christians have been debating the value of horror movies for decades. While there clearly are many horror movies that celebrate violence for violence’s sake or suggest evil always wins, there have always been a few movies that celebrate goodness' victory over evil and remind viewers why evil is so dangerous.
Writers like Breanna Hogan have already written about horror movies that use Christian themes. What gets less mention are the horror movies made by filmmakers who use their religious upbringings to talk about spiritual themes. Sometimes, these are filmmakers who grew up Christian and still practice their faith today. Sometimes, these are filmmakers who grew up with religion and have never stopped exploring its implications, even as their spiritual journeys have taken interesting directions. This list considers both kinds of filmmakers, and what their films can teach us.
Before reading this list, it's important to note that most of these movies are not for the whole family. For a list of Halloween movies for kids, see Michael Foust's article “10 Fun, Family-Friendly Scary Movies for Halloween”). The 10 movies on this list use complex ideas, and often complex images, to discuss religious ideas in ways that adults will find useful and challenging. To make things easier, each entry shows the rating and includes links to details about how dark the movie is.
Photo Credit: Denny Müller/Unsplash
1 The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), directed by Terence Fisher
Rating: Not Rated
Content Guide/Trigger Warnings
Raised in Christian Science with later religious education from the Church of England, Terence Fisher had an interesting spiritual background. While Fisher was hesitant to discuss his religious views, Paul Leggett and Wheeler Winston Dixon have shown that Fisher's movies showed a distinctly Christian worldview. His gothic horror stories have clear moral takeaways, including how evil charms then destroys and how personal sacrifice becomes the first step to healing.
The Curse of Frankenstein, the first of several gothic horror films that Fisher directed for Hammer Film Productions, emphasizes how science can be misused and treated as a god in its own right. Victor Frankenstein is portrayed as a proud, atheistic scientist who thinks his learning allows him to defy all moral codes. As Frankenstein crosses more and more lines to create a human being, his assistant keeps warning him that there is a natural law no human should violate. By recasting Mary Shelley’s story as a tale about atheistic misuse of science, The Curse of Frankenstein parallels C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy. In both cases, the villains treat science as a tool to dominate life, trying to replace God and suffering the consequences.
Photo Credit: Graphic by G. Connor Salter. Background photo by Wendy Scofield/Unsplash
2. The Horror of Dracula (1958), directed by Terence Fisher
Rating: Not Rated
Content Guide/Trigger Warnings
Fisher’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic novel streamlines the story to make it more of an adventure. Characters combine to make for a shorter story, and the heroes know from the beginning that Count Dracula is a vampire. While some diehard fans of the book may find this irritating, the movie highlights what most adaptations miss: the spiritual warfare element to the story. In the novel, vampire hunter Van Helsing describes Dracula as a demonic foe. For him, getting rid of the vampire is not just saving people he knows but about fighting the good fight against the powers and principalities that threaten humanity. This movie captures the idea that Dracula, like the snake in Genesis 3, is a charming agent of evil. Christopher Lee makes the vampire suave, his victims impressed and seduced by his presence. Without showing anything blatantly sexual, Fisher makes it clear that Dracula is a predator who entices his victims.
Along with warning about how evil often charms its victims, The Horror of Dracula depicts a group of heroes who must work together to fight the demonic threat. Some find they must sacrifice their comfort and recognize their mistakes before defeating evil. As the Bible repeatedly states, Christians cannot stand alone against spiritual threats, and threats expose areas of weakness that must be addressed.
3. The Devil Rides Out (1968), directed by Terence Fisher
Rating: G
Fisher’s last great film follows two friends, Rex Van Ryn and the Duc de Richleau, as they discover their friend Simon Aron has gotten enmeshed in a Satanist cult. Their attempts to rescue him from the cult, led by the charismatic Mocata, soon include a woman that Mocata wants to use for his own dark purposes. The heroes realize that they will need help from some friends and a lot of faith to overcome evil.
While the plot is about Satanism, it handles the darker elements very restrainedly. It even feels understated compared to some recent Christian Fiction novels that portray Satanism. There are also some fantasy elements about psychics and “white magic,” which are easy to treat as fiction. What makes this film compelling is it treats supernatural evil as real. Evil may work slowly and use a charming veneer like the snake in the Garden of Eden, but it is a genuine threat. The film also portrays its heroes in a way that resembles a Christian community, with de Richleau as the pastoral father figure. While he’s the strongest personality, even the youngest members of his community have unexpected strength. In this respect, The Devil Rides Out is similar to supernatural thrillers by C.S. Lewis’ friend Charles Williams: a spiritual community learning how God works through each of them wins the day.
Photo Credit: Graphic by G. Connor Salter. Background by Jez Timms/Unsplash.
4. The Exorcist (1973), directed by William Friedkin
Rating: R
Content Guide/Trigger Warnings
Perhaps more so than any horror movie released in the last century, The Exorcist gives a chilling portrait of supernatural evil. Christians across many denominations still argue about the movie’s merits. While it’s certainly a graphic film, many viewers at the time missed the fact there was more than just gore at the movie’s heart. As screenwriter William Peter Blatty explained in several interviews (and an interesting book), he began the story with a plan to push audiences to ask an important question: do demons exist? If they do, then not only does the supernatural exist, but according to the Bible, God must also exist. To believe Satan exists requires believing that God existed first. In other words, Blatty’s goal was more or less the same as Frank Peretti’s goal years later with his novel This Present Darkness: tell a story about supernatural warfare that prompts audiences to think about their spiritual beliefs.
While the gore continues to make this a brutal film to watch, and the spiritual content is much clearer in Blatty’s novel, the film still accomplishes its goal. Viewers watch as the characters seek every natural remedy to deal with a child’s behavior, ultimately realizing that something supernatural is happening. When that happens, the heroes must rely on God for the final solution.
5 The Omen (1976), directed by Richard Donner
Rating: R
Content Guide/Trigger Warnings
You almost certainly heard about this movie if you grew up during the End Times craze started by Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Earth. The story of a diplomat who secretly adopts a child rather than tell his wife their baby died, then learns years later that his adopted son Damien may be the Antichrist, has become so well known it’s nearly cliché. You probably didn’t know that The Omen is almost a forerunner to what we now call Christian films. According to film producer Harvey Bernhard, this film arose from a conversation with Christian advertising executive Robert Munger about a film about the Antichrist’s childhood. Not everyone involved in the production was a Christian, but Christian groups did pray for the film’s successful release.
Looking at The Omen now, it’s easy to see how many elements (a made-up Revelation prophecy, special daggers to kill the Antichrist) are more fantasy than Biblical. However, even End Times stories like Left Behind that closely borrow Revelation quotes and imagery have been accused of creative liberties, so perhaps the problem comes with the territory.
What makes The Omen worth watching today is its portrayal of clever evil. Richard Donner deliberately left it unclear whether the strange events surrounding Damien Thorn are coincidences or supernatural activity. Certain scenes can’t be hallucinations or coincidences (like the strange nanny’s behavior), so the story can’t be an insane hero imagining everything. Still, the subtlety forces viewers to consider what they think demonic activity looks like: goat-headed men appearing in smoke or something more mundane? The hero trying to stop the Antichrist’s rise to power poses another interesting question: if the End Times are preordained, can humans stop them from happening? How do prophecy and free will work together?
Photo Credit: Graphic by G. Connor Salter
6. Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), directed by Wes Craven
Rating: R
Content Guide/Trigger Warnings
Not many people know that Wes Craven grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist family and attended Wheaton College. By the time he made Nightmare on Elm Street, Craven had wandered away from faith, partly due to legalism and hypocrisy he’d experienced in Christian circles. However, many scholars are exploring how religion informed his work, and Nightmare on Elm Street provides some surprising religious elements.
While the movie is scary, it plays more like a dark fairytale than real life—cartoony gore, cramped sets, and characters who speak more like cliches than real people. CFairytales usually have clear moral messages, and it slowly becomes that Nightmare on Elm Street has one too: the sins of the father will be revisited in the next generation. As Nancy Thompson tries to figure out what monster is killing her friends, she discovers the answer involves her parents’ choices years ago. Someone tried to kill a monster years ago; now, the monster is continuing the cycle of revenge. Thus, Nightmare on Elm Street considers the Biblical warning that parents’ sins impact their children in surprising ways. Furthermore, the fact none of the Elm Street parents are involved in their children’s lives raises a sad critique: distant parents who’ve lost touch with their children can’t see danger coming.
As Nancy realizes the monster derives energy from fear, the movie ends on a surprisingly redemptive note: facing one’s fears leads to freedom. A compromised final scene so the studio could make sequels undercuts that message, but it’s still there.
Photo Credit: Graphic by G. Connor Salter. Background photo by Alexander Grey/Unsplash.
7. The Exorcist III (1990), directed by William Peter Blatty
Rating: R
Content Guide/Trigger Warnings
This third entry in the Exorcist film series has a strange history. After writing his sequel novel Legion and being annoyed at the movie The Exorcist II, Blatty decided to adapt Legion himself. He planned a movie with no exorcism, with a supernatural plot that raised questions about the problem of evil and God’s existence. Interference from producers meant the movie ended up very differently, though a director’s cut with Blatty’s original footage has been released. Either version is worth seeing for its engaging religious discussions.
As in the novel, the story starts with Lieutenant Kinderman, a Georgetown police detective. Kinderman was involved in a murder that intersected with an exorcism case years earlier. Both cases ended when Damien Karras, a Roman Catholic priest Kinderman had befriended, died in a freak accident. Over 15 years have passed, and Kinderman still considers himself a grouchy atheist who can’t see enough evidence of goodness to believe there’s a God out there. When a new case leads Kinderman to a psychiatric hospital where he discovers a patient who looks exactly like Karras, he wonders if something more than natural is going on.
Photo Credit: Morgan Creek Entertainment via IMDb
8. The Passion of the Christ (2004), directed by Mel Gibson
Rating: R
Content Guide/Trigger Warnings
Mel Gibson’s controversial movie about Jesus’ death and resurrection has been called many things. Calling it a horror movie may seem odd, but many critics and viewers have argued the label fits. Film critic Mark Kermode, a practicing Anglican who earned his Ph.D. with a thesis on horror films, shows how The Passion of the Christ uses horror tropes while forcing viewers to reconsider how they feel about shocking material.
Strangely, Gibson’s movie isn’t the first Jesus movie to be considered a horror film. The experimental 1980s movie Jesus—Der Film reinterpreted the Passion story in bizarre ways, including a sequence where Jesus becomes a vampire and gets staked through the heart. Gibson follows the Bible more closely, though he makes some interesting additions. For example, Judas encounters a demon as he hides under a bridge, and later what appears to be demon children torment him.
Seen as a horror movie, The Passion of the Christ pushes viewers to consider two things. First, the Bible contains some genuinely scary stories. Pretending every Bible story is kid-friendly detracts from the pain and sacrifice in some Bible stories, particularly Jesus’ death. Second, the Bible contains many stories about something good arising from horrific events.
Photo Credit: Icon Entertainment
9. Dominion (2005), directed by Paul Schrader
Rating: R
Content Guide/Trigger Warnings
Raised in a strict Calvinist household, Schrader received seminary training at Calvin College before he decided to become a film critic. Like most children who reject their fundamentalist background, his spiritual journey meandered a bit, though he returned to Christianity in the 1990s. Even when Schrader was wandering, he played an important role in discussions about religion and movies. He wrote a classic book on movies with religious ideas and has written and directed many films that perceptively explore religious ideas. Dominion isn’t his best film featuring religious ideas, but it has its moments.
Dominion is a prequel to The Exorcist, imagining how exorcist Father Lancaster Merrin first encountered the demon. After a crisis of faith due to World War II trauma, Merrin works at an archeological dig in Africa. His team unearths a temple housing something dark and otherworldly. As strange events pile up, Merrin must decide whether his shaky faith can face this demonic foe.
Conflicts with the studio, who felt the movie wasn’t scary enough, caused Dominion to be shelved, then released with mediocre special effects. Since Schrader is more interested in his characters than in scares, the movie feels low-key, but its ideas are thought-provoking. In particular, Dominion raises questions about how people navigate spiritual crises and how Western missionaries (and the colonial governments missionaries often worked with) help or hinder locals.
Photo Credit: Morgan Creek Entertainment via IMDb
10. The Black Phone (2021), directed by Scott Derrickson
Rating: R
Content Guide/Trigger Warnings
Scott Derrickson is probably best known for directing Doctor Strange, but has also made many horror films. Since at least 2005, when Derrickson got mentioned in Jeffrey Overstreet’s book Through A Screen Darkly, he has spoken many times about his faith and argued that making horror provides unique opportunities to explore religious ideas. The Black Phone, a story about children disappearing in a 1980s suburb and their ghosts helping new victims escape, combines Derrickson’s interest in scares with themes about hope and survival.
Since it’s based on a short story by Stephen King’s son, The Black Phone has elements that many viwers associate with Stephen King projects. Evil creeps into a seemingly normal small town or suburb. A broken family will either be destroyed or remade by the crisis they are going through. Perhaps most importantly, like in Stephen King’s best stories, the heroes matter and there is a sense of redemption as they eventually conquer evil. As Derrickson said in a ScreenRant interview, he focused on The Black Phone being a story where viewers deeply care about the heroes, and where something good will come out of their struggle after evil is defeated. As a result, The Black Phone becomes a scary film, but a definitely redemptive one.
If you're looking for more content about Christianity and horror, you may enjoy the following:
A Christian Perspective on Horror in Movies and Culture
Should Christian Watch Horror Movies?
10 Horror Novels by Christians for Halloween
Photo Credit: Universal Pictures/Blumhouse Productions/Crooked Highway via IMDb
