Chris Beaumont

beaumont@ifa.hawaii.edu
2680 Woodlawn Drive
Honolulu, HI 96822

Publication Date: January 2007
Calvin College Uncompressed
Chris Beaumont

Journeying into Darkness:

Re-Examining the Cultural Mandate and its Application to the Horror Film

For people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

In October, I wrote an article for the Chimes wherein I mentioned that watching horror movies falls under the cultural mandate, and thus Christians ought to engage the art form. A few days later, I had a conversation with a friend who led me to realize how frequently we throw around the idea of the cultural mandate at Calvin. Very frequently, people at Calvin (especially students holding the strange title of ‘Cultural Discerner’) use the cultural mandate as an immediate justification to engage in a wide variety of controversial and potentially damaging material. The implicit danger in this attitude is that, in our eagerness to find meaning in the dark alcoves of popular culture, we risk ignoring the subtle ways in which film influences us. Such an impulsive approach to cultural engagement is pseudo-discernment, as it ignores the full scope of meaning in a piece of art. Even worse, the hasty incorporation of the cultural mandate as a justification appears to make such an attitude biblical. It is not. Invoking the cultural mandate in this way ironically violates its very intention to encourage a thoughtful approach to culture and to reject absolute rules for what is and is not worthwhile.

I regret that, by trying to give a one paragraph justification for the horror film in my Chimes article, I fell into this attitude of capricious discernment. Regardless, I believe in the truth of what I said. Horror movies are sources of truth, and the Christian idea of discernment does encourage that we engage them. However, such a bold charge to journey into the darkness of horror movies deserves more thought. With that in mind, I argue here the biblical case for engaging dark art, and suggest what truths can be gained from such a pursuit.

Not just for gardens

By far the most frequently quoted argument for engaging in culture is the cultural mandate of Genesis 2:19-20

So the LORD God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. (NLT)

However, if this were the extent of the cultural mandate, the argument for discernment would be very weak. In the same way, referring to this verse as a justification for discernment is an inadequate simplification. In reality, God’s call for Christians to actively engage their creation runs throughout scripture in a profound way. Christians are called to love God with their entire hearts in Deuteronomy 6:5 (Interestingly, the Hebrew symbol of the heart is more closely related to our notion of the mind). In his second chapter, the author of James emphasizes that such love is manifested through acting within creation. God claims that he works for His glory in all things in Romans 8:28, and, as followers of God, we should be diligently seeking this glory. Even the notion of the Kingdom in Jesus’ ministry communicates God’s intention for His domain to be recognized throughout this creation.

It is my belief that the full scope of the cultural mandate involves working for the glory of God in all things, which includes the creation and discernment of culture. To refine God’s sphere of influence to “Christian” culture or even to “optimistic” culture is inappropriately confining- it suggests that there are certain places where God should not be. There is no place where God should not be; his potential to redeem permeates creation. To believe anything less is to anesthetize – if not sabotage – the Gospel.

The Power of the Horror Film

When accepted, the above argument challenges Christians to engage horror films. However, engagement is not equivalent to consumption. Engagement entails a thoughtful, Christ-centered reflection on the deeper qualities of a piece: its meaning, its influence, its flaws, etc. To suggest how one might engage horror movies, I would like to explore two phenomena within the horror film genre. I consider the first to be a positive attribute, while the second one is negative. I believe that the proper discernment of horror movies should take into account both.

First, horror movies act as a unique language with which to communicate truth. As the quote which opens this article suggests, one cannot truly comprehend God’s salvation without understanding the state of things in its absence. Unfortunately, the attitude that Christians ought not to engage dark art leaves us ill equipped to think through redemption. Horror movies offer a unique way to remedy this problem.

Horror films examine sin by amplifying it. When done well, they unflinchingly explore the nature of a world where harmony is either downplayed or absent. Such a radical distortion of reality forces the viewer to reexamine her understanding of how the world operates and why. An excellent example of this is Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, a British zombie film released in 2002. In the film, Jim (played by Cillian Murphy) wakes up from a coma to discover an eerily empty London. As he explores the city, newspapers blow across the ground reporting on a massive infection spreading throughout the world. The infection, which he soon discovers first-hand, turns people into ravenous monsters whose only purpose is to spread the disease. Such an introduction is common in zombie films, and meant to slowly take the viewer from his own world into the altered world of the movie.

Once in this new reality, Jim (and the audience) wades through the grim reality of a world fueled by greed and evil as he searches for hope. What makes the film so powerful is that this evil is present not only in the zombies, but also in humans. In the film’s final act, Jim reaches what appears to be a haven – a military base designed to keep out the infected. However, he discovers that the compound is as horrific as the outside world, as the base’s soldiers intend to rape women in order to repopulate the human race. At this point Jim rebels against his captors. In the ensuing chaos, the compound is overrun by zombies who kill the soldiers. This moment is film’s most poignant articulation of the self perpetuation and destruction of evil.

By traveling deeper into darker films than other forms of art, the horror film takes on a unique perspective. Just like poems and photographs can each communicate in ways that the other cannot, so too can horror movies like 28 Days Later speak to us about the tension between good and evil in ways unique to the medium.

The second and more negative horror film phenomenon is that, when produced or viewed poorly, horror films frequently descend into voyeurism. The horror film, like all film, is a powerful form of art which can move and inform. Because of its power, the medium is frequently exploited for profit. Production companies realize the potential for violence to sell tickets without incurring large production costs in special effects. The Blair Witch Project, for example, cost $35,000 to produce, and grossed over $248 million. By comparison, Titanic, the highest grossing film ever at over $600 million, cost $200 million to produce – a factor of 2300 times less profitable than Blair Witch. Because of this huge market potential, many horror films are created and marketed with the purpose of enticing viewers with the spectacle of gratuitous violence.

An illustration of the art/voyeurism conflict is the Saw franchise. The first film is a powerfully disturbing and creative piece of work. It opens in a dingy bathroom where two strangers find themselves chained to the wall. They have been put there by a madman who has deemed their sins unacceptable. The villain offers the pair one possibility of penance – saw off their own feet to escape the cell.

The movie explores what New York Times film Critic Jeanette Catsoulis articulates as humanity’s “talent for ruining the present to avenge the past” (Saw III review). The film takes its time in developing who these characters are, and unflinchingly chronicles the horrific paths that people take in attempts to secure their own salvation. In that sense, Saw illustrates the resulting destruction when one tries to circumvent grace. It was also hugely successful, returning over 8,500% of its $1.2M investment.

The commercial success of Saw turned the film into a franchise. The sequel was released a mere year after the original, with a new director (while changing directors mid-series occasionally produces an Empire Strikes Back, it more frequently produces a Jaws II, and one should be wary whenever a director refuses to participate in a sequel). The sequel lacked the calculated pace of its predecessor in favor of a visceral, hyper-kinetic display of Saw’s most violent moments. More tragically, the sequel exploits the skewed moral story of Saw while refusing to develop any thoughts of its own. The film promotes the lie that a horror film’s merit lies entirely in its gore, when a more thoughtful reflection on Saw reveals that it does not. Nevertheless, the second film was a box-office success, and what should have been an isolated film has now metastasized into a trilogy.

An Ending (Ascent)

Effectively watching horror movies is a challenging task. By design, they are invasive, disturbing works which wallow in subjects that we’d rather not think about. Furthermore, there is a ubiquitous, commercial pressure to deform the medium into a violent spectacle. Despite this, there is great potential in the horror genre. Films like 28 Days Later and the original Saw offer examples of how film can communicate truth through the exaggeration of darkness. At their best, these exaggerations can re-sensitize us to the interplay between good and evil in our world. The darkness of the horror film is not the end of the Christian story. However, it is a form of art through which God is working and, as Christians, we are called to identify and proclaim this redemption.