HOLY TERROR: The Catholic Church in Modern Horror Cinema

The Roman Catholic Church has been an inspiration for the macabre and terrifying for, well, centuries. Most recently there was a revival in interest in the religious, supernatural horror film in the early to mid 2000's in a cycle that ran from Stigmata to The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Horror rose to prominence and box office success in the 1970's with a long running series of films peppered with deeply religious themes. The church was under scrutiny in The Omen. a willing participant in the phenomenon that was The Exorcist. Beyond the obvious possession, Antichrist, and exorcism themed ripoffs there was the unique and internationally successful Blind Dead series with this undead crusading Templar Knights. The sleazy child murders of Fulci's Don't Torture A Ducking and the American giallo Alice, Sweet, Alice both featured heavy Catholic overtones. Further back we find the Church and the horrors of the Inquisition serving as inspiration for Edgar Allen Poe's The Pit And Pendulum. The Church has even served as sanctuary for our beautiful, misunderstood monsters like Quasimodo. With it's Gothic cathedrals, supernatural rites, secret societies, and place as a constant lightening rod for controversy it's no surprise that the Roman Catholic church continues to function as a fertile breeding ground for tales of terror.

For several writers here at Icons of Fright our Italian and Catholic upbringing (we can count 2 former altar boys among our staff) means that films featuring the dark and creepy side Catholicism are often remarkably effective. Here we take a look back several films that touched upon these theme. Some you will have heard of, several more obscure. A few are obvious in their exploration of the Church, while others touch upon it in a more subtle, chilling manner.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET SERIES

“The bastard son of a hundred maniacs”

The origin of Freddy Krueger and his evolution from child-murderer to dream bound demon is far more the result of an abusive childhood. His conception was the result of the horrific rape of Amanda Krueger, a Catholic nun at the hands of hundreds of mentally ill prisoners in a madhouse. This was brutally portrayed in the 5^th entry, “The Dream Child”, but more hauntingly explored through the implied presence of Amanda's ghost in “The Dream Warriors”. The very evil that fuels Krueger seems to have manifested itself from the defilement and destruction of one of the church's most powerful symbols of purity in one of the more unsettling elements of a series most notable for it's campy death scenes.

THE CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (AKA THE GATES OF HELL)

Lucio Fulci's take on Lovecraftian horror opens with one of the Maestro's most striking images. Over the opening credits a priest tosses a noose around the branch of a tree and hangs himself. From a director noted for his ability to splatter buckets of guts across the a frame it is a surprisingly restrained death (certainly far more so than what is yet to come in the film). Yet it sets the stage for what is arguably Fulci's creepiest. The story is a bit convoluted, involving reanimated corpses, revived telepaths, and the very gateway to hell being opened. The film is also remembered for a scene in which the malevolent spirit of the dead priest causes a woman to regurgitate her internal organs. In the correct anatomical order, no less...

THE SENTINEL

Often dismissed as a come-lately entry in the 1970's religious horror cycle. However, THE SENTINEL features plenty of whacked out weirdness for any fan of surreal horror to enjoy. Christina Raines stars as model Alison Parker who moves into a beautiful, scenic, and remarkably cheap brownstone in Brooklyn. Amenities include birthday parties for cats; the ashen walking corpse of her dead father, and the portal to hell (no, real hell, not Williamsburg) in the basement. Her tenants are a strange old man (played by the strange old Burgess Meredith) who walks around with a parakeet, a pair of lycra clad lesbians, and a blind old priest who occupies the top floor. They turn out to be spirits of dead psychopaths, quietly leaking out of the portal at night. For her end of the bargain Alison need only provide one months rent and a security deposit on her immortal soul. That's the price when your landlord turns out to be the Catholic church who rent it out every few decades to attract the next “sentinel” to guard the portal. After all that old blind priest isn't going to live forever... The film has a great cast too, featuring familiar faces like Chris Sarandon, Jeff Goldblum, and Christopher Walken showing up in early roles, plus veteren actors like John Carradine, Ava Gardner, Jerry Orbach, Eli Wallach, and Sylvia Miles thrown in to class it up a bit. (Wow, a cast like that in the 70's and I'm almost surprised an earthquake, fire, flood, crashing airplane or sinking ship wasn't thrown in for good measure!)

THE EXORCIST

No article on the Catholic influence in horror could be complete without it. The influence is obvious. Far more interesting is that the church actually cooperated with the production. The power of “The Exorcist” remains powerfully frightening not just as a result of the actors, the story, or the special effects. For those who follow the Catholic faith the film is also extremely authentic in it's portrayal of the religion. This was no accident. Serving as a technical advisor was Rev. William O'Malley, a Jesuit priest and teacher. O'Malley also played the part of Father Dyer.

THE EXORCIST III

For most audiences John Boorman's THE HERETIC: EXORCIST II ranks as an epic fail (although it does have fans, including Martin Scorsese so I do consider myself in good company). It's a visually exciting movie that unfortunately happens to have an incomprehensible narrative with a strange New Age/psychological bent. And it's not scary, at all. This is a terrible shame because the bad taste left by EXORCIST II lasted long enough for this sequel based on William Peter Blatty's novel LEGION, the true follow up, to be sadly dismissed upon it's release, overlooked for years by fans.

However as many filmmakers and critics alike now cite EXORCIST III as one of best horror films of the 1980's fans have started to come around. Adapted from the novel by Blatty who also directs, starts off as a murder mystery, almost a police procedural. Lt. Kinderman (George C. Scott) is investigating the brutal killing of a boy, whose murder fits the style of the long dead Gemini killer. The killing quickly get closer to the Catholic church as a priest is violently murdered in a confessional. Father Dyer, now a close friend of Kinderman is decapitated in a secure hospital, all without a drop of blood spilled. As Kinderman investigates he finds himself spiraling closer to closer to the events of 1973, but why? It's as smart and worthwhile a follow-up to the legendary horror film as you're ever going to see.

The film is unusual in it's depiction of the church, with the emphasis here on the humanity of the clergy. Religion is rarely the topic when we see them. Dyer and Kinderman's friendship is rooted in their mutal affection for movies. Rarely in horror have clergyman been portrayed as the 'ordinary man in the extraordinary situation'. The movie is creepy and scary in way that's more quiet and subdued than it's predecessors. However it does have one scare, that while best left unspoiled, might be the single most effective jump-scare in horror history. Gets me every time.

[REC]

SPOILER WARNING!

For close to 80 minutes the Spanish flick [REC] is nothing short of intense and truly scary. Shot-on-camcorder it's “28 Days Later” meets your worst claustrophobic nightmare come true. Finally in the last reel it happened, they did it. They brought in The Catholic Shit. I didn't see it coming but when our remaining survivors enter a previously locked room full of articles and tapes with details from The Vatican, and something even more terrifying and alive. I've rarely been so completely creeped out. Does Quarantine do that? (No.)

STIGMATA

The 1990s were a boring time for horror, and with supernatural horror in particular. STIGMATA offered something different in the last year of the decade. A minor hit, with Medium star Patricia Arquette in the lead, it was not surprisingly lumped in with a few other “end of the millennium, end of the world” religious clunkers like Lost Souls or End of Days (probably due in no small amount to the fact that Gabriel Bryne starred as Satan in End of Days and in Stigmata as our lead priest). Critics were mixed, Roger Ebert called it “possibly the funniest movie ever made about Catholicism”. Like much of 90's horror it may seem comparatively tame to the possession movies of the 1970's, but it's certainly worth a second look.

ALICE, SWEET, ALICE

I'll go ahead and argue that “Alice, Sweet Alice” is the first American giallo. The structure and the sleaziness is all there, not to mention Alfred Sole's Italian-American pedigree. The movie looks like it was spliced together from the super-8 home movies my parents took in the 70's (well, minus the child murdering, and transvestite landlords. Those are Rob G's home movies.) Whether this film fits the structure of a giallo or not is an argument for a different article, however. The film is so Catholic you can smell the incense and taste the communion wafers. The film centers around one of the most horrifying murders ever portrayed on screen: A young girl (Brooke Shields!) strangled, locked in a box, and set on fire. In church. At her first Holy Communion. The murder is discovered as the smoke and fumes her body body waft through the church. Wow.

THE CONVENT

Some people think religion is silly, and there's certainly room enough for that as evidenced by Mike Mendez's THE CONVENT, which is something like a slapstick version of Fulci's DEMONIA meets NIGHT OF THE DEMONS. The restless spirits of demonic nuns come back to possess a batch of college students unlucky enough to trespass and party on the grounds of their abandoned convent. Look—in the first five minutes of this movie a hive of Satanic nuns are machined gunned, burnt alive, and hit with a baseball bat. This isn't just a movie, it's therapy for Catholic school graduates. Adrienne Barbeau stars, along with a young Liam Kyle Sullivan (YouTuber's and shoe fetishist know him best today as his comedic alter ego “Kelly”).

AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION

Based on the real true story of Amityville: The murder of the DeFeo family by their son Ronald, which preceded the supernatural events of the first movie. This prequel finds the family, renamed the Montelli (Burt Young and Rutanya Alda as Mom and Dad) family, moving into the infamous Long Island home. The already dysfunctional Italian-American family is further torn apart as the house does the thing it does best. The oldest kid, Sonny, is eventually possessed by the house ghosts and he quickly works his way toward a violent bloodbath, and an inevitable encounter with a priest armed with a copy The Roman Ritual and a bottle of holy water.

Yep, this is a trashy movie, and so it should surprise no one that it's largely an Italian production (with the director having the coolest goddamn name a horror director ever had: Damiano Damiani). While it is a bit sleazy in it's way it depicts the deterioration and murder of a faithful Catholic family at the hands of their oldest child it is a much scarier movie that the first. It's much a more kinetic and frightening haunted house movie, The film brings on the Catholic when Mom brings in a priest to bless the house. The third act of the film is largely an EXORCIST ripoff, but it works.

PRINCE OF DARKNESS

How vastly underrated is John Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS, a fascinating combination of science-fiction and religious horror? Can you name another movie that blends fluid dynamics and faith? It's another victim of what we at Icons loosely refer The Carpenter Curse, in which the majority of Carpenter's post-”Halloween” movies begin to be appreciated only 10+ years after their original release. In PRINCE OF DARKNESS a group of graduate students spend a night in a church with a unique object stored in the basement: A vat of pure evil. A glass jar within which swims the very essence of evil, perhaps even Lucifer himself and it has sprung a leak. There's also some kind of mysterious transmission, coming through in dreams, that implies that these scientists had better figure out a way to plug this thing up. Fans have always been mixed on this film, and many have poked fun at it's premise but I find it incredibly eerie, moody and grim (enhanced by one of Carpenter's signature scores). This movie is finally coming into it's own as one of Mr. Carpenter's best works,as fans begin to look beyond the idea of evil housed in what looks like canister of grapeade and see the intelligence behind the story. Regardless of what your reaction to it may it, there's little doubt Carpenter crafted of the more unique entries in 80's era American horror. (Plus, you get Donald Pleasence as a priest. We're not talking about a man, we're talking about good on two legs!)

-Mike Cucinotta (mikec@iconsoffright.com)