Description

Horror can be a valuable conversation partner for the spiritual questions that animate so many of us

Whether through a movie television show novel or even myth horror as a genre has always spoken to our deepest human fears and anxieties fear of death of the unknown of knowing too much Whether youre looking at classic narratives like Frankenstein or contemporary films like Get Out which explores racism and white guilt horror provides a window into our culture and what makes us human The same can be said of religion

Horror movie buff and religion scholar Brandon Grafius finds common ground between these two seemingly disparate bedfellowshorror and religionin Lurking under the Surface What parallels can we draw between The Walking Dead and sacred texts How do the stories of Hebrew Christian scriptures and apocalyptic films like A Quiet Place and Bird Box help us find hope when its in short supply When we treat them both seriously we see that horror movies and religion lead us through the same sets of questions Both explore questions of justice hope and our relationship to the world and the cosmos And both offer us ways to make meaning out of the contradictory pieces of our worlda world filled with so much hope and so many recognizable fears lurking just beneath the surface