Religious Horror: Part 2

The (religious) horror. In part two of our discussion on women and religious horror, we talk about possession, religious superheroes, and religious haunted houses.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. Welcome to Steffan Never
Told You Production, iHeartRadio, and welcome back to part two
of our look into religious horror. We know it's after

(00:25):
Halloween as this comes out, but we always like talking
about horror and religion.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
You know, we have to fall back and everything's dark
and sad. Might as well keep going into that darkness.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
I did. I lit a candle, you know, to like
set the mood, and it exploded, like it went the
flame got really high.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Social did you say something three times?

Speaker 1 (00:51):
No, I would never, but it freaked me out, Samantha,
It honestly freaked me out. And I have been watching
a lot of these religious horror movies to prepare for this.
I sse episodes.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
I need a break.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, there's a lot of them as mentioned. Yeah, so
if you haven't listened to part one, go back and
check that one out. We are just going over some
of the major themes of largely religious horror movies, and
specifically Western Christian religious horror movies. A lot of them Catholic.

(01:32):
But in the last episode we ended up talking about
marriage horror, and I said, you know, there's been a
lot of influx of movies around religion and grief and women.
And so that's where we're going to pick up now,

(01:53):
just with a very brief aside. I said, you know,
I want I wanted to do a whole horror movies
and mental health episode it it just became too big.
So this is just kind of a brief mention. But
there is this this thing that's been happening a lot.
It's not new, but that we've seen a lot lately

(02:13):
of the motherhoods and religion and grief thing and how
that plays out in a horror movie scenario. A lot
of movies about praying hard enough to bring your child
back to life. You mentioned bring her back on the
last episode. That is a very similar theme the others,

(02:40):
which was a movie I loved when I was young
with Nicole Kidman.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
This is also one of those movies that I watched
four times, not realizing i'd watched it four times. Yeah, yeah,
I started like, I've never seen this.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Have seen this one? Yes, yes, but every time I
didn't know. I feel like when I watched that, and
I've watched it, I watched it at least within the
past four years, because I watched it during the pandemic.
I feel like when I watched that, I was so
young the first time, and I was reading a whole
paper about how religious it is because Nicole Kidsman character

(03:18):
is very religious and like has her children read these
Bible passages and it's just very strict and in it
her children are allergic to light, so it just has
to be dark all the time. And maybe you remember me,
I didn't recognize it, but like the whole like, let

(03:39):
there be light. The theme of the light always moving
is something big in the Bible. And then I just
was surprised there was so many things where like this
is from this part of the Bible, this is from
this part of the Bible, and just having them living
in the dark. What happens after death? As we mentioned,
that's a big reason that these movies are popular, I think,

(04:03):
and why they resonate is that we all are we
don't know what happens after death. But that was a
big theme in this movie Hereditary. Also, you've got a
loss of a kid and a cult thing happening, and
seeing the grief play out and the way that it

(04:24):
does and what it leads.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
To the creation of Annabelle has that Oh yeah, very
four or fine beginnings. Seeing of the Death of the Child,
I was like, A, that's unnecessary.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
I've seen that movie, but it's been a long time
so I don't remember.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
But yeah, sometimes I have to sit and like connect
these because when they try to go backwards to connect
these movies and I'm like, I need to find all
the faults. I have to try to figure out what
they're doing because I'm like very confused about because they
took the conjuring and then split it off into like
five different things which included and a bell and then
also the nun all these things, and I'm.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Like, I don't know what's happening anymore.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Anyway, Annabel Creation, they do have a loss of a
child with a lot of religious play and possession in it.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Creepy yeah, oh yeah, indeed uh also creepy. Oh and
again I should say none of these are sponsors. Also
kind of like what we talked about in our recent
horror movie round up for me, uh, I always look

(05:37):
these up before you watch them, and that's especially true
for this one. A dark song. This one it's about
a woman whose child has died and she finds an
occultist and like remote England, and he has her go
through these like horrific things that he says bring her

(06:00):
child back, or bring the angel back, that can bring
her child back. And it's it's really gross because you
can't tell what he's just like making her do to
see what he can make her do versus what it's
actually true. It does have a really cool end scene,
I have to say, but yeah, it's it's that same
idea of like the grieving mother willing to do all

(06:23):
kinds of things to try to bring her child back.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
I'm having memories of a movie as you talk about
this as well, like she was pregnant, goes on a walk,
loses a baby, gets stalked by something, and then there's
a box, a jewelry box, do you know what I'm
talking about. I feel like this is part of our
guessing game in my I watched this one movie but
and she's like about to be a mother, but I

(06:48):
think she loses the baby, but then she gets possessed.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
And ends up having a demon.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Oh that does sound familiar, but could mean I've seen.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
So many so yeah, so the movie I'm talking about
is malicious. I just looked it up, y'all, and it
doesn't have a great rating. But I do remember, like
she unleashes to go like a demon and it like
gets inside of her. Bit there's so many things happening
in this one, and I think it's a cyclical thing
because it kind of gets inherited to the next person

(07:22):
if I remember.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
But it's a woman who loses her baby ends up
getting a demon instead willing to die for it and
willing to let everyone else die for it. There you go.
But yeah, grief like that.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
We've talked about this continuously, Like how we've also talked
about this in like Scarlet Witch or where she's willing
to destroy the entire world and all of those around
them for her children that no longer exist. Like it's
kind of that same like a grief and loss is
that the women are allowing evil in order to do this.
Where does that go into the reproductive justice line? Who knows?

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, I have to. Okay, So we did our episode
on the blair Witch Project and in it I mentioned
I had seen blair Witch too, but I couldn't remember it.
I rewatched it right before this, Samantha, and wow, what

(08:21):
a film. WHOA A lot going on there? But it
does have the loss of a child in it, and
that person is the one that's painted as the as
the villain. She is the one that's like basically they're like,
how did you kill that child? And it was very

(08:42):
like for a movie that was I was mostly laughing
aloud at I was like, oh, gosh, upsetting.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
I think that's what it gets to some of these things,
like and why we're talking a little more about the
religious horror and how it like really does portray a
lot of mothers and women in general, Like.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
It gets to the point that it's like, why are we.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Entertaining this tag like entertaining this subject line or entertaining
this plot line, because it's so disturbing on such a
level that you were like, this is demeaning in so
many ways, and I'm not sure who was domaning anymore.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, Well, and the only reason I watched that movie
for I've watched it for this because it came up
in an article I read and they're like, you know,
it's actually fascinating because it's in the author's opinion, was
supposed to paint like how we villainized Heather from the
first movie which you and I both talked about. The

(09:39):
woman and it became here's how we villainized her. H
And they the reason also it comes up is they
were calling her a witch, and that is going we're
going to get more into witches in our religious horror
part in a second. But but they kept saying, you know,
she's the witch, and they just and that was the
main reason why. And it was just she could convince

(10:02):
them otherwise. And it's at least according to that article,
they thought it was interesting how everybody else was in
the end they think supposed to be in the villain
and she was the one that was. They killed her,
I mean.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
Killed her, it happened.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
But yeah, I mean that again, so many of these
things we're talking about you could extrapolate outside of religious horror.
But because in our country and a lot of other places,
when you're talking about birth or marriage or anything like that,
it does have a religious aspect and it has for
a long time. So this idea of mother's grieving, it's

(10:53):
often painted as sort of a failure on their part,
like they did something wrong and that is why.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
They've allowed this spirit in or something.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, exactly, they did not protect their children and they
were weak m h. Yeah, they they might have fled
the Demon.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Is exactly exactly, and like, I think it's interesting because
I was thinking about that with like loss and grief
in that about like single motherhood, because I'm like, you
know what a lot of these movies actually exemplify or
the absence of the father, like they travel all the time,
He's gone all the time, all these kind of narratives.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
Some of the movies I was thinking about was like.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Bless the Child, which I've really loved that movie as
a kid. I'm not really sure why it wasn't super scary.
It wasn't super like you had this angelic and instead
of an Antichrist, because she could have been, she could
also be the Hope, the new like Jesus. It was
an interesting take on that. And yes, Catholicism is very
much involved in this one as well.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Rufus Seewell, I believe his name.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
He was an evil guy in all so many movies
the holiday, including That's Christmas Time though we already talked
about that, but yeah, and then Baba Duck, which is
not necessarily religious, but like we were talking about previously,
not all of them are religious, but it does have
like that religious tone when it comes like demons. Like
the demons is a connotation that there's something evil, so

(12:15):
spirituality isn't there. But like you've got the single mother
with supposedly and a neurodiversent child who like kind of
helps perpetuate her stresses. And then you have like the
Curse of the Lalla Na. I had to look that
one up because it's based on motherhood and child loss
as well. Again, I believe it's also based on Catholicism

(12:37):
because that is also part of the conjuring world.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Right Ooh, I don't know, is it.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
I think it might.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Director, yeah, but I think it might be. Somebody might
correct me again. The second conjuring we have the one
the Haunting in England, and she is a single mother
newly divorced. The kids are really upset, and the one
of the things they say in that movie is, oh,
you were open.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
This type of tragedy opened you up to possession.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Mm hmmm again, and.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Then you also have poultrygeist, which is not necessarily religious,
but it is. But she is a single mother that
does everything to get that child. It's been a long time.
That's just the trailers of that movie freaked me out.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
And also all of the.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Bad vibes that happened on set onset, including the death
of one of the child stars.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
I'm like, that movie is a no for me?

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Was it too? I knew it was a young world
for sure, but now the other the older girl was murdered,
but they so they weren't divorced, but the dad was
away all the time.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, like like she was kind of left alone with
the child as well as Carrie who the connotation was
maybe either she had her at a wedlock or she
was raped.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
Like I could never understand the mother's hate for this child.
There's so much this, but you.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Have so many narratives of single motherhood, like as part
of the problem. Again, there are different points as it's
because they aren't able to fulfill the completion of family,
Like that's the conversation. So therefore the family is very vulnerable.
They do not have the perfect family or set up
or complete familyhood. Or is it that they're the most

(14:16):
likely to survive these scenarios. We have this conversation about
women outliving men.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Why I was leaving outliving their husbands and then having
like their actual second perk in life. But uh oh,
this means that.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
You might be set up to be haunted and possessed,
or perhaps is it that men can come and save them,
so they have to have a prop up in order
to be saved by.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
A man, which oftentimes doesn't happen. They just end up dying.
The men end up dying, is what I've seen.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah, yeah, are they coming too late? And it's like, yeah,
why are you even?

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Why are you here if you're watching the none the
one priest the Eyes and the second one spoiler alert?
And I was like what without even making an appearance.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah, they're just like he's dead. Oh sorry, I could
have really used his self all right, twelve.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
I was like, okay. And by the way, the second
nun has a single mother as well, Oh yeah, it
does kind of the heroins to it. Mm hmm, but
there's still single mother in this plot, like who is
possibly going to be taken by evil spirit by the
man that she's interested in.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
Row Well, see, okay, I don't want Darella's so very
quickly I watched The Nun and the Nun To last
night because you had mentioned that you did, and I
was like, I feel like I've seen them, but I
can't remember I had you had.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
It's one of those for you.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, Well, the second one, I was like, no, immediately,
I knew I'd seen that one for some reason. The
first one I don't know, but I had also recently
because it has been October and Halloween and I have
these YouTube series I watch that are just scary videos,
and had recently seen. We are going to get more
into the Conjuring later, but I had recently seen the video,

(16:08):
the first videotaped Extracism of Maurice, which is it the
thing exists, It exists, and it's like it looks exactly
like it in the movie. And I did not know
that the first time I saw the nun or the Conjuring,
but now that I've seen it, I was like, oh
my gosh. And so I was like, oh, that his

(16:28):
wife is there. You know. We'll get into this more later.
But she has her own what she says happened. But
according to her, she was never possessed. She was just
there helping him out.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
Okay, okay, okay, but she said that he was possessed.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Oh yeah, we'll according to her again, according to her.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
Interesting, I didn't realize it was also based on that.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, I mean, when I saw the video, I was like, Oh,
that's immediately that is I've seen that. It looks exactly
like it.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
Interesting. But anyway, so the second nun has a single mother.
I thought that was a yeah, so does he marry her?

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Is that they're married, they're married, and oh she lived
long after they had the daughter. M I don't. I
don't remember that, but I just I think so.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
But he had a stepdaughter or something.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, but no, that's definitely based on that thing.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
Well again this universe.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Who knew that makes sense?

Speaker 2 (17:26):
But I thought this was interesting because I did find
an article in this specific conversation. Now he's not necessarily
talking about religious horror, but he is talking about horror
and single mothers. So the article is titled mother, Oh Godmother,
Analyzing the Horror of Single Mothers in Contemporary Hollywood Horror
John Lewis, And this is uh.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
He wrote for the University of Nottingham in the UK.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
You know, he writes, I argue that as single parents,
the life choices these women make, regardless of whether they
have never been married or married and divorced or married
and widowed, can be interpreted as catalysts for horror in
these films. By presenting the view with the horror of
an ineffectual or monstrous single parent mothers. However, I explore

(18:11):
the way in which these films also offer self consciously
critical explorations of patriarchy and the dominant ideologies that suppress
women as well as others who resist definitions within patriarchal frameworks.
So in his actual article he used comparing I believe
the Ring sixth Sense and Babba.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Duke other Ring.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I do talk but it's not
necessarily religious.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
It kind of is cultish, So I did we're not
talking much about Eastern because I did think about that
as well as like an Exuma, as well as The Wailing,
and as well as again the Ring. They do have
a horror level of religious Yeah, antics of like cultish
to things.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
But again that's a digression that we're not getting into here, however,
because it's not Christian based. This is all very like
Eastern religious based.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Back into But I did find that interesting in his
conversation when he was comparing these like women who are
single motherhoods and everybody. He in the article talks specifically
about how, yes, the degradation of the conservative family because
these women are doing this alone and dare to survive
without a man present. Of course you have in the

(19:25):
sixth sense a man present, but kind of.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yeah, right, he's you know, halfway there.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
She doesn't acknowledge him. So there's that.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
But then we have like The Ring, you do have
a male character, but he is useless and soon dead.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah A watch that too.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
And you really don't have any male characters, and that
except the Bubba Duke.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
Yeah, I'm assuming he's male. I don't know, maybe he is.
That's the whole point.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Well, and I won't go too much into this, but
it did cause quite a firestorm. As the recent movie
The Woman in the Yard.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Oh yeah, I have not watched that.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Well, essentially, there was kind of a tragedy in the
man of the family. The father was lost and a
woman is trying to raise her kids, and you have
this entity that is growing closer and closer, and it's
kind of an ambiguous ending, but I believe the viewers
meant to decide whether or not, because the woman in

(20:33):
the Yard is death, whether or not she takes her
own life or stays with her kids. And it calls
this whole thing of people being like well, and that
was one of the reasons I wanted to talk about
mental health and horror movies, but it's because it caused
a lot of conversation about that. But it also was like,
you know, this whole idea that it has been women

(20:57):
who stay strong and keep fighting, and this was if
you're saying what we think you're saying, that's kind of upsetting,
right right, Yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of
back and forth about that movie.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
So that's interesting, No, But I find I found this
conversation really intriguing in that why why do they need
so many single mothers or at least like absent father movies?
Is that it should be a connotation about men, but
instead it's this conversation that it seems that the women
fail or fall apart without men, and they allow for

(21:34):
again a weakness in this in this conversation, in this move,
I did think about that with like, if you look
at again Annabelle, the first one with the uh, I
guess her origins into the doll if you know, you know,
he's not not absent, but he's definitely not there. He's
not dead or gone, but he's definitely absent. A lot

(21:57):
a lot of the things that happened to her when
he's gone. Yeah, in her mother in her beginning in
Adventures in Motherhood Alfred Woodard, she comes in as kind
of a mentor has to sacrifice herself because she lost
a child.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
As well as her husband.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Like, there's so many conversations in this level of like, Okay,
what is this narrative? Why does it have to be
that this weak link is the opening of all this
religious horror. Again, if you look at Catholicism, if you
look at religious Westerner religion in itself, the ideal is
and even the setup and when we talked about our
religious trauma is the completion of man woman unity, like,

(22:35):
which is completely absurd because it's like the Church is
not a woman. Jesus sure probably was a man and
God is neither. So but this Holy Trinity conversation of
the completion of family, this is what it is, the
marriage between a man and a woman. So without the man,
women will fall because women are the beginning of sin.
They are the weak link. And it's this kind of

(22:57):
whole long prelude. But at the same time, and if
you look at this dude's article and agree, like they're
the ones that survive it, the ring goes into the
ring too, and she's like, ah, I know how to
get rid of this.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
I'm gonna let someone else die.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
She says, I'm not your freaking mother exact.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
But you know that's kind of that level of like
they have to so maybe it is a fight against this.
But again it is that conversation of which way are
we looking at.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
Single motherhood?

Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, and another movie again, We're just gonna have to
come back and do a whole separate episode on Eastern
religious horror. But dark Water came up a lot in
that conversation too, because it's a lot about grief and
single motherhood and trying to raise this kid, and a
lot of it is kind of a it feels like

(23:53):
a manifestation of a mental like depression or something like that. Like, right,
that's what a lot of the those horror movies do
is it makes you think like is this real or
is this? Is she okay? But that is a big
that is a big theme in all of this. Another

(24:20):
thing like this is a huge topic we're going to condense,
but cults and witches.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Actually be in this on episode because we were talking
about that, like there's too many, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
There are and we have talked about witches so much
in in media, in media specifically. Yeah, but when we're
talking about this religious horror episodes, I mean, yeah, it's
a ton, but I think some of the ones that
stood out to me. The Vitch, which we did do

(24:52):
an episode on Conjuring three specifically deals with witches. I
just watched what Oh yeah, we're going to get into
that in a second. Yes, the Other Land, which is
an older, kind of more obscure movie, but this was
a very like it was a cult movie about It

(25:14):
was a very feminist cult movie where all the women
started to realize that their male cult leader was maybe
not very good. Oh heretic. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
I hadn't been ready for that one.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Okay, I think that I just want to say this,
This outline is just a lot of random thoughts that
we all had. We had, so I'm not sure why
I've put it here specifically, but I think it's because
in that movie, Hugh Grant's character believes religion, all of

(25:54):
every religion is a cult. Everything is your being brainwashed,
I guess. So it was sort of an interesting take
on this because I don't think that's a spoiler at
all if you watch the trailer. But he's the bad guy.
But he basically is trying to prove how smart he

(26:15):
is and how right he is, and is trying to
trick these two young Mormon girls who came to his door.
And he's not a good guy. He's just not a
good guy. And he's also a liar, and his.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
Point give it away.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
There are so many things in that movie where later
I read an article on it and was like, immediately,
his wallpaper should have told you. And I looked at it,
I was like, oh, yeah, you're right.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
These glasses immediately tell me he's the bad guy.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, he's no good, he's no good. But I do
think it's interesting that even in that case where he
is a very strong atheist, like anti religion, it was
still about he was attacking women, I mean, and he
had been like because he thought they were stupid and

(27:10):
he thought they were easily manipulated. And so even in
that case, you have this idea that because even with witches,
it's you know, they're in the religious horror, since it's
usually that they are manipulated by the devil or they're

(27:31):
too weak to withstand evil. In the case of the
other lamb. It's that they're too weak to withstand this
man's charisma who's telling them what to do. And as
we've discussed, as I mentioned earlier, like this whole idea
of like the Blair Witch Project, you see this blaming

(27:53):
women thing happen over and over again in our society.
Outside of horror movies, we have the burn the witch
blaming women idea. You can see our episode on Cassandra
for that, which was not Western Christianity but still relevant.
And I do Yeah, I don't need to remind anyone
who's listening to this show, but this is a real
thing that happened that left thousands of people around the

(28:16):
world and throughout history dead, mostly women. Of you're a witch.
You can't prove otherwise, we shall burn you alive.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
If not, God will protect you exactly.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
Oh oh, I won't get into it, but I just
saw this post on next door that my blood was boiling.
But basically it was like God will protect you. You don't
need to worry about it.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
Like, okay, well tell me about snap bit. If it's
I'll punch the body.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
It was that it was that anyway, you mentioned weapons,
So weapons is like one of the most popular horror
movies that came out this year. Not to spoil it
at all, but there is a character who is a woman.
These kids go missing and she is blame.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
She is.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
They graffiti witch on her car and just everybody we
see these kind of modern witch hunts in not every
like all kinds of things. And it's interesting. I read
a paper about religious horror. How it's interesting that, you know,

(29:27):
a lot of movies we talk about are very women
coming together to form a coven, and that's very positive.
But in religious horror, a lot of times the witch
is bad, which is bad, and that has been something
that we have seen historically, and that is this idea

(29:49):
that the witch deserves whatever comes.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
By little children.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Spoilers, Yeah, I wasn't ready for that.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
There was so many things I wasn't ready for in
that movie. We just let you know.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
It's from the same people who did Barbarians. So yeah. Anyway, Also,
you know, it's interesting, slash upsetting to me how men
have usurped this because I feel like women are still
getting to like blame the witch, burn the witch in
our very like modern era of sheese wrong, I don't

(30:30):
like her whatever, whereas men use it as like it's
just a witch hut, everybody's out to get me, when yeah,
you probably did do the thing man so and then
some yeah. So that's frustrating, but that is also that
has been a part of our religion and is a

(30:54):
big theme in religious horror. For another time. But I
had a whole Star Wars aside I was going to
go into right here, but I'm just not going to
do it. This is already going pretty long. But I
will come back to that. Well, life day is coming up,
so maybe that will be my life day gift. Another

(31:15):
thing that we did talk about very briefly in a
Monday Mini when I was by myself because Samantha had
COVID is the idea of who gets possessed in these
movies possession horror. When you're talking about that again, when
you're talking about Western Christian religion, it's usually little girls.
Are women getting possessed for things like they dare to

(31:36):
use a Ouiji board, puberty, mental health, corrupted innocence, And
I have to say, like, again, I'm not religious, i
haven't been a long time, but it is a scary
idea that one day something could take over your body.
It also relates back to the loss of body autonomy

(31:59):
and reproductive for rights that we talked about in part one.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
What is that movie with a mirror oculus?

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, that was an intensive one with the mental health stuff,
with the we don't know what you can believe, the
Luigi board, and then like.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yeah, that one was really flip flipped you out.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
And then you also have no body autonomy because you
were like watching things happen that you did not know
you were doing.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, it's very very scary, and you know, in this
case it can also be a metaphor for sexual assault
as well. But it has for a long time been
something is wrong with these usually young girls, and it's demonic,

(32:44):
that's all it can be. And so who do you
bring in? Who do you call to save them? Usually
religious men who are allowed a position that women are
not women cannot be a priest or whatever it is.
So it's it's men who come in to save these
young girls, which I think is really interesting giving the

(33:06):
reality of the Catholic churches cover up of sexual abuse.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
But also that they are powerful enough to be possessed
in kill things, but not powerful enough to like stop
right without the assists of a man.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Right, and the man like the idea of it's like
a man has to come in save this girl's innocence.
I don't again, I like these movies I have. I
underside the critiques. I think it's good that we have
them and know about them. But I do like these movies, right.
So some big examples of this are The Exiorcist, The

(33:42):
Last Exorcist, the taking of Deborah Logan Sinister, the Conjuring Stigmata,
which I'm going to get into that in a minute.
But there are some notable exceptions, so hereditary and paranormal activity.
That's where the demon prefers the male host, that the
demon thinks that the male host is superior to a women.

(34:08):
So those are sort of exceptions. So is Rosemary's Baby,
I guess. Notably, all of these movies don't explicitly deal
with Christianity. There are like signs and symbols sometimes, but
it's not really the focus. Even the non Satanist man
in Rosemary's Baby hands Rosemary over to the Satanist after

(34:28):
she trusts him, implying men are the problem, not necessarily religion,
which is given the creator and what happened with that interesting.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Probably his own true story.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Something trying to work itself out. In the Exorcist, non
religious medical establishments don't believe Reagan, who's the young girl
who gets possessed, or her mother, and they perform incredibly
painful and invasive tests on them. So there's been a
lot of papers recently. We're just articles about how those move.
That movie is all. It's as much about demon possession

(35:07):
as it is about medical profession not believing women, because
that is really upsetting scenes in the whole thing where
nobody believes them. And then yeah, as mentioned, we're gonna
have to come back and do the kind of mental
health religion part outside of this, But that was also

(35:30):
I mean, like if you look at the Exorcist, they
were very much this is just a mental health issue.
This can't be like nobody, not even the religious people
didn't believe her, the medical professional people didn't believe her.
And that has been when we've been talking about grief
and all of that stuff. It's a big theme. I

(35:52):
also wanted to just mention seven, the movie seven, because
it uses the seven Deadly sins and I think like
a part of that film is also the kind of
famous what's in the box, like using women to insider
reaction to get these sins out of people.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
I don't definitely use he like the character the villain
hated women, like the whole like raping of women with
a spear that was probably like I think God didn't
show it, but like the ideal of that as a punishment,
I was like, what the hell, Like the level that
they stretched in how they could torture women in these
types of movies, and also her being pregnant, It was

(36:34):
like they wanted to add all of the things to
make you know that how much he hated and despised women.
I don't not necessarily the writer, not necessarily the director
or all that, but like the storytelling was in that reference,
and not even the hero could help in this level.
And it feels like a lot of these where we

(36:55):
see possessions like that, it usually ends with some type
of horrific death or regret yep.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeap.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
That is it is that catalyst of.

Speaker 4 (37:03):
Like, yeah, even the good ones, you know, like like
we have to use this as a source of ache yep,
to see how horrifically we can punish women or marginalized
people in general.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Mm hmmm, yeah, yeah, And I mean in something like
the Anxious is like they both both men die trying
to save this child and then father Caros comes back
in the third one, which the third one is also
very scary and has it does have the threatening of

(37:36):
the daughter where the demon's trying to kill the daughter.
But but I mean, it is kind of usually a
violent death, and maybe it's like the man that's like
I found my faith and then dies that brings us

(38:01):
to religious superheroes.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
And then that religious superheroes here.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
We yes, so I would say the Conjuring is probably
the biggest example, but the Exorcist is a big one,
and yes, bonus points if they're facing doubt about the
modernization of faith and realize that no Satan Israel oh.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
So.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University, Hector Avalos
argues that while a lot of these religious horror films
may rely on popular religious tropes because they know that
they scare us that we recognize them, other creators actually
believe them and use it as a tool. So here's
a quote about his thoughts from a Vice article called

(38:46):
why are so many horror films Christian Propaganda? And this
article is by Josiah hess Avlos points to twenty thirteen
is The Conjuring, the true story tale of Christian ghost
Hunters that has since developed a franchise of spinoffs, which
closes with text quoted from the real life ghost Hunter.
The film as based ram diabolical forces are formidable. These

(39:07):
forces are eternal, and they exist today. The fairy tale
is true. The devil exists, God exists, and for us
as people are very destiny hinges upon which one we
elect to follow. The article goes on to point out
that The Conjuring was specifically marketed towards faith based institutions.
I actually try to get into this because when I

(39:30):
was in China there were certain things that couldn't be shown,
and I remember religious movies were part of it. And
I tried to see if that's true now, because I
was curious if, like, you're right, did the Conjuring, because
that's a that's a I saw Iron Man two there
and after I walked out, I was like, that is
definitely not the movie that played in America. I don't
know what, but yeah, I was just curious. If listeners know,

(39:54):
please write in. But I thought that was interesting. I've
never really thought about it, and that article is specifically
taking issue with the true story part, not just with
this but with other religious horror movies that do this.
Because it is true that something, there is something that
happened that to imply like the whole thing is true

(40:19):
gives you the whole like oh, the one that there
must be a demon.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Then well, they're true love story that immeasurable. They cannot
be separated, they cannot all these things. I'm like, they
are really pushing this narrative that they were the best
Christian couple because according to the news articles and like
background talk of people who knew them, that was not
who they were, this kind gentle loving, like perfect couple

(40:46):
with the perfect kids that I'm like, they're really using
that trope to say how amazing their marriage, Catholic marriage
is because not only are they like but they are
the perfect practicing Catholics as well as like the perfect
duo who she's behind her man, who lets him lead.

(41:07):
Mm hmmm, that whole like stereotype in that like I'm
the quiet head, but I'm behind my husband, pushing him
for to be the best man he can be. But
he's the leader in our family. He speaks for us,
and he takes over and can be the only one
that talks these demons out.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
It's a real interesting.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Propaganda of that level that I'm like, what that is
to the point that I'm like, this is making it
not believable.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Well, okay, here's my big here's my big spoiler alert. Okay,
I watched I watched The Newest Conjuring, the Last One,
Last Rites, and I again, I really enjoy these movies.
I understand every critique. I'm like, yes, I get it.
So I'm not saying sure, yeah, but I do enjoy them.

(42:00):
It could be because I was just raised in this.
I'm not sure, but uh so Last Rites has a
whole because they have a daughter, Judy, and it has
a whole scene about how she almost died when she
was born and she's living on borrowed time. I guess,
like this demon is coming for her.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
They finally turned that like because they have they use
that kind.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
Of like yeah, she's always in yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yeah, their daughter has always kind of been in danger
and and and you know, in the end, their family
comes together and like faces their demons, shall we say,
but uh and she kind of gets possessed, going back
to actually, now that I think about it, yeah, kind of.
But it was interesting to me because at the end

(42:45):
it says thanks to Judy, so I guess had been
involved or it had signed off on this, but it
also has you know, they have the kind of yellow
text at the end, as we mentioned, and it said
something like Ed and Lorraine Warren, you know, we're very
controversial in what they did and their lives. But they

(43:07):
were and they said, you know, I don't know the
first or non ordained demon al like, they gave a
bunch of things. But I just thought it was interesting
that they had a note that was like, no, they
were very controversial.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
We had to come back and address thise because now
all this is coming about, Yeah, do.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
You like people being like we did not like them.
They used us like all yeah, they're.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
Like again, like they're not necessarily true in that way,
but it is true that there are people behind the
stories that they are telling, and who knows how they
were treated or their story was told, or how they
were manipulated. I don't know, I have no idea, but

(43:47):
the idea that it's like a true story will make
you think, ah, yes, okay.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
Well that's the perfect ending that happened with the Conjuring
two when the little girl saying, y'all are my best
friends and you believe me, And then later on the
little girls like, hey, no, this is not what happened.
They used us, They did not listen to me. They like,
I'm like whoa, And then her life was not great. Yeah,
after the fact, and like, like the history with that

(44:12):
family was not pretty. Like they would do a lot
of rough things after the fact, and like they got
made fun of and they got ridiculed after they left,
Like Lorraine Warren and the Warrens did fine doing their
own thing, but they never got any you know, not
that they're they're indebted to them or any way, but
like things were not going great for them, and according
to some of the stories, they're like, yeah, we were

(44:33):
not close.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Yeah, well you know, Okay. The interesting thing about this
is I stumbled upon what I thought was a horror movie,
but it was a BBC news story and it was
it was like a kind of modern day I think
it was an eighties or something World of the World's

(44:57):
where they did like a Halloween broad cast where they
were pretending that they had stumbled upon this ghost in
this house or this possession of this house. When I
was watching it, I was like, this is the Conjuring too.
This is exactly the story of the Conjuring Too. And
I got I looked it up and they were like, yeah,
that's where it came from. Yeah, oh okay, but apparently

(45:20):
it scared everybody that's this is real, which is kind
of what we're talking about here right right.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
I mean, it is interesting again, like when you see
these superheroes bigger than life, and again they're portrayed by
someone as great as the two actors that play that,
Patrick Wilson. He's kind of noted as being thus far
a good man, like, supportive of his wife, been faithful, like,
even with him becoming famous in these roles as being

(45:49):
like the super dad, the superfather, the super husband, like,
he seems to be this endearing guy. So everybody really
latched onto him being this Warren.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
Character as well.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
And it is interesting that you have that narrative because
they make sure to play this up because the way
Conjuring is as successful as this is the true the
based on true story type of conversation is the director
who came in immediately was like, we're going to do
these new jumps, these new scarers, these possessions, this collapse,

(46:22):
the random child running from room room, which he loves
to do, by the way, ball rolling random.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
Yeah, random kid giggling, stop that anyway.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
But with all of that, but you have this narrative
of this power couple who are superheroes of the Catholic
world who's figured out this demon thing.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Yeah, yeah, And I was thinking about this. I'm not
really sure how to articulate it well, but I was
thinking about it when I was watching the second one, particularly.
A lot of times they involve like the Warrens come
in to a family that is going to pain, struggle whatever,
and kind of you know, fixing things around the house,

(47:08):
making breakfast, like all of.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
These things the follow a figure exactly.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
And I was thinking about how when I was a kid,
I used to get like a little kid crushes that
didn't mean anything, but I would get kid crushes on
like a teacher who would do that or a doctor
who would do that. And so it makes sense to
me that when people watch this, you see this couple
that seems really loving and know each other so well,

(47:36):
and then you see them caring for these other families
and being like, you know, I wish I had somebody
that would come into my life and would be like,
you know what, let me make you breakfast and let
me fix your your piping. I can do that right.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
Well.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Again, like he brings in safety. They brought in safety
somehow it's built like when they had that scene with
the breakfast, it's like it's not felt this warm or
like home in a long time.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
Or when he.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Plays a song to remember the father who loved music
and they hadn't had that home in a long time.
But he brings in that safety because once again, when
we talk about completion of family, there must be a
father who was present. And even in the first conjuring,
he's gone a lot at the beginning because he's a
truck of providing for the family.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
Yeah. Yeah, And it's also I would say, here comes
this they're not technically part of the Catholic Church, but
they're part of the Catholic Church. They come in and
they give you this a here a belief safety Like
in the first one. I always remember so clearly when
he's like your children aren't baptized, like you know, it's

(48:45):
just like this idea of the church will bring you
this right comfort and this safety from this darkness that
you can't explain, can't get rid of. Don't know what
it is, probably a witch or a demon or both.
The first one kind of famously both.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
A wish who turned into a demon.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
Yep, yep, exactly exactly, And so I also wanted to
mention this. I have not seen the second Black Phone movie.
I saw the first one, and I've seen Sinister, and
they're done by the same folks and writer. See, Robert
Cargill told Polygon the minute in audience sits down for
a horror movie, everybody in that audience is Christian. If

(49:32):
there's a demon in the movie, everyone's immediately like, yes,
reading from the Bible can chase it away. Yes, Hell
is a real place. Yes, of course the devil can
impregnate a woman. You can have a child of the devil.
That makes total sense. And then they get up and
leave it all there in the movie theater. It doesn't
matter what religion you are when you sit down for horror.

(49:52):
Christianity is baked into our horror to the point where
people understand and acknowledge the rules. So we knew we
could just say it out loud. So I thought This
was really interesting because the people involved in these movies
are religious and they've said that they are. But I
also think it's interesting that he said, like, you can
sit down watch that movie and then leave it, but

(50:13):
like you kind of know because it is we do
recognize those things. But the whole article was interesting because
at least according to this, they were very this is
what we believe. But if you just sit down, watch
this movie and then leave, that's okay with us.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
Like you do you?

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Yeah, you do. I'm sure there's probably more I could
dig into it. I didn't. I guess now that I
think back on it, Sinister, I had already clocked as
being something I might talk about in this outline, but
the black Phone I hadn't really, And now that I
think about it, I'm like, okay, yeah, because it's very
like Heaven and Hell.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
Semester. I'm trying to remember. I just thought that was
a lot about family.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
It is. It's kind of like Culty family thing gone wrong,
where he's spending more time trying to write his book
and look into these things and his family goes Yeah,
it goes off the rails. Shall we say? That movie
is frequently in the like top five spots of scariest

(51:17):
movies of all time.

Speaker 3 (51:18):
So I can't remember it.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
I've seen it twice, and every time I watched it,
I was like, again, I've seen this one.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well they usually measure that by heartbeat,
and I think a lot of things can do heartbeat.

Speaker 3 (51:32):
Too much slushies, yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
Literally eating too much could do it to you. So
I'm just saying, Okay, so again we're gonna have to
come back to non Western religious movies. But I did
want to include here the flip of when the religious
person is bad, those exit, those do exist, The Last Extracism,

(51:57):
the Sacrament, Stigmata, Saint Mont, The Last of Us, Yes,
and Martyrs, just the whole movie. So this is a
French film that was created by Pascal Lanier who was
experiencing a depression. He was experiencing depression and suicidality at
the time he wrote it and was inspired by Catholicism

(52:21):
and sainthood. Very basically, the film involves a group of
people who torture women to get the secrets of the afterlife,
and they call these women martyrs because of their suffering.
Only it never works and they've only created victims Lanier
has said he wanted the audience to feel and bear

(52:42):
witness to real pain, like they actually put the definition.
I've watched this movie. They put the definition of martyrs
on there, and it's like to bear witness and quote
share it as part of an honest process of communion.
It was a very Catholic process. I have a very
Catholic mind.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
Has had a lot of us.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
It has, and I just I'm not going to go
into it, but I'm just gonna say that this movie
is incredibly upsetting and has been banned.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
In a lot of places.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
It started this whole thing in France where they're like
censorship or what what are we doing? But yeah, I
Stigmata I want to go into very briefly too.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
I don't remember that was a big deal. People were upset.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
People were upset. So in that movie, which Eves and
I bonded over one time, it's a classic my news,
Oh my gosh. So in this movie, Patricia Arcat's character
is we assume getting possessed, I guess, but she's getting

(53:51):
like stigmata, which is you know, the marks on your
back and the blood where the nails have gone through,
just like Christ went through but at the end it
turns out it was the Catholic Church. That somebody at
the Catholic Church was doing this because they had discovered
that there was an an unreleased part of the Bible

(54:14):
that said, yeah, that said essentially like, you don't have
to come to the church to worship me. You don't
have to you can do it wherever. And so they
were so scared that people would stop coming to church
and would stop would stop giving them power, that they
were trying to destroy it. But it all comes out
at the end. And I loved that movie as a kid.

(54:36):
I thought it was really powerful. I was like, oh,
I don't have to go to church, mom. If you
see Stigmata, we.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Were really calling the religions because like bless the Child
was a Catholic, like the good to evil, to evil
to good to who did this?

Speaker 3 (54:51):
It was definitely pro Catholic, by the way, But those
kind of.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Movies, it really does make you feel like, yeah, this
this makes sense, This is the correct theory, right.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
And to be honest, like looking back, I've watched stigmaa
within the past couple of years and I was like, oh,
it's not as good as I remember, But I did
it's probably like huge as a kid because she's like
levitating and she's using this voice. It's like, you don't
have to go like it's just a I remember it clearly.

(55:29):
It really stuck with me.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Did you go tell your mom that, yeah, this is
probably while all the capital that we know it is
not a good movie.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
No, they did not like it at all. They did
not like it at all.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
I remember because I kind of portrayed her as being
like a christ figure, and a woman being portrayed as
Christ figure is a huge no.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
No. This is during the time also Madonna try to.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Make out with a christ figure, so all of the.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
Oh my gosh, I forgot about that. Yeah. Well, also
something that a lot of very religious people don't find, okay,
the flip of when the witch or the non Christian
religious person is good. I think there are a lot
of examples of that, but they're not as mainstream. I

(56:18):
think like there's some I was thinking of where I
actually couldn't say for sure that they weren't Christian. I
just always assumed they weren't, and then I had to
kind of examine some things. But like I was going
to say, paranormal activity too, when she's the person who
was their housekeeper was kind of saging their house and
they fired her because they thought she was doing that

(56:40):
creepy witch stuff. But I actually don't know. Maybe that
is part of how she how she goes about cathosm.
I don't know, so I can't say for sure, but
you know, examples like that. Another thing that we have
talked about a lot when it comes to religion is
shame and religious horror. There is a lot of that

(57:02):
going on. I think we're already going pretty long, so
we can't go into this too much. But like Carrie
is a big one which I still have not seen.
I've seen the Carrie Carrie too.

Speaker 3 (57:15):
Why have you not seen this?

Speaker 1 (57:17):
I don't know. I don't know, but I've seen Carrie
too this month. Okay, I'm actually still in my Halloween.
I didn't finish this month. Okay, Well, but that's a
big one of like she gets You'll have to correct
me I'm wrong because I've seen it. But she gets
her period right, And.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
There's so much shame in this level of like if
you've got your period, that means that you are being
sexual active. There's so many like negativity to this and again,
I think this has everything to do with like the
mother's trauma possibly being raped, which is the indication that
could be wrong.

Speaker 3 (57:52):
Also like her being.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
Not knowing what this is, so the shame, like she
thinks she's dying, So there's the embarrassing with a shame
that comes along with that.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
In so much of this and just.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Like good Old Boy but being ostracized because your mother
was so afraid of you learning too much.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
And her mother was really religious, right.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
Super religious, and she was all about abstinence. Oh conversation
about abstinence.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
Okay, yeah, Yeah, Going back to the Bitch, which we
do have a full episode on, that one was very
much the main character. Thompson was coming into puberty and
her sexuality, and both everybody and her family blamed her
for it, especially like the younger twins who were creepy.

(58:43):
Maybe not as much, they were just too weird.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
They were the witch right though, because they were talking
to Black Coop.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
They were the ones talking to Black Philip.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Yeah the whole time, and knew Black Philip and the
Black Philip came to life.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
For anyone who hasn't seen this movie, this might sound strange,
but yeah, but everybody else in her family, like her
little brother's kind of like checking her out. And then
her mom blames her for I guess distracting her dad
and maybe he's checking her out. No, she blames her
for the death that stealing the death of the baby,

(59:19):
but also stealing the like precious airly and that her
father had sold.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
It kind of comes up with begins with the baby.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Yes, well, and that's an interesting movie because I was
reading in preparation for this kind of some different takes
on it, because some people were, like, like I said earlier,
in a lot of these religious horror movies, the witch
is evil. This is an interesting case because the witches

(59:48):
do kill that baby. But also at the end, you
understand why she chooses. I guess kind of she came.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
She's been yeah, like what she has to do to survive.
So she's like, if I'm going to be accused of this, might.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
As well Yeah exactly before Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
That's what she says. But like it is interesting because also.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
They also killed the young kid, the boy, the younger brother, yes,
and in the two kids yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
Yeah, yeah, so that's a that's a it's an interesting case.
I hadn't really thought about it that much.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
This, Yeah, a conversation of like the desirability of young
women in this like they did the witches and black
Philip did everything to get to her yep.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
And the baby was they were rubbing it on their
skin as if you were going to get younger from they're.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Going to have that younger.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Also, maybe the jealousy is that the child was being
raised by the younger daughter instead of the mother and
would do a better job. But then like there's so
many ideals to who is who would were place the family,
Like who becomes the main family member go to in
the matriarch, it would be the younger woman mm hmmm.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Yeah, And that was very much that was happening during
the like Salem which trials period, and they were so
their father figure was so puritanical, they got kicked out
of a religious settlement. So she had internalized a lot,
a lot of that stuff. This brings us to my

(01:01:42):
one of the final points. I just want to talk
about this. I'm so sorry, get up, okay, because we
were talking. It was Halloween when we were discussing this,
and I just had this memory of getting tricked into
going into a religious haunted house. And they are sometimes

(01:02:02):
called judgment houses or hell houses hell houses, and I
wanted to know more about them because I feel like
this relates. This is like a religious horror pipeline. So
these were first popularized in the nineteen seventies. And I
want to read this abbreviated quote. It is abbreviated from
Sacred Matters magazine about what these things are about? If

(01:02:25):
you've never been to one? Okay quote. In practice, my
house was mostly episodic, distilling the complexity of teenage life
into a series of impressionistic caricatures. A naive group of
children dabbled in the occult by playing with a wigi board.
An unwent couple got a little handsy, while boys to
men played in the background, A golf kid with a

(01:02:47):
chain wallet smoked weed, and most vividly, the two climactic
scenes representing characters the abortion girl and the suicide girl
both died, and the extreom they were in hell, where
death metal was blaring out of large speakers suspended from
the ceiling. The gendering of the wages of sin did

(01:03:08):
not occur to me until much later, but the primary
bodies being judged in judgment houses belonged to women in
the final room, my name was displayed on a TV
set along with the names of those in my group.
I think it was supposed to be an obituary. At
any rate. The guy told us we had to make
a choice. The door on the left would take us
to Heaven, the one on the right to Hell and retrospect.

(01:03:31):
Of course, I wish I had chosen Hell. I later
heard a rumor that those who picked Hell were given fruit, punch,
and cookies. Opting for Heaven, my reward was to sit
at a table with one of the deacons of the church. Okay,
so I did go to one of these. Before I
get into it. This was a quote from John David

(01:03:53):
Pennaman in conversation with a Kelly J. Baker. Mine was
much more boring than what this sounds like. I I
went into a room and they just read as they did.
They did do the like, don't do drugs, don't have sex, kids,
re enactment things, but they mostly just read from the Bible,
and it was super bor.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
I'm trying to remember if I've been to one, because
I feel like I have, like I have a picture.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
Of me going into one, but I have no recollection
because it would have been when I was a missionary,
so it didn't make sense that I would have gone
to one. I would have been a part of one,
which is really horrifying itself. But I don't think so
maybe that's why I don't remember.

Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
Maybe I was a part of it, which makes me
really sad, and I'm so sorry to any of the
kids if I was there, but I really don't remember.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
But I feel like because there was definitely this push,
So the nineties really felt like broad about this whole
relevant conversation, like even to the point that there is
still I think the beginning publishing of a Christian magazine
called Relevant Magazine, and it's supposed to replicate like Paste
magazine or Rolling Stones magazine, but for Christian okay, but

(01:05:10):
in this level like trying to connect with the youth.
And this is also the big youth movements that we've
talked about since then, like so many things, yeah, that
have given me pause and a lot of second first
hand in second hand embarrassment, but all those things that
this was a big thing, like we were going to
do this. This also came about that the them and

(01:05:32):
I know you're gonna talk about a minute trunk or
treat like this was around the same time, but I
do remember like they did everything they could to try
and to scare you, and at this by this point,
I believe it slowly started kind of fading away because
we realized, oh, this is not gonna work. We're gonna
have to do something that makes it fun.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Yeah. Yeah, Well they have tried a lot of things,
and some of them have been very very successful.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
Gelling people to thinking they were going to hell, and
that all you have to do is say a prayer. Yes,
that definitely works.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
Yes, and also just to I don't know, maybe he
gave you some solace, Samantha. A lot of people who
worked at these places have said they really really deeply
regret it, but they were young and didn't know it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
Like the full of waste man, Yeah, so much. I cringe. Yeah,
I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
Well, we have a quote from somebody in here who
worked at one who is now like I cannot, I'm
so sorry, and it says like it gives him trauma
to remember it. So here's a quote from our old employer,
house Stuff Works by Chris Opfer, about a Texas health
house that we're going to be talking about. This is
one of the biggest ones on the scene. Quote. Continue

(01:06:48):
walking through the maze of scenes, and you'll eventually get
a heavy dose of the destruction that the megachurch says
comes with being outed as gay, having pre marital sex.
Are tipping the bottle back before the legal And then
here is a quote from a Vice article by the
same Josiah Hess mentioned previously about the same Texas hellhouse.

(01:07:10):
There were angry Trump supporters shouting to our left and
enraged Black Lives Matters protesters on our right. A SNY
demon slithered from one side to the other, proudly exclaiming,
welcome to my world, where anyone different from you as
a threat, where evil grows and hatred runs deep. It's
one of my oldest and most successful tactics. Smiling through

(01:07:30):
ominous goth makeup, the demon whispered in the ears of
each protester, planting racist slurs and stirring up divisions. The
verbal combat was punctuated by the sound of an exploding
handgun fired by a Trump supporter into the chest of
a b LM activist, who collapsed to the ground dead.
This is traumatic, okay. According to the same article, the

(01:07:55):
Trinity Church hell house became one of the most notorious
when in nineteen it recreated the Columbine School shooting, a
mere six months after it happened, portraying the killers as
agents of Satan, aiming to slaughter all the Christian students.
And yes, one of the old lines were called by
an actor quote, I have deceived this girl first, getting

(01:08:18):
her hooked on Harry Potter, magic, the gathering, and dungeons
and dragons.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
All right, and yeah, surprise purvise. Sex trafficking is big
in these things too. Here's another quote. All Jessica wanted
was a fun night with a nice guy. Now she'll
be having fun with a lot of guys for a
long time. That's how messed up these things are.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
So that they're going on with these new tactics. So
this sounds like the Westboro Church. Oh, teenagers for teenagers essentially.
But so in the first scenario with the Black Lives Matter,
the Black Lives Matter people were the ones that were
going to hell. I would have seen the due that
he shot him, I would assume, So not the one because.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
Yeah, exactly, Yeah, not the murderer, No, because he loves
Trump so obviously Jesus right. Definitely, So he's Christian for sure, So.

Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
Apparently I thought it was like gonna be one of
those ones, like the relevant ones, that both of them
are evil.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
I'm like, odd, I don't like aid one of those.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
But what I farm when I read of it, it
sounds much more like it was like the demon was
whispering in the protesters' earsh and perhaps.

Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
And the murder wasn't the sin.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
The murder was caused by these protesters. No, I mean,
this is so disturbing, like it's one of those things.
When I was reading about it, the one I went
to is fairly tame.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Yeah, I feel like they well, this sounds like they
are the extremists. These are again the Westboro of churches
that you were like, you have the way you've become evil,
Like this, this is the evil you're talking about. I'm
said that it is still happening. I thought we had
let these go.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
Yeah, they're still going. This church is still going. There's
a documentary about it, and it's it's huge. It's called
hell House, but not the horror movie Health.

Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
Which I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
I love that movie too, But yeah, I mean, it's
that's so upsetting and disturbing, and as I said. In
these articles, people were saying this traumatized me, like, I
can't It's hard for me to even go to church
even if I was religious after I went through this, right,
especially any kind of marginalized people like queer people were
saying I cannot even and I, as mentioned, this reminded

(01:10:53):
me when I was reading about it. This reminded me
of CPCs. This is this is a they trick you inside.
They show you these horrific things that aren't true. Like
a lot of people pointed out, so many of the
messaging they have behind them are not true at all,
very upsetting and offensive for young people perhaps, and they're

(01:11:15):
just I don't know. There's something about the idea that
I would go into a haunted house and not realize
that I was about to be like not have a fun,
scary time, but actually feel really traumatiy, right.

Speaker 3 (01:11:31):
Being told that your life is going to put you
to hell.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
Also, majority of the people you probably already seeing there
are the most judgmental people that you know exists. Because
the people who I say this is a person who
may have art one and probably both judgmental people.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
Yeah, well, I mean again, a lot of people who
a lot of the younger people who worked there had
no idea. But like the person who runs it has,
I mean, and if you want to get upset by quotes,
so he is a diamond dolphin, very very upsetting quotes,
but he thinks it. He thinks it works, and he

(01:12:11):
has a lot of quotes about how horror is it
good to get people to become more religious. But yeah,
those are still a thing. And I did after researching this,
I did think, you know, Hell House LLC. The horror
movie not about this at all, is about a cult
and demonic possession though, so I guess that cann there

(01:12:33):
you go play in the Mouth of Hell.

Speaker 3 (01:12:36):
That's Oftennoon.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3 (01:12:39):
The Gates of Hell, that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
But yeah, we did. Samantha and I also got to
talking about trunk art treating, which I didn't know was
a religious thing.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
That's how it began. I save those kids from trafficking
and razor blades.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
You would not believe how many comments I saw about
this on next door this year. Next Door has been
off the chain lately for me, since.

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
I haven't seen many things.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
I've been seeing a lot of discourse about snap benefits,
which is a horror in itself. But yeah, no, trunk
or treat is an interesting practice because they wanted they
understood that they couldn't take away the joy of costumes
and candy, so they had to figure out a way
to make it quote unquote safe and religious.

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
Now, I will say, for the most part, the most
that I've seen are usually four young children, so if
they're older, they're like, sure, but like the panic of
like you know again, poisoning of things, trafficking of children apparently,
and bad things have happened. Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
It may just because of like timing or not necessarily
because of the rituals. But they were like, we're going
to make this safe. We need to make sure that
you know we are protected and that we know each
other type of conversation. And also it did give them
an excuse to decorate their cars.

Speaker 3 (01:14:02):
Yeah, it's just.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
Interesting, but yes, it did begin as a church ideal
that kind of spread into like schools being like, well,
maybe this is a good option, which I don't think
is bad because a lot of the neighborhoods you don't
know if people are actually giving out candy or not.
And I know I saw one hoa saying that people
from outside of the community couldn't come into trigger treat.

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
So like the excluded a lot of people, huh, because
they were known as a good neighborhood for candy you know.

Speaker 1 (01:14:32):
Oh yeah, I remember no skycountry.

Speaker 2 (01:14:35):
Yeah, so you have to like they so they were like,
you know, well, let's give this opportunity to everyone into
doing this way.

Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
So yeah, Well it was interesting because I hadn't thought
about it. I've done a lot of different types of
trickercheating when I was a kid, and I hadn't really
considered the history of it. But I had done a
trunk or treat and I had done just you yep,
around the square kind of thing. But I through this

(01:15:04):
next door fiasco that happened, I learned that this is
still a conversation. People are really judgmental about it, as in,
you would you should take your kids to a church
or else? Oh really? Oh yeah. And also apparently now
there's like a you can sign up at least in
my neighborhood. You can sign up and stay in my house.

(01:15:26):
That will be offering candy or I'll be offering whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:15:29):
My old neighborhood did that they had an actual route
for the parents to know who would be available for
what and also allergies.

Speaker 3 (01:15:39):
Would you know that a bad thing?

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
No, it's not a bad thing at all. Lastly, just
to mention, the satanic panic does have a lot to
do with this. A lot of these movies like and
practices that we've discussed did come and I read that
we were kind of in a second wave of this happening.

(01:16:03):
But you know this idea that having a movie like
The Exorcist, my mom was like, no, this will bring
in it will bring in the devil, so we cannot
have it in the house. And that was a clock.

(01:16:24):
I felt so cool when I was watching The Extorsist,
like she didn't know a horrible, horrible kid, what a
horrible kid. But you know, these movies do they have
had and continue to have real consequences around the world.
Some of it will probably have to come back and
just do a more in depth episode on But just
just if people believe this is true, if you see

(01:16:45):
the like based on a true story, and witches in particular,
and women in particular, and people of color are marginalized,
people are in particular are painted as the ones that
are possessed are evil, our agents of the Devil. It
has had a real fallout, so we'll have to come

(01:17:08):
back to that. Uh but yes, in the meantime, listeners,
if you have any thoughts, any suggestions, anything we missed
that because this was there are so many things in this.

Speaker 2 (01:17:21):
Genre, everything like the TV shows that pop into my
head and like flavors of Korean because I was not
even talking about the fact that the Catholicism has that
kind of started to happen with in Korean culture to
the point that is pushing up, like the popularity of
Catholicism and how they save people.

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
Yeah. Yeah, we have a lot of extra work to do,
so listeners, please let us know what should we be
talking about, what should we look at next. You can
email us at Hello at stuff Wenever Told You dot com.
You can find us on booskuy at Moms podcast, or
on Instagram and TikTok at stuff We Never told You.
We're also on YouTube. We have the merchandise at cotton
Buro and we have you can get wherever you get

(01:18:01):
your books. Thanks as always too our super produced Christina
Exector produce and a contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks
to you for listening. Stuff and Never Told You dispection
by heart Radio. For more podcast from my heart Radio,
you can check out the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.