When Horror Gets Religion

“Out of all the women in the world, why did he choose me?” Sydney Sweeney asked earlier this year in the trailer for the horror movie Immaculate with her face peeking out from a nun’s habit. She's wondering why God selected her as the modern Virgin Mary–the one who will bear a child that just might have a more vile purpose than her superiors imply. 

Of course, God saw Sweeney in Euphoria and Anyone But You like the rest of us–not to mention her gig as SNL host last winter that turned her into a darling of the Right. For her to headline a post-Dobbs horror flick with unmistakable abortion connotations seems the type of cultural coup Hollywood’s reproductive rights warriors could only fantasize about, as evidenced by the avalanche of rubber-stamped thinkpieces touting the rise of “pro-choice” genre movies.

The only problem is that Immaculate is much more interested in interrogating the intersections of faith and personal politics than fashioning itself as a one-note rallying cry. And, like the wave of horror fare focusing on Christianity that’s dominated the multiplex for much of the year, it perfectly captures the increasingly ambivalent relationship between Americans and the church during a time of widespread spiritual awakening.

While Pew revealed earlier this year that church attendance is at an all-time low with less than 30% of the population attending services regularly, these trends have created a sense of cognitive dissonance between the data and our cultural fabric. As Jessica Gross wrote in The New York Times over the July 4th weekend, “Rather than seeing this moment as reflecting the slow demise of organized religion in America, one that leaves some people bereft of community and meaning, it’s worth asking if we’re in the middle of the birth of a messy new era of spirituality.” 

In her piece, Gross doesn’t define this rising tide of belief as an offshoot of the “spiritual, not religious” bromide but as an active search for meaning involving millions of Americans who have seen their faiths born or rekindled. Last winter, the biggest success for a Hollywood A-lister was not a movie or prestige streaming series, but Mark Wahlberg’s Hallow app, which provides Bible studies and prayers to the 18.3 million subscribers who downloaded it during the Lenten season. Though Wahlberg is Hollywood’s most prominent Christian, numerous celebrities no longer shy away from talking about their faith, including Denzel Washington, Justin Bieber, Chris Pratt, and new convert Russell Brand–who regaled Nashville audiences with his red-pilled testimony at last week’s Bitcoin Conference. 

For those elites fully entrenched in the culture industry, the abandonment of society’s pillars like church and Hollywood are the fruits of, like everything else, Trumpian demagoguery. Yet, a more apt explanation stems from traditional religious figures like Russell Moore toeing the establishment line during the pandemic and summer of Floyd while positioning evangelical megachurch culture as much less removed from the Hollywood apparatus than it would ever admit. 

Given that Christian nationalism is America’s latest boogeyman in the most prominent armchair intellectual circles, it should come as no surprise that the horror movie has become the most effective barometer for reading the nation’s spiritual health. Though always a reliable moneymaker, horror became a box-office savior during the post-pandemic haze as hits like  Scream and Smile easily crossed the $100 million mark. However, the genre has largely misfired this year—except for films like Immaculate that have turned the theological into the stuff of terror. While the genre has a history of mining anxieties like the Red Scare, AIDS, and the 2008 recession, this new crop of horror films rooted in faith tie the corruption of America’s soul to the ubiquity of unchecked bureaucracy as its characters escape dogmas both spiritual and secular.

Two weeks after Immaculate’s March debut, Disney released The First Omen, an elegant prequel to the quintessential Satanic kid horror flick of the mid-70s. Detailing the months leading up to the birth of Damien, Son of Satan, the film follows novitiate Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) as she journeys to Rome for a new appointment. In true Immaculate fashion, the Church has malevolent intent for Margaret’s miracle progeny–except that, in this case, it has weaponized a demonic relic rather than science to bring its officially sanctioned spawn to life. 

Given the film’s plot beats, it’s understandable why Dobbs looms so large in the background. But Immaculate and The First Omen have no interest in substituting testimony for abortion conversion narratives. In fact, both films refuse to diminish the roles of motherhood while advocating for a form of bodily autonomy that also demonstrates a healthy skepticism of the governing bodies exploiting pregnancy to maintain their dominion. The villains of both films are not akin to the vapid caricatures of J. D. Vance, who want total control the wombs of all American women, but those authority figures who have turned naive belief into the ultimate political currency while undercutting the bedrocks of their own purported values. 

Although abortion discourse may have unfairly kept the modestly successful Immaculate and The First Omen from bona fide blockbuster glory, the more palpable religious conflicts of Longlegs have made it the summer’s breakout horror hit. Featuring a barely recognizable Nicholas Cage as a disciple of Satan with an inexplicable love of blaring T. Rex, the taut thriller taps into American fears of the unquellable evil lurking underneath our small-town civilized veneers. As the FBI agent who has an unexplainable connection to the titular serial killer, Maika Monroe balances her character's talent for police work with a keen sense of spiritual intuition. Longlegs is more occupied with cultivating a singular mood of the American pastoral gone sour than using its narrative to probe the underpinnings of the spiritual horror it elicits. But, it’s also a film unafraid to punish its experts for discounting the realms beyond science that turn souls black and continue to keep the American public up at night. 

Longlegs director, Oz Perkins, spent much of his film’s press tour throwing shade on contemporary horror–including the work of Ti West, whose latest movie, MaXXXine, opened the week before. The conclusion to a trilogy of films starring Mia Goth that began with X and Pearl in 2022, West’s latest finds the perpetual final girl going Hollywood as she casts off her humble indie porn beginnings and the televangelist father she’s been rebelling against all her life. 

Throughout his trilogy, West has deconstructed both Hollywood genres and American morality as he traversed styles from Texas Chainsaw’s DIY aesthetic to the Technicolor musical. His films are a dissection of how the Hollywood apparatus has defiled the American Dream while acting as the primary barrier to pure artistry. As a result, West’s treatment of radicalized Christianity serves less as a potshot aimed at deplorables than a case for individual autonomy in the face of spiritually deficient institutions. Such is why Maxxxine’s connections among B-list studio horror, the adult film industry, and its antagonist’s Christian movie magnum opus may be the most potent critique of the cultural war economy thus far put to film.

West displays a fervent belief that his unflappable protagonist and his audience can overcome dark nights of the soul with their integrity intact. Like the American public, he has no faith in ideologues. God may not have chosen Maxine, but she knows she’s here for a higher purpose. And no institution that claims it holds all the power will keep her down. 

Immaculate is streaming on Prime. The First Omen is streaming on Hulu. MaXXXine and Longlegs are now playing in theaters.