Response to Perversion of the Church

This is a response to Dan Seljak's post "Perversion of the Church" which can be viewed at http://lambgd.blogspot.com/2011/03/perversion-of-church.html

Dan's post inspired me to think about a type of horror that deals directly with Christian traditions more than any type of vampires, or zombie: the exorcism. I have to admit that one of the scariest films I have seen is The Exorcism of Emily Rose. The movie tells the story of a priest who performed an exorcism on a woman named Emily Rose, who died from the rituals performed during the exorcism. Through out the movie, there are many religious symbols used to portray a sense of horror in the viewer. One example of this is 3AM as the "satan's hour". Coincidentally, the night after I watched to movie, I happened to wake up at 2:50AM and was scared half to death. But this is my point, personally, as a religious person, I believe that this type of "spiritual intervention" if you will, is more realistic than being bit by a vampire, or attacked by a mummy. I think that there is a reason why horror films such as The Grudge and The Ring. The effects of something that we can't see is much more frightening because we cannot visualize defeating or getting rid of the spirit/curse (I can easily see myself grabbing a desk and smashing it into a zombie's head). The difference between monster movies and spiritual hauntings/curses is that the latter utilizes the fear already present in our minds, whereas the former is more shock fear (e.g. something jumping out really fast, or tons of blood). Personally, if I wanted to be scared, I would watch The Ring over 28 Days Later anytime.