THINGS TO COME: LOW BUDGET CHRISTIAN HORROR

When they’re not busy demanding miracles, a large number of militant atheists seem to spend their time haunting IMDB message boards disparaging the release of independent horror movies produced by evangelical Christian filmmakers, spewing vitriol into the forums as if their very lives were threatened by the existence of such films. Which is kind of unfortunate for the oh-so-eloquent “$@*% your religion!” crowd, because low budget Christian horror movies are appearing with more and more frequency these days, as evidenced by the following upcoming releases.

THE MESSAGE

The Message’s official website describes this film as “a psychological thriller of one woman’s journey into the after life. Not since the movie "The Exorcist" has there been such a film that will journey into our darkest fears. For those who have faith there could be such a place to call your next life, but it may not be what you envision. For those who do not believe, hang on, you will not like what you see and may in fact change your beliefs after you see "The Message". A young wife and mother of two children is challenged to overcome her passive beliefs on religion after a serious car accident. Receiving haunting images of her past she is forced to make a decision that will decide her fate. Searching for the true meaning of our existence she comes to the end of her journey and believes she has only two choices in the eyes of God; do not have faith and die or have faith and....die.” It’s interesting to note that the movie promises to disturb Christians as well as non-believers. We’ll see.

LUCIFER’S UNHOLY DESIRE

Another film that might actually make it’s target market slightly queasy is Lucifer’s Unholy Desire, the freshman effort from newspaper publisher and two-time Republican state House candidate Cody Knotts. Lucifer’s Unholy Desire tells the the story of a college-aged teenager possessed by a demon who targets a minister (played by Knotts himself) for seduction. In an interview, Knotts described the movie as “a Christian horror film that deals with possession and ultimately, redemption… I like the idea of a movie about both stark Evil and Good — even if Good has problems… The response [to the trailer] has been overwhelming… They say, ‘Wow. That’s so much better than I thought it would be.’ And I say, ‘Uh, yeah!” Well, here’s the trailer, so judge for yourself.

HARMLESS

While Lucifer’s Unholy Desires has raised some evangelical eyebrows due to its in-your-face depiction of sexuality, it is probably Harmless which has received the most pre-release scorn from non-believers. Why? Well, let’s allow the filmmakers themselves to explain what the movie is about. “Harmless is a feature film shot in the popular found footage style. It’s the story about a husband and father and his battle with a box of porn that is found in the closet. Once opened, the box of porn begins to torment the family, much like a poltergeist. It’s sort of a social commentary on how pornography can destroy a family.” Yep, it’s an evangelical spin on Paranormal Activity & Insidious which attacks the use of pornography. And it seems (at least based on comments left at io9 and the Onion’s AV Club) that while some atheists hate Christian proselytizing, they detest even more the idea that someone thinks porn and the objectification of other human beings might actually be bad for you (which, of course, it is). I guess you gotta draw your lines somewhere, right?

So, what does everyone think? Is there anything here that piques your interest enough to spend 80 or 90 minutes of your life watching it? It goes without saying that I’ll eventually track them all down, but what about the rest of you? And what about this form of evangelization, any thoughts on that? I’ve got few myself, but being a blogger, I’m cheating and saving them for the next post.