A witch or an apostle, the Devil doesn't care

[sovay]

I appreciate this review of Heretic (2024) informing me in so many words that I am not the film's target audience:

What's scarier than believing in a higher power that controls our every move? Not believing in a higher power at all [. . .] The film is a distillation of thousands of years of the same basic narratives into barely different religions that have shaped human history.

Tell me that the writer-directors are at least culturally Christian without telling me etc. because I don't find atheism remotely frightening, nor is it incompatible with the traditions of the ethnoreligion to which I belong, and if you believe that all human religions across history are barely differentiable from one another, when you get your head out of your Joseph Campbell have I got bad news for you. I am unironically glad that Hugh Grant is having such a good time in his horror debut, but theologically this film sounds stressfully reminiscent of every gotcha conversation I have tried to avoid with the kind of new-or-not atheist who sure sounds hella Christian when filtering the discourse through the lens of belief and treats Mithraism or the Baʿal cycle like a mic drop. I hope it's more complicated. I am not encouraged by summations like:

Why do we believe what we believe? Is it just because we've been told to do so? Or is there something beyond the many books that Reed claims to have read? "Heretic" is a horror movie about some of the most soul-rattling ideas in history, including not just that there's nothing after death but that everything we've built our lives on has been a lie.

By now I am of course prejudiced against the use of the first person plural in this review, but aside from the fact that the dreadful truth beneath a cushion of lies is rather a horror staple, I am not convinced that the loss of faith is such a shockingly universal experience, even among people who have left the religions they were born into. tl;dr I leave this perennial post here and I'll wait for the filmmakers to explain to me how Buryat shamanism and Yoruba Ìṣẹ̀ṣe are totes interchangeable.

Comments

[teenybuffalo]

Hoo boy hoo boy hoooooo boyyyyyyyyy. I appreciate in turn the fact that you're bringing these qualities up, because I think it would annoy me too much to watch this movie. Part of me got excited about Hugh Grant, but not enough to sit through this sort of thing. I'm remembering anew why I don't hang out with other atheists.

What's scarier than believing in a higher power that controls our every move? Not believing in a higher power at all.

(Cue the scene from Dogma where the nun has one slightly uncomfortable conversation that sends her into a screaming breakdown and she indulges in every sin in the book.)

The quote above also reminds me of a story told by a mutual friend whose online handle I forget, who had met a man who found cosmic horror very comforting; the idea being that he had grown up being told that God was watching his every move and had opinions about everything he did. The idea of an impersonal cosmos, where the gods didn't exist or else didn't give a shit about humans, was lovely and relaxing for him.

[minoanmiss]

a man who found cosmic horror very comforting; the idea being that he had grown up being told that God was watching his every move and had opinions about everything he did. The idea of an impersonal cosmos, where the gods didn't exist or else didn't give a shit about humans, was lovely and relaxing for him.

That was my reaction to cosmic horror as well! I find an impersonal cosmos far more comforting than "His Eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me."

[teenybuffalo]

Oh my gosh, you should know that I recently was commiserating about the US election, with a good friend who is a (radical, leftist, progressive, etc etc, kind and ethical) Christian, and they mentioned taking comfort from "His Eye Is On The Sparrow." I just went along with that at the time, because why hurt their feelings, but yeah, I can't find much reassurance in that song.

[minoanmiss]

That was kind and, well, friendly of you. People take comfort from different things. But yeah I always felt squashed by the concept of God's Eye Upon Me.

[sovay]

I appreciate in turn the fact that you're bringing these qualities up, because I think it would annoy me too much to watch this movie. Part of me got excited about Hugh Grant, but not enough to sit through this sort of thing. I'm remembering anew why I don't hang out with other atheists.

I am glad my griping on the internet has served as an early warning system! It has made me conclude that if I feel like watching religious horror, its baseline should be at least the caliber of conversation I am getting in these comments.

For Hugh Grant and horror, I just remembered there's always The Lair of the White Worm (1988), which almost certainly doesn't count, but you get a Peter Capaldi on the side.

(Cue the scene from Dogma where the nun has one slightly uncomfortable conversation that sends her into a screaming breakdown and she indulges in every sin in the book.)

Hah. Yes. Ouch.

The quote above also reminds me of a story told by a mutual friend whose online handle I forget, who had met a man who found cosmic horror very comforting; the idea being that he had grown up being told that God was watching his every move and had opinions about everything he did. The idea of an impersonal cosmos, where the gods didn't exist or else didn't give a shit about humans, was lovely and relaxing for him.

That makes sense to me and I am glad to hear that someone introduced him to cosmicism. I find great comfort in the idea of the sea and the stars outlasting me and everything to do with the notion of this world as God's proving ground wigs me right out.

[moon_custafer]

I always try to interpret that one bit from Dogma as: “if the nun could be turned from her faith by that feeble an argument, she had no business being a nun to begin with,” and that she was probably written in to contrast with the film’s protagonist.

But yeah.