JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
If you've been getting into the Halloween spirit by watching horror movies, you might have noticed something. Monsters and villains - they show up in all shapes and sizes, but when religion shows up in these movies, it is often very particular. Reporter Deena Prichep explores the genre of Catholic horror.
DEENA PRICHEP, BYLINE: Remember the priests trying to cast the devil out of a little girl in "The Exorcist"?
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE EXORCIST")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) And snatch from ruination and from the clutches of the noonday devil...
PRICHEP: Or the priest warning Damien's father in "The Omen"?
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE OMEN")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) He will establish his counterfeit kingdom here on Earth, receiving his power directly from Satan.
PRICHEP: Or the little present Satan left in the womb of lapsed Catholic in the film "Rosemary's Baby"?
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ROSEMARY'S BABY")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) He came up from hell and beget a son of mortal woman.
PRICHEP: Notice a theme? For Hollywood, catholicism can be an irresistible topic, a faithful of mysterious conclaves and Gothic churches. It's the white clerical collar up against the ultimate prince of darkness.
MATTHEW CRESSLER: When a vampire is at your door or your child is possessed, you don't, like, call for a Methodist.
PRICHEP: Matthew Cressler is co-author of the new book "Body And Blood," which looks at Catholic horror. He says, beyond the dripping candles and ominous devotional music...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Singing in Latin).
PRICHEP: Catholicism also has theological themes that work with the genre.
CRESSLER: Catholics have long had a sense that when one suffers, one is bearing the cross of Christ and that, like, in suffering, one is drawn closer to Christ.
AISLINN CLARKE: Like, Saint Lucia plucked out her eyeballs, and everybody's wearing hair shirts and thorns and flagellating.
PRICHEP: Ashland Clark directs scary movies, and she says a Catholic childhood was perfect preparation.
CLARKE: The priest holds up a cup and says, this is the blood of Christ, this is the body of Christ - which again, as a child who was really interested in horror, I was thinking, this is a bit like cannibal-ish.
PRICHEP: Of course, horror movies take these ideas and ratchet them up to 11, like in the indie horror "Saint Maud," where a devoutly Catholic nurse recreates the suffering of Christ by lining the soles of her shoes with metal spikes.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SAINT MAUD")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character, screaming).
PRICHEP: Matthew Cressler argues that Catholic themes, like venerating the remains of the beloved dead, can show up in movies that are not even overtly Catholic, like keeping the mummified corpse of your mother in the basement of the house next to your roadside motel.
(SOUNDBITE OF BERNARD HERRMANN'S "PSYCHO")
AARON WILLIAMS: Most of us are far more likely to fall into sin just on an average day through temptation. But we do come in contact with the occult and the enemy and his minions, the demons.
PRICHEP: Reverend Aaron Williams is a pastor at St. Mary's Basilica in Mississippi, who consulted on the 2025 horror film "The Ritual." And while the average Catholic may not hold these views, their church still actually has a rite of exorcism.
WILLIAMS: A priest has no authority on his own, but through ordination, he's sacramentally received a character that allows him to act with the authority of Christ.
PRICHEP: Some films use that heightened authority to save characters from the demonic, and some use horror to point out broken elements in the church itself, like Aislinn Clarke's film "The Devil's Doorway" from 2018. It features bleeding statues and demonic possession. But Clarke says the most horrific scene is when the nuns sing hymns to Christ while ignoring the suffering of the young woman giving birth in front of them.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE DEVIL'S DOORWAY")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character, singing) By the blood that flowed from thee in thy bitter agony.
PRICHEP: Catholic symbols and songs show up in horror so much that Matthew Cressler says it can influence how we see the church itself.
CRESSLER: If you walk into a room that's got too many candles and too many crosses and too many statues, you know you're in trouble. Like, you know that something wicked this way comes, right?
PRICHEP: But Cressler says, that also goes for the ideas of Catholic grace and redemption because horror brings monsters out into the open - whether they're coming from inside or outside of the house - and helps us see them and defeat them, at least until the sequel. For NPR News, I'm Deena Prichep.
(SOUNDBITE OF LUNIZ SONG, "I GOT 5 ON IT (TETHERED MIX FROM US)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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