Robert N EmersonThe Occult Trope in Films
September 15th 2008 21:32
When all else fails, satanists make for good antagonists, even in a secular world. How often have we seen the occult practices of black robed chanters bring about the bane to our hero or heroines existence? Be it through demonic hounds, unusual children, mysterious figures in the woods, or other common place visuals, the occult is heavily used, for good or bad, in movies.
We have a fundamental desire to know whether or not there is something, anything, after life as we know it, and it plays out in movies and television all the time. Look at the Discovery and History Channels, both have shows devoted to the occult, preternatural, and supernatural on a daily basis, be they about hauntings, Satanism, Demonology, and other such topics.
Thus, it plays out in movies like the Exocist, The Omen, and other movies that often start with "the".
Perhaps it is a primal feeling of good versus evil, of our fear of the unknown versus the strength of the presumed, but it is easier, it seems, to play out a story of the occult than it is a religious one, as if we are more accepting of fictional pieces talking about less than mainstream religions and beliefs. We've had works of H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, and others with a focus of good and evil through occultism, often a fringe judeo-catholic type, or a goodly pagan, versus a satanism, or some never before mentioned sect of an ancient an unknown lineage, all up on the screen for our entertainment.
Why is it easier for us to accept these movies for what they are, but not so much religious ones? Is it the motivations of the movie, one group trying to "teach" while the other simply entertains us?
What do you think?
We have a fundamental desire to know whether or not there is something, anything, after life as we know it, and it plays out in movies and television all the time. Look at the Discovery and History Channels, both have shows devoted to the occult, preternatural, and supernatural on a daily basis, be they about hauntings, Satanism, Demonology, and other such topics.
Thus, it plays out in movies like the Exocist, The Omen, and other movies that often start with "the".
Perhaps it is a primal feeling of good versus evil, of our fear of the unknown versus the strength of the presumed, but it is easier, it seems, to play out a story of the occult than it is a religious one, as if we are more accepting of fictional pieces talking about less than mainstream religions and beliefs. We've had works of H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, and others with a focus of good and evil through occultism, often a fringe judeo-catholic type, or a goodly pagan, versus a satanism, or some never before mentioned sect of an ancient an unknown lineage, all up on the screen for our entertainment.
Why is it easier for us to accept these movies for what they are, but not so much religious ones? Is it the motivations of the movie, one group trying to "teach" while the other simply entertains us?
What do you think?
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