The Problem of "Us"

Is anyone else excited about The Walking Dead tonight?

I, for one, cannot wait. The pilot episode did not disappoint, and while the second episode brought up many questions, at least for me, as to whether or not the series could maintain its original promise, last week's episode "Tell It To the Frogs" dispelled any doubts I may have had. Quite honestly, I thought it was brilliant.

One of the reasons I love horror in general is how the genre lends itself to the epic struggle of good versus evil. For example, vampires are usually bad. We know very clearly who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. Zombies tend to fit this pattern. After all, everyone knows the object of the zombie movie is to kill the zombies, no questions asked. It is this paradigm that allows for such entertainment that a movie like Zombieland (2009) can produce. We love to watch our hero bash in some zombie brains.

The Walking Dead follows this model well. One of the characters even comments that it is "us versus the dead." The problem, though, in Darabont's world is not the dead--it is the "us." Flannery O'Connor in her short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" writes, using the voice of the Misfit, "She would have been a good woman [...] if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life," drawing upon the idea that in the face of death our humanity really shows through. The knowledge of our own mortality highlights the goodness in us, the true evil in us, and all those messy gray areas in between.

In The Walking Dead, as in life, the true horror is what we as humans are capable of doing to one another.

The third episode opens (and I promise if you're worried about spoilers, this is the only detail I give away) with Merle Dixon on the roof alone, handcuffed to a pipe after a recent scuffle. The image is a truly horrific one as we watch a man face his imminent death. Interestingly, similar to what the Misfit observes in the O'Connor story, Merle reaches out to Jesus, begging for help in between frantic and often angry outcries. The terror of the man's situation intensifies as the audience wrestles with the fact that another man put him in this situation, leaving him there to die. The chain and lock on the door only exemplify this problem: is it an act of kindness to keep the zombies out (a gruesome, painful, but quick death), or is it worse to let him slowly die of thirst and exposure? The characters themselves, like the audience, are not sure how to answer this question.

Maybe this is what I like about the show so far. It resists moralizing and preaching. The characters are not sure how to answer these tough questions. They struggle with defining morality just as we do. The past three episodes have already tackled difficult issues like race and gender, and the series has done so successfully thus far. Interestingly, religion has not been directly addressed, but it has been alluded to. The survivors have pondered over the ethics of their actions (looting the department store in Atlanta, for instance). In another subtle example, the van in the background of the survivor's campsite is a church van (Holy Cross Lutheran Church). Darabont has created a South that is, to borrow another of Flannery O'Connor's terms, "Christ-haunted." I have a feeling that this will be something the survivors will have to address at some point in the series. Are ideas like religion and faith still applicable in this post-apocalyptic world? What does it mean for ideas like heaven and hell if the dead are roaming the earth looking for their next meal? If ethics and morality are still important, then who determines right and wrong? And what happens when two people's ideas of right conflict?

I don't know how these questions will be answered, but I know I can't wait to tune in and see.

Frank Darabont’s The Walking Dead

The much anticipated television series The Walking Dead premiered on AMC last night. I know I was like a little kid at Christmas, practically giddy as I waited for the show to start. And it did not disappoint. While the pilot had its weaknesses (some overacting, a bad Southern accent or two, a few trite plot devices), I must say I am hooked. The special effects are absolutely amazing. Quite frankly, I found myself shocked more than once. I don’t know when I last saw zombies that looked that good (or that bad, as the case may be). The makeup effects were better than most big-budget movies. And bloodier.  Much bloodier. There were more than a few times that, squealing through fingers half covering my eyes, I exclaimed, “They can’t show that on television!”

Well, they can and they did. And I for one am ecstatic.

I will be tuning in again—and not just for the gore, though that will be a guarantee for future episodes, I am sure.

What really struck me was the humanity that the show itself has been built upon. The show appears to be written as more of a character study than pure survival zombie apocalypse story. At times, this seemed forced: the mother zombie causing her still-living son to burst into sobs. At other times, the humanity was gut-wrenching. One particularly difficult scene to watch was when Rick Grimes (played by Andrew Lincoln) sees a zombie woman crawling on the ground and decides to kill her out of mercy. The woman was in an advanced state of decay (missing a good part of her face, her legs reduced to fleshless bone), and it was the visual that first stopped me. I found the image profoundly disturbing. Zombies from recent films have seemed much more cartoonish—fast moving, strong—certainly not like this woman, who reflected the true horror of death. It is this, the idea of death, that makes zombies a lasting trope in movies and literature. As a culture, we are both fascinated and disturbed by the idea of death—dying, what happens after death, the possibility of everlasting life.

Perhaps my viewing of the show last night was colored a bit by a recent suicide in my community. The death shocked everyone, leaving more questions than answers. I don’t always have the right thing to say, and certainly not in this situation, but I do know a few things that I feel compelled to share, particularly in light of the rash of suicides that I hear about every time I turn on the news: We are not alone in this world. God made us to love each other and to take care of each other. More than that, God is a loving God, who is in control, even when it seems like the world itself is spinning out of control.

Hebrews 13: 5-6: Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. So we say with confidence, The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

1 Corinthians 10:13: No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

The Theology of Horror

People are often surprised when they meet me to find that I am a writer of horror fiction and a devout Christian. Many believe the two things are mutually exclusive. Usually, if they don’t outright condemn my choice of entertainment, they immediately try to downplay it. I am met with comments like, “Oh, you mean like science fiction-fantasy, type stuff?” or even worse, “You must love the Twilight books.” Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against science fiction or fantasy or even glittering vampires (I read the entire series though I’ll save that review for another day), but those are not the fiction I am talking about. More than that, though, I don’t like the implication that I (a Christian and an otherwise loveable person) enjoy the “soft stuff,” that glossy, whitewashed version of scary. The truth is I enjoy horror in all its forms but most when it is at its bloodiest. I like to see body parts flying and guts being spilled. I would even say I crave it (for anyone who hasn’t read it, Stephen King’s essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies” gives a wonderful look into the psychology of why people like me love to watch the gory and brutal movies that comprise the genre of “horror”).

Does that make me less of a Christian?

The truth is much of what we enjoy in the horror genre owes a lot to the Christian theology and worldview. Take the latest vampire craze, for instance. The vampire (and his close cousin, the werewolf) has always been a perversion of the Christian. In Christianity, eternal life is promised, a point celebrated by the Holy Communion, which is the eating of the body and the drinking of the blood of Christ. And let’s not forget the basis of Christianity: someone who defeated death by rising from the grave. Sound familiar? The newest vampires (those of the friendly, vegetarian variety) even demonstrate the classic struggle of sin. Our nature tells us to do one thing when we desperately want the opposite (the apostle Paul told of the same struggle between flesh and spirit in his letter to the Romans). But, you say, of course, vampires are inspired by Christianity; they are repelled by Holy Water and the crucifix.

I give you then another staple of the horror movie: the zombie. Like the vampire, the zombie builds upon the Christian concept of everlasting life and defeat of the grave. Look at the baptism ceremony.  Believers are “buried” in water only to be raised a new creature. The fear of these creatures is not in their ability to live beyond death, though it does give them a rather gruesome, decayed appearance, but in their lack of conscience. They live only to feed on flesh (hmmm, that sounds familiar) without any regard for, well, anything else. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is a perfect example. Mindless zombies in a shopping mall, consuming everything without regard—wait, that sounds like everyday in my town. Seriously, though, the zombie, like the vampire and the werewolf, becomes “evil” when he/she/it gives into the carnal desires. It is the point of Christianity, like most religions, to strive toward the divine and relinquish the bodily temptations. Yes, I know zombies, like vampires and werewolves, have other (and maybe even more prominent) cultural and historical precedents, but I am just exemplifying one thread among many that goes into the horror genre.

Perhaps the most compelling argument for a Christian theology at work is in the demon possession subgenre. The Exorcist is for many, myself included, the most terrifying movie ever made. I confess, I have never thought about why I find it so terrifying. I know it is only split pea soup, but I am still wetting my pants whenever I watch that film. It is not until I saw The Last Exorcism (an excellent film, by the way) that it really struck home for me. Possession is truly terrifying because I believe it can really happen. As a Christian, I have to acknowledge a spiritual realm beyond this one, and as much as I want to believe in only the pretty angels, I know there is something much more sinister too. More than that, I actively invite, as most Christians do, the Holy Spirit to fill my body. The Bible itself speaks of such acts, calling the followers of Christ to reduce themselves and let Jesus into their hearts (John 3:30 says “He must become greater, I must become less,” speaking of the Christian’s quest to reduce selfish inclinations and allow Christ to control his or her life). The fear that something might control my body is a frightening thing. I don’t like the idea, and I suspect that others most likely feel the same way. And to invite something like that? Not something that people willingly do. And yet, as I Christian, I do it daily.

The filmmakers of The Last Exorcism seem to acknowledge this delicate balance. The protagonist Cotton Marcus (a wonderful name, by the way…a reference to Cotton Mather, I wonder?) is an evangelical preacher who is trying to overcome his own crisis of faith when he comes across a supposed case of demon possession (I won’t go into further plot details…if you haven’t seen the movie, just trust me and go watch it; it is well worth it). Cotton is at times troubled and repulsed by the notion of spirit possession, perhaps because he believes there is no spiritual world, good or bad, beyond our own physical realm. The film is just as much about his own reconciliation with his faith as it is about things that go bump in the night.

And this, for me, is what is at the heart of all horror: the battle of good versus evil. Like the serial killer on screen or on the page who we all secretly, I suspect, wish will win just this once, we all can recognize a bit of that evil within us, just as we can see the good in us as well. That battle, as old as God and the Devil, is at war with each one of us. We find the zombie, the werewolf, the vampire, the possessed girl so repulsive because we see just how close we are to that monster. If we only let our desires run rampant without regard for anyone or anything else, how long would it take for us to look like one of those monsters that haunt our nightmares?