The NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - The Rise of Horror & What It Says About Americans’ Souls

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00:00:26 The rise of horror and thriller movies is off the charts. They've been rising as a genre within the film industry more than any other genre that there is. More than action movies, more than anything else you could possibly imagine.

00:00:41 Now, what could account for this infatuation with thrillers and horror movies?

00:00:48 There's a lot of things that we could say to explain this phenomenon.

00:00:52 I think one reason is because young adults who go and watch movies don't have families,

00:00:59 right?

00:00:59 For a long time, Christmas was always the biggest holiday that you would see celebrated

00:01:06 in the American tradition.

00:01:08 Christmas, and perhaps as a close second runner, would be Thanksgiving.

00:01:12 These days, even in my own neighborhood, when I'm driving around, I'll see as many, if not

00:01:17 more, decorations on people's houses at the time of Halloween than I see with Christmas.

00:01:23 Halloween has become kind of like the holiday for young adults who are stuck in perpetual

00:01:30 adolescence, who never got married, and never had kids.

00:01:34 It's not a kid-friendly holiday.

00:01:36 It's something that adults celebrate, and I think that that's part of what explains this

00:01:41 rise and the genre of horror and thriller.

00:01:46 But another reason is because I think guilty people are looking for some kind of vicarious

00:01:51 atonement, and we'll talk about that in this episode as well.

00:01:56 There's always some scene in most horror movies where some promiscuous, sexually degenerate

00:02:03 person is decapitated or taken and tortured, and it's as though the person going into the movie

00:02:12 knows that that should be them. They know that they're guilty. They know that they have a guilty

00:02:17 conscience, but they don't actually want to be tortured themselves, and so vicariously they go

00:02:23 and watch their blood guilt passed on to someone else who suffers in their place. Horror movies,

00:02:29 at some level, is a replacement for the atonement of Christ. It's a replacement for the gospel

00:02:36 itself. So, childlessness, this guilty conscience that continues to grow in America, these are at

00:02:45 least two of the reasons, and we'll list some more, for why horror and thriller is shooting

00:02:50 through the roof. Tune into this episode now, and we'll get into the discussion.

00:02:59 all right genre horror is on a generational run this year for being honest there's been a number

00:03:10 of big box office hits we're about three-fourths of the way through the year uh weapons was a huge

00:03:15 one i think it's going to take in something like 10 times its budget so you had weapons you had

00:03:19 sinners which was another kind of quasi horror thriller movie super popular i mean alien romulus

00:03:25 final destination bloodlines there's tons of people talking about 2025 has really been the

00:03:31 year for horror and i think a lot of us hear that when we go that makes sense honestly we're guiltier

00:03:36 than ever we're more wicked than ever and it would make sense that to a greater degree people are

00:03:40 spending more and more of their money i'm going to go to the theater and i'm going to watch something

00:03:44 perverse i'm going to watch something violent i'm going to watch something uh that's uh promiscuous

00:03:49 like you're alluding to joel i'm going to go see that i want to parse out though and uh and make

00:03:53 careful distinction because it can be it can be easy to do single factor analysis say all right

00:03:58 horror is up that means people are just worse than ever but there is an actual underlying kind

00:04:02 of theme that drives this now just to back up the growth and horror take a look at this graph

00:04:06 here and this is film genre popularity so um for one i mean movies are the stories of a culture

00:04:12 the soul of a people in some ways you could look at its art you could look at its music

00:04:16 and you could look at its movies so what we're seeing here is the soul of america film genre

00:04:20 popularity in the United States in the last hundred years. Actions held pretty steady. War,

00:04:26 it's funny enough, we're pretty sick of war. We had two of them, World War I, World War II. We

00:04:31 had Korea. We had Vietnam. War is actually pretty much at a low. Romance is going down. Similar to 0.59

00:04:37 it. We're not a society that believes in love the way that we used to. So romance is on the decline.

00:04:43 You've got crime a little bit on the decline. Sci-fi, fantasy, maybe growing a little bit,

00:04:47 holding a bit steady but without a doubt the two that are growing the most i i'll throw three in

00:04:53 there documentary would be one of them horror and thriller in the last hundred years those are the

00:04:59 ones that have grown to the greatest degree musicals are way down because nobody is uh

00:05:03 cultured anymore and they're just a bunch westerns are way down just a bunch of country bumpkins like

00:05:08 you wes that wouldn't appreciate a musical even if it punched you in the face yeah i was raised

00:05:14 on musicals west side story my fair lady my parents are both music majors so i was forced

00:05:19 to play piano all these kinds of things i can't do it i was allowed to tune into hamilton i was

00:05:23 allowed well hamilton yeah i okay that's gotta be the biggest musical theater though of the past

00:05:28 yeah well okay the things that are popular now like what is it uh wicked right now or hamilton

00:05:34 these are these are not like classic traditional musicals these are uh for people who don't know

00:05:42 anything about musicals and want to watch revisionist you know history or something like

00:05:46 that uh but classical musicals that used to be a thing but now nobody nobody appreciates music

00:05:52 that's fair and western is down too western is the quintessential quintessential american identity

00:05:57 when you think of america the cowboy is the only thing that's not canada that's not europe

00:06:01 westerns are way down but anyway horror and thriller are up you can even see this is a

00:06:06 second graph horror genre releases per year from 1995 to 2015 that's a 20 year kind of growth

00:06:13 you're looking at about 500 movies a year to now over 6 000 this is per imdb so your releases in

00:06:20 the genre calculated as horror so it's undeniable that horror has been growing and it's not just

00:06:23 been in the last year or two 2025 is kind of the cap on a 50 at least 25 year growth of the genre

00:06:31 people are making more more more horror movies and they're watching them now part of this is

00:06:35 we have to be honest some of this is to be honest they make more money most horror movies are lower

00:06:40 budget right if you compare a war movie you compare an action movie i mean how much did avengers cost

00:06:45 to make you have to make five six seven eight times the amount to get your return on investment

00:06:51 compared to a low budget 40 dollar horror movie or relies on suspense yeah what was that famous

00:06:58 movie the um the witch trials salem witch trials was it oh the blair witch project yeah it was

00:07:04 like somebody used um it's like a camcorder a camcorder and just and just shook it the whole

00:07:11 time and they used flashlights you know under their faces right right i've never watched that

00:07:21 movie and i still have not seen that movie and part of it is on principle it's like any movie

00:07:26 that i could make myself i refuse to give my money to like i'm pretty sure my children could

00:07:31 make uh the blair witch whatever i don't think there's any monster even in it it's not even like

00:07:36 they had to use cgi or like prosthetics literally just people running around shaking a camera with

00:07:40 a flashlight just barely out of the screen go incredible stuff and then they're just like

00:07:46 take my money yeah here's millions and millions of dollars but all that being said we'll talk

00:07:51 about the guilty conscience in a minute but you do have to root some of this in we are pumping out

00:07:56 more crappy horror movies because they make more money and these yeah uh these these movie studios

00:08:02 like if you look at it it's like well i could do this i could do that but uh practically one of the

00:08:07 reasons that we're being served this up again and again and i mean you can't even go to the movies

00:08:11 you're watching a pg-13 movie without three four five horror movie ads before it is because we

00:08:17 got to be honest that part of it is that they make money and so it's not always going to be a single

00:08:21 factor well we're guilty and that's why we desire horror we don't care how much it costs to make

00:08:25 them part of it is we are being served it because it makes a lot of money right it's like a supply

00:08:30 and demand so the supply is coming from uh the fact that it's cheap to make you don't need big

00:08:35 act you know actors big names you like just very tactically cgi can do a lot of the work that

00:08:41 you know in the 80s and 90s prosthetics would have to do you'd have to bring you know tons of

00:08:45 like really high class makeup artists and and set designers and those sorts of things and now you

00:08:50 can accomplish it with one guy and a computer essentially um you know where where we've arrived

00:08:55 technologically speaking and so you have the supply side it's just easier than ever to make

00:08:59 a horror film um simpler than ever to make a really high quality horror film at that and then

00:09:04 on the demand side that's where the meta-analysis the cultural analysis becomes important well why

00:09:08 are people coming to these things and so you can talk about the guilty conscience you can talk

00:09:13 about the fact that horror is like almost predicated on everyone in the film I don't know

00:09:17 if you've noticed this being dumber than you i think people get like a high from like oh i would

00:09:21 make a better decision than that and i think directors know that and so it's like you know 0.96

00:09:26 people are running from this thing when they could like jump in a car they're like passing a

00:09:30 helicopter passing a car passing a plane uh running from something and so people feel good about that

00:09:35 you know oh i'm maybe i'm not dumb and then there's also of course the element that goes in

00:09:39 line with the guilty conscience of oh my you know i can walk out of the the movie theater and feel

00:09:44 like my life is so much better than that person's life right whatever they were experiencing and the

00:09:48 sense of like i did my good deed for the day because i know i'm a guilty person i know i'm

00:09:53 i'm a degenerate i know that i deserve to be tortured um but i i subjected i voluntarily

00:09:59 subjected myself to go and kind of do penance to go and and watch this thing that made me

00:10:06 uncomfortable for an hour and a half um and and someone else ultimately you know is is split

00:10:12 apart and tortured in my place so it's like this yeah it's it's like this quasi atonement so in

00:10:18 terms of reasons we're saying capitalism is one of them horror movies are slop and it's super cheap

00:10:23 to make and uh and people just uh it's like adam sandler you know he's like uh sloppy joes please

00:10:29 can i have some can i have some sloppy seconds with the sloppy joes please you know uh please

00:10:35 give me some more i know that i i know that i am slop i deserve slop and and that's what i want so

00:10:39 part of it is uh capitalism works and people have a pretty low bar these days uh when it comes just

00:10:45 to quality and uh and then two uh the atonement factor guilty conscience three um prolonged

00:10:51 adolescence and not having children right who is not children friendly but if you know half of your

00:10:56 population is unmarried you know without kids um then that just all of a sudden you have a bigger

00:11:02 market for that um i think a fourth one honestly is um i'm gonna work it in there you know like

00:11:08 right before we started recording i looked at myself in the mirror and i said you get in there

00:11:11 and you make this episode about immigration and i honestly so like when you said uh westerns are

00:11:18 down i thought like well that's quintessentially american like like you know like i understand

00:11:23 that there's you know the one iconic photo of vivek ramaswami you know wearing his cowboy hat

00:11:28 and the texas shirt but like by and large like what do a bunch of you know indians on h1b visas 0.97

00:11:34 have like what kind of interest would they have in a country western because it's because it's

00:11:39 historical and they've tried to hamilton some westerns i mean there's been some notable films

00:11:44 in the last you know 10 years where it's been you know brown brown westerns but or the opposite uh

00:11:50 i don't know if you've caught this but like kevin costner's a lot of his stuff is like the native

00:11:56 american positive side of a western um and that's become really big as well even that play well the

00:12:02 international markets too so if it's a movie for americans well what about our china what exactly

00:12:06 and that's that's my point is it like i think horror is kind of universal because um part of

00:12:13 it is uh the fascination so like to give you know maybe one positive attribute all these you know

00:12:19 like prolonged adolescence and not getting married not not having families uh guilty consciences

00:12:23 because everyone's degenerate wanting slop you know and uh capitalism playing off of that they're 0.83

00:12:28 cheap movies to make um uh having a bunch of immigrants who aren't tied to america they aren't

00:12:33 tied to um the you know the wild wild west and that tradition you know part of our ethos and the

00:12:38 myth that's uniquely american all those kinds of things um but if if i could say one positive

00:12:44 it is kind of universal um universally people um have some level of interest and fascination

00:12:52 in the mysterious the unknown uh the the uh preternatural you know the supernatural um i

00:12:59 think that that's that's kind of it plays on some things that whereas a western maybe only plays to

00:13:04 a particular you know uh audience you know like like thinking of of the south in america you know

00:13:09 like for us we're in texas uh but but something like ghosts everybody like wants to know about

00:13:16 the paranormal everybody because everybody i think instinctively realizes that there's more

00:13:21 to life than just flesh and blood that there's more than just the material world you know some

00:13:26 have said you know the world is not just stuff which is absolutely true right so i think everybody

00:13:30 made in the image of god knows that there's some kind of you know behind the veil there is a

00:13:35 spiritual reality and that that spiritual reality at various times in various ways actually does

00:13:42 kind of pierce through the veil even if just for a moment and have real tangible effects in the

00:13:48 material world and people instinctively know that and and horror tends to uh to play off of that

00:13:55 yeah i and i could add even a fifth one to that the villain in many ways is real i think of the

00:14:00 conjuring film series for example it's kind of cool in the end where they said uh hey here's

00:14:04 the takeaway it's i think ed and lorraine walker are the names in the movie they're like god is

00:14:08 real satan is real and your soul hangs in the balance we're being honest there's been a dearth

00:14:12 of good compelling villains if we've forgotten how to write many good characters i think we've

00:14:17 also forgotten how to write a lot of villains how to write people that actually have compelling

00:14:21 understandable interests so in the dearth of a million uh comic book movies where it's like oh

00:14:26 here's a guy that villainous thanos the villainous thanos or it's just a celebrity that's like brought

00:14:31 in there's nothing unique about him nothing benevolent to then go to a horror movie encounter

00:14:35 oh this is something demonic or this is someone that's sadistic and twisted well these things

00:14:39 exist in real life demons are real twisted serial killers are real that is something that actually

00:14:45 can feel something from compared to i'm watching a popcorn flick everything is so fake and of course

00:14:51 the villain himself is it's as thick or as robust as a sheet of paper yeah that's another reason

00:14:56 people are drawn to horror you're right the devil is real and so it does feel realistic like that's

00:15:01 what i was saying with the interest in the supernatural people that's a universal interest

00:15:05 because people whether they consciously admit it or not everybody's universally interested in that

00:15:11 because they they all have this sneaking suspicion that it's real but but playing with the villain

00:15:15 aspect of horror films you're absolutely right like when you know you've got some movie with uh

00:15:20 you know a coven of witches well uh Thanos is not real witches are yeah witches are you know or

00:15:27 like there's ghosts okay well maybe it's not ghosts but uh there are demonic spirits we talked about

00:15:32 this uh just a couple weeks ago in one of our episodes where we talked about you know the witch

00:15:36 of Endor who conjures the spirit of Samuel. And she herself is surprised because it's actually

00:15:43 Samuel's, you know, soul that comes up from Sheol. But what she usually did was probably not just

00:15:49 sleight of hand and smoke and mirrors, but she probably conjured something. It wasn't actually

00:15:53 the person's soul, but what it was was a demon. It was a familiar spirit that would take on the

00:16:00 appearance of the person who's seeking her out, you know, who wants to talk to their dead loved

00:16:04 one um and so my point is whether it's ghost familiar spirits demons or whether it's witches

00:16:11 well there are actually witches or warlocks um these are things that are actually real and and

00:16:17 i think people instinctively know that they're real and so again there's this universal appeal

00:16:22 um of of and and they want they want i think at some level it's like a desensitizing you know

00:16:30 like sometimes like people will think about death because they know it's inescapable they know it's

00:16:35 inescapable and and although it's not entirely true right there there are actually good positive

00:16:41 ways to think about death you know back in the day you know they would have a skull sitting on

00:16:45 the table memento more you know remember your mortality remember that death comes for us all

00:16:51 and and the point wasn't to be morbid the point was to to live life to the fullest in light of

00:16:56 the fact that death is inescapable um well likewise so is hell for those who don't know

00:17:02 jesus christ and and i think in in this tragic irony in a twisted sadistic sort of way um people

00:17:09 are thinking like well i could prepare for death by thinking about it now so that when it comes

00:17:14 maybe it won't be so frightening maybe it won't be so terrible and and i think you know that

00:17:18 subconsciously there are many people who probably think i can prepare for hell now by going to you

00:17:24 know uh saul number 49 you know whatever movie they're up to at this point um so i'm i'm preparing

00:17:30 uh for this thing that i know um is coming you know and so that i are maybe i'm diffusing right

00:17:38 like like a like a balloon so that when it finally does come the pop is is not so dramatic i'm

00:17:44 diffusing some of the air preemptively so that it's not quite as terrible yeah i think uh that's

00:17:50 a great point i think like particularly there's something we're seeing uh it's just a problem of

00:17:55 american sort of late stage capitalism is that life has become so comfortable that people seek

00:18:01 um sometimes for good sometimes for bad involuntary suffering so right i don't have to work you know

00:18:08 till the land anymore so i involuntarily suffer by going on a run or going to the gym or cold

00:18:14 right exactly but um as also i don't see death right someone dies uh you know the uh funeral

00:18:21 home comes and picks them up they put a sheet over them they cover them i never experience what

00:18:25 it feels like to see a dead face um to hold the dead body to have to carry a lifeless um corpse

00:18:31 um and so uh i'm sort of shielded and protected and so there's an element of me that craves

00:18:38 the reality of death. And horror is sort of an outlet, I think, for people along with

00:18:44 sort of what's happening, you know, as it relates to, you know, biblical anthropology and

00:18:51 what we know is original sin and so on and so forth. So I think that's a great point.

00:18:55 The other thing I wanted to talk about was really, you know, as we think about

00:18:59 the emergence of horror in the, I think the 21st century is the broadening of it. So you think

00:19:07 about the exorcist if you're familiar with the exorcist film right it's like the quintessential

00:19:11 film i think a lot of horror started are in that kind of very narrow uh sort of did not demonic

00:19:17 demonic possession catholic priest has to travel across the globe now you see the broadening of it

00:19:22 and you can just see how how sloppy it's become you think about uh this more recent horror film

00:19:28 around christmas are you familiar i've never watched i wouldn't watch that slop but but there's

00:19:33 apparently a film where i think it's krampus or something yeah krampus like oh yeah i don't know

00:19:38 if it's santa claus per se but there's some sort of like wickedness going on and at the time of

00:19:43 christmas which is just so you know it's just like poor at its basis so anyway all you all i'm

00:19:49 pointing out is that you see this like broadening of the category of horror to try to get this mass

00:19:53 appeal so it's not just ghosts it's not just demons it's vampires it's aliens it's a lot of

00:20:00 go for kids and uh marriages too so they'll take that relationship and it'll be a couple and then

00:20:05 she's realizing as they go on vacation oh my goodness he's a psychopath right or even children

00:20:09 like a child becomes possessed and that's the scariest thing ever right subverting and tainting

00:20:14 good natural relationships that should only be promoted and looked at hey these are good and

00:20:18 beautiful and rightly ordered and it comes in and twists them and it's like can you imagine if your

00:20:22 spouse was trying to kill you can you imagine if your own child had been inhabited by a demon i

00:20:27 I think of Pet Sematary, for instance, that's real recoiling and you're just aghast at it.

00:20:33 Yep. And then, you know, maybe one other reason to account for the rise of horror

00:20:37 would, of course, be Peter Thiel, Palantir, and probably the Jews. All right, let's go to our 0.98

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00:25:12 went into that commercial break i just i thought it in my head i thought this is funny and i'm

00:25:15 i'm going to say yeah you go out there and you make this about palantir yeah you make this about

00:25:19 palantir and immigration yep you're talking this is horror what are we doing but the subject is

00:25:25 about movies and horror yeah i'll tell you what's a horror movie right now our immigration policy

00:25:30 so when i said yeah i'll tell you that's that is a horror um now okay so palantir uh maybe maybe not

00:25:37 with war however though you know i threw the jews in there um i mean we do have to mention like we're

00:25:42 talking about hollywood there's a specific genre called body horror so you think of a alien romulus

00:25:47 and it's fascinating like like think of the subversion of this movie you have an alien and

00:25:51 the scariest thing about him is it's kind of actually a hyper fertility that someone gets

00:25:56 killed by it and it plants its eggs in there i mean i think in uh what was it prometheus like

00:26:01 this terrible scene at the end where she's literally giving birth to this half human half alien

00:26:05 well how is that not a image of and this is how life is and if you're not careful life will grow

00:26:10 and you don't want this thing and it's literally in your stomach and the origin of body horror is 0.60

00:26:15 literally a jewish director who pioneered the genre as this gross macabre twisting of like 0.80

00:26:21 fertility and femininity i knew it every single time uh let me trace this back that we've mentioned 0.98

00:26:27 the catharsis i literally said it as a joke but then when we went into the commercial break i

00:26:31 thought hang on i probably nailed it it's got to be yeah uh we mentioned the catharsis and we do

00:26:37 have to trace this back, not to just this is something that came about recently. I would argue,

00:26:41 and this goes all the way back to the Thebian plays, I'm going to use it as an example, Oedipus

00:26:44 and Oedipus Rex. We have told these stories for thousands of years, and the stories we tell,

00:26:50 they give us catharsis from some of the emotions that we experience. So Oedipus Rex, Aristotle,

00:26:55 I think he kind of ties it to this, there's a tragedy in it. So the fear of a lot of the people

00:26:59 at the time, the story, the way it's written, think about the person that, not by their own

00:27:04 their own action so they didn't mean it they didn't have bad intentions but they fall under

00:27:09 because of tragedy they fall into terrible circumstances in the story of Oedipus you've

00:27:13 had 3,000 years to read it I'm not spoiling it it's prophesied that he's going to kill his father

00:27:18 and he's going to sleep with his mother and so this whole story is him going about his life

00:27:22 trying to avoid it but it turns out the stranger that he murdered was actually his father in

00:27:26 disguise he then goes to the city he defeats the sphinx and he marries a woman who's a widow and

00:27:31 that turns out to be his mother because he's separated at birth. And there's this terrible

00:27:34 moment at the end where he realizes what he's done. And he actually takes the pin, I think,

00:27:37 from his cloak, and he blinds himself. And what a lot of the Greek scholars kind of, they point to,

00:27:43 what's this story doing? Okay, like we read a story where a guy sleeps with his mom, he kills

00:27:47 his dad. Why would anybody want to experience that? Well, we all recognize that life can have

00:27:52 tragedy like that, that we can take tons of steps to avoid our own destiny. Well, I don't want to

00:27:57 end up like that. I don't want to hurt those that I love. But through tragedy, we end up doing it.

00:28:01 So people flock to those plays and they flock to them because they say, I'm going to watch someone

00:28:06 go through that. And I'm going to realize that it's real and can happen. But I'm going to get

00:28:10 this psychological release, this psychological relief from watching someone else undergo the

00:28:16 punishment. And maybe the tragedy, as we were alluding to earlier, the tragedy that was supposed

00:28:20 to fall on me is going to fall on them. You said it earlier in the cold open, but a lot of horror

00:28:27 has a sexual element to it it does and how fitting is it that the most promiscuous generation that 1.00

00:28:33 possibly ever lived it's popular among young people popular among gen z so you have a promiscuous 0.56

00:28:38 generation a generation not having kids because they're delaying it that they go in and they watch 0.71

00:28:43 movies and and in it they see those that are promiscuous like them they see themselves they

00:28:49 see themselves and then they see that's me uh what befalls on you know the person that's representing

00:28:54 them is what they I think you know whether conscious or subconscious what they know um

00:29:01 should befall right themselves you know and it's like so I have my you know my movie avatar

00:29:07 is going in and receiving the punishment that I know that I personally am due and um and it

00:29:14 it's it's weird it's it's cathartic um it's like you're going in and and subjecting yourself to

00:29:22 something that's demonic something that's uh horrific something that's you know grotesque

00:29:27 and all these different things and yet people do it uh for the thrill of it for the entertainment

00:29:32 but they also do it i think in a therapeutic way because ironically even though they're

00:29:37 subjecting themselves to something terrible they come out feel feeling a little better

00:29:42 right um you know because because they're like i but i kind of kind of deserve it because here i am

00:29:48 uh, living for myself, being selfish, being, you know, um, degenerate and all these different

00:29:54 capacities. Um, and yet things go well for me. Um, I'm, I'm not getting, uh, the punishment that

00:30:02 I know that I'm due. And, uh, and, and so I'm going to go and kind of like, uh, you know,

00:30:09 whipping themselves, you know, a little, uh, little self-inflicted punishment, uh, so that I

00:30:14 can you know just keep going and uh and not be overridden by guilt yeah i and so all the back

00:30:19 to the plays in that time controlling fate was a lot more difficult you didn't have predictions

00:30:24 for weather you didn't have uh more autonomy than you did today so we no longer tell the stories of

00:30:29 worrying about tragic fate befalling us but we do tell the stories that they didn't tell then

00:30:33 which are stories of guilt of feeling the weight of man i'm a guilty person so i think it's just

00:30:39 interesting that for thousands of years we've recognized hey there's a catharsis in a story

00:30:43 and sometimes we didn't tell the same stories that we told now so it's not just one story

00:30:46 playing out again and again and again we told a story then they're related to man's plight and

00:30:51 man's struggle but now i literally at the box office we can look at the numbers and go

00:30:55 hmm i wonder what people what they're feeling what would be the title maybe of a of a movie

00:31:00 that people are watching oh sinners like it just made like 300 billion dollars in the box office

00:31:06 there's literally a movie titled sinners where people go in and watch sinners get the punishment

00:31:11 that they deserve right i i don't know if i could make it more obvious than that but to say

00:31:15 that's the symptom of a sick people looking for atonement and everybody does this like even the

00:31:20 person that's self-pitying what are they doing they're punishing themselves so they feel like

00:31:24 hey i got punished and uh and you don't have to do it for me i feel guilty about this i feel

00:31:29 insufficient and i'm going to tear myself down it's not even a real humility i'm going to tear

00:31:33 myself down and that's going to atone for the bad things i've done but all of it is of course it's

00:31:38 It's a faux covering.

00:31:39 It's like Adam and Eve trying to cover themselves with leaves.

00:31:42 Yeah, and I think that point that I made about the character being inherently less...

00:31:47 I think it's important that the average horror film doesn't really do any character development.

00:31:53 It kind of just throws you in the middle of it.

00:31:54 You don't get attached to the characters.

00:31:56 And then, as a consequence, you're kind of typically okay with them dying.

00:32:00 These are the subtle ways in which I think horror sort of alleviates your...

00:32:05 Or I would say, not alleviates isn't the word, but it sort of provides you with this sense of that cathartic release that we're talking about.

00:32:14 But it's like, it's very fake in the sense that you weren't attached to the character.

00:32:17 Even using the movie itself, it's like it didn't really cost you anything to see that happen.

00:32:23 And so I think of like, so that's one part of it.

00:32:27 the other part of horror is like the the i think it's called saw or jigsaw uh where it's like uh

00:32:34 i again i i get to go see people be punished and i'm actually better than them and so it's like

00:32:38 kind of like a pat on the back of back of like seeing just quote unquote justice be done of

00:32:43 course it's just gore and and um and terrible in all sorts of ways um so so you have kind of those

00:32:49 two different streams of horror happening one is like the self-flagellation but it's like that

00:32:54 fake kind and then one is like the you know i'm virtue i'm more virtuous than any person i'm about

00:32:59 to watch on the screen and i get to see them suffer they're getting what they deserve but

00:33:03 i'm better than that yeah right um i have one more major point that i want to make but i'm gonna

00:33:09 this is going to be a shorter episode and uh and so i'd like to save it and make it after this last

00:33:14 commercial break so let's go ahead and go to our final commercial break we'll come back i'll make

00:33:18 a point and i'd like to hear both of you guys respond to it we'll give some concluding thoughts

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00:35:05 Wes, you made a great point earlier where you were talking about, you know, back in the day, it's the fear of the unknown.

00:35:12 It's the fear of not being able to control the elements and the environment.

00:35:18 And so it's this fear of tornadoes and hurricanes and storms, you know, and lightning.

00:35:24 And then also the weather in terms of rain and crop growth and fear of famine, fear of starvation.

00:35:33 There was a lot of fear that came from elements of nature that had yet to be harnessed or protections.

00:35:42 that we now have that keep us safe

00:35:46 and remove at least a great degree of our vulnerabilities

00:35:51 to the raw elements of nature

00:35:53 that our ancestors didn't have.

00:35:57 And so I think it was Sigmund Freud,

00:35:59 a quick early life check on Sigmund Freud.

00:36:02 What do we got going on there?

00:36:03 Not Scottish, not German. 0.97

00:36:05 Igual Protestant. 0.99

00:36:08 So Sigmund Freud, terrible, terrible person 0.99

00:36:10 and hated Christ and hated the Christian faith and hated all religion, for that matter. 0.90

00:36:17 But one of his big arguments against God, you know, because ultimately he's trying to,

00:36:23 you know, he's an atheist and he's promoting atheism.

00:36:25 One of his big arguments against God is he would say, well, all the people who used to believe in God,

00:36:29 the reason why they believed in deities is because deities are a way of personifying

00:36:36 uh certain um certain natural elements that um that cannot be reasoned with they can't be appealed

00:36:45 to they can't you can't like you can't barter with a storm you can't um you know even even if

00:36:52 there's like uh you know a mob of people who uh to take you hostage as you're walking home in the

00:36:58 middle of the night down the back alleyway which you shouldn't do but if that ever happened and a

00:37:01 whole group of people surround you and they grab you and they threaten to kill you um even though

00:37:06 they're terrible people and they may be beyond being reasoned with at least

00:37:10 their people. And so you can try, you know, you can at least try and say,

00:37:13 please, you know, I'm a father. I have children at home or take,

00:37:16 take my money or I'll give you this instead. If you spare my life,

00:37:20 there's,

00:37:20 there's some element of hope because you're dealing with a person and a person

00:37:26 can be spoken to a person can be reasoned with,

00:37:28 but there is no reasoning with a storm. There's no reasoning with famine.

00:37:32 There's no reasoning with the crops just not growing. 0.70

00:37:37 And so what people did, according to Sigmund Freud, is, and I think some of this is true,

00:37:43 but it just, it explains gods, lowercase g, gods, and many different world religions,

00:37:48 but it does not explain God, that is the true God, the triune God.

00:37:52 And R.C. Sproul talked about this, and I think it's insightful, some of the things that he has to say,

00:37:57 and I'll paraphrase, but this is why you attribute certain personification deities to storms.

00:38:07 You have Thor, or you have Odin, or you have this person or that person, and the gods still

00:38:13 can do terrible things to you, and they're not necessarily even on humanity's side. When you

00:38:17 look at Greco-Roman mythology, the gods are petty. The gods are usually at war with each other,

00:38:23 angry at each other, and they're not omni-benevolent. Some of the gods may have some

00:38:30 benevolent moments towards humanity, but they can hurt you, they can help you. But with that,

00:38:39 at least you have a person. You have a person, and so you can appeal to a person. And one of the ways

00:38:46 that you think of the ancient Aztecs or the Mayans, one of the ways that you appeal is by 0.76

00:38:53 blood by blood and um and and i i think of whore and going in and watching on a screen this person

00:39:00 being torn apart and i and i wonder like what you know what what people felt when there was a human

00:39:06 sacrifice because uh there was a famine and uh the rains didn't come that year you know and people

00:39:12 are starving and and you've attributed to this natural phenomenon um a god-like deity to personify

00:39:19 it so that you can appeal, right? Because otherwise you're actually more hopeless because then it's

00:39:25 like, well, if it's just the weather, then there's not a dang thing we can do about it. So we've

00:39:31 attributed this deity personification to the weather, to the rains, you know, and there's been

00:39:38 no rain this year. And so we're having a famine. Our people are starving and we're going to appeal

00:39:44 to the deity so that he might send rain, so that we might have crops, so that we might not starve.

00:39:49 And we're going to appeal to him by sacrifice.

00:39:52 We'll sacrifice something.

00:39:53 It's going to be a person. 0.95

00:39:54 We're going to make a human sacrifice and spill their blood out.

00:39:58 And everybody's watching.

00:39:59 And everybody probably has this sense of, that could have been me.

00:40:03 Or even, that should have been me.

00:40:04 But this person is dying for me in my place so that me and my family can eat.

00:40:10 so that God would see the blood of this sacrificial lamb

00:40:15 and turn from their wrath and bless us, the people, by sending rain.

00:40:23 Well, skip forward.

00:40:25 These days, it's like we don't live outside.

00:40:28 We don't live in huts, at least here in the West.

00:40:30 We're far less vulnerable to hurricanes and to storms.

00:40:35 These things still happen, and there is still a death toll,

00:40:37 but it's minuscule by comparison.

00:40:40 even today in you know if you go to like whenever there's an earthquake or something like that in

00:40:46 Haiti far more people die and not necessarily because the earthquake is more severe although

00:40:50 there have been very severe earthquakes in Haiti but there have been comparable earthquakes in the

00:40:56 west and less people die because because of technology the way that the buildings are

00:41:01 structured they you know they don't cause as much damage you know so there's just through technology

00:41:08 through innovation in our modern world in the West, we have found a way to drastically mitigate

00:41:17 the casualties of natural disasters. So my point is there is less fear instilled in the average

00:41:25 modern Western person when it comes to storms and hurricanes and famine and these kinds of things.

00:41:31 We typically don't go hungry. Even the poorest among us in Western countries are eating Cheeto

00:41:37 puffs and whatever on our tax dollars. And so people aren't fearing famine. They're not fearing

00:41:43 starvation. They're not fearing storms coming and sweeping them away. But the one thing that we

00:41:50 still do fear, very, very much so, is our own guilt and what we think is due to us. So instead

00:41:59 of we've we've attributed a deity to a storm and and we have a human sacrifice in some Aztec temple

00:42:07 we go to the movie theater and we have a virtual digital you know sacrifice on screen not to die

00:42:15 to protect us from the hurricane or to die to protect us from famine but to die to protect us

00:42:21 from our own sense of guilt and I think that's that's a lot of what's going on and you know we

00:42:27 talked about this as we were preparing for the episode, and all three of us agree that

00:42:30 the thing that's missing, that's probably quite obvious by this point, is that the Christian faith

00:42:38 has a sacrificial lamb. We actually do have atonement. The Christian faith actually deals

00:42:44 with moral guilt, and it deals with moral guilt not by placating people and just patronizing

00:42:54 them and saying, oh, you know, but you're not that bad. Somebody else is actually worse, so sleep

00:42:58 easy at night. The Christian gospel doesn't come to us and deal with our guilt by convincing us 1.00

00:43:04 that our guilt isn't that bad or convincing us that we're not guilty at all, but it actually 0.86

00:43:08 elevates man's guilt and says, you think you're bad, you're actually worse. You're so bad that

00:43:14 the only sufficient punishment is eternity in hell or Jesus being ripped apart on the cross 1.00

00:43:19 under the wrath of God for your sin.

00:43:22 However, this second option is, in fact, an option

00:43:25 because God is so benevolent and so merciful

00:43:27 that he poured out his wrath that you deserve

00:43:30 and you know you deserve on Christ who knew no sin.

00:43:33 He was made to be sin as a substitute on your behalf.

00:43:38 And so we have this.

00:43:40 But one thing, going back to Sigmund Freud just for a moment,

00:43:45 R.C. Spool said this.

00:43:47 He said, the thing that Freud didn't understand

00:43:49 is that his way of accounting for the gods,

00:43:53 people who were powerless because of a lack of technology

00:43:56 and innovation, the famines and storms and all the rest,

00:44:00 trying to personify these natural elements

00:44:02 so that they could be reasoned with

00:44:03 to give them some sense of peace of mind,

00:44:05 to make them feel like they had at least some control

00:44:08 over the things that they were most afraid of,

00:44:11 that may be a reasonable explanation

00:44:12 for false religions and false gods,

00:44:14 but it doesn't explain the Christian God

00:44:16 for one fundamental reason, 0.70

00:44:18 And the reason is because the Christian God is actually more terrifying than the storm or the 1.00

00:44:24 thing that you're trying to get rid of. And so he gave the example of the disciples with Jesus on 1.00

00:44:28 the boat. And when a great storm, and you can tell from the text, it's a storm of demonic origin.

00:44:35 It's not just a natural storm. It's like Jesus is going somewhere. Satan is trying to inhibit him

00:44:40 and stirring up the waters. And Satan does have authority over the natural elements. That doesn't

00:44:44 means every time there's a storm that it's satanic or of satanic origin. But he does have that power

00:44:51 because Satan, remember in the book of Job, Satan is given permission by God to go and torment Job.

00:44:59 But the first kind of ring of permission that Satan is allotted by God is that he cannot inflict

00:45:06 Job in his personal body. And then later, he's allowed to inflict Job's body with sores and all

00:45:13 those things, but he cannot take his life. But at first, he can't touch Job's body, but he can

00:45:17 take everything else that Job has, his livestock, you know, all of his resources, and even his

00:45:23 children. And Satan does that. Satan actually, the text says that he causes a great wind to blow

00:45:29 that capsizes a house that Job's adult children were congregated in, and the roof collapses and

00:45:39 kills all of his children. So this is wind that's being controlled by Satan. And likewise, I think

00:45:44 when Jesus is on the boat with the disciples, it is a satanic origin of this storm, Satan

00:45:50 controlling the wind and the waves. Now, Jesus, of course, has even greater authority over wind

00:45:56 and waves. And so when he says, peace be still, the wind and waves were not just acting on their

00:46:01 own. I think they were obeying a voice, namely the voice of the enemy. But Jesus gives a higher

00:46:06 command, with a higher authority, and so they're forced to then obey the word of Christ rather than

00:46:11 the word of Satan, and they stop. But here's the big thing that Sproul points out. He says that

00:46:15 when that happens, before Jesus calms the storm, in the midst of the storm, it says that the

00:46:21 disciples were afraid. After Jesus calms the storm, and there's no more threat now from wind and waves,

00:46:26 it says the disciples were then exceedingly afraid. So if Freud is saying that the whole point

00:46:34 of mankind manufacturing a false god is to give them some sense of peace of mind because they're

00:46:41 afraid of natural elements but the god makes these things less frightening well the christian god

00:46:47 and the god man christ jesus himself we have from documented evidence that the gospel narratives

00:46:53 um that that he actually caused not less fear but greater fear because the disciples then turn

00:46:58 their fear is is no longer attached to the the wind and waves and the storm itself but now what

00:47:03 they're afraid of is that there's a man standing on the boat with them that has authority over wind

00:47:09 and waves and has the authority to cast their souls into hell. And so he's actually more

00:47:14 terrifying, not less. And so the Christian God, basically what Sproul says is that Freud's

00:47:21 explanation for manufacturing gods would cause you to manufacture all kinds of gods,

00:47:27 but never the christian god it it that that could account for coming up with you know with with zeus

00:47:33 or with thor with it uh but but never in a million years would you come up with um if you want to

00:47:40 come up with a deity and it's and it's just it's just a figment of your own imagination it's not

00:47:44 real um you would come up with something that would be beneficial for you so uh you would come

00:47:49 up with a deity that has power over the things that make you feel powerless sure so you would

00:47:54 come up with an omnipotent deity, but you would also want to come up with a, you would want a

00:48:00 deity to be powerful. This is what you wouldn't want. You wouldn't want the deity that you

00:48:04 manufacture in your mind to be thrice holy, terrible in his judgments, by no means pardoning

00:48:10 the wicked. You wouldn't want that deity. You would want him to be powerful, but you wouldn't

00:48:16 want him to have a moral standard of perfection that damns every single person alive. You wouldn't

00:48:22 come up with that God. The only way that God comes into the annals of history and the minds of men

00:48:29 is if it's true, if that God actually exists. And that God, terrible as he is, and terrible is a

00:48:37 perfectly biblical and appropriate word to describe the God of heaven and earth, to describe the 0.99

00:48:43 triune God. But as terrible as he is, he's also a merciful God. Not a God who sweeps our guilt under

00:48:50 the rock not a god who turns a blind eye to our sin he is a god who who will not pardon the wicked

00:48:56 every single sin must be held accountable and punished justly under his wrath but he is a god

00:49:03 who puts forward his own propitiation going back to the aztecs or the mayans people would put forward

00:49:10 they would take someone whether willing or unwillingly they would take a vessel usually a

00:49:15 virgin or something like that, a pure spotless lamb, but of the human variety, and put them

00:49:21 forward as a propitiation. That word propitiation actually comes from pagan religions. It predates

00:49:27 Christianity. It is used in the New Testament two or three times in the entirety of the New

00:49:34 Testament combined. So it's only used a couple times, but it's a concept that predates Christianity

00:49:39 but of putting forward a human sacrifice,

00:49:44 some kind of offering to placate the wrath of a god.

00:49:50 But Paul uses it, and the difference in the Christian gospel is this.

00:49:54 It's not that, well, the Christian god, he's such a good god,

00:49:57 and he's the author of sugar and spice and everything nice,

00:49:59 and so he doesn't require a propitiation.

00:50:01 He just makes his own wrath go away by just changing his mind

00:50:08 or turning his eye. No, he still demands a propitiation, not because he's vengeful, but

00:50:14 because he's just. He's just. But here's the quintessential difference. There is a propitiation

00:50:20 that God requires, but the propitiation is God, Jesus, given to God, the Father, and put forward

00:50:28 by God. Instead of mankind having to gather together and we have to find and put forward

00:50:35 a propitiation to die for us, to placate the wrath of the gods, God himself puts forward his

00:50:42 own propitiation himself to himself, by himself, who is himself to himself, to satisfy his own wrath

00:50:50 on our behalf. And that is the gospel. And I think horror, one of the reasons that it's succeeding

00:50:56 is because it's a cheap alternative to the gospel of Jesus Christ for a guilty people.

00:51:02 Any thoughts? I think it's the craziest thing you've ever said.

00:51:05 no i i i think that's helpful yeah i i i've never really thought about the

00:51:11 interpretation of like the pagan gods and of of the romans and the greeks in that way of like

00:51:17 they they sort of stand in for nature but it makes sense i guess if you think about

00:51:21 how these gods are lowercase g gods are depicted as fickle yeah they're right like poseidon zoo's

00:51:27 very fickle which is like similar to how you would interpret nature per se right if you think about

00:51:33 the ocean and and the wind and and storms and those sorts of things is sort of unpredictable

00:51:37 and and in a lot of ways they think of the gods the same way so it certainly makes sense um and

00:51:43 then of course i agree with everything as it relates to the gospel and and the way that god

00:51:46 is is much more terrible and frightening yeah i i like because it it references honestly a deeper 0.96

00:51:52 than deeper truth like uh like talking about blood so you said like well whore in one sense

00:51:56 it's the cheapening of it well it's a cheap atonement and there's that true but then another

00:52:00 reason it does appeal is because it is actually true that we're getting down to brass tacks

00:52:04 none of this action movie none of this musical we're getting down to blood the core thing at

00:52:10 the center of the universe i read a story it was a elapsed catholic and he did a way haska trip

00:52:16 and he had a terrible trip and he remembers just like looking up and feeling the weight of sin and

00:52:20 he said at that moment that he felt as though the crucifix of the the universe was the yearn for

00:52:26 atonement that he's there and he's tripping out and so obviously don't take it fully to the bank

00:52:29 but you're saying like he felt like man the yearning deep in my soul is for atonement and so 0.99

00:52:35 on some level whore is getting down to the truth of it all that blood is required and that's why 0.61

00:52:40 it appeals to us all the other trappings and everything else go away we're dealing with the 1.00

00:52:44 fundamental substrate of the universe that something is required for a people and of course 0.93

00:52:49 again the christian gospel is the one not a simulated blood like a whore it's not somebody 0.72

00:52:53 else's blood it's not the blood of bulls and goats but the son of the spotless lamb of god

00:52:57 who can actually atone for it amen um last little piece of practical advice take it or leave it but

00:53:04 uh i think there there is a clear distinction between mystery um even some you know thrillers

00:53:10 or suspense kind of movie you know when it's uh a whodunit you know or there's like a silly

00:53:15 serial killer you know and there's a detective who's trying to catch them and i think those

00:53:20 things are different than strictly horror uh where it's it's just uh the the whole point of the movie

00:53:27 is a person is going to be, you know, split apart and tortured, and you're just going to sit there

00:53:34 and watch it happen. So the last thing that, you know, Wes, you mentioned this before we started

00:53:39 the show, but to leave you guys with is, yes, there's all these different connotations and

00:53:43 parallels between horror and what's going on in broader society and our culture and ties to the

00:53:49 gospel and atonement and propitiation, and all those things I think are profound and important

00:53:54 to think about but in terms of should christians watch or um we do have you know so we've dissected

00:54:01 it but now in terms of the realm of counsel um i i think we'd be remiss if we didn't end the show

00:54:06 by saying uh there is uh something to be said for the scripture that tells us whatever is pure

00:54:11 whatever is noble whatever is lovely whatever is good think on these things um i don't think that

00:54:16 the mind of the christian we should be mindful of our mortality the fact that we will die but

00:54:20 there's a fine line in in thinking about our death occasionally uh reminding ourself that

00:54:26 we're made from the dust and to dust we will return and we must give an account to god

00:54:30 for our lives that's very different uh than um morbid grotesque torturous um right kinds of 0.55

00:54:37 thoughts and especially for the christian it makes sense that the unbeliever that the pagan

00:54:42 that the truly guilty person um would subject themselves to that again and again and again but

00:54:48 for the christian um we we we have uh the the willing suffering servant who was uh ripped apart

00:54:58 on our behalf um and in terms of things that are grotesque and morbid uh the only one that uh that

00:55:05 i want to allow my mind to to ever uh contemplate is uh the passion of the christ and his death

00:55:13 on the cross. If I want to think about anything that is truly grotesque, I'll read through

00:55:21 the Gospels and the crucifixion of Jesus. But beyond that, I don't want to subject my mind to

00:55:29 morbid, torturous things, because as a Christian, I don't have to, because those aren't things that

00:55:36 are waiting around the corner for me at the end of my life, but they're things that were taken

00:55:40 from me and for me on my behalf by jesus christ and so if i think if i think of brutality and if

00:55:47 i think of gore um i'll think of the blood of jesus shed um in my place so i would encourage

00:55:55 you to consider doing the same yeah thanks for tuning in and we will see you again next time

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The NXR Podcast - August 29, 2025

THE LIVESTREAM - The Rise of Horror & What It Says About Americans’ Souls

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