Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up religious but loving scary thingsā€”horror movies, scary comic books, Dark Shadows, and The Twilight Zone. Even the music of Alice Cooper. While Iā€™m no longer religious, I have a doctorate in religious studies and I still have a fascination with media that cause fear. I also write horror stories. Beyond Holy Horror I have written two more books on religion and horror and I read every book about this odd combination as soon as I can get my hands on it. I believe you should never judge people by their tastes in mediaā€”they can be decent folk even if they like horror.


I wrote

Book cover of Holy Horror: The Bible and Fear in Movies

What is my book about?

What, exactly, makes us afraid? Is it monsters, gore, the unknown? Perhaps itā€™s a biblical sense of malice, lurking unnoticedā€¦

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Sacred Terror: Religion and Horror on the Silver Screen

Steve A. Wiggins Why did I love this book?

This book opened my eyes to how a scholar of religion could engage with horror films. I sat in my hotel room and started reading it the day I purchased it because I couldnā€™t wait until I got back home to start it.

Douglas Cowan deftly demonstrates how horror films engage in conversation with religion and he does this in non-technical language. In a culture where religion, or at least organized religion, is in decline, it still has incredible power in pop culture.

Many religious people avoid horror like they would a real monster. Sacred Terror, apart from suggesting a title for my book, shows horror and religion both benefit from the discussion. Cowan has written other good books on the subject as well.

By Douglas E. Cowan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sacred Terror as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Sacred Terror examines the religious elements lurking in horror films. It answers a simple but profound question: When there are so many other scary things around, why is religion so often used to tell a scary story? In this lucid, provocative book, Douglas Cowan argues that horror films are opportune vehicles for externalizing the fears that lie inside our religious selves: of evil; of the flesh; of sacred places; of a change in the sacred order; of the supernatural gone out of control; of death, dying badly, or not remaining dead; of fanaticism; and of the power--and the powerlessness--of religion.


Book cover of Religion and Its Monsters

Steve A. Wiggins Why did I love this book?

Religion and Its Monsters started this whole conversation.

Timothy Beal successfully transitioned from an author of academic books to an author of trade books, and this one shows how he did it. He selected two unexpectedly compatible subjects and demonstrated that they lurk in the same mental spaces.

I was inspired by this book to allow myself to reclaim my childhood interest in monsters as an adult. If serious scholars wrote about such things, why shouldnā€™t I read about them?

Unfortunately, Beal never followed up with another book on the topic.

By Timothy K. Beal,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Religion and Its Monsters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Religion's great and powerful mystery fascinates us, but it also terrifies. So too the monsters that haunt the stories of the Judeo-Christian mythos and earlier traditions: Leviathan, Behemoth, dragons, and other beasts. In this unusual and provocative book, Timothy K. Beal writes about the monsters that lurk in our religious texts, and about how monsters and religion are deeply entwined. Horror and faith are inextricable. Ans as monsters are part of religious texts and traditions, so religion lurks in the modern horror genre, from its birth in Dante's Inferno to the contemporary spookiness of H.P. Lovecraft and the Hellraiser films.ā€¦


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Book cover of Curiosity and the Cat

Curiosity and the Cat by Martin Treanor,

Curiosity is certain she saw fairies at the bottom of the garden. Little does she know . . . they saw her first.

Emotionally abandoned by her mother and infatuated by a figurine of a fairy ballerina she discovers in an old toy shop, eight-year-old Curiosity Portland steals the figurine,ā€¦

Book cover of Lurking Under the Surface: Horror, Religion, and the Questions that Haunt Us

Steve A. Wiggins Why did I love this book?

Brandon Grafius is a prolific author in this area and I found this book to be a very good interaction between someone who is a Christian minister and a horror movie fan.

While this isnā€™t Grafiusā€™ first book on the subject, it is his first to attempt to explain ā€œwhyā€ā€”why would a normal, upstanding citizen watch horror? It helps debunk the idea that only social outcasts or disgruntled individuals watch horror. (Surveys indicate well over half of people in the United States admit to liking horror films.)

This coming out of the horror closet is a personal and very readable account.

By Brandon R. Grafius,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lurking Under the Surface as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Horror can be a valuable conversation partner for the spiritual questions that animate so many of us.

Whether through a movie, television show, novel, or even myth, horror as a genre has always spoken to our deepest human fears and anxieties: fear of death, of the unknown, of knowing too much. Whether you're looking at classic narratives like Frankenstein, which shows us the consequences of stretching knowledge farther than it's safe to go, or contemporary films like Get Out, which explores racism and white guilt, horror provides a window into our culture and what makes us human. The same canā€¦


Book cover of Maps of Heaven, Maps of Hell: Religious Terror as Memory from the Puritans to Stephen King

Steve A. Wiggins Why did I love this book?

Thinking of this book still leaves me with a warm, fuzzy feeling. I canā€™t say precisely why, but this book by a Jesuit monk discussing horror struck me as intelligent and deeply personal.

Conversant with many kinds of scary stories associated with religion, this is the most academic book on my list. The fact that Edward Ingebretsen discusses Stephen King really gives readers something to think about. This isnā€™t the only book to discuss Stephen King and religionā€”Douglas Cowan also wrote a book about thisā€”but it does so in a way that brings some ā€œaha momentsā€ to your reading.

By Edward J. Ingebretsen,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Maps of Heaven, Maps of Hell as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From its beginnings in Puritan sermonising to its prominent place in contemporary genre film and fiction, this book traces the use of terror in the American popular imagination. Entering American culture partly by way of religious sanction, it remains an important heart and mind shaping tool.


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Book cover of Activating Our 12-Stranded DNA: Secrets of Dodecahedral DNA for Completing Our Human Evolution

Activating Our 12-Stranded DNA by Ruslana Remennikova,

In this vibrant guidebook, sound healer and former corporate scientist Ruslana Remennikova reveals how, through vibration and intention, you can shapeshift DNA from the standard double helix to its 12-stranded, dodecahedral formā€”unlocking your spiritual potential and opening the way for deep healing of the past, the present, and the futureā€¦

Book cover of Vampires Today: The Truth about Modern Vampirism

Steve A. Wiggins Why did I love this book?

Like most of the other authors on my list Joseph Laycock has written several books that address religion and horror. I picked this one because it is the first of his books that I read and it awakened me to several of his other titles.

Laycock, who is a professor of religion, writes in an engaging way and has a great sense for what is happening in the wider culture, particularly about occult concerns. Vampire books are a guilty pleasure of mine, so reading this author on this subject seems both a natural and a supernatural choice. The book discusses modern vampire societies in a clear-eyed and informative way.

By Joseph Laycock,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Vampires Today as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book, about real vampires and the communities they have formed, explores the modern world of vampirism in all its amazing variety.

Long before Dracula, people were fascinated by vampires. The interest has continued in more recent times with Anne Rice's Lestat novels, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the HBO series True Blood, and the immensely popular Twilight. But vampires are not just the stuff of folklore and fiction. Based upon extensive interviews with members of the Atlanta Vampire Alliance and others within vampire communities throughout the United States, this fascinating book looks at the details of real vampire life andā€¦


Explore my book šŸ˜€

Book cover of Holy Horror: The Bible and Fear in Movies

What is my book about?

What, exactly, makes us afraid? Is it monsters, gore, the unknown? Perhaps itā€™s a biblical sense of malice, lurking unnoticed in the corners of horror films. The Bible attempts to ward off aliens, ghosts, witches, psychopaths, and demons, yet it often becomes a source of evil itself.

Looking at horror films from the sixties through 2010, this book considers the starring and supporting roles of the Good Book in horror films, monster movies, and thrillers to discover why it incites such fear. In a culture with high biblical awareness and low biblical literacy, horrific portrayals can greatly influence an audienceā€™s beliefs. Horror helps us to understand religion.

Book cover of Sacred Terror: Religion and Horror on the Silver Screen
Book cover of Religion and Its Monsters
Book cover of Lurking Under the Surface: Horror, Religion, and the Questions that Haunt Us

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