Horror that Comforts
Two modern horror movies show surprising insight into the power and persistence of divine justice.
By Zachary Lee
When I think of “comfort movies,” horror films don’t usually come to mind. Around the holiday season, my family usually watches Elf or all three extended editions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. (We keep as much coffee as cocoa on hand for the latter marathon.) This year, however, I’m pressing play on two 2022 horror films, Prey and Barbarian, which, for a Christian audience, should comfort as much as they disturb.
These days, it should be easy to make a good monster film. To modify G.K. Chesterton’s line from Tremendous Trifles, the world will never starve for want of horrors; present-day creators have their pick of evils to give the big-screen treatment. But while great horror films can offer creative permutations and reminders that the world’s brokenness is ever present, I find the ones that stick with me—and in this case, even comfort me—are the ones that are willing to articulate hope as well. Barbarian and Prey don’t flinch away from detailing horror, but they also give a glimpse of restoration: of something that’s bent and bruised being lifted and straightened. They are exercises in prophetic imagination and, through their movie monsters, offer pictures of God’s divine justice. The comfort Prey and Barbarian provide is not a warm and fuzzy feeling, but a more profound assurance that, somehow, what is wrong will be made right.
On the surface, the two films have about as much in common as Die Hard and the Christmas spirit (just kidding, I won’t go there). Prey is a prequel to 1987’s Predator and takes place in 1719. Barbarian, a non-franchise film from comedian Zach Cregger, is set in 2022. And while both films are creature-features, the monsters at the center could not be more different. Prey’s monster comes from outer space and its arrival is cleverly framed as nothing short of divine. Barbarian flips this script: the “creature” comes from the depths of a basement and is as much a victim of human depravity as it is a judgement against it.
The monsters at the center of Prey and Barbarian are images for this type of justice promised by God.
However, these two films have one powerful thing in common: they are both portraits of the overwhelming nature and certain power of God’s divine justice. Watching both films, I was reminded of a story in Scripture in which these aspects of God’s justice are most apparent. Kings 18 tells the story of the prophet Elijah battling against the prophets of Baal. In the story, Elijah proposes a test of fire to the prophets to determine which god is the true god: the God of Israel or the god Baal. Elijah suggests that they create two sacrifices and that the true god will be the one that sends fire and burns the sacrifice. The prophets of Baal attempt to call upon Baal, and while they cry out from morning till noon, no fire comes. Increasingly desperate, they begin to “slash themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed,” to please Baal. In response, Elijah jeers at them “Shout louder! … Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” Alas, fire does not come from Baal. When it’s Elijah’s turn, as if to further humiliate the now-mutilated prophets, he makes the curious choice to have his sacrifice drenched with so much water that it runs “down around the altar and even fill[s] the trench” around it. Elijah then calls upon the name of the Lord, and fire falls and burns up “the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.”
This story captures powerfully the reality of God’s divine justice, which is both overwhelming in scope and certain in its execution. Although it seems impossible that the drenched sacrifice can catch fire, God’s divine fire consumes it in an incendiary spectacle. The Bible is rife with such stories of divine justice, in which the evil empires of the world think they have the final say, only to crumble when they face God’s divine power. Whether it is the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 or God unleashing the ten plagues upon Egypt after Pharaoh has kept his people enslaved, there’s a certainty and a cataclysmic power to God’s justice. The comfort is always for the people being oppressed, and the disaster is for the oppressors.
The monsters at the center of Prey and Barbarian are images for this type of justice promised by God. While Prey’s monster showcases the breathtaking power of divine justice, Barbarian displays its certainty. Both portray their monsters, despite their preternatural power, siding with the oppressed (whether women or indigenous peoples) over the oppressor (whether colonizers or sexual predators).
The Predator here is not an enemy to be grappled with, but rather a representation of overwhelming divine justice visited upon oppressors.
Prey spares no blood or guts painting a picture of the overwhelming power of divine justice. The monster at its center is an alien game hunter, called a Predator or Yautja, who arrives to the Earth’s Great Plains in 1719 in search of humans to hunt for sport. Protagonist Naru (Amber Midthunder), a member of the Comache tribe, is trained to be a healer in her tribe but longs to be a fighter just like her brother, Taabe (Dakota Beavers). Noticing the Predator’s arrival, she sees fighting it as an opportunity to prove her worth as a warrior.
The film leans heavily into the idea of its advanced and brutal protagonist being a sort of instrument of divine justice. Indeed, more than past Predator films, there’s a true sense of supernatural regality when the Yautja arrives on Earth. Evoking Revelation 1:7, which describes Jesus “coming on the clouds,” the Predator’s spaceship slices through the clouds as if to forcefully stab its way into our world. Cinematographer Jeff Cutter frames the arrival as a fully embodied sensory experience: the sounds of animals roaming free are replaced with scampering as they flee, and the very ground under Naru’s feet shakes. To back up this transcendental entrance, the Predator comes equipped with a collection of weapons that would be considered advanced in the modern day, let alone the 1700s. With tools ranging from a cloaking device to a spear gun, the Predator makes quick work of any beast foolish enough to get in its crosshairs.
An interesting twist on the Predator, though, is that for all its power, it only fights those it deems a threat. By doing so, it inadvertently saves and fights for the oppressed. Those who cannot fight for themselves it leaves unbothered. This becomes most apparent when Naru and her brother are captured by French fur trappers. The trappers use them as bait in the hopes of luring and capturing the Predator, only to find it more than they were ready to handle.
It turns out the Predator was drawn to the trappers not because of Naru or Taabe but because of the trappers themselves. The trappers, as captors and not captured, clearly pose the biggest threat. Eager to test its weapons, the Predator goes after the bigger game. What follows is one of the film’s most exhilarating and brutal sequences, as the Predator unleashes its full arsenal and belligerence on the fur trappers. The trappers have state-of-the-art rifles and pistols, and there’s a humorous sequence where a group of them fire at the Predator, only for their bullets to do no damage (with one bullet even ricocheting back and hitting its discharger). As they begin the arduous process of reloading their weapons (just 17th-century things), the Predator makes quick work of them, using a bear trap like a frisbee and throwing it at one, while decapitating another with its shield. All of the fur trappers’ weapons are useless against the Predator, their most advanced armaments prove nothing more than “filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6) compared to the savage splendor of the Predator’s arsenal.
The Predator here is not an enemy to be grappled with, but rather a representation of overwhelming divine justice visited upon oppressors. Just before being captured by the fur trappers, Naru stumbles upon a field where many bison lie dead and skinned alive. One might assume this is the work of the Predator, but it is later revealed that the fur trappers are responsible for the carnage. The Predator’s havoc is a sobering shock to the fur trappers, who plunder greedily and heedlessly. As frightening as the Predator’s bloodshed is, for Naru and Taabe, it proves a comfort and a form of justice visited upon the trappers who have exploited and harmed their lands.
Try as evil might, it is powerless against the certainty and the sheer might of God’s justice.
If Prey showcased how the oppressors’ weapons are powerless in the face of a creature of divine justice, the horror film Barbarian showcases divine justice’s relentlessness and certainty, even if it seems as though evil might have the final say. The film focuses on Tess (Georgina Campbell) who arrives in Detroit for a job interview. She later finds that the Airbnb house she’s booked has unspeakable horrors underneath its seemingly normal exterior.
The monster of Barbarian has a darker origin than that of Prey. Tess soon discovers that the house contains a hidden corridor and subterranean tunnel. As she ventures further down, she discovers the “Mother,” a ghastly, pale human with seemingly superhuman speed and strength who nevertheless can’t speak. Viewers later learn the Mother’s disturbing origin. Long before Tess ever stepped foot in the Airbnb, the building was owned by a man named Frank (Richard Brake) who would use the corridor and tunnels to abduct and imprison women. In a vicious cycle of exploitation, Frank would rape the women, impregnate them, and then rape their children. Decades of sexual abuse resulted in the birth of the Mother. It is a horrific and disturbing origin story, and yet it illuminates the nature of the Mother. She represents the many silenced voices who perished in the darkness beneath the house. Yet in the films’ final moments, the Mother can deliver a form of vindication for those same women who never got to see justice be delivered.
Midway through the film, the Airbnb’s owner, sitcom actor A.J. (Justin Long), comes by to check on his property. Though he has raped a co-star, he tries to deny all allegations of misconduct. Nevertheless, his ensuing legal fees drive him to sell some assets, one of which is the Airbnb. The Mother abducts both him and Tess, while strangely showing favoritism to her. When the two try to escape by climbing up a water tower in town, A.J. realizes that he can save himself by pushing Tess off the tower, guessing that the Mother will instinctively dive after her. The Mother’s affinity for Tess harmonizes with her own tragic story. Just as A.J. was willing to toss Tess aside as if she were nothing, the Mother (and the many victims before her) were treated similarly by Frank. But while Frank’s victims had nobody to protect them from abuse, here the Mother sees an opportunity to provide the help she never had.
Revealing his true colors, A.J. does push Tess off the tower to save himself. The Mother, as if on cue, leaps to save Tess, cushioning her fall. When A.J. goes down to explain himself to Tess, the Mother awakens and kills him in what is perhaps the most grotesque scene in a movie full of disturbing moments. Piercing his eyes with her long fingers, she blinds him and splits his head open with her bare hands.
A.J.’s disposition, in many ways, is not that far off from Frank’s: he is an abuser who used women for his own gain. In this way, his death by the Mother’s hands is a comfort to those who might otherwise never see justice delivered. This scene can be seen as an ending of a cycle of abuse that began with Frank. Though there was a brief moment where it seemed that the Mother had died, her sudden revival and brutal murder of A.J. represents how justice broke free with a vengeance, and how evil and abuse did not have the final say. The Mother worked justice for herself, Frank’s victims, and perhaps even future victims as well.
Critic, journalist, and professor Alissa Wilkinson speaks about the importance and power of film as a visual medium: “in cinema, words are powerful, but images are much more powerful.… So what stays with you is the idea that we see…” There’s something powerful about being able to witness on screen what is written about in Scripture. I’m grateful for the witness of Prey and Barbarian. They are helpful tools to showcase visually what Scripture depicts. While it seems that the evil forces in this world will prevail and the vulnerable and weak will continually be exploited, nothing can stop God’s justice. One day, the empire’s strongholds will be crushed, all tears will be wiped away, and mourning and even death will be no more. Try as evil might, it is powerless against the certainty and the sheer might of God’s justice.
Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash