A Christian’s wrestling with death and trauma…

What is amiss on this farm? Hmm? It is not natural. — Katherine, in Robert Eggers’ “The Witch”

The jagged edge startled me.

I had only purchased the shoes the week before. This was my first time wearing them. Yet, there at the toe, I saw a scuff mark that looked like the point of a blade.

What had I done?

Instantly, I thought of my shoeshine kit at home. After work, I would fix this directly upon arriving home.

I had to work longer than expected and came home in a hurry. I didn’t have much time before I had made plans to visit a friend. We had just cleaned out much of our house and there were still boxes in the garage. I couldn’t find the shoeshine kit.

“What is wrong?” queried Sarah, my wife.

I looked like a whirling dervish, racing around the house in search of this one minor tool. Without it, I couldn’t set things right.

Sarah encouraged me to breathe. I was already late, so I acquiesced and drove to my friend’s house. Later that night, I returned to find that Sarah had located the kit. I smoothed out the jagged edge.

All was right.

Just days before, I had found myself gripped to a computer screen — alone — in a hotel room. I was watching Ari Aster’s dread-inducing debut film, Hereditary.

I will not divulge all that takes place in the film. While I do not want to spoil the film, I also understand that not everyone will find catharsis in such films. In fact, I understand that clearly.

For I used to be such a person.

I’m not saying that my newfound appreciation for certain films in the horror genre is the posture others should take. I’ve wrestled with the value of taking such a posture myself.

In years past, I had watched films such as Rosemary’s Baby, The Witch, Alien, and The Exorcist. Each had been lauded in its own way for contributions to the horror genre. As a fan of movies and movie history, I acknowledge the key role this genre has played in launching the careers of import filmmakers. The ability to make movies on a small budget that are guaranteed to find an audience has carved out a special niche for horror films.

Why are they guaranteed to find an audience?

Well, many people like to be thrilled — scared even. Fear is a core human emotion. We all understand it on a visceral level. It is easy to write them off as “just a movie.” But, for much of my youth, that’s not how I was encouraged to view them. I was fearful of what watching them might do to me.

That’s not to say that there weren’t some horror films I appreciated. Mulholland Drive and The Shining are two of my favorite movies, in general. I can’t quite place a finger on why these did not affect me as others did. But the fact remained that I found much of the horror genre to be inaccessible. I felt amiss while watching them. One particular experience stuck with me more than the others.

When I first watched The Witch, I had graduated from college and was starting out as a newly-married, young professional. I was dabbling in movie criticism and had even had my work published by a few outlets I really admired. Many of my colleagues at these publications had lauded this film for its writing and its religious foundation. It made me think that it might be the rare horror film I would appreciate.

While I will not spoil its features, I will say that the closing scene convicted me deeply. I turned the film off even though there were only seconds left in it.

Something about it felt too real.

In years gone by, our family went to a small church near our house. We were there every Sunday and every Wednesday. I was formed deeply there. I was raised by a community of love and faith. In many ways, that church was a key aspect in bringing about the man I am today.

One Sunday, I was sitting in the pew next to my family. There was a gap between me and a woman I did not know. We were sitting just feet from one another.

Near the end of the service, the pastor was finishing his sermon from the stage. Suddenly, this woman began shaking and fell to the ground between the seat and the back of the pew in front of us. She began shrieking and speaking in a voice that seemed different.

I realize that invoking this story amid a post about horror movies will seem cliche. But this was no movie. My father held me close as the pastor prayed. In a few minutes, the situation was calmed. The woman was taken to another room. I remember a feeling of being utterly shaken. I remember fear. I also remember lingering faith that the fear was not the end of the story.

Again, I realize that this sounds like a story meant to drive home a point. But I cannot bear witness against my experience. This happened. I saw it. I heard it.

I remember talking with my family about it on the way home. After that, we didn’t talk about it much. Since then, I have brought it up in conversation from time to time. But it has largely remained in my memory.

Upon finishing Hereditary, I was overcome with a perplexed feeling. It was not familiar to me. After watching other horror films, my appreciation for technical aspects was always overcome by a feeling that something was amiss. I could not fully appreciate these films as I did so many others.

But not so with this film.

I found it to be incredibly compelling. It had much to say about grief, family history, and the drive to set things right that have gone so wrong.

I was honored to recently have my writing mentor and friend, Jon Swanson, publish my piece on wrestling with the death of my father, David Charles.

Not long after that piece was published, I read C.S. Lewis’ memoir A Grief Observed. In his wonderful review of Hereditary, Cameron McAllister quotes Lewis as a tie-in to what horror films can help us understand more deeply.

C.S. Lewis opens A Grief Observed with an unnerving declaration: “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” By far Lewis’s most personal and unsparing book, it records his (often unsuccessful) attempts to come to grips with the death of his wife Joy Davidman. Though it’s far from hopeless, A Grief Observed continues to distress many readers because of its steadfast refusal to settle for any kind of superficial or premature consolation. Lewis’s ordeal produced no escape clauses, and he doesn’t offer any to the reader either.

My father died on August 16, 2024. As I write this, the anniversary is just over a week away. Fear is a constant presence — whether in its more traditional form or in the form of grief. It shifts its shape and is hard to pin down.

Some days it takes the innocuous form of a scuff mark on a shoe.

Whether large or small, I notice how fear and anxiety can grip me. I know the story doesn’t end there. I know II Corinthians 4:18 by heart. It is my favorite verse. And yet, eschewing the seen for the unseen never becomes easy. God has not promised us an easy life.

He has promised us His presence and faithfulness for each day. Tomorrow is not promised. Sufficient unto the day is its own evil.

And so, I found strange comfort after watching Hereditary. Though it contains scenes of horrific nature and the dread it induces is palpable, it displays truth. Just as Eggers did with The Witch, Aster meticulously researched for his script. I thought the reality of its writing would bring about a similar feeling when the credits rolled. But somehow, I didn’t feel the same conviction.

Note, that I didn’t feel the same conviction, but the film did convict me of something.

In my piece linked above, I shared a truthful statement about where I was in my grief journey. I encourage you to read the piece for the full context, but I shared that I would trade a large amount of money if I could only have my father back.

I don’t think this is an uncommon sentiment. But now, just weeks after publishing it, I have had more time to think. Reflection, brought on in part by the storyline of Hereditary, reminded me of a deeper truth. Lewis also gets at it in the closing to A Grief Observed.

How wicked it would be, if we could, to call the dead back! She said not to me but to the chaplain, ‘I am at peace with God.’ She smiled, but not at me. Poi si torno all’ eterna fontana.

I cannot remain in selfishness. As tempting as it would be to try to cross the line, death is a closed door. Any feeble attempt to open it only brings more death. Hereditary tells this story well, even if not in the exact way I might. It shook me from my stupor. Maybe it’s what I needed.

In any case, it also showed me that not all horror movies are created equally. I did attempt rewatching The Witch. I appreciated it slightly more, but my overall feeling remained the same. It tells the truth about pride and puritanical focus on perfection. We are not perfect. We cannot be. Yet, that is not cause to succumb to darkness. The Light is more powerful, despite how things may seem on any given day.

Another favorite grief memoir of mine is The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. She tells a similar story to that of C.S. Lewis, but just in her own masterful way. Consider this excerpt:

I realize as I write this that I do not want to finish this account. Nor did I want to finish the year. The craziness is receding but no clarity is taking its place. I look for resolution and find none.

Yes, Joan. I feel the same way. But wait — she has more.

I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us. I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead. Let them become the photograph on the table. Let them become the name on the trust accounts. Let go of them in the water. Knowing this does not make it any easier to let go of him in the water.

I feel how horrifically uneasy that choice is. I know I must let my Dad stay dead. I know it. A billion dollars couldn’t change it. If it could, I shouldn’t hope for it. It is a vapor in the dark. A monster cosplaying as a kind friend.

I’m ready to hope for something else.

I don’t think hoping for something else minimizes the relationship I shared with my father in any way. I don’t think, if the dead see us and feel compassion for us, he would be saddened by this choice. I hope he would be proud of me. He had to let loved ones stay dead. I don’t know the inner workings of how that went for him. Despite all we had in common, there are some things that are not shared between fathers and sons.

There is much amiss on the farm depicted in The Witch. But there is also much amiss in our world. Scripture says in Ephesians 6:12 that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

I have seen darkness in many forms. Death is a rot that we cannot fix. We smell its stench. It lurks around corners. We breathe in its fear.

But it has been defeated.

No, it doesn’t always look that way. But Scripture also says — in my favorite verse — that we are to “look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

I will hope in the eternal, even as I live in the transient. Horror movies may not be helpful for everyone in this regard. I’m not even convinced they will help me in the future.

But this week, they did help me — in some strange way. For that, I’m thankful.

This post originally appeared on Medium HERE.