#I am so sick of the religious bashing the doubters

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

I want a movie with debunkers the heroes, not the anti-science, mystic mumbo jumbo scam artists! Yes, I have just tried to watch a Conjuring movie. And every time they go back to our “heroes” or belittle the idea of doubters I get so damn pissed off I want to throw stuff at the screen!

Look, I get fiction needs to be able to play in the impossible. I adore science fiction, fantasy, and all that in surreal and hallucinatory. But that doesn’t mean fiction has to encourage the already too common belief that skeptics, scientists, and the like are the fools for not having some sort of blind faith in the irrational!

Really, you CAN have skeptics and scientists in supernatural horror, just have them using some sort of an evidence based system to prove it exists and figure out the rules. See, that’s not so hard. You don’t have to suggest that having a brain that questions is a damn weakness!!

I get tired of the conservative, pro-faith, anti-science agenda lurking in so much fiction. The blind faith crowd already dominate, so the rest of us don’t need them to be encouraged more into mocking us for asking for a modicum of scientific proof of outrageous claims.

Yes, I am sensitive on the subject.

The rural south is not a fun place for the doubter. I grew up when my local community saw devil worshipers in everything from our annual Halloween Carnival to a Star of David someone spray painted on a sign. In fact, celebrating Halloween was all but killed in the town, and it has reached the point if I get one trick or treater it’s a good year. My parents, who had degrees in area of science, were treated as outsiders to be shunned while preachers that were actual abusive assholes were respected because they were “men of god”. I was told that people like me, atheists and agnostics, were secretly devil worshipers being nice just to trick them so we could steal their souls. They believed Ouija boards, Dungeons and Dragons, and certain kinds or rock music would bring on the demons….seriously. They believed faith was everything and doubt, questions, needing evidence, or having an imagination were flaws the devil would exploit.

These people would once upon a time have happily stoned a non-believer like me to death. They do NOT need encouragement!

I know, I know. It isn’t still the 1980s, and a micro small town isn’t the whole world. I am sure there are some very religious people out there that haven’t decided shutting off their brains is a proof of faith. I just never seem to get to see my side ever reflected except as characters that need to be “cured” of their lack of faith or figures to be ridiculed. And the religious hardly need MORE fiction to glorify them.

It’s my own fault. I should have researched enough to know that these are loosely inspired by frequently debunked hauntings and feature ultra religious protagonists. But golly, people love these movies and I am kind of out of horror classics to watch. I must jumped in. These weren’t made for me. Give me the original The Haunting or The Innocents or even the original Suspiria any day!

Also, I suppose I just have to accept that certain sorts of horror movies don’t work with me, simply because they rely on a certain level of subconscious belief I’m just not wired for. Oh, sure, jump scares, music that cues you that the big “scary” is coming, and some nice creepy cinematography can make a movie fun for even folks like me. But I am not going to find them “scary”.

It’s like The Exorcist is utterly hilarious (other than the medical scenes, thanks to my phobia) for me, yet most people find is extremely scary. I can’t help it if I don’t get why people take it so dang seriously, I mean spinning heads? It’s silly!!!!!

As for The Conjuring 2, ignoring the anti- skeptic agenda (hard to do) , it’s sooo horror by the book. Like, look at the way the camera moves. Obviously, there is gonna be a **Booga Wooga moment over the shoulder when it swings back. It would at least be startling if they wouldn’t telegraph every single scare moment with music! Yawn. Then it just got eye-rollingly hilarious

For the record I DO find some horror movies, even with stuff I don’t believe in, scary. They just have to work a bit harder, a bit more subtly. And movies with things that COULD be real, like serial killers, I avoid entirely. For instance, I will never, ever, watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The closer to what humans can do, the more frightening.

But this? Not scary, just predictable, increasingly funny…. and annoying. REALLY annoying!

** I use the word for small moments that the makers of a movie or show expect you to find very scary. I call them “Booga Wooga” because many years ago a supposedly reputable main stream news show did a thing on a “real” exorcism. What we actually saw was an obviously mentally disturbed girl being interacted with by people that clearly went in with a strong religious agenda. One of their “chilling” moments involved the supposedly possessed girl saying “Booga Wooga!” Really! Like something a four year old would say after jumping out from behind a tree. The show was a disturbing bit of exploitation of a kid by network tv, and hardly convincing proof of anything the slightest bit supernatural. All it did was make me lose all respect for that program, especially since I think it was still the era of the satanic panic so it seemed extra irresponsible. . And, of course, give me this term.

BOOGA WOOGA!! (Ohhhhh, did I scare you?)