The Holy, Horror, and Halloween. I want to take the approach of yet another Halloween to

address something that is increasingly related to it. A few years ago, I wrote about the

lawfulness of celebrating Halloween's self at a little kid dressing up level, but here I want

to develop further a thought

I mentioned in passing there. That thought concerns the unlawfulness of celebrating or honoring

certain things. Having your kid dress up like Tweety Bird in order to obtain some candy from

grandma causes me no consternation at all, but something else is going on in our time, and I think we

need to talk about it. What is going

on with horror movies and with horror fixations, the kind that surface at Halloween? What is the

driving cultural force behind it? What is causing the market for it? Where is the energy for this coming

from? The question needs to be asked, because the market for it is not constant. It is a cultural

thing and really does vary from generation to generation. The market for it is not constant. It is a cultural thing and really does vary from

generation to generation. The market for zombie films does not have the universal sinful appeal

that, say, girly magazines would. Seeking an explanation for the former is much more difficult

than seeking an explanation for the latter. Note here that I'm not talking about the presence or

absence of such things, but rather about

the implicit market for them. So I want to begin by making a few observations about the attractiveness

of death. It is a moth-to-the-flame kind of attraction. That is true enough, but it is a strong

and powerful attraction nonetheless. In Proverbs 836, wisdom, a great lady, is speaking, and she says, all they that

hate me love death. So a fascination with the things of death is hatred of wisdom. Folly is

attracted to death. Folly has a death wish, but what particular kind of folly are we talking about?

I want to argue that it is a folly of guilt, and in particular sexual guilt.

...