Fear Not!

Josh Larsen is the senior producer of Think Christian, a website, podcast, and video channel where Christians connect their pop-culture fandom with their faith. He's also the co-host of the Filmspotting podcast and the author of Movies Are Prayers (2017). You can find an archive of 29 years of his writing, as well as reviews of current movies, at his website, LarsenOnFilm.

Why would anyone want to watch horror movies? Why would Christians, in particular, bother with the genre? In Fear Not!, critic Josh Larsen makes the case that monster movies, creature features, slashers, and other fright films artfully reflect our deep worries in a way that resonates with the Christian experience. Combining critical observation and theological reflection, Larsen devotes each chapter to a different horror subgenre, connecting that subgenre to a commonly shared fear. In addition to considering how the Bible acknowledges and speaks to that fear, each chapter demonstrates how the related themes, narratives, and aesthetics of a handful of films can be viewed through a corresponding theological lens. Reading Fear Not!, movie fans will come to appreciate the artistry of the likes of Get Out, The Shining, The Blair Witch Project, The Babadook, Night of the Living Dead, and The Sixth Sense, while also seeing the ways these movies resonate with our fears and, in some cases, hint at God's redemptive comfort.