There has always been crappy horror with no point but violence and shock. There are thousands of horror movies and books published each year so anyone who claims they are not like they use to be are simply just stating an opinion based on what they may or may not have seen. No it’s not foolish to say I’m not affected by horror. Horror does not desensitize you anymore than romance novels make you more loving. It’s all irrelevant to a persons emotional intelligence, cognitive thinking skills, and actions. For example the majority of what I watch is horror. I’m still a vegan who focuses on conservation and ecology within my career. I don’t use pesticides on my plants and break for snakes and if I see a turtle trying to cross a road, I stop and help move it. So horror movies did not affect me at all. For a fact of the women I know who watch romantic movies still indiscriminately kill things like spiders and scream fot someone to kill snakes. They are way less compassionate than I am.
Hellraiser, like many horror films , are fairly gore filled, but still shows a strong morality. They both reaffirm how bad evil is. The books, which are different from the films, is based on very Christian concepts. The cenobites are demons and if you choose to follow them, you are truly following your heart filled with evil, resulting in damnation. The demons are evil, and the people who accept their help are constantly forced to do more and more for them giving up all love in their life and their choices to pursue the flesh are shown in their outward appearance.
In the films it’s similar except that the cenobites are humans who pursed evil until it transformed them into evil and because they constantly pursued the fruits of the flesh, it resulted in them having afflicted flesh to the point they confuse love for control and pain for pleasure and constantly want to drag others into their paradigm.
Even the typical slasher films accents these issues. They reaffirm evil as being bad. They reaffirm the importance of love and friendship to overcome evil. Take the latest Halloween installment. They show that evil is bad. Michael is the bad guy. They show the love of a grandmother for her family despite them thinking she’s crazy and treating her bad. They ban together to conquer evil. That’s a common theme.
It’s also something that happens in the Bible. There is a reason why the Bible is cslled one of the bloodiest horror filmed books ever wrote. It opens up with evil deceiving mankind. It ends with an apocalyptical horror story that has dragons, sea monsters, people thst can’t die but living in pain, and a lake of fire. Even portrays the Babylonian woman with vampirism tendencies. ( yes it’s all symbolism). The Torah is full of war from dashing babies heads on rocks, stabbing swords through people, people hanging from their hair, evil spirits and so the New Testament puts a emphasis on the death of a innocent man, the suicide of his betrayer and the war between demons and evil and angels and goodness. But just like horror films, it also showcases love and friendship overcoming evil.
