I have found a new show to watch now that LOST is off the air. It's called The Walking Dead and it's disgusting and violent and about a zombie plague that has taken over the world. Uninfected people are few and far between, and always under great threat of attack. They must survive by fighting off the undead hoards by gratuitously smashing in, or chopping off the heads of the zombies. Thankfully they are the rather slow lumbering and shuffling sort of zombies, rather than the super fast zombies of more recent zombielore. Slow or not, hordes of them often overpower the living and devour and infect them. Yet, there is more humanity in this show that much of the other fare on TV these days, but you have to get through some guts and gore, to get to it. It's quite gratuitous at times, I have to close my eyes through the really gross stuff.
My favorite episode of the past season is called "Vatos." *Spoiler Alert* If you think you can tolerate this gutsy (and I mean that in the visceral sense) program, and might try watching it read this paragraph no further, just skip to the last one. In the Vatos episode the small group of humans we care about goes to the city to forage and rescue someone from their little band of survivors. They get accosted and have their weapons stolen by what seems to be some hardcore gang-bangers. They follow and confront, just when you think there is going to be a typical showdown, it becomes clear that the gang-bangers are not the hardcore nasty boys they appear to be. They are actually protecting the elderly and feeble residents of a nursing home, who were abandoned once the zombie plague took hold of their city. They are also the good guys. They use the gang-banger ploy as a ruse to protect their group from the increasingly violent surviving marauders that they have run into. The gang leader is revealed to be the former janitor of the home, who stepped up to the plate when the doctors and others abandoned the nursing home residents to protect their own skin. I didn't see that coming and I was so pleasantly surprised how the themes of survival, brotherly love, good, and evil were explored with this fresh kind of twist. The series is full of those kinds of moments and insights.
I have a love/hate relationship with horror. Sometimes it's fun to be scared. My Mom would let us watch (or read) almost anything when we were kids, and I would be afraid for weeks/months after seeing a particularly scary horror movie or reading a book sometimes. I married a dude who likes horror movies. However, after I became a Christian, I felt a great release from those types of fears, though surely some realistic horror movies (Silence of the Lambs?) or even war films can be disturbing. I felt very strong convictions about what I watched or read for many, many years after giving my life to Christ. Horror movies have so much objectionable material in them - obviously violence and gore, but also foul language and nudity most of the time. There is a good argument to be made for Christians to avoid them, particularly those who have an acute sensitivity or are prone to stumble. I believe that some horror movies can explore interesting themes, and even themes that a Christian could find relevant, just off the top of my head I'm thinking about the materialism/consumerism subject in the Dawn of the Dead movie from the late 70s, as well as the themes of motherhood and heroism from Aliens. However, you have to be sensitive to what the Holy Spirit is speaking in your life, and if those good themes are enough to redeem all the blood, guts and mayhem.
