Libertas looks at the "Top Fifteen Conservative Horror Films" and notices a trend amongst Hollywood's scariest movies:

1. The Exorcist (1973): A Hollywood actress realizes there is a God. A Priest who doesn’t molest children finds his faith and sacrifices himself for another. And Jesus saves the day! How did this one slip through?

2. Frankenstein (1931): No metaphor for embryonic stem cell research or cloning here. No, you just keep defying God’s laws and destroying human life to live a few years longer.

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6. Rosemary’s Baby (1968): This is probably the film that makes big hollywood stars hope there is a God. Because if God’s real that means there’s a Devil to sell their souls to and advance their careers. Hey, it worked for John Cassavetes.

Horror films almost invariably have to set the scene by creating a moral universe with God somewhere in the wings to work. I'd add Se7en and The Sixth Sense to this list as well, but in a way, all of these films show how conservative Hollywood screenwriters have to be, despite their best efforts otherwise. Even The Shining posits an afterlife, despite its director's best efforts towards atheism.

(Sorry for the lack of posts today; this was actually written this morning, but terrible connectivity issues prevented it from going up until now.)