"Conventional wisdom has it that the origins of the horror genre are found in the nineteenth century, in works like Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In this paradigm-shaking new book, Bible scholar and cultural historian Brandon Grafius argues that the Bible is, among other things, the world's first work of horror literature.
The tropes and themes that we find in slasher movies, body horror, folk horror, and zombie apocalypses were kickstarted by the Bible. Before Godzilla, there were the monsters arising from the sea in the book of Daniel. Before The Wicker Man, there was the folk horror violence of the book of Judges. And before The Fly, Leviticus and Paul understood that our bodies are untrustworthy. Sometimes, the Bible has decided that the best way to help us understand the world in new ways is to scare us.
Grafius's book is a revelatory work of biblical scholarship as well as a cultural analysis of the contemporary horror genre. It is a book that will make listeners revise how they see the Bible and impact how they consume horror literature and cinema. It is guaranteed to make them wiser consumers of both."
"Horror can be a valuable conversation partner for the spiritual questions that animate so many of us.
Whether through a movie, television show, novel, or even myth, horror as a genre has always spoken to our deepest human fears and anxieties: fear of death, of the unknown, of knowing too much. Whether you're looking at classic narratives like Frankenstein, or contemporary films like Get Out, which explores racism and white guilt, horror provides a window into our culture and what makes us human. The same can be said of religion.
Horror movie buff and religion scholar Brandon Grafius finds common ground between these two seemingly disparate bedfellows—horror and religion—in Lurking under the Surface. What parallels can we draw between The Walking Dead and sacred texts? How do the stories of Hebrew Christian scriptures and apocalyptic films like A Quiet Place and Bird Box help us find hope when it's in short supply? When we treat them both seriously, we see that horror movies and religion lead us through the same sets of questions. Both explore questions of justice, hope, and our relationship to the world and the cosmos. And both offer us ways to make meaning out of the contradictory pieces of our world—a world filled with so much hope and so many recognizable fears lurking just beneath the surface."
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