Christians Shouldn't Make Horror Games

Y'all, I'm so glad I got this email. I love I love talking about the philosophy behind horror games, especially as a Christian. Most of you know I'm a Christian. Um I'm a Christian game developer. I'm making a game called Twisted Tower, which is I mean it's pretty vile and violent and gross. Um, it's like a haunted, twisted Disney World where you run around and, you know, shoot mascots and there's blood and there's a really haunting story and there's bad things that happen in this story. Uh, I also make horror movies. You've, some of you have seen The Unlocking. Um, and then also a movie called The Man in the Cradle. And then I'm finishing up a horror movie called Giggle, which is about a clown in an Airbnb. and they're they're they're not playful. They don't always end well. A lot of Christians, they love to say, "Well, if you're as long as your horror story is redemptive, it's a good thing." We're going to talk about that. So, anyway, I make stuff

that some of it's dark and some of it doesn't end well, right? Um, and I think I think that it's beautiful and I think it's a wonderful wonderful thing to create horror games and horror movies as a Christian. And I'm not, but just for the record, I'm like I'm like real really really Christian, meaning like I I go to church every Sunday. I I believe that Christianity is the right way, the best thing ever, and I believe that Jesus is God. I I all this stuff unapologetically so. So I'm not just like culturally Christian. I'm like pretty Christian, and yet I still believe that horror games, horror movies, horror books, all of this stuff is incredible. Okay, not all the time and we'll talk about that. So, this is the question I got um and I wanted to just cut out just the message um and not show the the email address, but I said I wanted to reach out because this is from Tony. I wanted

to reach out because I've been thinking about something that's been sitting with me for a while. I'm a horror game developer and I truly love the process, the atmosphere, the storytelling, the tension. But sometimes I catch myself wondering, am I crossing a line? Does it ever feel like as a follower of Christ, you're promoting something you shouldn't? And I don't mean it in a judgmental way, more like that quiet tugofwar between creativity and conviction because I struggle with it sometimes, especially when I'm sitting in church on Sundays. I'd really like to hear how you see it. If you've ever wrestled with that, how you see it or if you have ever wrestled with that feeling, I would love to hear your thoughts. Well, let's let's answer two things from Tony really quick and then I'll explain why. Um, so I won't leave you guys hanging or Tony hanging here. The first thing is is have I ever felt that way? Yeah. So, like when I was younger, when I didn't fully understand why I had the drive and the desire to make horror content, it felt wrong, but I didn't know why I wanted to create it.

Uh, and I didn't know why I loved watching it. Like I loved watching horror movies growing up. I remember distinctly watching The Six Sense in the late 90s. I I remember and I was like 12. I remember distinctly watching I guess I was like eight or nine. Distinctly watching this movie called um it was about the it was called Darkness Falls and it was about the tooth fairy and it was very scary for me when I I think I watched it on like my 11th birthday or something. Point being, I loved horror movies. I I loved them growing up. And I always wondered like, what's like what is wrong with me? And I have three older brothers and they all love horror movies. Yet, we're all Christians like going to church every Sunday. And yet, we love this stuff. Like, what is wrong? What is wrong with us? And so, originally, I used to struggle with this. And then I'd find myself creating content. Like, I used to make horror animations in Flash. Um, I used to make uh and then I started making horror

games or like games that were horror adjacent. Like they had very dark themes and were grotesque and odd and strange but beautiful in some way. And now I'm making a a a first-p person shooter that's basically a horror game, although it has more like Bioshock vibes. And by the way, you can click the link below uh to wishlist that game. Now, just as a side note before we jump into um why I don't feel that way anymore, why I don't feel that way anymore, I just want to let you know there is a link below that can basically show you how to turn whether it's a horror game or whether it's a a really fun action game or it doesn't matter. You could turn a demo into a paycheck because what I was able to do is I was able to take this these concepts for horror games or like very dark fairy tales. I was able to take those 15inute demos and actually sell them to publishers. And that's kind of how I c was able to finish my horror projects or my just dark haunting projects. I would

get publishers to invest in them by just taking a look at my demo. It's a link below. It's totally free. There's no gimmicks here. It's just a really fun webinar that shows you how to turn a tiny little concept for a horror game or any kind of game and turn it into an actual paycheck and go full-time before you even finish your game. So, click the link below to check that out. Okay, so here's why I don't wrestle with this anymore and why I don't feel guilty or bad about making horror games or or movies for that matter. Um, there's a couple reasons. Uh the first one is how do I how do I explain this? Um it is all horror and darkness and violence is everywhere. It's everywhere in the Holy Book of Christians, the Bible. Now, some of you watching who are Christians, you're probably thinking, "Well, no, no, but it's about God and

there's a there's always a good ending or uh there's a redemptive purpose." And I I think that's all true kind of, but some stuff some stuff in the Bible is just really scary and and really kind of awful. um awful in the you know shallow sense meaning it's like it has no it it doesn't seemingly have a purpose right so like and of course it does and I believe it does and that's kind of the point that I'm going to get to the flood you know God decides that he wants to flood the whole world um Sodom and Gomorrah you know uh God rains down burning sulfur on the city of Sodom and Gomorrah incinerating their habit their inhabitants for their sin. Lot's wife gets no grace here. She just looks back and turns into a pillar of salt. Right? And by the way, this is one of the reasons why horror movies are so wonderful. They they so often they are

cautionary tales. And if you read about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot's wife looking back and turning into a pillar of salt, it's not just like, "Oh, how how how grotesque and horrible." It's like, no, she's she's looking back on Las Vegas and she wants to stay at Las Vegas in Las Vegas and God's saying, "Okay, if that's what you want, pillar of salt." It's a cautionary tale. A lot of this stuff feels like fables. I'm not saying it is fables because I believe the Bible's true, but a lot of it feels like a fable. Okay? But it's horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. annihilating entire cities, plagues, death of the firstborn, when the spirit of God uh goes through Egypt and kills the firstborn. It sounds like what I'm saying is just awful, but this is all in the Bible. The Amalachite genocide right

now. Some of you might say it's not a genocide. I I don't know what you want to call it, but God commands Saul to completely destroy the Amalachites, including men, women, children, infants, and livestock. crucifixion of Jesus. We all wear a electric chair around our necks. Even non-Christians, we effectively wear an electric chair around our necks, aka the the the um the death sentence device that the Romans used. So also, what is the sacrament that that all Christians were taken, including Catholics and Protestants? You drink the blood of Christ and you eat the flesh of Christ. Right. So, the Bible itself is is terrifying and horrifying and there's ghost stories and there's demons. There's violence and murder and adultery and blood. It's all throughout the Bible. Now, I know what you're I know what a lot of you are thinking. You're thinking,

"Well, but there's a point there." Yeah, that's kind of what I'm getting at here. Now, hang on. Let's move on to the second point before we kind of break down why horror movies are so are so important in this day and age and why why I think Christians should be making them in addition to non-Christians. Have you ever seen a piran uh the deep uh dark deep sea fishes fish? I'm just I'm kind of winging this right now. But if we pull this up here, okay, if you're a Christian, you believe God made this. Okay, if I put if I put a poster of this on my wall when I was 13 and my parents walked in the room, they might be concerned like, why do you want to put such demonic looking fishes fish on your wall? And I could say, well, this is what God made.

God's world is is it's it's way more broad in the it's not all just flowers and rainbows, right? And and the idea of God, it's like so many like Bible belt Christians, which I live in the south and they call it the Bible belt. So many Christians like to look at the world as if it's like, "No, it's actually wonderful and everything's great and it's always, always, always going to be turn out perfectly good um in my life if I just believe in God." And that's just not true. God's world is is broken. And I'm not saying he made it to be broken. That's a whole other conversation. In fact, I got a tattoo about that. It's a whole other philosophical conversation. But bare minimum, the creatures he created are horrifying. The scariest reptiles. God made this.

I'm not going to look up spiders because a lot of you can't watch spiders, but like even snakes. God made this. The snake is Lucifer Thomas. No. No. Not necessarily. There's a whole other conversation there. But snakes were made by God, too. So, I don't want to hear that God only makes pretty things. Okay. Have you ever seen intestines before? I'm not going to pull it up. Have you ever seen um lungs? Have you ever seen an eyeball? Have you ever seen a skeleton? God doesn't only make beautiful things. God makes all kinds of things. So, to just because something looks scary doesn't mean it's bad. Okay? So that's the first thing. Just because it looks scary or it's about death or murder or sin or adultery doesn't mean it's bad by default. Because as I've shown you, not only does God's world

have all of this, all of these different shades, haunted shades, but also because if you read the holy book that Christians love to read, and I like to read it, too, it's full of haunting imagery, darkness, and sin and murder and grossness. Okay, now I know what you a lot of you are thinking. Well, but it has a point. There's redemption. There's a reason. It's a cautionary tale. Um, but the demons in the the the story of the the the demon-possessed man uh in the New Testament, they get exercised out of the man and into the pigs. Okay. Yeah. So, what's your point? Your point is is that there's a reason there's a reason that the Bible decided to show certain things and tell certain stories even though they're haunted and dark and and horrifying.

So why on earth can we not also take that logic and look at certain art forms like games and movies, horror movies and horror games. Um, I watched I I celebrate Hall Weekend and Hall Weekend is something that me and my wife celebrate where it's like we celebrate Halloween every weekend. We love watching horror movies and dissecting the horror movies and talking about them after we're done watching them and we'll eat a food associated with the movie. So for we watched Midsummer by Ari and Midsummer we ended up eating Swedish fish and that's because the movie is about this cult uh in Sweden. And so a a good a really good question is oh my goodness you know after you finish that movie you feel he like really really heavy and you feel like you just watched something that was really grotesque and pointless and awful. Spoiler alert, and if you

want to skip this part, uh, take a look at the chapters below and just skip it. Um, this guy gets burned alive as part of a sacrifice for these these sort of pagan this pagan cult. Um, and at the end of the movie, me and my wife got to talking about it and we were thinking, "Wow, was that was just a complete celebration of murder and death and paganism, right? It's celebrating it." No, if it was celebrating it, it wouldn't be a horror movie. That movie is war. It's a big fat warning. And and actually that movie in particular is not a warning about paganism or cults. It's actually a warning about empathy. Um and you know we could talk about this for hours. In fact, I did with my brother the other night about how that movie is all about the horror of empathy because

essentially the main character um she feels she finally feels empathy and sympathy about her life and she is so willing to accept that empathy that she's she's willing to kill and to condemn people to death and to be part of this cult just because she feels like she finally has a family. It's a it's a huge warning. Now there are so so the point is is that and my second point here as to why making horror movies is a wonderful thing to do especially as a Christian is you can you can you can say something explicitly um with style with style and you can warn people you can warn people about a belief that you have. So, like it doesn't matter whether you're a Christian or a non-Christian, whatever you believe, sometimes the best way to say it is to say it with style. And

that's what a director does and that's what a game developer does. They say something in a certain format in a medium in a with style. Okay? So, with horror in particular, oftentimes with horror, you're telling some kind of cautionary tale. It's a giant warning saying, "Hey, beware of X, Y, and Z." Okay. other. So that's like Midsummer. That's also hereditary. It's a big fat warning. It's a cautionary tale. And fables are like this. A lot of um grim fairy tales are are are um cautionary tales. They're warnings. Other times you're it's a redemptive story. So for example, like the six sense. The six sense is all about facing your fears and actually helping helping people who scare you, right? Just because something scares you doesn't mean you can't help them. um in his case, he's trying to help the ghosts at the end of the movie. So that's kind of like a cheesy sort of redemptive story. Um now you I hear this all the time from

like kind of shallow people who don't who don't they don't like to dissect a film and they don't like to dissect a story. They have they they love to have an issue where they're like, "Okay, they they they'll take issue with with films because the film doesn't give them the resolution that they wanted, right? Uh yeah, but Thomas, this horror movie didn't resolve the way I wanted it. It should have pointed people to God or it should have had a story of forgiveness or it should have ended well." And my answer to that is in what world do you live in? That is the most dishonest storytelling I've ever heard. To tell somebody that they have to lie in the ending of a story to make people feel better. The world is dark. The world is haunted. The world is broken and it sucks.

A director's job is not to make you feel better. The direct director's job and this is number three. The director's job is to say something honestly. Say something honestly. And I won't take full credit for this. I watched a really interesting conversation with like a Catholic and a Protestant about this. Um who was it? It was pints with Aquinus and then somebody else. Um this is number three. the the director's job and also the game developer's job is to say something honestly. Now, it's one thing to say something honestly that you believe. It's another thing, this is this is where I I actually want to lean even harder into. I I'm I'm I'm fine with you wanting to say and I'm I'm fine with me wanting to say what I believe in a game, but it's even better if a director and a game developer

can try their very best to dig into what is actually true about the world and find this true this kernel of truth that is difficult to digest and turn it into something digestible. So again, back to Midsummer, Ari is saying, "Empathy is scary. That is not easy to digest." He's like, "What do you what does that mean?" But all you got to do is watch the movie for you to go, "Oh, wow. I need to be careful next time someone makes me feel good." So saying something honestly and telling the truth, that should be the goal of a horror movie. Now, let's do some sort of asterisks here. Should a horror movie celebrate um being carnal and violent? No. So, this is actually where I I I would I I tend

to pump the brakes. So, like the Jason movies, no. Sorry. A lot of these be horror movies, there's no depth. There's no there's nothing said there's no point. the the director is not saying anything. Everyone knows what those movies are meant to do and they're meant to satisfy, you know, teenagers who have dumps and dumps of hormones. That's the goal of those movies. It's just to satisfy something sexual or carnal. That said, is is is so but am I saying that violence or you know um conversations that are or or or topics that are about sex or or drugs that these are out of line? No, I'm not. I'm saying that there is a there is a time and a place to discuss that there is a a there is a a a target audience for these kinds of movies. Um, sometimes it's for kids like like light horror movies like Coraline, right? Sort

of this dark, moody, scary movie. Other times movies like Psycho that's for for other people like 30 year olds who want to dive into a psychological horror um that analyzes I guess more like some Freudian psychology. So there is there is a time and a place for certain kinds of horror movies. And this is why and I'll close with this. This is why Christian game developers and Christian filmmakers have such watered down boring content because they think that it's a one-sizefits-all approach to game development and film making. They feel like, "Well, I need to just go ahead and uh make sure that everybody, including my 5-year-old niece, can play my game or watch my horror movie?" No, it's it's certain people are are better off watching your movies or playing your games than other

people. That's okay. Should should a 5-year-old go ahead and read Song of Solomon? And in the comments, let let for those of you who know what Song of Solomon is, uh let people in the comments know. Um no, you should not you probably shouldn't let your 5-year-old niece read Song of Solomon cuz it's not for her. Okay. Um the same is true with your games. If you want to make a game that's like Resident Evil 4, you should probably craft that for a target audience of 18 years old plus, right? Um, if your if your goal is to make people feel silly and have fun about blood and sex, that's that's just an immature way to make games and movies. And I don't actually I really don't believe that that's a good thing. I believe when you're trying to say something, that's when um it becomes an art form.

Creating a horror movie and a horror game is, in my opinion, the most effective way to warn somebody about something, about an idea. It's also a crazy effective way to talk about redemption and forgiveness and grace. There is something cathartic about watching a horror movie and seeing something so explicit and something so honest and saying this is the hell that this is the hell that we live in. This is our world. And either the director says and be warned and you walk away and you're warned. Or he says, "Yet you don't have to be afraid because we can conquer evil." That's great. Look, I'll close with this. If horror games and horror movies were meant to glorify violence and ghosts and demons, they wouldn't be

called horror movies and games. They'd be called comedies. They'd be called adventures, adventure games. They'd be called action games. They're not glorifying that. There it's a warning. And there's something cathartic about seeing something terrifying and then walking out of that movie theater or or closing steam and going to bed and saying, "Man, I'm really really glad that it's not the end for me. It's the end in that game. But I'm really grateful that my life has redemption and forgiveness. And that's where it gets really Christian for me because in my mind I go, the world is hell. The world's dark and haunting. But the Christian story is that there is redemption, right? That that God does love love you and and he wants to he

wants to live with you forever. Um, and and he wants to forgive everybody of their sin. And everybody's sinful, everybody's dark, everybody's grotesque, everybody is like a son of hell, but because of God's love and his forgiveness and his sacrifice, you don't have to be afraid of that, right? And so that's what makes horror movies in my in my mind all the more poignant. So that's why I'm okay with horror movies, I think, and horror games. I think that they really do when they're done well and they're done right, man. They they tell such a a salty, spicy, distilled down version of truth. And sometimes that's the most effective way to do it. All right, I hope you thought that was helpful. If you want to wish list Twisted Tower, click the link below. Wishlist my horror game, Twisted Tower. Also, be sure to check out the webinar below if you want to learn how to turn whether it's a horror demo or an action demo or any kind of demo of your game. If you want to turn it into a paycheck and actually submit it to publishers or Kickstarter crowdfunding and start making money before you finish your game, click that

link below. There's no gimmicks. It's a really long webinar. You're going to learn a ton of stuff from somebody who's actually done it three times. I've actually signed four publisher deals. Um, but three of them were able to make me go full-time. The first one, which was I was like 18, it wasn't enough to go full-time, but the other three I went full-time before I even finished the games. And so I can teach you how to do that in that webinar below. All right, love you guys. Hope that was fun. Cheers.