I’ve begun work on a side project involving “Christian Horror.” It’s a rather 
slippery subject for several reasons. One, the Christian publishing industry is still averse to actually using the term. Two, there’s so much that could potentially be included in that term.
I admit, it’s possible I’m (and writers like me) forcing a connection between these two genres. Nevertheless, there’s so much overlap between a biblical worldview and horror tropes that the connection seems inescapable.
Author and reviewer Kevin Lucia has been discussing his reading of The Philosophy of Horror lately (here’s Part One and Part Two). I must admit, I find this academic analysis of the horror genre fascinating. At first glance, “philosophy” and “horror” appear oxymoronic. After all, horror is simply brainless blood and gore, right? There’s no “philosophy” about it (unless it’s the philosophy of how to turn people’s stomachs).
You couldn’t be more wrong.
As part of my research on this subject, I’ve been reading The Grotesque in Art & Literature, Theological Reflections. Would you be surprised to know that “theology” and the “grotesque” are intrinsically connected? The two pivots of biblical history involve horror and the grotesque:
- The Fall of Humanity (and all its ensuing fruits)
- The Suffering, Death, and Resurrection of Christ (i.e., the redemption of Fallen Humanity)
In fact, it could be argued that an even greater “horror” superseded and 
spurred these: the Fall of Lucifer. Because of these three overarching biblical themes, not only is the grotesque and horrific regularly invoked in Scripture, some of the greatest Christian artists and writers employ grotesquery and horror in their work.
When did “classic Christian horror” start? It’s hard to say. Some trace it back to the Renaissance:
In the visual arts, Renaissance painters such as Hieronymus Bosch demonstrated the vivid connection between religious faith and the horrific imagination. The Bible and the Catholic Church were the driving inspiration behind Bosch’s art, yet many of his more surreal works, such as the right-hand panel of the triptych The Garden of Delights, offer nothing less than an all-out horror show. His paintings are a veritable ‘Where’s Wally?’ of horrific images. Men have arrows rammed into their anuses and fish-headed monsters devour people whole, only to defecate their remains into a pit filled with other people’s vomit. This is horror at its most extreme – and it is informed by religious ideals.
On the fiction circuit, Dante’s Inferno (completed in 1314) and Milton’s Paradise Lost (originally published in 1667) could, I think, rightly be considered Christian Horror. I’ve even suggested elsewhere that Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), in some ways, fits under the “Christian horror” mold. Even more contemporary is Charles Williams. Williams was a member of the Inklings (along with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien) and wrote novels with overtly religious and horrific themes. Two of his novels which are most commonly associated with the Christian horror genre are:
- Descent into Hell (1937) — Generally thought to be Williams’s best novel, Descent deals with various forms of selfishness, and how the cycle of sin brings about the necessity for redemptive acts. In it, an academic becomes so far removed from the world that he fetishizes a woman to the extent that his perversion takes the form of a succubus. Characters include a doppelgänger and the ghost of a suicidal Victorian labourer. It is illustrative of Williams’s belief in the replacement of sin and substitutional love.
- All Hallows’ Eve (1945) — Opens with a discussion between the ghosts of two dead women wandering about London. Ultimately explores the meaning of human suffering and empathy by dissolving the barrier between the living and the dead through both black magic and divine love.
The above descriptions were cribbed from Wikipedia.
So was Williams the last of the great classic Christian horror writers? I ask this for several reasons, mainly because the contemporary Christian fiction market seems so detached from its historical (and perhaps, biblical) roots.
“Contemporary Christian horror” emerged within a new, growing, industry. In many ways, I think this industry is still finding its sea legs. However, our industry’s early conventions, which include lack of fictional apologetic and Fundamentalist leanings, have tainted our view of the genre, more specifically, the horror genre.
Still, one of Christian fiction biggest, most influential novels, could rightly be considered, horror.
As far as I can tell, the first significant step BACK into the classic Christian horror tradition was Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness, which continues to be one of the best-selling Christian novels of all-time.
Which leads me to several questions:
- When did we turn this corner from “classic horror” to “contemporary Christian horror,” and what did that turn involve?
- What is the primary differences between “classic Christian horror” (like Dante or Charles Williams), and “contemporary Christian horror”?
- Is it safe to say that Frank Peretti is the “father of contemporary Christian horror”?
- Is it also safe to say that This Present Darkness was the first real contemporary horror novel?
Looking forward to hearing some of your answers.
It’s so funny to me that Christian publishing shies away from horror. Funny in a sad way. I didn’t start reading horror until my teens, and the first horror novel I read (_The Shining_) struck me as a wonderful piece of work that would have been even better if the forces of God could have made a triumphantly victorious stand at The Overlook.
Since then nearly every horror book I read seems to lack an impressive third act. That’s a common complaint about Stephen King’s books, actually. I’ve come to believe that the missing third act is the act where this great evil we’ve been oppressed and intrigued by throughout the story is conquered by the great Good of the Lord. Horror fiction is, more than many other genres, tailor-made for Christian publishers.
And of course I got sidetracked and didn’t answer your questions. Let’s amend:
1. “When did we turn this corner from “classic horror” to “contemporary Christian horror,” and what did that turn involve?”
We turned, I believe, when the Contemporary Christian publishers branched out from Bibles and Devotionals to include fiction. I believe that every title you noted was published by a mainstream publisher, as were all of Tolkein and Lewis’ fiction. But when the Bible publishers decided they were going to go into the fiction business (no jokes from you atheists 🙂 ) they drew a line in the sand. Mainstream publishers didn’t want to publish Christian fiction because the stuff coming out of the niche publishers was so emphatically different and niche-y and they didn’t care to compete.
2. “What is the primary differences between “classic Christian horror” (like Dante or Charles Williams), and “contemporary Christian horror”?”
I don’t read a lot of CCHorror because it’s so watered-down. It’s like a horror movie made for ABC Family. Since the CC publishers have an ever-present awareness of their primary demographic they seem to plan everything in advance to have as few defensive phone conversations with grumpy women as possible. “I thought you were CHRISTIANS! How could you make such an awful book about the devil. I’m returning the 16 books I just bought in the Bonnets of Lancaster Creek series.”
So I guess the main difference is that CCHorror isn’t really that compelling.
3. “Is it safe to say that Frank Peretti is the “father of contemporary Christian horror”?”
Unfortunately.
4. “Is it also safe to say that This Present Darkness was the first real contemporary horror novel?”
If by “contemporary” you mean “Contemporary Christian”, then yes. I think that’s pretty much everyone’s take on the issue. The thing is that I don’t really care for Frank Peretti (couldn’t you tell?). Rather, I don’t care for his books. If Mainstream Horror pulls punches at the end, Peretti’s books pull their punches at the beginning. There’s also the small matter of me really having problems with most of Peretti’s theology.
Katherine, by contemporary I DO mean contemporary Christian. Also, I’m interested in what part of Peretti’s theology you find objectionable. He leans more toward Charismatic theology if I’m not mistaken.
I’m sorry for getting back to you so late on this. Friday was a bit of a miasma of yuck. I almost think I ought to turn this into a blog entry because it’s a really loooong thing. Or maybe not; it’s been years since I last the read book and I don’t want to re-read it.
My main problem is that the mechanism of prayer in the story was much more akin to black magic than to Christian prayer. Christian prayer, as modelled for us in the New Testament by no less a person than Jesus himself, is one of approach, glorification, submission, request, repentance and guidance. Even in his anguish at Gethsemene Jesus says that God’s will should be done. Even as he wants to have the cup of bitterness pass from him. Yes, we are to boldly approach the throne of grace, but prayer–even intercessory prayer–is supposed to be a request holding God’s will as sovereign.
In Peretti’s work, the prayers are black magic. Pure and simple. But instead of conjuring demons to do a person’s bidding the prayers “free the hands of angels” in a shadow play whirling around us. Over and over again in TPD the “prayers” prayed by the “good” characters are portrayed as directives to angels who are battling with demons. It’s a very unbiblical, cartoonish take on prayer.
Yes, I know that you lean more toward the belief that in Christian fiction we should allow for artistic license and not be so exacting with theological precepts. I suppose on some things I would agree with you. But on the basic, fundamental principles of the sovereignty of God and our relationship with that God I don’t think there needs to be a lot of wiggle room. There are thousands of Christians out there who talk enthusiastically about how TPD “changed their faith” and made their walk stronger, etc. But what it boils down to is that the faith which is so much stronger is a vainglorious one having more in common with Baal worship than Christianity.
My theory about why Christian horror falls flat is because people are intentionally writing horror. “Oh!” thinks the author, “I want to scare people! So I’ll write about zombies and monsters and demons and darkness! But I’ll have Jesus save everybody at the end so I don’t offend anybody.”
Real horror, the good stuff, comes from the internal battle with sin. Dracula was Bram Stoker’s struggles with syphilis. Frankenstein was Mary Shelley’s issue with her lifestyle and boyfriend (I just want to be loved but I’m a monstah!) And I read an article one time that pointed out how the whole Alien movie series is a creepy series of images about abortion.
Because those images are universal, they freak out a lot of people. Like the Weeping Angels or the Silence in Doctor Who … the Angels will get you if you blink or look away, and you forget the Silence as soon as you look away from them, even as they’re walking up to kill you. (So you draw a mark on your arm every time you see one to remind you that you’re fighting them. The horror comes when you look down and see hundreds of marks all over your arms.)
High five, Kessie. You nailed it. Most Christian horror is really sappy CBA stuff (can’t dare offend!) wrapped in some superficial horror tropes. You cannot just plop a zombie or a demon or whatever into a group of people and have them Be Scared, and then, poof, Jesus/the preacher/whoever banishes the evil and the town is saved. The characters need to battle inner demons–with the outer ones being representative.
Great examples with the Silence in Dr. Who, btw. And the Angels are my favorite!
Anyway, I love writing horror, but I tell people mine is “I see dead people” horror. Psychological, creepy, “why is this happening to *me*?” kind of horror. It is not about shock value, grossness, gore, etc. It’s about hitting your deepest fears.
I’ve also found the characters in Christian “horror” aren’t usually realistic. I’m not just talking about language and such either. You can do good horror without sex or cussing, but you need *rawness* and Christian fiction generally doesn’t go there. I truly think Stephen King is the king of horror writing because his characters are so nastily real–all those dirty little thoughts/habits no one would ever admit to having, he puts out there for everyone to see. And then plays them.
And I don’t consider Frank Peretti a horror writer at all. Supernatural thriller, yes, but not horror.
Kat, if you concede that “Christian horror” is a valid category but that Peretti is not a forerunner, who would you say is?
I would put Ted Dekker into that category–although I generally have not been impressed with his writing. But Boneman’s Daughters was pretty horror-ish to me. Very Silence of the Lambs.
To be honest, I can’t name too many Christian horror authors. I’ve been turned off rather quickly. Yes, tell me I’m generalizing from a small sample. I pretty well am :P. But I think the good ones publish in the secular market. I have read a few of Stephen King’s books which I would consider Christian Horror–“Desperation” being the top one. I haven’t read “The Stand” but it is supposedly Christian, admittedly so by King himself.
I’d be interested in who you consider to be “good” CBA horror, Mike. You’re a lot wider read in the genre than I am, and I like a good chiller once in a while. As long as it’s psychological horror, like the Turn of the Screw. 🙂
Kessie, now I’m going to have to look up those Dr. Whos…I love that show. Was the Silence in an older version or newer Dr?
@Kessie — What do I consider “good CBA horror”? Hmm. I’ve read Peretti’s stuff and had a bit of a hard time with it. It fits in the CBA wheelhouse and all, but to me it wasn’t all that horrific (even though I WOULD categorize “This Present Darkness” and “The Oath” as horror). I really liked Tosca Lee’s “Demon: A Memoir.” It was more psychologically creepy than visceral. I also liked Melanie Well’s “When the Day of Evil Comes.” Did not read the entire series, but felt the first book, though the resolution was somewhat unsatisfying, came as close to good CBA horror as one could get. I really liked Wells’ voice. Also, T.L. Hines is doing some great stuff, although his first novel “Waking Lazarus,” was probably the purest horror I’ve read of his. Admittedly, there’s lots of stuff I still haven’t read: Robert Liparulo’s “Comes a Horseman,” Dekker and Peretti’s “House,” Tom Pawlick’s “Vanish,” to name a few.
I can definitely agree about the whole “can’t dare offend” angle we Christians have put on our selves. So much so tha it seems to have become a social expectation for us to be soft and sappy… or, to me, crappy. I’ve a lot of story ideas, and not a single one of them is an easy one to consider.
In fact, this may very well be hurtful to read considering how recently it happened, but the recent school shooting has reminded me of a story idea I’ve been working on for the past few months, one dealing with vengeance (based on a fictional school shooting) and prophecying, and stopping intense tragedies from happening. Why think of that? Because I’m tired of people expecting Christians writers to be soft-hearted and -minded. I can’t think softly at all, yet am offended that people expect me to be so, so why not offend back in a different approach?
Would the difference between Classic and Contemporary be that Classic didn’t need to find their point in the come to Jesus moment? I read This Present Darkness a while ago, but didn’t really consider it scary, which is what I’d ask for it to be Horror. So I guess I’d classify that book as Supernatural Thriller. I haven’t read that widely in Christian Contemporary, but the first that I would classify as Horror would be House by Peretti and Dekker, which had the moment I referred to above, though obscure.
Tim, I think your point about the “come to Jesus moment” is somewhat valid. I recently read a novel that is definitely in the “contemporary Christian horror” bracket and, while the writing was solid, the “come to Jesus moment” was SO cliched. It had the effect of making the “horror” feel rather contrived
I was just having a brief discussion about how horror and the Bible are closely connected with my stepdad the other night. He, at first, wasn’t sold on the idea that horror had any biblical roots… then again, most of the horror we ended up getting used to involved gratuitous amounts of nudity, butchered body parts, extreme amounts of language, and more. Oh, wait, that’s movies. I told him that the Bible has some intense horror stories that are more intense despite having no modern-day extreme content. He was surprised when I told him that even Stephen King has some good spiritual insighits despite all he involves in his shorror stories.
If one can use horror correctly, it can be full of pondering mysteries for us to think on, not strictly blood, guts, and gore and other R-rated filler. Anyone can make a story with a chainsaw/hatchet carrying madman, but it takes soemone with guts (pun intended) to come up with a horror story that gets people to think, not just be entertained or scared. That’s what I look for in Christian books- entertainment that challenges my paradigm and all I thought to be true, to challenge me to think differently.
Oh, wait, almost forgot, I also reminded my stepdad about a recent horror movie that doesn’t involve sex, has next to no swearing, no horrific torture, and most of the horror is literally in the head, Guillermo del Toro’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. That, to me, is a step back into Classic Horror, like Vincent Price’s older horror movies and the original Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Nothing like the extreme crap today’s films try to have us watch, but actually suspenseful.
Anything by Del Toro is worth watching: The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrnth, Don’t be Afraid of the Dark. All good movies. All a good example of horror done right. Sometimes it seems like Del Toro is the only guy doing true horror in film today.
Completely agree.
Thanks for the tag, Mike. It’s been interesting reading, to be sure. I’ll also be reading the following books over the course of the semester, so I’ll have lots more food for thought:
The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror, by Cynthia Freeland
To Each Their Darkness, by Gary Braunbeck
Danse Macabre, by Stephen King
Anyway…
“….no horrific torture”
“…butchered body parts”
The language and nudity I can’t speak to, but one thing I’m noticing – almost done with the book Mike mentioned – is that in the way this film critic and philosopher defines horror, movies and novels that feature these things – horrific torture, butchered body parts – as the sole center of the film don’t fall under the classification what he calls “horror”. In fact, he (Noel Carroll) gives this summation very late in the book, in regards to horror stories and their appeal:
“….horror stories, including the most distinguished ones, tended to be elaborated in such a way, that the discovery of the unknown….are sustaining sources of narrative pleasure in the horror genre.” (pg. 126)
and…
The point of the horror genre….is to exhibit, disclose, and manifest that which is, putatively in principle, unknown and unknowable….that is, horror stories are predominately concerned with knowledge as a theme…
And he notes that, thus far, he’s found one major element/theme that cuts across all the horror stories/movies he’s surveyed, and that’s discovery….
…..in the “overreacher plot (mad scientist/forbidden knowledge), the overreacher discovers some secret of the universe, often to the dismay of the rest of humanity. And, in most of the plot structures derived from the complex discovery story (a monster is killing people, folks try to find out what it us, convince others, then confront it), the discovery of that which heretofore was denied existence if foregrounded….” (pg. 125)
so that:
“….they (both) share a basic subject matter – knowing the unknown…”
So to my mind, anyway (I’m still reading and researching this thing), this rules out SO many slasher and hacker films: SAW, Human Centipede, Hostel (none of which I’ve seen, thankfully), and I’d more inclined to come up with some other term than horror to describe those. But, because of labels, they get lumped in with everything else.
That’s why, to me – I’d think horror would be the perfect avenue to spiritual themes, and Christian messages. I don’t read much Ted Dekker, but I heard once he was quoted as saying that: “To write true horror, you must be committed to making people cry.” That’s also been a key element in this book I’m reading – that, at it’s roots, what Carroll calls “horror” is designed to elicit an emotional response.
“Supernatural” is one of my favorite television shows (I’m woefully behind), because to me THAT’s well done horror. That whole “discovery, encountering the unknown” is the core of the series.
@Kat – ironically, though Carroll differentiates between horror and what you said you write – he calls it “dread stories”, not horror – his definition seems to posit that as an even better example of something that could deliver stories with spiritual meanings:
“nevertheless, I do think that there is an important difference between this type of story – which I want to call tales of dread – and horror stories. Specifically, the emotional response they elicit seems to be quite different than that engendered by art-horror. The uncanny event which tops off such stories (tales of dread) cause a sense of unease and awe, perhaps of momentary anxiety and foreboding. These events are constructed to move the audience rhetorically to the point that one entertains the idea that unavowed, unknown, perhaps concealed and inexplicable forces rule the universe. Where art-horror involves disgust as a central figure, what might be called art-dread does not” (pg. 42)
AND, I firmly believe that given the right story and the right writer, you could do all that and avoid swearing and unneeded bloodshed and sexuality. Charles Grant was known for ushering in an era of “quiet horror” (more what Carroll would call “dread”), and he was so very subtle and understated. So I wonder if the issue lies with having everything fit together doctrinally in the end.
Anyway, I’ve enjoyed were my research has taken me so far. Most enjoyable grad paper I’ve ever written. The next book I’ll be reading is The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror, by Cynthia Freeland, and I’m especially excited about this one, just based on the description of the inside flap:
“Horror is always dismissed as mass art or low-brow entertainment that produces only short-term thrills…prompting people to argue that they have bad moral effects….but Cynthia Freeland seeks to counter both aesthetic disdain and moral condemnation…by demonstrating how the genre is capable of deep philosophical reflection about the existence and nature of evil…both human and cosmic.”
You’ve brought up some good questions. I have read and enjoyed Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Paradise Lost but never really thought of them as Christian horror, though I can certainly see that now. It’s been along time since I have read Decent Into Hell, I can’t say I remember much about it.
As far as Hieronymus Bosch, didn’t his paintings portray hell itself, thus the horror angle? Art history is vaguely coming back to me…
I find it interesting that most early works of horror were written by Catholics (except Milton, of course, who played the game of being a Puritan), and many later works of Gothic fiction, written by Protestants, were set in Catholic countries. It’s almost as if Protestants are too damned rational to write horror. Perhaps that’s why many true horror buffs don’t like Christian horror as written by Protestant Christians.
But I do believe that horror is inherently trying to make sense of good vs evil and, therefore, should work as a Christian genre. I’ve never been able to read an entire Peretti novel due to the cinematic quality of his writing (meaning, his books read like movie scripts–pan in, pan out–which I find jarring). I have read some of the other authors you mention–Charles Williams gives me the creeps, and his books may be Christian in nature, but I have no idea whether he was or not (for example, he was member of an order similar to the Golden Dawn, which is a Luciferian religion) . Maybe he wasn’t self-satisfied as a Christian. Maybe that’s why his books work, because he was writing of his own struggles and doubts. I know that lack of self-satisfaction would also extend to C.S. Lewis, who, I believe, always struggled with his faith.
Based on my own research I’ve done lately, I’d say that we probably really began to shift from classic horror to Christian horror back around 1925. I recently came across a Youtube clip from a historian named Randall Balmer, who says that once Evangelicals took a public beating in 1925 via the Scopes Trial, they began to retreat from society at large and form their own little subculture. Granted, Peretti’s book didn’t come along until much later–probably because it took some major persuading to get CBA publishers to publish something other than the so-called “prairie romances,” but I would have to say that Peretti is probably the beginning of what we consider Christian horror.
But I’m also going to have to echo some other thoughts from the comments, namely that Christian horror tends to be heavily watered-down in terms of the scare factor. This is actually the reason why I read very little CBA fiction anymore. Even before I pick up the book, I “know” how it’s going to end–everything will be “right as rain.” All this has me wondering if God is really as pleased with our little subculture as many of its proponents would have us believe he is. Is he really that pleased with us when we’ve made Christian coffee shops and bookstores and concerts that make it very easy for us to avoid the ugliness of the world at large? And is he really all that pleased when we write fiction that may actually use Jesus’ name or have a nice conversion scene, but we also refuse to display the full ugliness of how life can be–such as the fact that a Christian missionary may NOT make it back home to his/her family but may be martyred instead?
All this has me reading a lot more mainstream fiction lately (because it is honest, sometimes brutally so) and seriously working to break into mainstream fiction. I’ve wrestled with God a great deal on this one, and I’m going to learn to trust that if I’m trying to influence the surrounding culture for better, God can use whatever I may write to do just that because his ways and his thoughts are much higher than my own–and totally beyond my comprehension.
Several comments here vibe wonderfully with what I’ve just read the last day or so in Noel Carroll’s The Philosophy of Horror:
So I guess the main difference is that CCHorror isn’t really that compelling.
namely that Christian horror tends to be heavily watered-down in terms of the scare factor. This is actually the reason why I read very little CBA fiction anymore. Even before I pick up the book, I “know” how it’s going to end–everything will be “right as rain.”
Now, Carroll is analyzing the horror genre from an academic, secular point of view, but as writers and storytellers and lovers of good storytelling, his comments are insightful, especially those regarding suspense:
“In popular fiction (especially in horror, Carroll notes), suspense generally obtains when the question that arises from earlier scenes and/or events has two possible, opposed answers which have specific ratings in terms of morality and probability. Suspense….is a function of the structure of the narrative question (IE: will we defeat the evil monster, save the girl, win the day, etc) as it is raised by factors earlier in the story.
….suspense occurs in popular fiction (and horror) when the alternative outcomes are evil outcome/likely and moral outcome/unlikely. When our heroine is tied to the tracks of an oncoming train, the moral outcome – her rescue – is unlikely, while the evil outcome – her destruction – is probable. I claim that, as an empirical matter, most suspense in horror fiction accords with this pattern. (pg. 139)
Carroll goes on to say:
Suspense does not seem to take hold in fiction….where the moral outcome appears likely or the the evil outcome doomed.
And, without getting into the same old rhetoric – because I’d like to think I’ve moved past that – that’s why most CBA fiction doesn’t work for me (other than lukewarm craft, which is a separate issue). Because for the most part, we know that evil is going to lose, good is going to win, and there’s no real threat. That’s always been the biggest reason why – with the exception of a few CBA authors – I’ll choose ABA fiction every time. I DON’T KNOW HOW IT’S GOING TO END. Hence, there’s real suspense.
Mike is spot-on highlighting Tosca’s Demon: A Memoir. One of the few CBA novels I’ve ever read which our main protagonist is probably not headed for a very nice end, and things are wrapped in a nice little bow.
But, I’ve been through this stage already. To each their own. Some people have no interest in horror or anything written outside the CBA, and that’s fine, too.
….and things are NOT wrapped in a nice little bow.
I haven’t read much “Christain horror.” Perhaps Bruce Hennigan’s The 13th Demon is the only thing that qualifies. I did read Peretti’s early books long ago and they don’t strike me as being from the horror genre. They stop too short of instilling fear. The modern supernatural thriller genre does often cross into horror. Genres are blurred more than ever and if Peretti wrote those books now they may be a bit different.
Christian writers shy away from horror because of what it has become in secular markets. It relies on shock value and gore, not truly frighteningly or creepy storytelling. For the difference, compare most any slasher movie to the film The Ring. Or the works of Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft to many modern writers. The former relied primarily on reaching into the fears and shadows of the mind to scare people. Some horror authors staddle both forms. Because of the sterotype that horror has become, most Christians steer clear of it, let alone try to write it.
Perhaps some Poe or Lovecraft is in order.
http://speculativefictionweblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/lovecraft-poe/
I think there’s a reason that, even as a Christian, I enjoy American Horror Story, which does have PLENTY of swearing and bizarre violent content- the horror is multilayered, has a throwback feel to it (meaning it’s more implied), and is rather subtle than even HO’s True Blood, which feels forced, making it feel unworth my time. It relies more on what unsettles us- not literal monsters, per se (though it has that, too), but the social issues that dig deep into our psyches (school shootings, rape, abortion, infidelity [and gone too far infidelity], etc.). Most Christian horror does seem to rely on sterotypical stuff dealing with Hollywood horror- serial killers, zombies, monsters, etc. What gets me good is subtleties within original horror, not the shove-it-in-your-face-and-make-you-jump, but more of something out of the corner of your eye (or was it?) kind of thing.
“Trying to write Horror for a CBA market.” Yes. That is the problem. Now, really scary Christian Horror? Nathaniel Hawthorne. And I’m really sad right now that I can’t think of one other… that I have actually read. I, on the other hand, write Horror, and I am a Christian. You may like some of it. Some people do.