Relevant Magazine has an article that asks the question, “Can Horror Be Used For Good?” The focus of the article is Scott Derrickson, director of The Exorcism of Emily Rose and the upcoming film adaptation of Paradise Lost.
“I love the horror genre for how cinematic it is,” Derrickson says. “I gravitated, I think initially, toward the horror genre because, of all the genres, I think it is the genre that is most friendly to the subject matter of faith and belief in religion. The more frightening and sort of dark and oppressive a movie is, the more free you are to explore the supernatural and explore faith.”
Much of this territory has been covered before (like here, and here), but there is some discussion of Derrickson’s work on Hellraiser V: Inferno, and the inspiration he took from C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. The article ends with a statement that is dead-on with our Christian Realist idea:
[I]f our God is capable of using anything and anyone for His will, maybe it’s not too much to suggest that God can use horror films for His glory, too.