I'm interested for a couple reasons: A new horror movie, The Grudge, is turning out to be an enduring hit, and that piqued my curiosity. It also reminded me of my two most horrifying experiences with horror movies. When I was 14, my parents let me see an evening showing of The Blob...at a theater three miles from my home. I grew up in a town and a time where there was no problem or danger with my getting myself home. The deal was, I could go to the movie, but I had to walk home. I broke the deal: I ran the three miles so fast I wish I'd been timed, because I would have qualified for the olympics. I also ran the three miles with my head turned almost all the way around--checking behind me for that freakin' blob!
My other experience that is unforgettable? The Exorcist. Saw it when I lived in the country. Twenty miles to the theater. I was driving, and went to a midnight showing. Exhausted (sleep deprivation ruins logic, of course, and self-control), and spooked from that spooky movie, I drove the twenty miles home...with my head turned all the way around! Kept imagining things in the back seat! Hmmm...maybe I've been avoiding horror films because I'm so damned suggestible.
Freepers...your thoughts?
I can not view nor read anything without at least a wee bit o' modicum of fact. One of the things I was trained to do as the observer, look for the fact, look for the clue respecting to hysteria. Disrespecting that:
Col 3:1-4 is expressly clear in the implications in that regard. "YOU HAVE DIED (apothnesko from apo = away from + thnesko = die) means literally to die off and so to cease to have vital functions, whether at an earthly or transcendent level. The aorist tense speaks of a past completed action -- believers "died" with the moment they believed in Christ they died as clearly implied in 2Co5:17). The indicative mood is a simple statement of fact: reality indicating that this spiritual death was a real event even if one cannot completely comprehend it. When you died in the past, you died to the power, rule, mastery, enslavement to the old task master sin, which has now been rendered inoperative (Ro6:6 "done away with") by the death, burial and resurrection of Christ Jesus and your faith in His finished work which effected your "participation" with Christ. To be sure the presence and power of SIN will continue to harangue us for the remainder of our physical earthly existence but it can no longer condemn us. The question then is: Are you living like a ''dead'' man? Since we died and were raised with Christ, anything foreign to Jesus should be foreign to us. Although it's a "done deal" so to speak, we still need to make daily choices in light of and consistent with that truth. These choices often involve "Death to self" a truth emphasized often by Jesus as a requirement of those who wished to follow Him as His disciples (Mt16:25; Mk8:35; Lu9:24;17:33; Jn12:25 See Torrey's Topic on "Self Denial"). In these verses in Colossians Paul is explaining what "death to self" should look like (Col3:5-4:6). Dying to self and living to God (Christ increasing, us decreasing Jn3:30) is the essence of the heavenly minded "much fruit" life (Jn15:8) our Father desires all His children. But praise God it is no longer we who are "living' but Christ living His life thru us (Gal2:20).
AND YOUR LIFE IS HIDDEN: kai e zoe humon kekruptai
A.T. Robertson says about this: "For ye died (apethanete gar). Definite event, aorist active indicative, died to sin (Ro 6:2). Is hid (kekruptai). Perfect passive indicative of kruptô, old verb, to hide, remains concealed, locked "together with" (sun) Christ, "in" (en) God. No hellish burglar can break that combination.
When Christ shall be manifested (hotan ho Christos phanerôthêi). Indefinite temporal clause with hotan and the first aorist passive subjunctive of phaneroô, "whenever Christ is manifested," a reference to the second coming of Christ as looked for and longed for, but wholly uncertain as to time. See this same verb used of the second coming in 1Jo 3:2. Ye also together with him (kai humeis sun autôi). That is the joy of this blessed hope. He repeats the verb about us phanerôthêsesthe (future passive indicative) and adds en doxêi (in glory). Not to respond to this high appeal is to be like Bunyan's man with the muck-rake." That's Bunyan of "Pilgrim's Progress" not Paul and Babe the Blue Ox (o.k.?).
When Christ was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, Christ answered Satan with Scripture. One's salvation should be the least of one's concerns (in fact it should not EVEN be a concern at all).
Who "beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." (Lk 10:18).
But all of Satan's blaspheming God combined will be a drop in the bucket compared to the shrieks of rage heard the day he's cast into the lake of fire. But he will be drowned out with a resounding and overwhelming wail of anguish and screaming of rage at him (a lamenting of such ferociousness that of its own accord would strike terror into the hearts of any that would hear it) by those who were deceived by him (Isa 14:16; Ez 28:19).
I usually don't entertain "horror" anything. I firmly believe (in accordance to Romans 8) that most of what Hollywood presents in this regard actually is "real". I don't need to actually experience a baseball-bat onto the brain to know that'd be not good, eh?
I hope that you have a good and decent Thanksgiving...
Bump 4 later - I'm not really awake ... ;-)
Best vampire movie ever--"Near Dark"