Pod Only Knows #036 – HELL HOUSE (2001) – with Jason Bivins
George Ratliff’s 2001 documentary Hell House chronicles the development of the 10th annual Hell House Halloween production put on by Trinity Church in Texas.
A Hell House is a variation on the Halloween haunted house tradition, in which actors play out horror movie scenarios as guests move room to room to be frightened out of their minds. But Hell Houses are, instead, tools of Christian indoctrination and recruitment, taking visitors through scenes of horror that led people to hell, like abortion, suicide, or being other than heterosexual.
Ratliff’s film captures a pretty specific moment in the Evangelical movement, one that has morphed and evolved into something different today. But Hell House provides us some useful insights into the role horror, fear, and trauma play in the Evangelical mind.
Jason Bivins rejoins the show to talk about it. He is a specialist in religion and American culture an is the author of 2008’s Religion of Fear: The Politics of Horror in Conservative Evangelicalism.
If you want to connect with Jason, you can email him at jcbivins@ncsu.edu.
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