What did the Catholic Church have to say about genre milestones like Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, and A Nightmare on Elm Street? How about transgressive horror favorites like The Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave, Ms. 45, and Cannibal Ferox? Some of the answers may surprise you, though others undoubtedly will not. Matt Rogerson explores these and many, many more in his debut book The Vatican vs. Horror Movies, a thoroughly researched and compellingly written book about the place where the worlds of horror and faith collide.
Most of us who have spent much time exploring film history have no doubt encountered entities that have often been unkind to the horror genre like the Catholic Legion of Decency, the Hays Code, the MPAA, and the British Board of Film Classification’s “Video Nasties” label. Rogerson uses a publication I was not previously familiar with, the Vatican’s official film review journal Segnalazioni Cinematografische (first published in 1934) as the focus of the book. This publication was widely distributed to parishioners and focused on films as they released in Italy.
As a result, many of the films covered in The Vatican vs. Horror Movies are from the Italian masters like Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci but certainly not limited to them. As various successful films from the United States as well as other European nations reached Italy’s shores, the Segnalazioni Cinematografische would review them and give various ratings based on both artistic merit (or lack thereof) and on the appropriateness of the films for Catholic audiences.
At first, this publication held great sway but in the late 50s-70s in Europe, this began to wane as the continent became more secular. This did not stop the Vatican’s reviewers from examining and critiquing films of all genres, with horror being a regular, and often negative, target. But then, the word genre is something of a blunt force classification code. Rogerson prefers the Italian term filone in discussing the various movements covered in The Vatican vs. Horror Movies. He does a beautiful job laying out the nuance of the term that led to various streams in the river of horror. Many of these were imitators of landmark movies that filmmakers exploited in hopes financial success to be sure, but also to adapt elements of them for their own cultural milieu.
Rogerson examines several of these filones in the book, often from their genesis, through the various levels of quality that followed. For example, the slasher, which rose from roots of the Italian giallo film to become something else entirely. He also offers historical, cultural, and religious context throughout and notes elements that obsessed the Vatican reviewers even as they ignored other, often more obviously relevant to the Church, aspects of horror. For example, Rogerson discusses zombie films as a “profane resurrection.” Christians believe that Jesus was the first to rise from the dead and then all believers will be raised when Christ returns. Zombie movies turn this resurrection to a better state of being fit for eternal life to one of decomposition and mindless destruction. The Vatican, however, seemed to ignore this fact and focus instead on the violence and gore of these movies.
This book is not just filled with the big titles that everyone is familiar with but digs down to discuss the overlooked and neglected films as well. That is not to say that every film is great, or even good, but they are worth discussing at least on some level. So even though Beyond the Door is a dim shadow of The Exorcist, which it clearly rips off, it is gratifying to find it included in this book as a point of discussion. Other subgenres discussed include the cannibal film, the rape-revenge film, satanic horror, nunsploitation, and more. Though often condemned by the Vatican reviewers, that they even included any kind of discussion about some of the more subversive titles in these subgenres is fascinating in and of itself. And that they even had some even modestly positive things to say about some of them verges on shocking.
The book is not a mere reportage of facts, however, far from it in fact. Nor is it an unbridled takedown of the Vatican, Catholicism, or Christianity. It is quite a balanced book, critical when necessary but also giving credit when credit is due. But that is also not really the focus of the book. Rogerson himself writes in his preface “While my writing maintains a critical stance with regard to the [Roman Catholic] religion I was born into, the true mission of this book is to celebrate the power of genre film.” And it succeeds in this mission admirably.
I am thoroughly impressed with Matt Rogerson as a writer and look forward to more from him, including his soon-to-be-released book examining aspects of faith in the films of Lucio Fulci. The Vatican vs. Horror Movies is truly an exceptional book, with great depth of content while also being a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience. In fact, this is perhaps the best book I’ve read on horror film history in some time. For anyone who is interested in the nexus of religion and horror, as I am, this is an absolute must read.
The Vatican vs. Horror Movies by Matt Rogerson is published by McFarland & Company and available at McFarlandBooks.com.
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