Wow! Last night on the Sundance Channel, I had the opportunity to watch a truly frightening film "Hell House"- a documentary, mind you. The reason why I think this film is certainly scarier than the run of the mill Halloween/Fri. the 13th sequel is that it reflects a honest depiction of just how whacko some Christian fundamentalist groups are in this country. You will often see segments on CNN on Wahabi schools for Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, but you won't often see them go into this dark corner of our country. I was struck, and this was perhaps not intentional, how commercialism is wide spread throughout the film. I thought a simple moment where a kid asks his father for 50 cents which he doesn't have on him to get a Coke from the machine is telling of how we are paralyzed by rampant commercialism and technology. As someone whose grandfather grew up in a Central Turkish village, I have to wonder if these aspects of our world have driven us all mad to the point where we look to some kind of "SuperJesus" out of a DC Comic book to come down and save us from all the sins of the world. I was also struck by how a youn girl jumps up and down when she gets to play 'the abortion girl.' It's as if she is so trapped by her fundamentalist upbringing that she actually looks forward to playing a troubled young girl getting an abortion perhaps so she can pretend to be bad and find some sort of temporary emotional release. Ultimately, the way church uses fear to promote its' message is what is most disturbing of all. You see fear shown through all dimensions of the church, including a segment where a Hispanic teacher, who provides the voice of Satan on stage, tells his class that there are such things as stupid questions and one should not waste time trying to ask them. Clearly if we all do what we are told, as this church wants us too, then one has to ask what is this difference between living in the film's setting, outside Dallas, and living in Baghdad?
Review of Hell House
