Today at Tor.com I talk about some awfulsome Christian horror movies.

Two things about this article:

1) I am not joking about The Prophecy. Simon is a wounded angel hiding in the abandoned wing of a school, and when he realizes Gabriel is coming for him, he coaxes little Mary close enough that he can spit the soul he’s carrying into her body so Gabriel doesn’t find it.

This is not weird in terms of heavenly amorality, ends justifying the means, etc. It’s unsettling, but the whole idea is that the heavenly agenda can’t be understood by mortal men, so that’s all fine. But what this means in real life is that Eric Stoltz looked at the script and went, “Okay, I fight an angel, sure, I talk to the agnostic, okay, I make out with a twelve-year-old, sure, and then Gabriel kills me. I don’t see any problems here! Sign me up!”

And seriously, Eric Stoltz is creepy enough without watching him French kiss a child, okay? You can’t un-ring that bell.

2) I kid about Stigmata, but no joke, I think that movie is awesome, and here’s why.

“Lift a stone, and you will find me.”
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Legion, the seraphim suckfest that opened last weekend, is only the latest in a long line of horror films that take advantage of the Bible’s doom-and-gloom with varying degrees of success. Please note that the list is long and cheesy, and I am listing only a few.

Be warned: it’s a pretty safe bet that by the time you watch more than one of these, you’ll have seen more candlelit churches, actors on wires, menacing close-ups, and inexplicable hairstyles than any human was ever meant to see.

The Sentinel. Model Alison Parker moves into a new apartment building with a blind priest on the top floor. (To be fair, this is early in the genre, so Alison’s off the hook for not seeing the warning signs. Later folks have no excuses.) Alison eventually realizes that her landlord is the Catholic Church, and that her apartment building is the gateway to Hell (so it’s probably in Williamsburg), and that she’s next in line to become its guardian.

Horrors include: absentee landlords, the assembly of monsters without license, aggressive recruiting into the Catholic Church.

The Prophecy. One evil soul is somehow going to tip the balance between Heaven and Hell. The angel Simon is sent to collect it, but gets stymied by Gabriel, Angel of Scenery-Chewing, and eventually Lucifer himself has to get involved. Meanwhile, two dull humans wander around a half-abandoned school building and/or the desert, looking for something to do.

Horrors include: Repeated use of the rip-someone’s-heart-from-their-chest effect dummy, the knowledge that Christopher Walken would sign on to do this two more times, Eric Stoltz making out with a 12-year-old.

The Omen. Oh, kids these days.

Horrors include: a smug child, eerie soundtrack, intentional aggravation of baboons (who have enough problems).

Constantine. Demon-hunter John Constantine ends up having a really bad few days when cop Angela Dodson comes asking for her sister’s soul. Because Angela’s smoking hot, Constantine agrees to help, and visits Hell, fights the angel Gabriel, and gets his lung cancer torn from his chest by a Southern-fried Satan.

Horrors include: Keanu Reeves, Gavin Rossdale, knowing or valuing anything about the comic on which the movie is based.

Stigmata. Aethist Frankie gets a rosary souvenir from her mom, and finds herself coming down with bloody, strobe-filled stigmata. (Worst souvenir ever, Mom.) Hunky priest Gabriel Byrne is on the case, which turns out to be a totally-unexpected conspiracy that’s going to bring down the Catholic Church like whoa.

Horrors include: editing swathes of the movie like it’s a Sonic Youth video, internet-usage fouls, Patricia Arquette’s wardrobe.

It’s a Wonderful Life. I’m sorry, when an angel prevents you from killing yourself and then shows you terrifying visions of your miserable loved ones, that’s a horror movie.

Horrors include: the thwarting of free will, forced visions, the crushing responsibility of mankind to arm the wingless heavenly hosts.

End of Days. One child is somehow going to tip the balance between Heaven and Hell. This is bad news for the lady slated to bear this child with whichever minion can molest her first. Enter Arnold Schwarzenegger as a cop out to protect her, and Gabriel Byrne as a man who did not learn his lesson from the last religious-horror movie he was in.

Horrors include: the premise (seriously, Hollywood?), Arnold’s attempt at acting tortured, excessive devouring of scenery.

Legion.  One child is somehow going to tip the balance between Heaven and Hell. (That whole arrangement is seriously unstable, isn’t it?) Fallen angel Michael finds said gravid waitress at a scuzzy desert diner, hands out weaponry to the gathered B-listers to fight off the angel-possessed masses, and the fun begins! (That was sarcasm. No fun begins in this movie, ever.)

Horrors include: ceiling-crawling old ladies, implications to Paul Bettany’s career, ripping off every other movie on this list.

This list, of course, is only the beginning. What heavenly-horror made you swear off large candelabras, Gregorian chants, and walking past churches at night?

[This piece originally appeared on Tor.com.]

The TOC for Running with the Pack has been announced! Included is my story “Dire Wolf.”

Follow the link above for the full TOC, which is awesome and includes many people I like, coincidentally. I’m really excited for this one.

ETA: Edited to remove horrible pun in the subject line. You’re welcome.

So, I wrote up Legion for Fantasy Magazine.

You guys, this movie was dismal. It had everything it needed to be ridiculous, but took itself so seriously and was so free of anything over-the-top enough to be amusing that the people in my theatre, who started out talking back to the movie at full volume, were checking emails and talking to each other by the 45-minute mark. THEY IGNORED THEIR ELEVEN-DOLLAR MOVIE, THAT IS HOW BAD IT IS.

Also, I mention that I hope Paul Bettany was in this because he lost a bet. This is NO JOKE. I was MORTIFIED for him. And then I came home and figured out that he’s going to be in Priest later this year, directed by THE SAME GUY. HE LOST A TWO-MOVIE BET. (I refuse to let myself think otherwise, because if I imagined he read this script and said, “Man, I am so with you on this! Sign me up for this one, and another one that sounds remarkable similar!” I will have to send him a sharply-worded letter.)

Anyway, check out the whole thing and then rest easy knowing you are eleven dollars richer and considerably more sanguine for not having seen this movie.

So, with Lost entering its sixth season, Flash Forward going strong, Vampire Diaries sweeping the CW, Legend of the Seeker finding new viewers, and V inexplicably still on the air, television execs finally seem to have caught on that genre TV has a vast and devoted audience. (As long as you’re not Heroes.) As pilot season revs up, a few genre series are already in development. Let’s take a judgmental glance at the early lists, shall we?

AMC has ordered a pilot of Walking Dead, a zombie-apocalypse series based on the series of graphic novels by Robert Kirkman. The survivors (assumed to be a rag-tag bunch of strangers who must learn to work together) will fight their way across the country looking for a safe haven that I’m guess is about four seasons’ worth of travel away. The good news is that Frank Darabont is writing and directing, with Gale Anne Hurd as an executive producer, which means that the sensibility will be properly cinematic.

Fox, not wasting any time with source material that might require reading, has decided to make an American spinoff of Torchwood. In theory this works, since Torchwood field offices could be anywhere. However, given how the original Torchwood can be even in the hands of the capable BBC production team, this has the potential to be the train wreck of the season. (Don’t get me wrong, it would be awesome if John Barrowman crossed the pond with his Captain Jack character intact and started kissing men all over the place. However, this is Fox, where the only same-sex kissing they want is between two dewy young women—ideally in dream sequences or between brainwashed dolls, so it doesn’t have to be canonically addressed—so I’m not exactly sure what episodes of Torchwood they watched before they ordered this pilot.)

Meanwhile, CBS is remaking Hawaii Five-O. They must not have gotten the genre memo.

And Summit entertainment, flush with cash and not about to lose its stranglehold on the teenage demographic, must have been looking for a TV series ever since The Vampire Diaries cornered the small-screen teen-vamp market, and they seem at last to have found one. They’re developing a series based on Push, a movie about government-monitored superhumans. The feature film starred Chris “The Human Torch” Evans as a telekinetic who fights against government agents while trying not to look like a pedophile opposite the underclothed Dakota Fanning. Watchmen vet David Hayter is set to write and produce, so the series will be a lot like the movie, only with more slow motion.

Weirdly, it has yet to be picked up by a network, though for my money, I suspect NBC is just counting the hours until they can put Heroes out of its misery and scoop this pilot up like a lump of gold out of a muddy riverbed.

And these are just the early announcements. This won’t be the last we hear of genre pilots for next year; now that genre television no longer has the niche stigma it used to have (especially if you can keep the effects budget down), it’s become the next “Once-successful professional returns to his small hometown and learns charming life lessons.” Which, frankly: progress. Let’s just hope CBS doesn’t wait too long to get in on this game and pick up a genre pilot for a 9pm time slot; Hawaii Five-O isn’t going to lead itself in!

[This piece originally appeared on Tor.com.]