The whole religious lunatic stuff kind of ruined the movie - From Within (2009) Discussion

[–] j_a_l 15 years ago

that's the point of the movie. Crazy religious - here Christian, could have been any one else - on their path to enforce their believes to everybody else. Someone disagree ?? possess by devil ! - or whatever one name him/it - something they don't understand ?? evil !

Ironically if they had mind their own business and let others live their lives, nothing would have happened.

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[–] Sabiancymb 15 years ago

Deity based religion is possibly the scariest real thing in the world. This just showcased it.

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[–] jwood5699 15 years ago

I agree, I was put off by that at first but there is nothing scarier than religious fanatics who lose scope of reality and have no rational thoughts because of their religion. But I agree that is not horror movie material.

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[–] Frisil 15 years ago

Not horror movie material? I disagree - there are Zombies, Ghosts, Cannibals, Monsters or whatever, but these things have one thing in common: they are just fantasy and thus nothing to be afraid of.

Religious people, however, do exist, and they can be the scariest monsters of all!

(note I said "can be", not "are". If you feel offended by what I said: Yes, I meant exactly you!)

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[–] DisturbedPixie 15 years ago

Totally agree with you. Their have been witch trials throughout history done by Christians to destroy Pagans, and it is terrifying. Anyone who doesn't find that terrifying is the enemy. People that kill in the name of God are murderers: plain and simple. I wouldn't go around declaring I'm atheist in public, just because crazy people really do scare the crap out of me.

The people in the movie that started the curse are the good guys in my eyes. The bad guys are the rest of the town. Feel bad for some of them a little, but they all knew that the original woman was murdered and they thought it was good. That makes them horrible people.

I still wouldn't say cannibals are fantasy though...
And we have created Zombie ants so it is possible to be attacked by zombies.
And nobody knows that ghosts don't exist. And if you can consider a giant squid as a monster, then there are monsters. It just kinda depends on how you look at it.

If you are Anti-American: Admit you are doing it just to be cool. Does it feel good to hate?

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[–] luvlex1017 15 years ago

How did it ruin the movie? It took it's story from REAL history. The burning times where frightened christians burned anything they even had a feeling was involved in withcraft. I thought it had a good storyline.

Freedom is just another word for ..Nothing left to lose

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[–] homesickalien81 15 years ago

i don't think it ruined the movie (not that it was that great of one to start with). a little over the top, but i agree with the post above, fanatics are much scarier than mythical creatures, ect.

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[–] AidaClarkfield 15 years ago

Yeah, and religious people are also easy targets.

The one thing I don't get, is that in this case the religious folks could have been the good guys. I mean if you think about it this was a case where the witchcraft folks really were at fault, sure they killed the mom, but not all of the church members, Dylan included knew that.

As soon as Dylan the son started talking about the Bible in the first scene I rolled my eyes. But then he actually seemed like a good guy. All of a sudden however he very conveniently was a lord of the flies psycho.

I didn't really know who to root for. I guess it just shows that religious extremism of any kind is bad.

Christians get a bad rap in most movies though. In all honesty how many times do you actually meet crazy Christians? Maybe in parts of the south. But 99.9% of them are not violent.

I liked the song at the beginning though, and I thought the movie was put together well and looked great.

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[–] guildwarswinters 15 years ago

depends what you mean by "violent", most the chrisitians in the town weren't violent but were enablers And fed the flames of extremism. Also I live in a northern liberal state and have been harassed by a few chrisitians because of my beliefs ( I believe in god and like what Jesus did but I don't really follow any religion, and yet with these beliefs fellow students told me I am going to hell and that I'm a baby killer). Keep in mind, this happened at aschool I went to dominated by chrisitian extremism (wasnt a religious private school).

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[–] jerick0 15 years ago

I live in Omaha, NE and we have allot of so called Christians that think gay people should be killed and people over in Iraq should be exterminated for not believe in Christianity. Now, I am not saying all religious people are like that, but people like those depicted in this movie are not uncommon.

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[–] jabberttp 15 years ago

Christians get a bad rap in most movies though. In all honesty how many times do you actually meet crazy Christians? Maybe in parts of the south. But 99.9% of them are not violent.

Although I don't agree with the premise of this thread (religious lunatic stuff kind of ruined the movie), I do agree with the above sentiment of yours, AidaClarkfield.

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[–] inko8 15 years ago

Yeah, and religious people are also easy targets... In all honesty how many times do you actually meet crazy Christians? Maybe in parts of the south.

hmm... sounds like "parts of the south" are easy targets, too...

one cannot argue against one kind of bigotry by expressing another without completely undercutting the argument.

i believe you can do better, so keep posting.

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[–] luxmissus 15 years ago

one cannot argue against one kind of bigotry by expressing another without completely undercutting the argument.

So true. Ironic. Bigotry is bigotry, no matter who it is expressed against.

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[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] sonickid 13 years ago

Most crazy people in America are Christian.

Wow, generalize much?

You do realize that the US is 82% Christian, therefore statistically more "crazy people" would be Christians simply based on the numbers; it has nothing to do with any underlying fault of Christianity.

That being said, there are numerous denominations of Christianity. So you're generalizing even more by thinking different denominations of Christians all have the same beliefs (e.g., the fundamentalist Evangelicals in this movie compared to Catholics).

--
My IMDb vote history:
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=36039624

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[–] scrypt-548-878609 13 years ago

Many of us meet crazy Christians all the time, just as we encounter crazy believers from all philosophies and faiths.

There's a logical reason for that: The tendency of overbearing people to want to isolate and pressure total strangers into somehow magically accepting a belief they've kept away from all their lives. It's crazy behavior to which only a crazy person would respond, and has nothing to do with Christ's witnessing as depicted in the Bible.

This same overbearing type is also visible in the televangelist shows that many of us encounter while channel surfing. Ministers and "doctors" wearing stage makeup and telling us about this or that crisis in order to alarm us to the point of sending them our paychecks -- those people often look callous, creepy and artificial to me. They're like shriveled figures resurrected from the ashes of an 1890s circus tent.

I believe you when you say that the Christians you know are nothing like the street preachers and saddlebaggers encountered so often by the rest of us.

After all, a person of integrity isn't going to be distracted by the temptation to control other people, and a lot of Christians throughout history have shown great integrity.

But as in the movies, those are the Christians too few of us meet -- and too few of us know we're meeting when we do.

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[–] Fedorevsky 13 years ago

Aida Clarkfield: "Christians get a bad rap in most movies though. In all honesty how many times do you actually meet crazy Christians? Maybe in parts of the south. But 99.9% of them are not violent. "
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Anyone who believes in any deity or similar make belief is crazy so to answer your question Aida, all of us have met crazy Christians. Most of us do so every day and because of strange laws we all have to watch these people mistreat, brain wash and abuse their children on a daily basis without even being able to intervene and help these poor innocent children. In turn most of these children end up damaged and crazy themselves. It's sad but there doesn't seem to be too much we can do about it. The least we can do however is to not sweep these problems under the rug and make silly comments like you do. With your wile comments and simply wrong rhetorical questions you are an enabler of child abuse.

Hidyho!

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[–] AidaClarkfield 15 years ago

These people are not common. How many klan members have you met?

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[–] bogwart-1 15 years ago

You don't need to meet them in order to know what they are, any more than you need to have a leg sawn off to appreciate how problematic it can be to get around on just one of them.

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[–] TheIcon2 15 years ago

Klan members don't go around usually announcing they are Klan members. Look it up in the history books. Thus the reason many high officials were Klans Men. You could walk beside one every day and not know it.

I agree neither side were really in the right. However Dylans Dad set it all in motion with his actions. If he never had did what he did Aidens family would never have harmed them. Atleast that is my opinion.

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[–] keisher426 15 years ago

I liked the fact that the Evangelicals were fanatic but Aidan and his brother could easily be argued as fanatical themselves. Neither religion was completely good or evil ( I mean pertaining to each individual)

Buster:I don’t want no part of your tight-ass country-club, you freak bitch!

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[–] CaliManDan35 15 years ago

I also got sick of hearing all the religious and bible talk extremely quick

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[–] jayt_26 15 years ago

. . .that's what it was about. . .

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[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Rvrgm 15 years ago

I can understand the OP - as a Christian, I was irked by the portrayal - but as the movie progressed, I took solace in the fact that the writers clearly had no idea what religion they were stereotyping, as the congregation shifted at will between "health-and-wealth," "extreme fundamentalist," and at one point even catholic. Believe me, in the parts of the country where this film was supposed to take place, an extreme protestant congregation would have absolutely NO APPEARANCE of catholicism.

Nevertheless, without the crazy christians, there really wouldn't be a plot for the movie. No one else is interested in killing "witches." So, it's a Catch-22.

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[–] luxmissus 15 years ago

I took solace in the fact that the writers clearly had no idea what religion they were stereotyping, as the congregation shifted at will between "health-and-wealth," "extreme fundamentalist," and at one point even catholic.

I noticed that, too. I was looking for some kind of consistency of portrayal of the belief system but there wasn't one.

There were no good guys in this movie. I liked that. Aiden and Sadie were supposed to be the "good" guys but they were just as wrong in their way as the townspeople. I'd like to think that was deliberate on the part of the filmmakers.

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[–] Wuchakk 14 years ago

The influential mega-church in the film did indeed show aspects of numerous Christian sects. I believe this was done intentionally by the writer (Brad Keene) so that the film's not picking on just one group. Hence, the church is a microcosm of Christendom, representing all of Christianity.

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[–] RomeroXWannabe 14 years ago

Tell me about it, the "violent fundamental Christian nutjob" is a seriously overused archetype in horror movies. There are fanatic people in all religions and each religion has their own skeletons. Why is Christianity so easy to target?

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[–] luxmissus 14 years ago

Christianity is not the only target but televangelists can be found day or night on tv and some of them are seriously OTT, not to mention scandals aplenty, to highlight hypocrisy. Makes it easy.

Stereotypes are shorthand when one is trying to limn out characters without destroying the flow of the film. From a storytelling standpoint it makes some sense to use them. Perhaps, in other countries than the US, the choices would be different.

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[–] mrs_m_norris 14 years ago

I'm tired of the dominant religion acting persecuted.

If you can't find a friend, make one.
-May (2002)

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[–] luxmissus 14 years ago

I'm tired of the dominant religion acting persecuted.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it is anymore. People who believe in God are Deists, are they not? They might be dominant, that's true. Christians believe in Christ (as in Jesus Christ), so just not so sure they're so prevalent. IMO it is a post-Christian society at least here and in Europe.

To your point, though, I think anybody, regardless of belief, gender-identity, race etc can be persecuted -- dominance doesn't eliminate persecution. Really, how could it? Society is not monolithic last I checked.

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[–] mrs_m_norris 14 years ago

Are you talking about America? Almost everyone I know here is a Christian. Likewise, almost all of the British people I know are atheists. In my experience Christians are definitely the dominant religion in America. And a lot of them act persecuted. Who can say if they really are or not? Disagreement is NOT persecution.

If you can't find a friend, make one.
-May (2002)

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[–] AidaClarkfield 14 years ago

Some good points made here. Glad to see this topic spurred so much discussion. I think that it's obvious that some Christians can be over the top (as you can see in movies like Borat and at any of the big churches in the south or midwest). I'm just waiting for a movie where they treat religious types as the majority I'd say really are, good people, who have problems just like the rest of us, but aren't by default INSANE, just because they are Christian.

Want to watch a show that treats people as neither good nor bad, but complex...watch Mad Men! Now that show gets it right.

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[–] Rick-34 11 years ago

Christians are so persecuted! In spite of having total control of Congress, the White Houses, the courts, most Fortune 500 businesses, ....

Life is hard!

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