Movies with violent, sexual, or demonic content are going to have an impact on people’s hearts, even if they are unaware of that impact, says Promise Keepers CEO Shane Winnings. Winnings joined ChurchLeaders for an interview about the response he has gotten to a video he made warning people against going to see the upcoming horror movie, “Him.”
“Before I was a born-again Christian, I might’ve been really interested in this. There’s something in people that wants to, you know, see something scary or something dark,” said Winnings. “There’s this fascination with the demonic. And I really wanted to use that trailer as a chance to teach people, ‘Hey, what you let in your ear and your eye gate actually matters. It affects your heart. It affects your mind.’”
Shane Winnings Warns Christians About ‘Him’
Shane Winnings is a military veteran, a former law enforcement officer, and the chairman and CEO of the longstanding men’s ministry, Promise Keepers. On April 27, he posted a video to his social media warning people not to go see a new horror movie titled, “Him,” starring Marlon Wayans and co-produced by Jordan Peele. The movie is set to come out this September, and a description of the film says it portrays “a chilling journey into the inner sanctum of fame, idolatry and the pursuit of excellence at any cost.”
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A teaser trailer for the movie is out, and Winnings observed it seems at first to portray “an interesting-looking football movie.” Then the trailer “takes a really dark turn” and gets “more and more demonic.” It ends showing a figure covered in blood standing on a pentagram with his arms outstretched, calling to mind Jesus on the cross, as the word “him” appears on the screen.
“It just felt so dark,” said Winnings, who explained that he felt compelled to speak out about the movie in part because Wayans and Peele are well-known. Another reason is that Winnings used to be fascinated by such movies himself, and he wanted to warn people that the content they consume does affect them.
Some people agreed with and thanked Winnings for his warning, but others pushed back and said that the movie does not appear to be glorifying evil but to be showing the consequences of evil.
“Let’s be honest,” said Winnings. “If they didn’t really embellish and really lean into the dark side, it would probably be a boring movie.” He mentioned that some people who disagreed with him pointed out that “the Bible’s really dark.”
“The Bible is not blasphemous,” Winnings countered. “And when you’re showing a guy standing on the pentagram doing that, when you begin to cross over the realm of educating into entertaining, using demonic stuff, that’s where I draw the line.”
