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This episode has been edited for clarity and space.
Phil Tallon
I’m Phil Tallon. I’m an Associate Professor of Theology at Houston Christian University, and I also serve as the Dean of the School of Christian Thought.
David Capes
Dr. Philip Tallon. Phil, good to see you. Welcome to the podcast.
Phil Tallon
David, very happy to be here.
David Capes
This is your first appearance on “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”
Phil Tallon
Indeed. Longtime listener, first time interviewee.
David Capes
All right, so you just got promoted. Congratulations.
Phil Tallon
Yes, I’m an associate professor now. I don’t assist as much, and I just associate mostly. I also serve as the Dean of the School of Christian Thought here.
David Capes
You all have done great work over the years, and have had and still have, great faculty. For those who don’t know you, tell us a little bit about you.
Phil Tallon
Well, I’m a military kid. I grew up here, there, and everywhere. I have a lovely, intelligent, easy-going wife who has been very gracious to move with me throughout all the schooling. I’m sure you know a little bit about that. I did my PhD at the University of St Andrews, where I was a part of the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts. That’s really my area of study and of interest, the intersection between Christian theology and human creativity. How those two things can talk to each other well. I came to Houston Baptist University about 11 years ago. Got to work with you a bit. We have four kids, two in college and two still at home. And I’m the owner of the world’s hairiest dog. He’s a husky. So we’re the Huskies here at HCU, and I also have a husky.
David Capes
What is your Husky’s name?
Phil Tallon
My Husky’s name is Naga. He’s a big, 70-pound dog!
David Capes
Wow, that’s big for a husky. That’s like almost Malamute territory.
Phil Tallon
He looks like a wolf. And if a burglar comes along, and they see him, they might be afraid. But if they encountered him, they would no longer be afraid. He’d give them a tour of the house.
David Capes
Yes, we had some Huskies early on. We love them. They’re beautiful dogs. Okay, you’re writing this book on horror movies. It’s entitled “Cinema Inferno, How Horror Movies Can Save Your Soul.” Interesting title. And you have a co-writer.
Phil Tallon
That’s right. One of our graduates here from the MA in Apologetics. His name is Cameron McAllister.
David Capes
Okay, well, I look forward to meeting him one day. Sounds like an interesting guy. He works with the C.S. Lewis Institute?
Phil Tallon
That’s right, he works with the C.S. Lewis Institute. He’s a working apologist and does a lot of work in that space of cultural apologetics. Trying to listen carefully to the questions that people in the culture have and offer satisfying answers from the Christian faith.
David Capes
I think that’s a great gift to be able to listen to culture and discern the crucial questions. I don’t think it’s as easy as some people might think. Let’s talk about your book. What’s the big idea of your book? What’s going on here?
Phil Tallon
Yes, “Cinema Inferno, How Horror Movies Can Save Your Soul.” It’s a punchy title to catch people’s attention, but the big idea is that horror movies, really good ones, can be great conversation starters for theological conversations. They often take evil seriously, or they present us with the figure of evil, and that’s important in human life, reality, and Christian theology. They can give weight to the experience of evil and cause us to wrestle with that. And we think that there are some deep theological implications when you wrestle with what evil is, how it affects us, what’s necessary to defeat it and overcome it. And so, we use a series of different excellent horror movies to talk about a series of different questions. What it means to live in a universe where you think that there’s no God. What that entails. That would be a cosmic horror. That the universe itself is this hostile, anti-human entity.
David Capes
I think of the movie “Alien” when it comes to that.
Phil Tallon
That’s one of the classics we talk about. Which is, what if humans are no longer on the top of the evolutionary chain. We’re not the apex predators anymore and wrestling with the implications of what that looks like and what that might mean. A film like Alien doesn’t offer a hopeful answer to our questions but it does make us stop and reflect. Is this actually what I think the universe is? If you don’t have any account for deeper hope, if you don’t have an account for where morality comes from, then you might be left with the implication that film offers. It’s a chance to shock us for a moment into taking stock of what we really believe and if we’re willing to accept the implications.
David Capes
When I was a child, there were the Dracula movies and Werewolf movies and Frankenstein. Those were the horror movies I remember being fascinated by. I had models of “The Werewolf” and “Frankenstein” and the “Creature from the Black Lagoon.” I had those models that you build and paint. Let’s back up, though. We’re both academics. What is horror exactly? What do you mean by that?
Phil Tallon
The word is used differently in different contexts. Etymologically, it actually comes from “to bristle”, like when the hair on your arms stands up. It’s associated with this fear response, and that’s the most consistent connection that it’s associated with, causing fear. Philosophically, I think that we often use horror to refer to extreme evils. They’re evils that are part of human life in this fallen world.
But then we talk about something being a horror is that it’s an extreme evil. There’s a philosopher and theologian named Marilyn McCord Adams. She has a number of books on horror in theology and philosophy. And she refers to them as life-destroying evils. Evils that cause you to question whether or not your life can be good to you on the whole. And that’s her way of philosophically getting at an extreme evil. I think that in artistic terms, so studying it as a genre of art, very often genres are associated with an intended emotional response.
If you pick up a thriller from Netflix, from that category, you know what you’re going to experience, suspense. Pick a comedy and you’re going to experience comic amusement. If you pick up a horror film, I think the intended emotional response is likely to be something like fear. Also, revulsion that you’re going to encounter a monster that is not just threatening to the characters but is actually threatening somehow by their very existence.
David Capes
The fact that that thing can exist at all is just awful.
Phil Tallon
Yes. With a vampire it’s a being that’s seemingly unkillable, that desires to prey on humans, to drink their blood. Who’s charming, but also truly evil in their intents. There’s something about the existence of this very thing, which, we recoil from. I think that is the best way of capturing it, most consistently. When we’re talking about a horror film, they’re going to present us with a figure of evil that’s both scary and then also repulsive.
