Episode 4: Revelation, Rapture, Reds, and Revival

 

Episode 4: Revelation, Rapture, Reds, and Revival

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In this episode, we’re wading into the weird old waters of Christploitation and Evangelical Prophecy Horror, concerning ourselves less with portrayals of Jesus himself than with the ways in which certain tenets of fundamentalist Christian doctrine pertaining to the Second Coming and the End of Days found expression in two low budget, high stakes independent films produced in the early 1970s: Ron Ormond’s deliriously gruesome If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? (1971), and Donald W. Thompson’s widely circulated rapture thriller A Thief In The Night (1972). The episode situates readings of both films within the wider context of a discussion touching upon rapture anxiety, premillennial dispensationalism, revivalism, and the evangelical thriller’s utilisation and weaponization of elements more readily associated with exploitation cinema.

 

Bibliography

 Tom Aitken. “Perversion and Fulfilment: Revivalist Christianity in The Night of The Hunter” in Cinéma Divinité: Religion, Theology And The Bible In Film. Edited by Eric S. Christianson, Peter Francis, and William R. Telford. London: SCM Press, 2005. 253-265.  

 Matthew Guest. “Keeping the End in Mind: Left Behind, the Apocalypse and the Evangelical Imagination.” Literature and Theology Vol. 26, No. 4 (November 2012). 474-488

 Andrew Leavold, “’That’s Godsploitation!’: Tim Ormond on his family’s Christian gore films.” Mondo Stumpo! November 25, 2007. Available Online.

 S. Brent Plate. “Apocalyptabuse, Or How To Survive ‘The End.’” Killing The Buddah, May 6 2020. Available Online. https://killingthebuddha.com/mag/damnation/apocalyptabuse-or-how-to-survive-the-end/

 Daniel Radosh, Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture. New York: Scribner, 2008.

 Tony Shaw. “Martyrs, Miracles, and Martians: Religion and Cold War Cinematic Propaganda in the 1950s.” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol.4, No.2 (Spring 2002). 3-22.

 Andrew B. Stone. “’Overcoming Peasant Backwardness’: The Khrushchev Antireligious Campaign and the Rural Soviet Union.” The Russian Review, Vol. 67, No.2 (April 2008). 296-320.

 Molly Worthen. “Culture Wars and the Christian Right.” University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 2017. Lecture.

 

Web Resources

 Churchwave-VBS

 

 Audio Clip Sources

 A Thief In The Night (1972, dir. Donald W. Thompson)

 If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? (1971, dir. Ron Ormond)

 The Late, Great Planet Earth (1978, dirs.. Robert Amram, Rolf Forsberg)