10 Scary Movies Where The Religious People Are The Bad Guys

The Devils was directed by the genius filmmaker Ken Russell. It is based on the true story of Urbain Grandier, a Roman Catholic priest, as told in The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley. In the film, during a plague, Cardinal Richelieu consolidates his political power by demolishing fortifications around French towns, making it impossible for Protestants to rise against the government and the church. Grandier opposes the order to destroy Loudoun's fortifications and is accused of witchcraft by the jealous Sister Jeanne des Anges, who secretly loves Grandier. What follows are scenes where the nuns are tortured by the Catholic inquisitor and fly into a sacrilegious ecstasy of sexual chaos. Catholics against Catholics and the greed for political power is the reason for the horror. The film was so controversial that it was censored and cut, given an X rating, and even fifty-two years later, the film still hasn't been released on physical media by the studio that made it. But even some Catholic writers believe it to be "misunderstood." It is a magnificent spectacle of realistic terror.

Lucio Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling is a film about a town where children are being murdered, and a local gypsy and witch, La Magiara, becomes the prime suspect because the superstitious villagers fear her. But the culprit is the beloved and well-mannered local priest, Don Alberto. In his religious mania, the priest believes that he is preventing the children from becoming sinners by killing them. Because of the film's themes that were critical of the Catholic Church, the film was effectively suppressed because its release was limited in Europe, and it wasn't released theatrically in the United States until Anchor Bay issued a DVD of the film.

The Sacrament, directed by Ti West, is a realistic found-footage religious horror film based on the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana. With a central chilling and charismatic performance by Gene Jones as Father, the head of the Eden Parish, it is 100% realistic horror. It is not the supernatural but the evil that humans inflict upon themselves. It is modernized by including a Vice News crew there to make a documentary. It's genuinely frightening because it is so real.

Children of the Corn is an adaptation of the Stephen King story, where the children of a town called Gatlin, murder all of the adults, and their leader Issac forms a religious cult that worships He Who Walks Behind The Rows. Their deity requires sacrifice, so at the age of 18, every member of the cult walks into the corn to be killed. While this is a twisted version of religion, it is based on Christianity. The most haunting things about this not-very-scary film are the children cast as Issac and Malachi, the bloodthirsty leaders of the cult, played by John Franklin and Courtney Gains. Who is He Who Walks Behind The Rows? Could it be a demon? That question is never answered, but it does say something about believing unthinkingly in religion.

Black Death is the story of a group of soldiers with a novice monk as their guide to a village that they believe is led by a necromancer. Their bishop sends them to arrest the sorcerer and bring the leaders to the bishop for execution. The story takes place during the Black Death period, hence the name. The monk Osmund, played by Eddie Redmayne, has broken his vows with a beautiful young woman and seeks to escape the monastery. It turns out that none of the people in the village are sorcerers, and in the end, Osmund becomes another cold punisher of women that he imagines are the woman he blames for the loss of his love.

Jim Mickle's Stake Land is a mostly undiscovered gem. The film has twin villains. Vampires are a problem since the vampire plague has destroyed the world. But the other enemy of humanity is a fundamentalist militia, The Brotherhood, that will not tolerate human settlements. Jebedia Loven, the militia's leader, believes that the vampire apocalypse is the work of God, so everyone must become a vampire. Mister, a lone vampire hunter, meets Martin, Sister, and Belle. Loven captures them, escapes, and then finds out that The Brotherhood helped the vampires destroy America by ramming cars filled with vamps through barricades set up by the Armed Forces and crashing airplanes full of vampires into cities that had survived.

Stigmata is a film where an atheist hairdresser seemingly starts exhibiting the stigmata of Christ and is later possessed by an unknown spirit. It turns out that Frankie, played by Patricia Arquette, is possessed by the spirit of Father Paulo Alameida, who was excommunicated for trying to translate a possible new gospel of Christ that a Cardinal ordered him to abandon. Cardinal Houseman tries to perform an exorcism on Frankie and then attempts to kill her, so we know who the bad guy is.

Mark of the Devil is a violent German horror film about witch trials that stars a young Udo Kier as Count Christian von Meruh. The Count is the witch hunter of Lord Cumberland who slowly becomes aware that the witch trials are a cover for stealing land and money and being able to take advantage of women. He is angry to find that the horrible things he has done don't have anything to do with fighting evil at all.

End of the Line is a lesser-known Canadian horror film directed by Maurice Devereaux. In the movie, Karen, played by Ilona Elkin, is on a late-night subway ride when a Christian doomsday cult starts distributing hallucinogenic muffins. As people start to suffer hallucinations at an arranged time, the cultists begin to take over communications networks and slaughter people as the people on the subway train fight to survive.