The Problem of Kevin
The movie Warlock
is not for me.
I finally thought
I would write down my feelings—and yes, they are “feelings” about that movie.
So be warned. This
is not going to be a glowing review.
The movie HAS been
a major influence on my life, since way back when I saw it in the early nineties. It's why I saw Julian Sands at the recent Days of the Dead horror convention, and had one of my drawings autographed by him.
As many fans can attest, Warlock is a generally underappreciated horror movie, and often I have trouble finding info on it mainstream horror mags and sites.
When I first saw it, it was a rousing adventure, though I thought it could have been scarier. Save for one scene on the plane where Kassandra sees this man coming down a staircase dressed all in black. But it turns out its not the Warlock after all (Whew!)
At the time I saw it, I was really into monsters and special effects in horror. It turned out that writer Twohy intended to have some (a scene where Redfern confronts a succubus in the form of his murdered wife, and one in which the Warlock morphs into a black hellhound), but the budget wouldn't permit it.
It is definitely been a major influence on my outlook on life, and especially
my opinion of religious faith. I can’t really talk about the movie Warlock (1989), staring Julian sands as
the title character without discussing religion, since it is so integrated into
the plot.
Well, you know the
story: A diabolically evil warlock is captured by witchhunter Giles Redfern (Richard
E. Grant), and is sentenced to death when Satan whisks his disciple into the
late 1989s, and across the country to LA. Redfern fallows, gets caught in the
time storm with him, and they both end up in the modern world. Redfern winds up
teaming with Kassandra, a young diabetic woman who’s had an aging spell placed
on her by the warlock. The villain travels across the country, the heroes in
pursuit, as he leaves a trail of blood across America as he searches for the
Grand Grimoire, which contains the secret name of God that will undo creation
when spelled backward.
That’s a pretty
imaginative concept. Screenwriter David Twohy based his story solidly on
Puritan folklore, and even made a trip to Salem to do research. It is a
little-known fact that Twohy had originally intended this extremely evil
character to be good and for the witch-hunter to be the bad guy. That, one
would think, would make sense, as many innocent people were infamously accused of
witchcraft, not only in America, but even more so in Britain and across Europe.
Historically witch-hunters included some very monstrous people indeed,
including the notorious witchfinder Mathew Hopkins.
So just what’s up
here? Twohy found out that his original concept for the film just didn’t work. Why
didn’t? There is something intrinsic about the horror genre itself, and it got
especially blatant during the 80s era, that is ruthlessly pro-tradition. E. Michael
Jones, author of the book Monsters of the
Id (Formerly titled Horror: A
Biography), argues that the horror genre serves as an outlet for
deep-seated fears that “liberal” Enlightenment values are bankrupt, and
supposed liberation from traditional values (especially in the form of the sex
revolution of the 60s and 70s), really brings death and destruction, epitomized
in the movies in the form of the monster. The monster in horror, is in fact,
what we get for abandoning tradition. We’ve all heard the rules:
Never have sex
Don’t wander off
alone
Don’t drink or use
drugs
Don’t party
And especially, don’t
be a jerk
While the last
rule is more neutral, the rest are hardly liberal or progressive. I’ve been
surprised over the years to find so many involved in the horror genre are
secular and politically left of center. The most likely reason for this is that
the genre is famous for breaking taboos and exploring taboo areas. Unless the
film in question is deliberately liberal (intended to promote a progressive
agenda), the plots of horror extremely conservative. The conservative mindset,
as has often been observed is a cautionary one, often fearful (too large a
topic in itself to explore further right now), so it is natural at a fear that
tradition might be right all along would express itself in the one genre
devoted to fear.
As E. Michael Jones
observes, many writers of horror do not appear to understand what their own
movies are about.
David Twohy very
clearly doesn’t know what his movie is about. I was certain when I saw it that
whoever wrote must be a Fundamentalist Christian. He isn’t. He has even said
that though he isn’t religious himself, he’s very interested in religion and
what drives people to it. Conservative Catholic columnist John Zmirak, however,
gets Warlock exactly right:
Starring two
terrific British actors, Julian Sands and Richard E. Grant, this film is
refreshing in part because it shows a preacher as the enemy of the Devil —
albeit a witch-hunter from Puritan Massachusetts (Grant). He is pulled through
time to 1980s Los Angeles in pursuit of a deadly warlock (Sands), who seeks to
complete a book of satanic spells with enormous destructive power. The film
takes the conflict of good and evil with absolute deadly seriousness, and shows
the connection of modern, New Age mysticism with genuine black magic. Leave
aside a little goofball dualism (required to make the plot make sense), and
you’ve got a gripping, old-fashioned thriller whose moral compass points to
true north. Such a movie probably couldn’t be made in Hollywood now — unless it
cast the warlock as the hero and the pastor as the villain.
As already
mentioned, that last idea, was in fact, Twohy’s original concept for the film!
What is surprising though, is that the secular world has no problem with the
movie Warlock. Very few people, I’ve
noticed, comment on what I first saw as the elephant standing in the living
room. The entire (though seemingly unintended) message of Warlock is this:
We secular,
enlightened humans of the 20th and 21st centuries, are
wrong fatally wrong in our world view. The conservative “superstitious”
Puritans of the 17th century were right all along.
When the Warlock
winds up in our own time, he finds a population of sitting ducks who don’t even
believe in magic or witches, and certainly don’t take the Bible or God as
having any kind of real authority.
The main victim I’m
talking about though, is, of course, is little Kevin Donaldson (whose name I discovered
from a single photographed page from Ray Garton’s novelization. I haven't read the entire book). The
eight-year-old unbaptized child. This is why I walked out of the movie during
this very brief scene, because I was really terrified they were going to let
the Warlock kill the child. The fact that the kid was getting snotty with the Warlock
made me certain the child was doomed, because that’s what horror movies do,
when they want to make viewers NOT sympathize with the victim. I didn’t get far enough though, before I
heard the gas station attendent tell Kassandra and Redfern that a child’s flayed
corpse had been found. I wanted to wretch.
What was worse,
the manner in which the child was killed, or the injustice of the death itself?
And, though I’m
admittedly biased against child deaths in books and movies, this one is
possibly the worst.
Why? It’s very important
to emphasize this: I’m not disturbed by this ONLY because it was a kid who
died. It was a fact that they killed a kid because he wasn’t in church like a
good little Christian.
Why on earth do secularists have no problem with
that? I think of Kevin often when I hear atheists talk smugly about how
enlightened they are, and especially how they think children should be raised
without God or religious dogma, so they can “think for themselves.” Yeah,
right.
I doubt seriously
it’s even possible to concoct a more devastating critique of atheist parenting
than this scene.
Kevin is like the
child in that Little Orphant Annie
poem, by James Whitcomb Riley:
Once there was a little boy who wouldn't
say his prayers, and when he went to bed at night away up stairs, his mammy
heard him holler and his daddy heard him bawl, and when they turned the covers
down, he wasn't there at all!
Which would
frighten the daylights out of any poor kid already afraid of the dark who had to sleep
in an upstairs bedroom. But that’s a whole other topic.
The thing with
Kevin is that he isn’t being willful or disobedient about church. He’s not out
on that playground playing hokey. He makes it clear that’s his father who
hates “that stuff about Jesus” and forbids him to go.
How is Kevin, at
eight years old, supposed to know that Christianity is one true faith? The only reason I know myself is that the Holy Spirit spoke to me. How is
he supposed to understand the importance of churchgoing or baptism? He’s just
soaked up the atheism his father has poured in his ear, and the movie punishes
him with death!
Children aren’t
ready to yet understand these things, which is why children were forbidden to
take communion at the church I grew up in. It is also why the Mennonites do not
practice child baptism. And anyone who has seen Warlock remembers that Redfern
also saves a Mennonite family from the Warlock a bit later. Though, according
to the movie, the Mennonites are wrong in this particular belief, it’s very
significant to note that the elder Mennonite has stuck strictly to tradition,
is able to recognize the witch-signs was well as Redfern, and the two of them
team up against the villain.
It’s likely then
that what is really punishing here is ANY rejection of tradition. Horror does
this all the him. Ancient Indian burial grounds may be pagan, not Christian,
but woe to any who do not take heed of superstitions surrounding them!
Another thing is,
of course, how Kevin is portrayed right before his death. He gets sassy with
the Warlock about being a real witch, which looks very like a typical horror-film
“justification” for a victim’s death. It’s this conversation that makes Kevin’s
death an ironic one. The same is true for Warlock’s
other victims as well, all of whom are basically boiled in their own pudding.
And that leads to
what Julian Sands has often said in regard to his character, and what drew him
to this movie: that the Warlock is similar to Shakespearean villains like
Macbeth and Richard the III. There’s certainly merit in that comparison, given
that Warlock seeks ultimate power, and is willing to kill anyone to achieve
that goal, but ultimately works his own destruction.
But while both
those wicked Shakespearean villains are even willing to murder children, those
children, like Macduff’s young son in Macbeth, who gets murdered by Macbeth’s
hired killers, aren’t portrayed as arrogant little snots like Kevin is.
Just think: The
movie has a villain is nothing less than the most extreme diabolic evil.
According to the Palladium role-playing game system, which I often cite when discussing
morality, diabolic is lowest alignment, and such character will use, harm or
kill an innocent without a second thought or for pleasure. That fits the
Warlock perfectly. I remember someone told me when I brought this up that the
main purpose of this scene is to show how evil the Warlock is, and that he’s
capable of anything.
Well, the scene does
make that clear. But why make the child victim an annoying little twat, and give
him an ironic death, if that were the purpose?
It’s perfectly
obvious why if you’ve seen horror. The Warlock is “pure evil”, but in a twisted
sense he is also punishing vice, or at least niavety, in Kevin’s case.
And Kevin IS very niave,
even for a child. Personally, I’d have run at very sight of the Warlock, and
the reason Kevin doesn’t do so can only be explained by horror movie victim
mentality According to Warlock fan
and expert Brian Ladoceur, whom have had conversations about this movie, in Ray
Garton’s novelization, he fleshes Kevin’s character out a bit, and makes it
clear that Kevin has been warned against talking to strangers (though seemingly
more fore snobbish reasons than safety ones). Garton appears to be trying to
shifting the focus away from the family’s lack of faith, by emphasizing Kevin’s
foolishness by putting himself in danger. Yes, Garton makes it plain that in
talking to the Warlock Kevin is being DISOBEDIANT. Though Kevin is obviously
being very silly and naïve, I’ve really pretty much hated cautionary tales,
where a character is punished by losing his life for this reason. And the
reason for that is simple—one’s foolishness or naivety are not moral qualities don’t
really make one “not innocent” as Garton may be trying portray Kevin, and even
make all the more worthy of being saved from harm.
And does Kevin’s
death encourage viewers to despise the Warlock, as it shows just how far he
will go?
Hardly. Most
viewers seem more amused by this scene than anything else. And yes, some
actively root for the Warlock during this and his other killings.
Not all, though.
There are some viewers who see the warlock as nothing more than a villain, and
the movie is about the clash of good and evil, with good ultimately triumphing.
Brian Ladoceur, aforementioned, is one.
But aside from those who actually root for the
villain, most don’t really care about Kevin because he’s not a main character.
Which brings me to one last thing.
And that is the
fact that I have often seen posts defending this scene or cheering it on, not because
a child died per se, but because the filmmakers were supposedly so brave for
offing a kid. They don’t seem to notice the religious thing regarding Kevin’s
death at all, only that kid was killed, and they think it took guts to do that.
That’s poppycock.
The novel that
established horror as a genre, Mary Shelly’s
Frankenstein, has the monster murder a child after the kid acted snotty to him.
And the movie with Boris Karloff has the monster kill another child by
accidently drowning her. Then there is death a young child who foolishly went
swimming in the very famous movie Jaws.
I could go on and on about the kids offed on screen or on page. And let’s not
forget Halloween III.
Certainly, there
are certain child deaths that have provoked outrage. Like the death of Theodore
“Tad” Trenton in Stephen King’s Cujo
(book version). But the Tadder was not only intentionally adorable, he was the
central child in the story, whom readers were enticed in caring very much about,
before King delivered the devastating blow at the end. And he received truckloads
of letters protesting Tad’s death. Then there is Frank Darabont, who gave the
film version of King’s The Mist a
very deliberately crafted tragic ending, after getting his audience to empathize for his main character and his young son, the latter of whom dies, of
course. And just he actually wanted, many people were outraged.
Where are the
letters for Kevin? They don’t exist because Kevin was just a one-note that was
introduced only to be killed (though in the Garton novel, we get to know him a
bit better). And they don’t see the injustice involved with his being coached
to believe a worldview.
On that note, I’ll
end by briefly by showing a passage from conservative Protestant reviewer Ted Baehr
of Warlock:
Although the writing in WARLOCK contains
some blasphemous ideas about God, it is not the type of film that seeks to
blatantly promote the cause of evil. In fact, considering their context,
statements made by unchurched characters against baptism and Christianity
actually come out on the side of Christianity and baptism, when one considers
what befalls them.
On the other hand,
totally anathema to and forbidden by God, the Warlock goes to a spiritist and
says, “Channel me a spirit.” The demonic, ghoulish apparition that results is
one reason why WARLOCK is not a film for Christians, but for the unsaved it may
at least start them thinking on things like the evils of witchcraft, church
going and baptism–and, lead them to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Baehr seems to have
totally missed the significance of the Channeler’s death scene, which is
obvious repudiation of the occult! But there is only one “unchurched character’ who makes
a statement against Christianity here. Strange that Baehr doesn’t tell his
audience he’s talking about a child.
Here's is sample from the Garton novel that reveal's the child's name:
