In an earlier article, we discussed how God’s truth can be hidden in secular fiction. It may seem like a concept that we are comfortable with regarding the average fantasy or science fiction. Even in last week’s look at A Brave New World, we could maybe understand how God could speak through a darker story. But there is a genre that most Christians will shy away from. Today I’d like to look at what God has to teach us about the enemy within us all through the brilliant, but twisted and terrifying Sci-Fi horror movie, Annihilation.
The Enemy that is Fear
My roommate was climbing up the back of the couch. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this. I don’t like this,” she repeated.
I had been introducing her to some of my favorite horror and science fiction movies over the last few months. Our taste is very similar when it comes to books, and she doesn’t hesitate at dark stories, but horror is not a first choice for her. As it is not for many Christians. She wanted to have me nearby when she started exploring the genre. Annihilation is one of my favorite Science Fiction Horror movies. My roommate, not so much terrified as confused by the weird fiction, could only express that the move made her incredibly uneasy, until the infamous “bear scene.” If you have watched the movie you know exactly which one I’m talking about.
Hearing the mangled voice of a dead character coming from the rotting face of the bear scared me too when I first saw it. Afterward, however, the concept thrilled me. Yes, because of the fear, but also because of the messages it contained.
I have also listened to the audiobook, the first in the Southern Reach trilogy, which falls somewhere into sci-fi horror, ecological horror, and weird fiction. It is a book that can best be described as “trippy”, and the movie gives the same feeling. For this article, though, we are focusing on the movie.
Annihilation follows a scientist who enters a strange phenomenon called “the shimmer” that has appeared in Florida. For several years, people have gone into the other-worldly, glimmering bubble, and never returned. When Lena’s husband returns from his journey inside and immediately collapses, she enters along with a group of scientists. She is a biologist, a useful skill especially when paired with her military past.
Inside the team of scientists find a strangely warped landscape and bizarre, unexplainable creatures. Some of these phenomena include a plant growing flowers from multiple species on one vine, an albino alligator with shark’s teeth, and perfectly mirrored deer with flowering branches in place of their antlers.
As time progresses things become more and more terrifying and bewildering. The team finds a video showing a man’s organs turned into a snake-like entity, alive inside him. They also encounter the above-mentioned bear. After killing one of the scientists it takes on the final cries, and possibly some of the consciousness, of the woman it devoured.
Arguably the greatest danger the team faces comes from their own secrets.
The Threat Within
The highlight of this movie isn’t this excellent display of unnerving ideas and the threatening subtext beneath it all. It is the themes woven through it and around it that make this movie so memorable.
Lena is going into the shimmer in an attempt to save her husband, a secret she keeps from her team. It is an aspect that causes tension later. We as the audience find out that there is an added layer of complexity. Lena was engaging in an affair. When her husband, Kane learned her secret, he volunteered for what was essentially a suicide mission.
Lena has a conversation with Shepherd, the teammate who would later be killed by the bear. Shepherd exposes to Lena that no one comes on a mission such as they are on without severe trauma. One of the team members is in the final stages of cancer. Shepherd herself lost a child. Another was the victim of abuse. Yet another struggles with depression, self-harm, and suicide attempts.
The conversation seems to be little more than character building at first, but as you watch the theme is expertly woven into every aspect of the movie. We find out that the shimmer, caused by an alien entity that has crashed into a lighthouse on the coast, acts as what is described as a “prism” for DNA. It blends and mixes not just the genetics inside each person, but the DNA of every organic thing around them, as well. As a result, the characters begin to feel betrayed by their own bodies.
Each of the characters, with the exception of perhaps, Shepherd, chooses their end. The trauma that drew them in, is the same trauma that drives them to their ultimate undoing.
All of these pieces culminate in the final confrontation. Lena witnesses a video of her husband killing himself with a grenade, followed shortly by a glimpse of another person who perfectly resembles her husband. Lena then must battle a being that similarly morphs into an exact copy of her.
In an interview, the director spoke about the message he was working to convey with the story. The biologist main character of the book had a primary focus in ecology. Her point of view reflected to us the themes of destruction and the horrors humans inflict on the environment. The character created for the movie is former military and now teaches biology with a focus on the human body. Most notably we see her teaching about cancer cells early in the movie and referencing them later. This too reflects the deeper theme of betrayal from within.
The movie expresses the all too human tendency, according to the director, towards self-sabotage.
Sin Nature Creates an Enemy Within Us All.
Early horror stories reveal the fears of their age. In modern times we are quick to crow of self-acceptance and changing society to fit our needs. It is the tried and true Disney film message about loving yourself. In many of the horror genre’s first books, however, particularly in the case of Science Fiction Horror, the mentality was markedly different. There was an acknowledgement that we are our own worst enemy.
The idea is one that is very common in the minds of most people who haven’t been touched by our post-modern understanding of self. While in the modern world we see the natural self as good, pure and right and worthy of being accepted, and society or other authorities as being the enemy, the old mindset was that of a more dichotomous being. Like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or the wickedness of Dorian Grey reflected in his portrait, most people considered themselves to be divided in half. Part of them was the more socially acceptable, and good part. The other half was a terrifying sinful monster that would drive them to commit horrible deeds if they did not carefully control it.
The Christian view, however, is a much more wholistic view. While we are, like the trinity itself, the combination of body, mind, and spirit, we are one whole being. When sin infects us, it infects us all the way through.
Paul reflects the frustration we all face as our “flesh,” as our sin-nature is often described in scripture, plots our downfall from within: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Romans 19:19)
Christ reminds us in Matthew 12:34 that it is not something outside of ourselves, like society or trauma, that causes our sin. He preaches “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks”
The warped and transmuted DNA in Annihilation echoes the brokenness of the characters, who cannot even fully understand why they behave in the way they do. Lena deeply loves her husband, and we see how truly happy they are. Yet, she breaks her promises to him and takes another to her bed. It doesn’t just hurt him, it hurts her, her marriage, their future. She couldn’t say why she did it, but she did.
In a reflection of the theme of Annihilation, we so often make foolish choices. From small stumbles, like skipping the gym when we know how much better exercise makes us feel, to life-altering mistakes, like killing someone out of anger, we are constantly giving in to the flaws in ourselves.
What hope is there then? Or as Paul laments “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24)
In the climax of Annihilation, we see Lena battling against herself. While every other member of the team gives in to their self-destruction and are lost, Lena fights hers and is the only one who leaves alive apart from her husband. (arguably)
At the end of Annihilation, we see neither Lena nor Kane have escaped completely. A part of the shimmer still lives inside them both. It may feel the same for us. We may have to continually battle the sinful self who drives us to injure ourselves and everyone around us. A common parable tells of the two wolves who battle within us. One good and one evil. The one we feed, the story says, is the one who wins. Still, that leaves us with a starving wolf hunting out every move. One we can never irradicate.
We cannot win.
“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25) , we are not left to battle ourselves alone. Scriptures tells us “we have died, and we are hidden with Christ in God“ (Colossians 3:3) Our identity has been put to death with Christ on the cross. Instead of a starving wolf hunting us, the wolf has been put to death, and cannot hurt us anymore.
Christ has won the victory already, through the shedding of his blood. So, we are more than conquerors through him. (Romans 8:37) No longer slaves to our sin, we do not need to fear the threat that lies within us anymore. This is what the scriptures mean when it tells us that we are free indeed. (John 8:36). While before we had no option but to give in to sin, now we can choose between the two. We can either choose to climb back into the grave and act out death, or we can choose to escape that enemy within forever.
What a powerful thing it is that we are no longer prey to ourselves.
Join me Monday 9/29/2024 for a reading list to enjoy this autumn.
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