Until recently Hollywood vampires were sequestered to live only in darkness. Werewolves came out when the moon was full. In haunted house stories like The Haunting, ghostly happenings are almost purely nocturnal activities. Some relatively new horror stories—2000’s Pitch Black or 2007’s 30 Days of Night, the storytellers create worlds where darkness lasts a lot longer. In Ridley Scott’s classic Alien, the terrors lurk in a dark, cold universe, where the sun can never rise.
In these stories, the characters fear. They doubt. Some give up. Some scoff and, almost always, die for their doubt. Some light our shaking candles and pray for the light.
All that is what makes Christmas such a metaphorically powerful holiday.
I don’t think most Christian scholars believe that Jesus was born on Dec. 25. But there’s a powerful symbolism attached to when we celebrate it. The date—so close to the Winter Solstice—tells believers something remarkable: That a light was born into a dark, doubting, fearful world. That we need not fear the darkness any longer.
The Conjuring 2 gleefully upturns at times this Christian sensibility up on its head. Never will you hear a creepier version of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” anywhere. But in spite of that corrupted Christmas carol, the movie still believes. In the midst of the darkness and fear, it tells us, there’s hope. There’s light. There’s Jesus. And He’s more powerful than any ghost or demon that might come a calling.
Ed tells Janet about his own first frightening experience with the paranormal—when something actually reached out from under his bed and grabbed him. Ed, still a child, ran to his father. His dad (perhaps playing a bit of the doubter himself) gave Ed a crucifix and asked Ed to tell this thing to get lost. And if it didn’t, God was going to “kick its butt.”
That sense of power pervades The Conjuring 2: That God—and His servants—can kick demon butt. It might not be always easy. The cost may be great. But in the end, the demons don’t stand a chance.
I probably don’t need to say what day it was when the true evil in the Hodgson house is finally dispelled: Christmas Day. The day when Light vanquished darkness, when hope toppled fear. The horror is gone, the day has come. Glory to the newborn King.
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