There are several supernaturally-themed horror movies coming to the cineplex this summer, but perhaps none is more anticipated by horror film buffs that the remake of the ’70s cult classic “The Omen,” which opens next week–on 6-06-06 to be exact. And while I am not a big fan of watching blood, guts, and demonic possession, I did come across an interview with the director of this latest look at the life of Damien, a child who is switched at birth and is actually the Antichrist, that offers an interesting look at the spiritual thought process behind the making of the story.

In the interview, director John Moore, who describes himself as a lapsed Catholic who still believes in God, admits he did worry about the sensational nature of the material in the movie and wondered whether or not he was “pissing God off” by directing this project. However, Moore concluded in the end he wanted to make this movie as a symbolic exercise in examining the very dark times we live in. According to Moore, one character in the movie says, “A great evil this way comes.” He hopes that the evil represented in the movie will be “interpretable in several ways, whether it be the (current) Christian-Muslim tension, or the fact that we’re destroying the planet we live on…”

While I understand that these kinds of films can provide emotional catharsis for those who enjoy them, I have never been completely convinced that the horror genre is a great way to examine deeper spiritual questions. But maybe I am wrong. If the director of a horror movie finds himself questioning his own spirituality, maybe those questions really will find their way to the big screen.