Movie and Television Reviews

Description of The Lovely Bones, from Wiki:

In 1973, Susie Salmon (Ronan) is murdered by a neighbor, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), a serial killer of young girls and women. She finds herself in 'the in-between' a Heaven-like place, observing her family as they grieve for her. She also watches her killer who, having covered his tracks successfully, is preparing to murder again. Susie struggles to balance her desire for vengeance on Harvey and her desire to have her family recover from their loss.

The name for that "in-between" is "Purgatory."* I haven't seen the movie, but if Susie watches in agony, then her experience in the description can be a kind of spiritual cleansing ("burning anger," perhaps).

Reading the description got me to thinking about how Hollywood sometimes fudges afterlife orthodoxy for cinematic effect.

First, let's get the orthodoxy correct: According to traditional Christian teaching- and without talking about what people have to do to get to heaven- people die, are judged by our Lord, and then either condemned to Hell or experience eternal bliss in Heaven.

According to Hollywood:

1. People die and then go to Heaven where, after doing a good deed, they become angels (It's a Wonderful Life).

Wrong: God created angels before men. They're purely spiritual beings who were never people and will never become people. Neither will any people ever become angels. Lucifer, the guy on your left shoulder who told you to download Wolverine, is a fallen angel.

Right: There's an angel right next to you right now, guarding.

2. Mortals can condemn people to Hell (Drag Me to Hell).

Wrong: God makes that decision.

Right: Your Black Sabbath-loving roommate can set you on the path to Hell, or your crazy aunt brings a Ouija board and convinces you to invite demons who tell you to do wicked stuff which buys you a one-way ticket. So, indirectly, OK.

3. Overzealous angels wrongly take dead souls to Heaven. Cremated bodies cannot be restored (Heaven Can Wait).

Wrong: I'm pretty sure that Angels have stringent quality control measures about this stuff. It's true that anti-clerical forces during the Enlightenment encouraged cremation to explicitly deny the Christian belief in a bodily resurrection. It's also the case that those proto-Christophobes were wrong in thinking that the physical body needed to be preserved for resurrection to occur. Joe Pendleton (Warren Beatty) needn't have gone through the trouble.

Follow up:

4. Ghosts with "unfinished business" (Ghost Town, Casper, A Christmas Carol).

Wrong: A person who dies in mortal sin is probably not going to wandering the earth wandering ghost, as they'd be in Hell.

Right: Ghosts have a place in the economy of existence: Apparitions are in the Bible and every culture testifies to their existence.

If phantasms appear, they do so for a purpose. "Unfinished business" could be part of the purging phase, for example; if the point of a ghostly visit isn't to benefit the living by warning them that greed threatens the state of their soul.

5. Other ghosts (The Ring). ?

6. Poltergeists (Poltergeist, Amityville Horror): Nothing to say on this.

7. Exorcism (Exorcist, The Exorcism of Emily Rose).

Wrong: When it's in a James Bond movie.

Right: When based on true events like the movies in parentheses.

8. Leprechauns (Leprechaun I, II, III, etc. franchise): Ridiculous except for Back 2 tha Hood: the Irish are notoriously bad spellers.

9. Whatever the He..err...Heck happened in Hideaway: No. I don't think souls can transfer from one being to another and then do battle against each other, with the victorious soul resting comfortably inside his former body. I'm not sure if good souls are always blue and bad ones red: it might just be a stereotype.

10. Angels help sports teams win games (Angels in the Outfield).

Wrong: If this were the case, certainly the damned, infernal Yankees wouldn't have won this year.

Right: Then again, the angels in the movie did say that they couldn't help in championships.

11: The Devil makes bargains with people (Bedazzled, Devil's Advocate).

Wrong: I don't know if the Devil is that obvious about it. Would the Devil honor a signature?

Right: How else do you explain Sarah Jessica Parker's success?

Elizabeth Hurley and Raquel Welch both played the Evil One in Bedazzled. One question: Where do I sign? Just kidding, however, I'm solidly in the Welch camp on this one.

This isn't a comprehensive list by any means, but it can approach completeness with your help.

*Yes, I know Protestants don't believe in Purgatory.