Halloween got me thinking about why we like to scare ourselves. I wondered: What are we doing with what I’ll call our “horror art?”

Of the many potential reasons I pondered regarding the popularity of horror art, the one I found most intriguing was the idea that we’re trying to tell ourselves something. It’s my premise that we write and consume horror art because on some level, each of us knows that deep down a monster is lurking within us.

Think about it. Aren’t the scariest films the ones in which any of the main characters could turn into a monster? And don’t the monsters tell us more about ourselves than we might be willing to admit?

Maybe you’ve been a vampire at some point in your past, coming out at night to use your powers of persuasion to mesmerize a victim out of whom you’ll literally drink life so that you can feel unnaturally alive and powerful.

Maybe you’re afraid that under the right circumstances you too could transform from a regular person into a ferocious beast and tear apart those loved ones unfortunate enough to be around when your moon is full.

Or maybe you feel like you walk around dead, feeding on the living and turning them into a zombie just like yourself.

See what I’m getting at?

While following this line of reasoning, I noticed that one thing which unified many of the creatures in our horror art was their misplaced hunger. They were scary because they like eating humans.

The apostle Paul warned us that the same is true for us.

In Galatians 5:13-16 he said, ^”You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature^?; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ^?If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”

Our misplaced hunger does as much damage to our victim’s souls as our monster’s misplaced hunger does to their victim’s bodies.

One might think that the problem is our hunger, but interestingly enough the Scriptures don’t criticize us for having hungry souls, just for trying to feed on the wrong things. Pascal wisely observed in Pensees #425 that our soul’s infinite appetites are meant to point us toward the infinite being we were meant to feed upon.

This is why Jesus said in John 6:53-58, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ^?Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. ^?Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.”

So the question becomes: What are we feeding on? And the answer to that question determines whether we are actually living monsters or spiritually transformed consumers of the Bread of Life.