Alley Beth Stuckey is a very smart and lovely person. I know her personally and, for the most part, I agree with most everything she says; however, I think she and I found a subject where we don't see eye to eye.
As she recently said in a post, she believes that Christians should not engage with horror content because it causes us to live in a "spirit of fear," which is the opposite of how Christ wanted us to live.
Christians shouldn’t be a fan of horror. You shouldn’t be reading books, or watching movies, or listening to true crime podcasts that make you scared. How many times do we read throughout Scripture: “Do not fear.” And yet, we purposefully consume content that makes us scared. This is a direct contradiction of Jesus’ commands to not be fearful or be anxious about anything.
— Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey (@RelatablewABS) October 20, 2026
Now, loyal readers will know that I'm a Christian, and that I find the Bible way more fascinating than anyone gives it credit for, especially when you explore contexts and ancient beliefs that went alongside it. My YouTube channel became popular off that very exploration.
However, one thing that I think would surprise many people is that I also love horror content. I'm not so much into gore, torture porn, or cheap jump scares like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or "Scream." In fact, that kind of horror bores me. The kind I tend to enjoy is the dread-inducing kind. Lovecraftian stories, explorations of the unknown and unseen, and stories that leave you with more questions than answers.
YouTubers specialize in this kind of content, because they can do quite a bit with very little, and only recently has Hollywood begun to catch up. "The Backrooms," a movie made by YouTuber Kane Parsons with help from A24, is a perfect example of this. It's an engaging mystery where the story doesn't just unfold on the surface. It's told through clues throughout the environment and odd moments that don't add up.
The same can be said for other movies that have come out recently from YouTubers such as Mark Fischbach (more popularly known as Markiplier), who created the movie "Iron Lung," based on a horror video game of the same name.
Funny enough, my YouTube career took off in earnest when I created a video that showed that cosmic horror and Christianity have a lot in common, and that even authors like The Inklings dabbled in writing it into their stories from time to time, because in a way, Christians know cosmic horror better than most other religions.
Now, does this mean that I live in a spirit of fear? Does this mean I'm encouraging others to do so?
Not really. I have some nuanced takes on the subject of horror.
For starters, I think pondering the unknown — where most horror exists — can be a fantastic exercise, and it's where advancement and conquering of fear happen. You're not taking that fear into yourself so much as facing it, analyzing it, and finding a way to conquer it. Funny enough, we do this with horror movies, books, and television series as well. There are entire YouTube channels dedicated to talking about how one could survive a horror scenario as described in a piece of fiction, and they're very popular.
A spirit of fear does not mean never engaging in anything that causes you to feel dread or anxiety. In fact, I'd say that living with a spirit of fear would cause you to avoid engaging in those things and keep those fears in the dark where they can become bigger and bigger, causing you to become less and less capable of dealing with said fear.
By Alley Beth's logic, one should never, ever, approach a roller coaster, as the entire experience involves putting you into a situation where fear and adrenaline are prime elements of the thrill. By and large, an analogue horror series involving doppelgangers and evil moon gods is safer than a roller coaster, because sometimes the roller coaster can actually break.
Horror also has a weird focusing element, too, and I don't think it's any accident that horror has become so much more popular in this day and age where everything is competing for your attention. Horror content actually forces you to pay attention and gives you a specific goal, which is oddly soothing in a world where there are 20 different things competing for your attention at any given moment.
And again, this doesn't cause people to exist in a state of dread or fear; it just causes them to interact with it, and in many cases, people find it so fascinating that it becomes something like a fun hobby.
The world is full of things that could terrify you, but I think the most terrifying thing of all is being terrified of everything and never trying to change that. I fear that's where Alley Beth's logic would take us, and so, as a Christian, I respectfully reject her suggestion.
