GENRE IN RELATION TO SACRUM. CRISIS OF FAITH, HORROR AND POP CULTURE

In the text “Genre in relation to sacrum. Crisis of faith, horror and pop culture” Samuel Nowak and Anna Taszycka ponder over the phenomenon of modern horror raising the subject of sacrum, especially in relation to the motive of possession and exorcism. The authors attempt to prove that the phenomenon is symptomatic for the transition from religiousness, understood in institutional and collective terms, to individual and contemplative spirituality. After analysing selected films from the perspective of “spirituality” (in the meaning given to it by Zbigniew Pasek) the authors conclude that today the pop cultural narrations which depict the new function of sacrum and shift the load from institution to an individual may become successful and accepted by viewers.According to the authors the traditional narration – which associates sacrum with a religious experience – is supplanted today by stories which treat sacrum rather in terms of a spiritual experience. This transformation leads to many possible alternative interpretations of selected films which in this text were described in categories of pensiveness or meta-interpretation.