Mormon horror movies — about the religion or made by believers — are having a moment

There’s a new subgenre that’s gaining popularity in the film world: Mormon horror.

From Hugh Grant’s creepy turn in the thriller "Heretic" to FX’s "Under the Banner of Heaven" to the 2025 film "Diabolic" — there are more people interested in the darker sides of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or its fundamentalist offshoot the FLDS Church.

And a new short film starring Doug Jones as an eerie angel in Utah hits all the right notes.

[Soundbite from "The Angel" trailer]

That’s a taste of the new short film "The Angel," which was directed by the husband-and-wife team Barrett and Jessica Burgin. And they’re not interested outsiders or skeptical former Latter-day Saints. No, they’re active members of the church who say only those with a claim on the identity should be the ones telling stories like this.

Tamarra Kemsley wrote about it all for The Salt Lake Tribune. The Show spoke with her more about it.

Tamarra Kemsley

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Handout

Full conversation

TAMARRA KEMSLEY: When I talk to people who are doing LDS and/or Mormon art, it’s often a story of like, you know, I’m not really a part of it anymore, but it’s so much a part of me and this is my way of sort of understanding it and excavating these themes and how they shape me.

It was not like that at all with Barrett and Jessica Burgin, who as you said are the directors of this film. They are like, no, we’re totally in it. And in fact it’s our experience of growing up as sort of being otherized in the Bible Belt, they grew up together in, in Knoxville. That really led us to lean into and love and accept even some of the less mainstream aspects of Mormonism or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and to embrace that. And this is kind of a in some ways like a tortured love letter to their faith.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. And I want to talk about the story in the film in a moment, but it sounds like from your interview with them they also very much feel like you should have this kind of identity come from this background be able to claim it in order to tell those stories.

TAMARRA KEMSLEY: Yeah, so the in their director statement, they say that Mormon horror is an emerging subgenre and we feel strongly that those with a claim on that identity should be engaged in telling their own stories and histories.

And I think that’s just kind of a theme generally when you’re talking about minority groups and Latter-day Saints are certainly a minority, minority group within the realm of Christendom. That idea of like having it come from people who have experienced it firsthand. And then you have this added level like you said of they’re not just having grown up in it but they’re still a part of it and still own that identity currently.

LAUREN GILGER: So, OK, tell us about the plot line of “The Angel.” It hits on some kind of common themes in the history of the Mormon church, right? Like there is a polygamous trio, right? And this is around the 1880s.

TAMARRA KEMSLEY: So, it’s a husband, his two wives, they live very simple lives in the Utah Territory, it’s 1881. You see them like cutting vegetables and bringing home a kill from the Red Rock Mountains. And the idea is like all is well, they’re all happy together, it’s going great, polygamy is awesome, right?

And then you start to get a sense that there’s maybe a favorite among the wives and then oh, one of the wives is pregnant again, insinuating a past miscarriage because there are no children at this point in the story.

And I don’t want to give away too many spoilers but an otherworldly visitor comes to one of the women and delivers to her a revelation that polygamy is actually a quote "false covenant" and not from God. And so she invites her sister wife to come and meet this character, who is played by the incredible actor Doug Jones — who’s in "Pan’s Labyrinth," "Shape of Water," "Hocus Pocus" for lovers of that — invites her to come and meet this angel, he appears to be an angel, to receive the same revelation.

And they are told that they must shed the blood of their shared husband in order to be free from this relationship. And so it’s them grappling with whether or not to believe what they’ve been given.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So, as you said these directors talked about in their statement behind this film that this is a an emerging subgenre, this Mormon horror subgenre. What are some other films that come to mind for you in that genre?

TAMARRA KEMSLEY: The biggie of course is "Heretic" and that came out in 2024 and that has Hugh Grant playing an atheist who is trying to extinguish the faith of two missionaries, or as McKay Coppins himself a Latter-day Saint who works for The Atlantic says, it’s a movie about an atheist who won’t shut up.

And so these two sisters who are both played by ex-Mormons, former Latter-day Saints, have to grapple with this individual who on initially seems to be interested in their faith but then they come to realize is trying to argue them out of it and they must kind of grapple with that with the arguments with him and then with this sense of loss of power. And that’s the main crux of the movie is like how does religion and power work within religion especially when it comes to women and women’s bodies.

LAUREN GILGER: And that seems to be one of the themes that runs in this genre in general, right? Like the ambitions of women, women's bodies, their roles.

TAMARRA KEMSLEY: There’s also another — it’s called "Diabolic" came out in 2025 and this is someone from the FLDS community, so the fundamentalist Mormon community, which is an offshoot but not tied to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and in that she starts having these blackouts that are violent and in order to find a cure for them she returns to her fundamentalist community.

And so I think that is a clear through line like you said and probably not a very surprising one as we look at the history of not just Mormonism but religion generally, which often uses women and women’s bodies as a boundary marker between the in and the out group, whether it has to do with the way they’re dressed, where they’re able to sit or stand or be in a certain space or of course when it comes to ordination.

And of course the LDS church has fought off — unlike many other more mainstream Christian denominations — has fought off any kind of female ordination thus far.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, but those themes make sense in popping up because horror as a genre in general tries to be either challenging or a little countercultural or subversive in that way. It sounds like these kinds of films that might fit the Mormon horror genre are are challenging that a little bit.

TAMARRA KEMSLEY: I think that horror is especially equipped to deal with our anxieties. And the things that feel outside the norm. And so yes, there’s absolutely a lot of anxiety about women and women’s roles in the LDS church and again, faith generally.

There’s also a lot of anxiety about polygamy even today within the LDS Church for instance. It’s unclear for example what happens to men who are sealed to more than one wife in this life. Does that mean you’re a polygamous wife in the next life? Even though a man cannot be sealed. So say your wife dies, you being a man and you get remarried and you get remarried also in the temple. So now you have a wife that has passed, a living wife, you are sealed to both. How does that look in the next life? We don’t have a lot of a lot of details, a lot of specifics about that. And that looms over a lot of women.

It’s one of those and it just kind of, that door that polygamy door just never got snapped shut all the way because of that.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Well we’ll have to leave it there. That is Tamarra Kemsley, a religion reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune joining us. Tamara, thank you so much for coming on The Show, this is fascinating stuff.

TAMARRA KEMSLEY: Yeah, glad to be here.