The Guest and Revenant do not configure or understand "horror" as an impulse that turns us away from encounters. Elements of "horror" such as dread and the sense of the uncanny add to their artistry and interest. They are an expansion of possibilities that give us insight into certain experiences without having to go through them ourselves

Their "spirits" serve as instruments of metaphor and morality. They offer the best window they know on the questions of how we perceive things and how we do or do not behave on the basis of our perceptions

"There are so many evil people in this world already" (The Guest, episode 3, 10:00)

"Who's worse? A spirit or a human who caused all of this to happen?" (The Guest, episode 5, 6:15)

"Humans are scarier than spirits" (Revenant, episode 2, 14:48)

"The spirit told me that I was satisfying my own desires. This is the real me" (Revenant, episode 6, 1:01:10)

Much like The Guest, Revenant takes seriously the darkness within ourselves; a darkness that cannot be overcome with technological wizardry

The two metaphorically embody the dangers of recklessness and greed, transforming the source of fear from a distant other to something familiar in ourselves. The revulsion we feel at "horror" is a revulsion at ourselves. The terror of the possessed is supplanted by the delight of the "spirits," which can be shared by the audience. Of course, some sensitivity to the emotions of the "spirits" is obligatory

Why is Revenant The Guest's laid-back younger sibling? Because The Guest is a better, more mature story than Revenant

It is The Guest's close affinity with fear that accounts in part for its uniqueness. It evokes deeper, more personal fears in the starkest terms. Unlike Revenant, no so-called "romance" complicates it

Gendered norms and fetishized interactions between men and women are a stable ideology and field of identification for society. The stability is intentionally and heroically disrupted by The Guest

Rather than reiterate cultural conservatism, The Guest points to the wreck the gendered norms have become

To undermine any conservative sense of reassurance, the home of a priest was a conduit; one that was permeable to the outside. It was no longer isolated; it was invaded by a "spirit"

It is from this fuzziness that we see the fragility of the constructions of public and private spaces, of sexuality, of home and family, of society as a whole

We are still likely to experience anxiety and fright in Revenant. All-pervasive, able to amuse and delight, the "spirit" of Revenant is a territory for the grotesque and the sublime. I bid her Happy Haunting

Sincerely, someone who doesn't believe in "spirits"