In spite of the popularity of Ilumination’s Minions franchise, their latest release, Minions & Monsters, features occult practices so prominently and unapologetically it has many Christians, including exorcists, crying foul.Minions & Monsters, which was released on July 1, is the latest edition in the franchises $5.6 billion empire, features a new tribe of Minions who find themselves in Hollywood at the dawn of cinema. The heroes of this film are James and Henry who are described by Illumination as rambunctious friends who are searching “far and wide for an evil master to serve.” They end up crashing a 1920’s movie set and become famous, but only for a brief time when silent films turned to “talkies.” Because they can’t follow a script, they are suddenly destitute.
According to Movieguide’s review, this is where the film turns dark.
“Down on their luck, James dusts off a stolen spellbook from an evil sorcerer and, in a scene involving lit candles and a full incantation, conjures up a tiny monster named Goomi [short for Gary Orkam Oliver Magma Ichabod the Deceiver] — who turns out to have a secret plan to help larger creatures eat everyone on Earth.”
The scene draws heavily from H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, a 1928 horror story about a creature who is part octopus, part human, and part dragon.
The minions spend the rest of the movie trying to stop the monsters they’ve unleashed.
The overt use of a spell book and a ritual summoning a creature known by one of Satan’s titles has brought widespread consternation from the Christian community. The blowback was enough to see the newest film post the lowest grossing and lowest opening of any Despicable Me or Minions movie yet at just $182 million compared to $400 million for previous films. Although there were other factors such as Disney’s release of Toy Story 5 at the same time affecting the total, the controversy over the story’s content certainly didn’t help.
Social media is full of complaints from parents.
In this Facebook post, one mother calls the film “straight up satanic” and is warning parents not to let their kids see it because “it’s desensitizing kids to the occult.”
Another woman posted on Reddit about how excited she was to see the film, and the shock she experienced when seeing these dark scenes depicted so graphically. “I couldn’t believe how overt it was. Usually films have subliminal message or hint at dark things but this was some of the most overtly dark things I’ve seen in a kid’s film.”
When others boo-hooed her comments as “satanic panic,” an academic with a Ph.D. in Children’s/YA Literature who grew up on Harry Potter and other occult fiction, came to her defense.
“Our first instinct should be protecting our kids from the world. Is this movie evil? Maybe; maybe not. Can our kids understand the difference in a fictional demon like Cthulu and actual demons? Is this film going to teach them how to discern and recognize evil when they see it? Not if we recognize it as adults, but if they recognize it as impressionable kids,” she asks.
“If I had kids, I would appreciate this warning. I would do everything in my power to make sure they were capable of discerning reality from fiction before showing them the film. My mom worked hard to protect us, and it didn’t dampen my ability to enjoy fantasy as an adult, and it didn’t squash my imagination as a child.”
Renowned exorcist Father Dan Reehil agrees. As he points out on an Instagram post, children are on the front lines, “not because they’re targets of opportunity, but because they’re wired for stories. That’s how God made them. Stories tell children how to behave, what’s normal, what’s funny, what’s safe. This story has blatantly demonic themes. Not veiled, not accidental - a forbidden book, a ritual, a summoning, a deceiver - handed to a six-year-old with a bucket of popcorn,” he says.
“I’m not telling you your son will walk out of the theater as a sorcerer. That’s not the danger. The danger is slower than that. The danger is the ritual becomes funny, the summoning becomes cute. The first time your child sees a human being calling upon a spirit, the whole theater is laughing. That’s not entertainment. That’s formation. Something is being formed in him or her, and it’s not reverence.”
He goes on to quote Deuteronomy 18:10: “There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer.”
His advice to parents? “Skip this one, not out of fear, but out of being a good parent.”
But what if they’ve already seen it? “Don’t panic,” he advises. “Don’t shame them.” Instead, sit down with them, ask them what they saw and tell them the truth about these subjects, letting them know that there are some things that we don’t play with. Then use their God-given authority to bless their house and their children.
“Not everything animated is innocent,” he warns. “Be battle ready.”
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