The Communists Are Coming! The Atheists Are Here!: Estus Pirkle and His Red Scare Mongering IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU, WHAT WILL HORSES DO?

“Communism is good. Christianity is stupid. Give up.”

So blare the speakers at a Communist labor camp once the Reds invade America, massacre our leaders, and force children to step on a picture of Jesus at knifepoint. Perhaps the ultimate red scare nightmare boomers still cling to whenever they hear about universal health care or free college, If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? shows God-fearing Christians a world devoid of faith or rugged individualist bootstrap thought. Baptist minister Estus Pirkle delivers a sermon straight to viewers about television tearing families away from The Bible, dancing leading to adultery, and worst of all, Communism transforming the U.S.A. into a giant ideological prison where kids toil for 16 hours a day, Russkies torture good ol’ boys who won’t submit, and elementary schoolers worship Fidel Castro like Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Pirkle and born-again director, Ron Ormond, throw atrocity after atrocity onto the screen like some scared straight H.G. Lewis gore movie. Communists with vague Eastern European by-way-of Mississippi accents pour salt into a conservative’s mouth until he dehydrates. Pinkos train guns on kids and force them to hoist their dad up on a rope. If they drop him, he’ll land on a thicket of upturned pitchforks and die. A Communist beheads a child for refusing to desecrate a portrait of Christ. The Red Army forces an atheist teen to mow down his God loving family. Soviet goons rip screaming children from homes, ship them to reeducation camps, and execute their parents. One soldier punctures a kid's eardrums with a stick so he can no longer hear the word of God.

“The torments of Communism are nothing compared to the torments of burning hell,” Pirkle warns his shocked congregation.

To avoid a fate of fire and brimstone and torture at the hands of Satan himself, Pirkle says, we must renounce Communism and embrace the American capitalist way of life the way Jesus would have wanted. Turning away from God, country, and family will doom any poor lamb to an afterlife in The Pit. Without capital, you might as well not have a soul. Ignore The Good Book, and you’ll fall prey to dangerous new ways of thinking. Atheism and Communism will corrupt you to the core like Eve after she sank her teeth into The Apple.

Pirkle went on to produce and appear in other Christian propaganda films, like The Burning Hell and The Believer’s Heaven, which depict the afterlife in sensational cheapie detail. And he also wrote a series of novels like Preachers in Space. Noise collage band Negativland even sampled his sermons for their song, “Christianity is Stupid.” But If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? remains Pirkle's most startling creative statement. By mixing politics, God, splatter films, and his own hardline Baptist teachings, Pirkle fueled Cold War flames that still burn whenever progressive talking points flicker across an American TV set.  Repent and be saved, y’all.