Horror has been a part of my life since I was way too young to even know what it was
Early mornings with unfettered access to the TV led to me channel surfing at 2am instead of watching the pre-selected tapes my parents left out for me.
My surfing led to me watching Puppet Master at the tender age of four. Which sounds worse than it actually is. I was also growing up in the very early 90s and so horror wouldn’t see its introduction into mainstream media for some years yet. Production values were low, effects were cheesy, and so much of the campy aspects offered up just seemed silly to me back then.
From there, I don’t remember watching many. The closest I came to horror was Jim Varney’s Ernest Scared Stupid and HBO’s show Tales from the Crypt until I was in second or third grade and Goosebumps became highly popularized for young readers.
I had frequent movie nights with a much older cousin that included such gems as the original Children of the Corn, Poltergeist, and The Exorcist. This was when I discovered that religious horror isn’t my particular cup of tea and that’s held largely true to this day.
All of this was happening while I was growing up in Maine. There’s a reason Stephen King bases a lot of his books here, and it’s not just because he grew up here, too. It’s a strange place. The kind of place where you can be driving along Route 1 through a highly populated tourist area and witness a man cutting ditch weeds with a full scythe without batting an eye. I’ll add that this was sometime in 2021, not 1921. We’re an odd people with a sometimes odd way of doing things and more trees than people which can lend to an incredibly creepy air.
In the end, this all culminated in a deep love of the horror genre. I’ve since taken up studying film theory as it pertains to horror as a whole, but specifically gender and queer theories in horror. Expect to see plenty of movie and book reviews, film theory, and maybe even some of my own short stories.
So welcome! I look forward to sharing this all with you.