A Bloody Good Time 6.25.09: My First Horror Movie

Posted by Joseph Lee on 06.25.2009

Let's take a bloody trip down memory lane.

Welcome to A Bloody Good Time.

This week, I've got a fairly long column in store for you all, so let's not waste any time and look at the feedback.

Mario returns with this: Another great column and good luck with getting a nifty banner. You are right about how some of Barkers works wouldn't translate well to the big screen. That is my fear with the talk of The Dark Tower series getting adapted. But in the hands of JJ Abrahms, I fell better already. In regards to the Hellraiser remake, I actually think that David Cronenberg would do a pretty decent job with it, but that's not likely to happen. Just keep Eli Roth away from this thing...

The Dark Tower is too epic for someone of Roth's caliber, but I believe he's more than capable of doing Cell, should he ever get around to it.

Rob says: I believe Neil has been handed the Predator sequel entitled (of all things) Predators, so he may be too busy to jump into the Hellraiser Reboot.

Maybe, but Guillermo del Toro has all kinds of projects and he seems to be doing okay. But above all I'd like the remake to not happen.

Angry Bear replied: Great column. Will never forget catching Hellraiser I and II (back-to-back!)for the first time while coming down from acid. A life changing experience.

I can't even imagine what that would be like. That's one hell of a memory though.

Speaking of memories, that's what this week's column is all about. I've decided to share with you all my first horror experiences, and what turned me in a fan of the genre. But that's not all! You see, I alluded to a surprise last week, and I'm able to make good on my word. I've got several members of the 411 Movies Staff helping out and giving their own fond memories of their beginnings with the genre. I asked them all to give me three to five paragraphs about how they began to like horror, what movies (horror or otherwise) helped that along and any childhood stories they cared to share. There's a lot of people and they have a lot ot say, so we might as well just get started.



George H. Sirois (The UBS Evening Movie News)

This may sound strange considering the amount of horror franchises that are taking residence in my DVD collection, but I didn't become a real fan of the genre until I was about 11 years old. In fact, anything scary just didn't work for me before that. I remember being almost traumatized while watching the original Poltergeist. I had to keep walking out of the living room and into my bedroom to collect myself. However, in December of 1983, I was introduced to zombies. No it wasn't a late-night viewing of Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead or Fulci's Zombi or any of those classics. It was "Michael Jackson's Thriller." Now that was a lot of fun, and I was into it that I watched the "Making-of" special right after the video, getting acquainted with director John Landis, make-up artist Rick Baker and "scary music" composer Elmer Bernstein. I enjoyed the tone of that video, where there could be scary moments but they obviously weren't taken very seriously, so it was very easy for a 7-year-old to watch.

But it was in my 6th grade year when horror really came into my life, and I have Fox Channel 5 to thank for that. Some of my friends were talking about Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger and I saw some pictures of both horror icons in the making. I was intrigued by their backstories and I remember one of my fellow Boy Scouts telling me about Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers during a campout. I wasn't scared of these guys, I was fascinated. I wanted to experience these characters for myself, and Fox 5 must have known this. Around March or April of '88, from Monday to Friday, they showed different horror films at 8pm. Monday, they showed A Nightmare on Elm Street and on Friday, they showed Friday the 13th. It took some time for me to watch the complete series, but it was time well spent. From those two nights watching Fox 5, I was off and running and now horror's a big part of my movie loving life. Wouldn't have it any other way...



Ben Piper (Get LOST; Fact or Fiction: Movies moderator)

Being a younger sibling of a brother eighteen years older than myself, it is not a hard thing to imagine him being a great influence on my early life with regards to all things cool. He introduced me to a lot of great music when I was still in single digits (Queen, Sabbath, AC/DC, etc.) but a lot of great movies as well. The first time I saw Star Wars was when I was six years old and it had just broken big, and I was dying to see it, so he took me to the drive-in to do so. To prove the point that my older brother was so very cool to his little pissant still very wet behind the ears and in first grade baby brother; When Star Wars was over? It was about 11 at night. He turns and asks if I was tired enough to go home, or if I wanted to watch it again. Fair enough question, considering I was only 6. But I was already showing a penchant of sneaking out of bed once my parents were asleep to hang out with my older brother and sister very late at night. So yeah, we stuck around until 1 AM so I could take all the amazing eye candy in once again.

It wasn't too long after that that I again snuck out of bed to try to hang with my older siblings after my parents were asleep. My sister was out, but my brother and his girlfriend at the time were up, and didn't object to me joining them. As it turned out, they were all set to watch a movie that was about to begin on late night TV; Bride of Frankenstein. Of course, in hindsight this is an truly old-school classic. I was transfixed and completely absorbed with what I was watching. My brother plunked me down in front of the TV and I didn't say another word. It wasn't until my sister got home unexpectedly towards the end where I about jumped out of my hide in serious fright. Seeing what my brother was allowing me to watch, they began to argue, with her taking the position that he shouldn't have allowed me for I was too little and impressionable. He took up the argument that I was fine watching it because I was greatly enjoying it until she startled me out of my skin.

They were both right as it turns out, weirdly. I was truly loving and enjoying the movie as my brother professed. But I also commenced to have recurring nightmares about a flat-headed Boris Karloff slowly lumbering after me for a couple of years afterward. Hooked. I just didn't know it yet.

Didn't really attempt any more true horror movies for a while, until I was a bit older. Sure, I caught some old original and badly dubbed 70's era Godzilla flicks during the weekends on the local channels in the meantime. But it simply wasn't the same deal. Bride of Frankenstein really sucked me in at such a very young age, that I still have lingering memories of that initial experience. I remember not being able to take my eyes off of it. I remember my brother and his girlfriend commenting back and forth in my audio background to their amazement that I was so transfixed by it. I remember jumping into my older brother's lap at the unexpected sound of the front door unlocking in complete fright. I remember that sound of that lock being opened. I remember that visceral scare that I felt, knowing for certain that it was the monster opening the door to come get me. And I remember that argument between my siblings that followed. (again, I was probably seven at this time.) I remember that it was Bride of Frankenstein.



Erik Luers (Please Do Not Forget...)

Within the horror genre is a real sense of community. Transcending sex, race, and (sometimes) religion, horror is a universally understood genre of movie making that can, strangely enough, bring people together. Look at the hundreds of conventions held each year celebrating its existence. Everyone is free to enjoy and embrace it unashamedly. Yes, horror is not a very respected genre in the grand scheme of things, and so we are looked upon as outcasts, loving the one girl our parents could never accept. With our hockey masks, Books of the Dead, (plastic) butcher knives , "Redrum" t-shirts, and "Tod Browning Rules!" hats, we marched forward as a group. Horror, you see, is collective.

I think I first got into horror by liking pretty tame but still perverse stuff. When I was about five, it was the first fifteen minutes of Jim Henson's Labyrinth that frightened me to no end. I'm not gonna even bring up the damage done by The Dark Crystal. Oh, and the first Neverending Story freaked me out. And Return to Oz!. Man, that film was five kinds of messed up. I see a pattern here. Gothic imagery! Brrrrr. Then, when I was nine or ten, I became intrigued by the ominous hit show, Unsolved Mysteries. Those reenactments would terrify me, as would Robert Stack's matter of fact, stern voice.

Around this time, my older sister started getting into the genre. I remember her calling the house after she got out of Wes Craven's Scream, and talking all about it. Did they really gut Drew Barrymore in the opening scene? What did "gutted" even mean? I was too young to go and see it myself, but I was intrigued. I would rent a Halloween or Friday the 13th here and there, and I started to enjoy the formula. I wasn't frightened by these films, but felt comforted by the routine of it all. Of course, John Carpenter's Halloween (perhaps my favorite film) showed me that horror could be art, and William Castle taught me that horror could be gimmicky and wild (but fun as well), but it were the middlebrow ones that created my nostalgic, VHS horror renting days.

The films' concepts were low budget, sure, but they were fun and had heart. There was a love for filmmaking — a love for visual storytelling — that always came through regardless of the money (or lacktherof) on display. Sam Raimi's work on The Evil Dead and Wes Craven's work on The Last House on the Left showed what could be done by filmmakers with a passion. Even early David Lynch stuff, not widely considered horror, is pretty horrific and inspiring in its complete immersion into frightening imagery. The classic Universal monsters and their directors like James Whale and the aforementioned Browning showed how you could make social relevance subtle (due to the strict Production Code). Freaks is a scary film that's touching, and Frankenstein may frighten and break your heart.

Horror can be a fun genre to work in because you are somewhat confined by it. You learn the rules and then you break them. Friedkin experimented with this many times over with The Exorcist and The Guardian, and Scorsese did it with the Cape Fear remake back in 1991. Shutter Island will let him out to play once more. Horror is scary because it's so identifiable, and it's so addictive because it lends itself to further study. What's Romero's motive for the shopping malls in Dawn of the Dead? Is the premise for Let's Scare Jessica to Death about the struggle with deciphering reality from fiction? And why is that young girl in May so damned troubled? The material is dark but it asks us universal questions, and isn't that what movies are for? I think so. Now may the power of Christ compel you.



Arnold Furious (Furious Flashbacks; Series Link)

Trying to condense my history of horror into three paragraphs isn't going to be easy. My first experiences lay in the world of cheesy black & white horror films of the '50's mainly about McCarthyism. Films that really haven't stood the test of time like The Creature from the Black Lagoon and a film, the name of which escapes me, where people were kidnapped and replaced by aliens after falling through the sand on a small town beach. I saw it again years later and realised the aliens were just men in rubber suits. But at the time it stopped me going on beaches for the remainder of my childhood. Which I think is a pretty big impact for a single film to have! Unfortunately I can't remember the name of it because the re-viewing took the horror off it somewhat. That experience put me off horror films until I was old enough to except scares for what they are; entertainment. Giving me a phobia about sand isn't really entertaining. But as soon as I'd gotten over that I was ready to experience a wider range of horrific pleasures.

I used to watch horror movies on late night TV in the UK. Which was a fairly limited method, or was before satellite TV, and I found myself checking out whatever happened to be on. There used to be a B-movie series presented by Repo Man director Alex Cox called "Moviedrome". Horror often featured and I remember being introduced to a wacky world courtesy of Mr Cox from the ridiculous, Q: The Winged Serpent to the brilliant, Rabid and all manner of insanity like The Serpent and the Rainbow. Moviedrome was responsible for expanding my film knowledge and introducing me to a wider world of cinema. And a realization that horror films weren't all A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday 13th or Halloween sequels that plagued the '80's. I still love Rabid.

The last time I remember being terrified as a youngster was in 1992 (I had just turned 16). I can specifically remember the year because I remember the source; Ghostwatch. A sly Halloween experiment from the good people at the BBC where they shot a live action TV experience in a real life haunted house. Only as the production began to experience strange goings on, and even better shots of ghosts that appeared but weren't acknowledged, it became gripping TV. Of course the whole thing was fake and everyone should have realised as it closed with Michael Parkinson wandering around a TV studio "possessed". However there were moments prior to that where Ghostwatch was a huge success and it left a mark on me until this very day. Imagine if Blair Witch had been shown on TV and presented as a documentary and no one knew ahead of time. I know some people went into Blair Witch not knowing but Ghostwatch was precisely that. No one knew and being "real" it scared the shit out of me. Which is something no horror film can really achieve now. I just don't get scared. Last time I jumped was watching Ringu. I think I've just become used to when and where things happen. It's all become a bit predictable. A downside to absorbing a large number of films. Now I watch for my wife's reactions as she's prone to jumping at everything to judge whether the film in front of me is delivering on the scares. You've gotta have a system.

Incidentally my five favourite horror films, in no particular order are; Alien, Halloween, The Shining, La Cabina, The Thing .



Len Archibald

So, as the resident foreign-film snob, I suppose what is expected of me is to spout off someone like Italian horror guru Dario Argento (Susperia? Opera?), but in all honesty, there is only one man, and one film that gave me a love of horror movies…

…Sam Raimi and The Evil Dead.

I must've been around 7 or 8 years old, but I remember hanging out at my Aunt Ruby's house one time, and she had one of those old school top-loading VCR's that were about as big as a lawnmower (well, it wasn't, but when you're a child, everything is bigger.) I was playing with my toys and I heard the familiar chatter, hums and clicks from the VCR starting up. I didn't really pay attention – Until I saw out of the corner of my eye the fastest moving shot for a movie I had ever seen, hurdling o ver tress, moss, leaves, puddles, etc. It's safe to say I was hooked. I pretended not to pay attention (but when you're a young one, it's hard to not look inconspicuous) but by the time the first friend was possessed, that was it.

Oh, and something with a No. 2 pencil. Damn man, I saw that shit at 7 years old? No wonder I'm so screwed up! Thanks, Aunt Ruby! Anyways, from there, I was pretty much a gorehound. Me and my youngest sister would always rent a plethora (do people still use that word?) of horror movies to watch after we went Trick-or-Treating – We watched practically every horror movie created during those times. Now, we're both married so we can't keep that tradition. Too bad, those were good times. I still keep up, though - and even if my wife is a little on the squeamish side, we're still cool enough to catch a flick from time to time.



Rick Tym (A Little Push)

What got me into horror? My dad.

No, this won't be a sugary-sweet trip down nostalgia lane. It's a simple fact. The man loved his horror, still does, and so do I thanks to his enthusiasm for classics such as Halloween, The Howling and An American Werewolf in London . You see, my mom used to work swing shift at the local factory, and every time she worked nights me and the old man would eat some popcorn and watch whatever horror was on, no matter its neutered edited-for-television or uncut pay cable format.

It got even better when summer rolled around and we went to the local drive-in. As a youngster (we're talking six or seven years old here) I saw such gems as Piranha II and Halloween II on the super-duper huge outdoor concrete canvas. I specifically recall the opening credits of the latter when the jack o' lantern split open to reveal a skull. That movie may not hold up as well now, but as a kid that freaky transition from pumpkin to grinning death scared the stuffing out of me.

Other "bad" horror movies at the drive-in and home on TV and cable coupled with the advent of the home video cassette recorder only fueled the fire. My mom may have protested slightly to her young child watching films like Phantasm and the non-Michael-Myers Halloween III: Season of the Witch but she never raised too much of a stink since she enjoyed the genre and all its facets, whether they be dramatic (The Exorcist), groundbreaking (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) or simply fun and gross (see that Season of the Witch flick I just mentioned). Even more importantly, she knew the bond that father and son shared because of it and rather than get in its way, she would just come along for the ride and enjoy the show. It made for some great memories (seriously, in this day and age would a mother and father take their eleven-year-old son to see Aliens?) and a deep appreciation for the genre which I defend and strive to introduce people to in my "adult life." Sure there's guts and gory in the realm of horror, but there is also such much more like the comment on the plight of the everyman (or woman), reflections on the current state of the world (which may be far more horrific than any flesh-eating fish or Cenobite) and the ability to bond viewers by making them jump, laugh, and peer through their fingers at what's coming next, whether they be friends, boyfriend and girlfriend, children or parents. That's the magic of horror, along with so much more, and I was lucky enough to be brought up knowing there's more to it than meets the eye. Even though I promised there would be no saccharine overloads, I've simply gotta thank my dad—and my mom—for my love of things that go bump in the night.

Or splat on the screen.



Trevor Snyder (The 411 Top 5)

I guess what they say about these kind of movies rotting your brain might be true, because I can't for the life of me remember what exactly got me into the horror genre. I just know it's a love affair that started early - I wearing a Freddy Krueger costume to school on Halloween back in the third grade. We had to go outside and march in a special school Halloween parade (really just a glorified lap around the building, for no good reason), and I can remember the wind blowing the fedora off my head and having to run across the playground to catch it. At that point, I'm sure I hadn't even seen any of the Nightmare on Elm Street films...it's just that I was already into the idea of scary monsters and movies.

I do remember the film that cemented my life-long horror love, though. Given my well-documented love of all things zombie, it should come as no surprise that I speak of Night of the Living Dead. I saw it at a pretty young age (probably 11 or 12), and was blown away. Like I said, by that point I was already into monsters, but most of my knowledge came from their appearances in stuff like Scooby-Doo or other kiddy fare. NOTLD was a completely different beast. I came across it on TV one night (Halloween again, actually), and was scared out of my mind by it. And yet, when it was over, I instantly wanted to watch it again. To this day, I have watched that movie more than any other (and probably more than anyone really needs to), and it still has not lost any of its original effect on me.

From that point on I was completely hooked on the genre. I was lucky in that I lived within walking distance of a pretty cool independent video store, back in the days before the chains like Blockbuster and Family Video wiped them out. The folks who worked at this store allowed me to rent R-rated fright flicks long before I should have been, primarily because my mom had told them all she was fine with it. You can say what you want about the judgment of my mom or those video-store employees, but I'll always be thankful for it, because it allowed me to spend my youth becoming familiar with a lot of the classics of the genre. In particular, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was another one that blew my mind, and also the movie that turned me from just a fan into someone a little more interested in what makes a horror movie work (I still consider Texas Chainsaw Massacre to be an absolutely perfect horror movie, and although I don't consciously try to, I think a little part of me judges almost all other scare films against it). So I would definitely have to point to those two films as the ones that are most important in my development as a horror fan. I think part of the reason I keep watching every horror movie I can is because I'm still waiting for something to come along and effect me the same way those two did. It might never happen...but I'm always having a blast waiting for it.



Bryan Kristopowitz (What?!! This Column!??, The Gratuitious B-Movie Column, TV Rants & Raves)

I can't remember the first horror movie I saw. I want to say that it was King Kong vs. Godzilla, but for all I know it could have been the original Frankenstein a wolfman movie, or some other black and white movie that TV stations used to air in the afternoon and or on the weekend. I do remember the first movie that scared me, though. It's not a horror movie in the strictest sense, but it has horror elements in it, and it was directed by a guy we now consider a horror legend (of course, I didn't know that at the time). That director? Don Coscarelli, who gave us the Tall Man and the Phantasm series. The movie? The Beastmaster. Now, in an overall sense, The Beastmasteris a sword and sorcery fantasy flick, sort of a Conan the Barbarian rip-off. It's got the wandering hero brandishing a sword (Dar, as played by Marc Singer), witches and other assorted weirdos casting spells and using magic, and Rip Torn as a snarling villain snarling about this and that (he was some kind of high priest or something, wasn't he?). But it's also got attempted child killing (or, as I like to call it, potential serious Kim Richards), a guy with a leather mask running around a maze threatening to kill whoever is there, and flying humanoid creatures that eat people by enveloping them in their wings and... well, we never get to see exactly what goes on under there, but we sure do get the aftermath (it's nasty).

I think I was about five or so when I first saw The Beastmasterand those flying humanoid people eaters. They had no face, just eyes and a head and those wings. Those goddamn wings that could debone you in under a minute. How the hell were you supposed to combat those if you met one on the street? Come on, I was a kid, and meeting one of those things in the real world was a possibility, even if it was just a movie. So then The Beastmasterand its flying humanoid creatures led to the shark from "Jaws" and the spooky Hammer movies and all of those wonderful Vincent Price movies, movies that were suddenly somewhat scary because I was paying attention. Actually paying attention is what does everyone in, right? John Carpenter said that the reason Laurie Strode survived the attack from Michael Myers was that, unlike her friends, she was paying attention to her surroundings. They were having sex and drinking and having fun, oblivious to the lurking, ghost faced killer in the shadows. They all died, yeah, but their fear was sudden and quickly elevated by death. Maybe they didn't die with fear in their hearts. Maybe it was just shock.

Which then leads me to the slasher movies that scared the crap out of me and subsequently made me an absolute and total fan. A Nightmare on Elm Street and A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge on a Friday night HBO double feature, back when HBO did that kind of thing. My brother "forced" me to watch them back to back. I say "forced" because I blame him for scaring the crap out of me, but, really, when he suggested we watch them I didn't say "no." So my eventual psychic trauma was really all my own doing. Freddy 1 and 2 back to back. The scarred face of a maniac ghost that can kill you in your dreams, kill you with a leather glove fitted with long razors, The goopy stairs that slow you down when you try to run away. The bed that you get pulled down into and the blood fountain afterward. Going into the goddamn basement! And then, in the second movie, Freddy removing the top of his head to reveal his brain, that exploding bird, and that swimming pool party massacre which wasn't a dream, it was real. It was real! Freddy was really real! That poor kid that got a razor glove to the gut.

I was engaged in both movies from beginning to end. I wanted to watch them again right that second. But there was no replay and I didn't tape them, so I was going to have to wait for both to play again some other night. I also wouldn't go down into the basement alone and wouldn't walk up the middle part of the steps (that's where the goopy stuff was hiding). And I was suddenly worried about falling asleep at night. That was when Freddy got you. Why the hell would I want to put myself in that situation? It took me a good, long time not to be scared anymore. I had to watch those movies over and over again, all of them, study them, try to figure them out. And I did. I don't get scared anymore. I mean, come on, it's all ridiculous. A flying humanoid creature that eats people? Rip Torn? A guy with a red and green sweater that kills you in your dreams by luring you into the basement? Nonsense. Fun to watch, sure, but nonsense nonetheless.

Still, though, if I'm in the basement, alone, and the power goes out, I doubt I'll walk up the middle of the steps. There's no telling what's there. And why the hell did the power go out anyway?



Steve Gustafson (The Hollywood 5 & 1)

I hate to come off like "that guy" but there's no way around it when talking about horror films. I grew up in a time when a mobile phone was one that was attached to the wall with a really long cord. A time when if you wanted to see who played Jason Voorhees in the movie you had to wait till the credits rolled. A time when urban legends were true because "someone knew someone" that it happened to. A time when sneaking into the theater to see a horror film actually meant something. It was a great time to be a kid.

The first time I ever saw a horror film in the theater, I was way too young to be in there. Which was half the thrill. I don't remember what my friends and I originally were going to see but someone had the idea to sneak into Poltergeist. I remember hearing some people talking in the theater about how it was based on a true story about a family that lived in Maryland! Pure baloney, but it sent my mind reeling! I sat there, appearing cool and calm on the outside, but on the inside I was ready to run out and find the nearest G-Rated offering they had. I confess that I probably had my eyes closed for more than half the movie, but even the sounds coming from the screen made me clutch my Goobers a little tighter. From the little psychic lady to the clown...this movie still gives me the heebie jeebies. After the "ordeal" was over, I left there thinking, "Could that be real? Did that really happen?" And I was hooked. Soon after we went on a tear, sneaking VHS viewings of Friday the 13th, Halloween, The Exorcist, and Rosemary's Baby. Too me, that's the good stuff. I remember watching Friday the 13th and thinking, "What kind of actor would portray Jason? He must be nuts!" That's what made it so fun. You weren't overloaded with information and the people on the big screen were as just a mystery as the people they portrayed.

That's the gift and the curse of growing up and technology. You lose that edge of wonderment you had as a kid and whatever question you have is answered with a few strokes on the keypad. I've gone on record to say I'm not a fan of the modern day horror genre. It's not because I think it's idiotic or that I'm too good for it. But I can't remember the last time I've seen one that could bring back those emotions of fear and terror that those first ones did. And sadly, probably never will.



Joseph Lee (the column you're reading now)

Now we're down to myself. If I had to blame one man for my love affair with horror, it would be Stephen King. The very first glimpse of horror I've ever watched was in Pet Sematary. Now, I was only four or five, at the most when I saw this, and I only saw one horrifying moment. Now while most may blame little Gage, he didn't scare me until years later when I actually sat down and watched it. No, it was Rachel's sister Zelda, a victim of spinal meningitis that scarred my fragile little mind and gave me nightmares for days. The way her body twisted and she cackled as she told Rachel that she was going to get her...it was traumatizing for a child my age.

When I got a little older, this didn't stop me from watching horror. In fact, I was fascinated with the box covers at the video store for these movies. I knew that these movies were good, I heard all about them, but I wasn't allowed to touch. If it was rated-R, I wouldn't get to see it. I'd have to settle for watching the Universal monsters (and watched as many of those as I could get my hands on) or movies made for kids. Sometimes, if I was lucky, I could sneak in a film that had been edited for television late at night. I have one distinct memory, when I was seven, of sneaking to a film with my friend and his uncle, and saying that I was going to go see Free Willy. Of course, that was a lie. I really went to go see Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. That movie scared me yet again, and I ended up not being able to sleep and having to confess what I really saw that night. Time and rewatching the film have told me that I was kind of a wuss at seven.

As time went on I got older and once I was given permission, I began to snatch up any horror film I could get my hands on. It didn't matter what it was called, who said it was good or who was in it. If it was in the horror section, I would watch it. I went through a period of time where horror was the only type of film I would watch. Incidentally, this caused me to miss out on other genres which I'm still trying to catch up on. The thing is, I still haven't cracked the surface of the films! In the small town I grew up in, a lot of the classics weren't readily available to me. Now I'm correcting that with Netflix and the Internet.

Those formative years when I would seek and watch all horror turned me into a lifelong fan. I've been told by family members that I would eventually "grow out of it". This was at least ten years ago. I have yet to grow out of my love of this genre and doubt I ever will.

Okay, that's enough for me. What about you? Care to share why you're a fan? Give your thoughts below and they'll probably be featured next week.

I should also say that I'm still looking for a logo for this column. If you can get me one, and I like it, I'll give you credit as well as write a column of your choosing, and give you a guest spot on that column. The email to send logo entries is.

Next week, I'm going to help you beat the heat. We're going to dive in the water for a look at the Jaws series!