Addicted to Nightmares

by Jade

I'm sorry to say that I was not a born horror fan, on the contrary, I was a HUGE pansy when I was little. I enjoyed horses, puppies and tales of Disney princesses, not tales of dismemberment. Unfortunately my descent into the world of horror has now made the Disney princesses sickening and tale of dismemberment music to my ears.

I think it all started when I was 8 and I saw my first REAL horror, Candyman. This may make me seem like an even bigger pansy but I think if I could go back in time I would have selected something a little less... strong for my first time, but I was still hooked to horror due to the trauma. I think I was looking for new horrific images to replace the Candyman images.

I recruited my friends for assistance where we started a tradition, every Friday we would find new horrors and view the wondrous world of fake blood and portrayals of the madness and sickening cruelty of humanity. We couldn't get enough of it, the "Frightmare" segment on Space and "Friday After Dark" segment on AMC made satisfying my addiction that much easier.

At the beginning of my high school career I found a charming little hole-in-the-wall that sold the most wonderful Asian horror films and I was addicted to k-horror for two years. I've always found Asian horror films fixate on passionate revenge... VERY passionate revenge, it's so easy to relate to, that burning feeling of humiliation and loss and anger which come from being wronged and is only satisfied through sadism and some VERY convincing blood...

More recently European films have caught my interest, they're wonderful, so real and with more character exploration and excellent acting like Stephen King films... but that's not important, after all I'm supposed to be talking about how I got addicted.

I've already explained that originally I watched horror to replace the image of Candyman in my head, then I watched horror because I related to the rage behind the actions of the murderers, but the main reason I am addicted to horror is the truth it reveals about how repulsive we can be and how strong we can be. Nothing is a better test of strength then fear... a mother sees the mutilated corpses of her niece and former lover, but still jumps into a TV screen with the murderer to save her son... a young girl nearly dead from the agony of being tortured day in and day out drags herself to safety after her assailant is wounded... I've never had that kind of strength.