My History With Horror

by Christopher McLaughlin
(Dallas, Texas, USA)

I'm a 26 year old male and my tale involving the cinematic genre of horror started at a very young age with a TV commercial that had Vincent Price in it. I was three and his voice terrified me.

From then on my mother rented mostly horror movies and I always wanted to watch them with her, plus a good majority of them were rated R so I felt special watching them.

I was especially interested in Autumn - Halloween season.

As I got older, I met more people who were into horror and was introduced to more obscure titles. I decided to embark on a serious approach to understanding the genre, but wasn't up to par as I thought I should be.

I proclaimed that I was such a fan, but sadly I hadn't seen many of the classics that helped shape the genre into what it is today. So I began thinking, 'What do I really know about horror enough to have an intelligent conversation about it? What can I do to satiate my thirst for knowledge on the subject?'

I began to watch so many movies (sometimes up to 3-4 in one day) that it became confusing to figure out which ones I had watched. I was obsessed. I'm very passionate about the things that interest me in this life, and sometimes obsession can be put to good use.

For organization purposes and partly to amuse myself, I created a comprehensive list of all the horror movies I've seen, both past and present. I would elaborate upon this list as more ideas came to me and eventually I decided to rate them with a 3-star rating system, color code the titles depending on if I wanted to buy the DVD, and in some cases gave some titles an 'award' depending on how awful they were. This list would soon become my guideline and a very important document to me - a symbol of my devotion.

My purpose of this mission was to see many (and although foolishly and impossibly) if not all horror titles ever released. Although this goal is unrealistic, it helps drive me and open my mind to the many sub-genres that exist within horror cinema.

The range I've covered thus far as been extensive. I also keep a separate list that contains titles that I plan to watch in the future, and that also contains hundreds of entries. I'm willing to give any title a chance, and I've never turned a movie off if I didn't like the direction it was going. I've learned to give any movie a chance regardless of how poor the makeup and special effects are, or any numerous things that could go awry during production. I believe I've become a well-disciplined student of the arts.

So that is my story and my contribution to the horror community. It has been a fantastic journey thus far, and I don't plan on going anywhere any time soon.