Monday, April 23, 2012

How I Got Into Horror Movies (Personal Entry)


                Horror movies have been a subject near and dear to my heart every since I became aware of what a Freddy Krueger was. However, it’s been perplexing to me as to why I’m drawn to them. No one in my easily offended family could sit through some of the brutality I’ve seen. Lately I’ve been trying to remember what got me started on the genre, and the source I traced it all back to may seem unlikely to others.

                Imagine a young bespectacled child, no older than five. Imagine how excited he is to be watching Raiders of the Ark with his mother, completely in awe at all the action at scenery. You got that? Now imagine the child horror-struck face when Nazis open the Arc of the Covenant and get their faces melted. I don’t even remember my mother reacting to it, but I was petrified of what I was seeing.
                 
                And yet, I kept watching. I don’t specifically recall what enthralled me so much about people’s faces melting off, but I think it boiled down to me thinking “Wow…They got away with putting this in the movie?!” I almost never think that in a positive light anymore (exhibit A).
                 
                 Shortly after that, my father got me started on actual horror movies. He was a huge fan of Stephen King, and I became one as well thanks to the movie versions of Carrie (excellent movie) and It (just…read the book). The next great horror film I remember watching was Ridley Scott’s Alien. To this day, it’s been the only movie to make me puke (Sorry, Human Centipede). However, it still served as a bridge between my love for science fiction as a kid and the horror movies I watch today. A few short years later, and I discovered Clive Barker’s Hellraiser series, and absolutely weird and awesome series that’s recently fallen upon hard times.
                
                 Today, most of the horror movies I watch today are of the zombie variety. Also, it takes a lot more than gore to win me over these days. Whether or not the movie I’m watching is good or bad, however, is irrelevant. Horror is a genre that will always interest me, and I have my mother and Indiana Jones to thank for that.
                
 Indiana Jones movies have a thing for death scenes....
 

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