Greetings all,
This is the inaugural post in the horror-writers.net blog, something we will be updating often .
We will hopefully have some guest bloggers and contests here as well, so please check us out regularly.
I would now like to take this opportunity to talk about my introduction to the horror genre.
As a child, I was lucky enough to have parents who allowed me to watch movies that not only contained some severe language, but some violence as well. I am appreciative of my parents because they always took the time to sit me down and explain that the violence or language that I was about to see in a movie was simply just that; “Violence and Language in a movie”.
They instilled in me an understanding that the things that existed in the worlds of film and television were meant to stay there. I always appreciated that because it fostered in me accountability for my own actions at an early age.
If I saw something violent and acted it out, I was the one who made the decision to act that way, and seeing it in a movie would not be an acceptable excuse, as I had been lectured at length that what I saw in movies was supposed to stay there.
All of that being said, they never really allowed me to watch horror. My father was a giant fan of the Fulci and Argento films so in retrospect keeping me away from things that disturbing was probably a good choice. Growing up in a house where I was allowed to watch pretty much anything except horror only made me want to watch horror that much more.
Every attempt I made to watch a horror film was thwarted until roughly the age of 10 when I stumbled upon a show called Tales From The Crypt on television. I was immediately blown away at the mix of terrifyingly dark stories and genuinely laugh out loud campiness of The Crypt Keeper (I’ve always had a morbid sense of humor). From the very first episode the show I was absolutely hooked on horror and would find any and every opportunity to watch it.
After several months of watching the show without my parents knowing about it, I finally confessed. As much as I enjoyed watching the show, I didn’t feel good about lying to my parents (I didn’t have a lot of rules, so breaking the few that I had made me feel awful.)
My father finally gave in to my repeated requests to watch a horror movie by allowing me to watch “The Evil Dead” on the condition that I didn’t
A) Have Nightmares or
B) Turn it off halfway through.
I can happily say that I didn’t have nightmares after watching The Evil Dead (my first horror related nightmare would come at the hands of Dolls) and was then allowed to move on to the Nightmare On Elm Street movies.
I’d like to think that I would have gravitated towards horror anyway, as it is something that I do enjoy very much, but there was something about having it as “the last taboo” that made it absolutely irresistible to me. I will also say again that I was lucky enough to have parents that took the time to talk to me about the movies and t.v. shows that I watched. Without them instilling a strong understanding that “it’s only a movie” in me at a young age, who knows how I would have turned out (I assume I’d be boring and like romantic comedies or something).
Anyway, this will conclude the first posting on The Horror Blog, if you or anybody you know would be interested in writing a piece for us, please contact me at
info@horror-writers.net
Thank you for reading and do take care
-Shawn