A second Halloween-related post, with the happy day coming up this weekend. My "give a scary book" post came on Monday.
Anyways, a recent post on Horrornews.net really resonated with me: Growing up as a horror fan. Mostly because I too grew up a huge horror fan, mostly watching cheesy old Hammer films on tv, the Dracula and Frankenstein ones having particularly strong memories for me. To this day, I'm a huge fan of some of their main actors such as Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Island of Terror is non-Hammer film that I have vivid memories of watching when I was a kid -- as is Quatermass and the Pit and a million more.
As far as horror fiction is concerned, HP Lovecraft was probably my first love. But I also got into a lot of horror comics and other stuff too. TV shows like Dark Shadows and Night Gallery and Night Stalker (movies and tv show, my all-time fave!) are vivid memories.
So, like I said, this post has a huge resonance.
Our different and unique experiences have molded us into the horror fanatics that we are today.
I was born on December 25th, 1970 ( yeah, I know ), so my earliest memories of horror movies probably started somewhere in the mid- 1970â²s through the early 1980â²s. Those are the years in my life that I'm going to explore to try to answer my own question.
*snip*
There's more. I mentioned Frankenstein and I'll mention him again. During those crucial horror fan building years, it was Frankenstein who was my favorite monster. I mean, not any more really. You grow up and you find new horror monsters to idolize, but back then, man o man, he was the cat's meow. Of course, a take off on Frankenstein was Herman Munster. The Addams Family and The Munsters, both played significant roles in me becoming Joyhorror. The specific episode that I remember liking a ton was when Herman was singing that song, "My foot bone connected to my leg bone, my leg bone connected to my hip bone". You remember, the song might not have went exactly like that but you know what I'm talking about. I used to go around the house singing that song as a kid.
And more. It's a great post, well worth reading the whole thing.
What are your horror memories?
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- local late-night horror hosts, and the lifelong loyalties they inspire
- thrilling to the American International Pictures logo at the beginning of a film
- at age 6, discovering my big sister's secret stash of pre-code EC reprints
- Walt Disney's Thrilling, Chilling Sounds of the Haunted House on a portable phonograph, in June, in broad daylight
- being a Frankenstein fan as a kid, reading Shelley as a teen and not getting it, losing interest in Frankenstein, rereading Shelley as a grownup and being blown away, becoming fascinated with Frankenstein all over again
I have a very clear memory of going up to Oxford for interview (aged 17), and buying a complete Edgar Allen Poe short stories to read on the train (I'd encountered some of his poetry, but not read more than a couple of the stories). So, my first night in Oxford, staying in an attic room over Madgalen cloisters, sitting in a dormer window watching the moon over the deer-park, reading Poe. Just the thing to get you in the mood for interviews.
(OT): Recommendations.
For a bit of fun, I recommend the twisted humor of Steve Niles and illustrator Templesmith in "Criminal Macabre",a fun -and gore-covered- take on the private detective idea, complete with every monster you can think of.
Templesmith later did a solo graphic novel called Wormwood; Gentleman Corpse that is hilarious.
A genuinely scary graphic novel (without supernatural entities) is Templesmith´s "Fell", about a cop in a creepy city.
Thanks for the input and suggestions everyone. I really appreciate them and will certainly be checking some of them out.
Jigsaw, the diabolical criminal who captured the imagination of horror fans in the 2004 hit Saw, returns in this equally bloody sequel. Other Literature