Formative Horror

Though it's now my favorite movie genre, I was tepid at best in my initial approach to horror. When viewed through the lens of watching scary movies, my formative years were hazy, and while I remember specific circumstances of the movies I watched, I can't remember the exact times in my life when I watched them. The first was either 1980's Terror Train, or either 1978's Dawn of the Dead. The first, I watched with an edgy babysitter, and the latter I watched with a rough-and-tumble cousin during one of my many summer visits to my grandparents' house. Dawn was the most memorable, as it featured a horde of sickly-looking zombies, who are actually scarier-looking in it than the rotting corpses of The Walking Dead, ripping the viscera from the stomachs of unlucky bikers. Dawn of the Dead was so good as a late-70s horror classic that in 2004, it was remade by 300 maestro, Zack Snyder. Dated movies always seem a little scarier to me, even if they were a little cheesier given the year of their release.

As with Terror Train, I remember a party, a final girl who turned out to be Jamie Lee Curtis, and a psycho killer knocking off costumed medical students in a Groucho Marx train conductor get-up. The film was meant to be "Halloween on a train," but I was exposed to it far before I came across the sinister charms of Michael Myers.

The next horror movie I came across made the biggest impression on me up to that point. I had cousins staying over for a week or so, ones who were rarely able to indulge in their favorite genres of movie, or movies in general. On a trip to our local Hollywood Video, the VHS giant before the latter-day Blockbuster, my male cousin and I selected cult comedy One Crazy Summer starring John Cusack. His older sister ecstatically chose the horror classic, A Nightmare on Elm Street. This was my first exposure to Freddy Krueger, probably around 1985 or 1986. I'll be honest. I was completely mortified, and had to be coerced into watching with my eyes open. Images of protagonist Nancy's murdered best friend, Tina, dragging through the halls of their high school in a body bag scarred its terrifying stills into my mind, and in this particular movie, Freddy was particularly horrifying. In the sequels that followed, he became more of a comedic, one-liner-spurting caricature of himself.

I watched most of my formative horror with another person, and the next I recall seeing was Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, or Friday the 13th Part 5. A friend and I were home alone, and after ill-advisedly adding a fresh coat of paint to my skateboard, he and I sat down for a horror treat. I was less scared when I had someone else around, and together, we found the strength to endure the hockey mask horror giant. I know had seen an actual Jason movie prior to this one, but A New Beginning set me into the idea of Roy Burns, a mild-mannered paramedic posing as Jason to murder off teenagers, rednecks, and bikers alike in the memory of his murdered son. That son, Joey, has some mental difficulties, and does a pretty good job of annoying fellow halfway house resident, Vic, who snaps and murders Joey with an axe to the back. This scene stayed with me far longer than any featuring a man with a hockey mask.

Jaws had an effect on me like it did many other children in the '80s. It made me afraid of the ocean, and afraid of swimming in any water that was dark enough to conceal the lower half of my body. Jaws spawned some decent sequels and a slew of like-minded movies, namely the Piranha franchise. I'm pretty sure I initially saw the movie that would forever scar the sea for me with my parents on network television. Gore or not, it was absolutely horrifying. Jaws gave movie-goers something new to fear, proving that a casual day at the beach could be their last. If we fear the night, and we fear our dreams, one of the last safe havens was the beauty of the beach - until Jaws.

I was visiting a cousin in upstate South Carolina one Friday evening with my parents, and noted on his TV guide that Jaws playing on the network right around the time we'd get back home. My Friday night was set. I walked into my room and turned on the TV only to see that the network didn't match up, and that the original Psycho was showing instead. Disappointed but optimistic, I took on the Hitchcock classic by myself. Psycho is the reason why I still believe monochrome thrillers to be scary, and one of the reasons the contemporary film Darling ranks among my favorites. Besides the first quarter of The Wizard of Oz, Psycho was the first black and white movie I'd watched, and it was, without my knowing it at the time, my first look at the psychological horror sub-genre.

Through the friend next door, I saw my first vampire feature, one of the best ever made in the original Fright Night. He indirectly introduced me to Charlie Brewster, Peter Vincent, and Jerry Dandridge, who was the suave and debonair vampire next door. The particular vampires in this one were really scary-looking, with red eyes and massive, wide-spread mouths filled with jagged teeth. Fictional vampire hunter Peter Vincent even appealed to my exposure to horror movie talk show hosts, and the voluptuous vision of USA Up All Night's Rhonda Shear.

Before I saw Carrie, I saw Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II on USA Network's Up All Night show. I fell head over heals for host Rhonda Shear, who guided me through many a b-horror movie, including Prom Night II, Reform School Girls, and The Toxic Avenger. Rhonda did a great job of making me think she was talking directly to me, which made me an absolute fan. I suppose she had that effect on many. Prom Night II was certainly better than the original Prom Night, which I cringed through years later. The story of Mary Lou was  initially meant to be a stand-alone story before producers decided to capitalize on the success of the original. Prom Night II featured the Mary Lou Maloney, whose charred ghost possesses the body a high school student on prom night. Even if the movies were bad, Rhonda compelled me to watch them.





After checking out Cujo from the school library, I came across the film adaptation of Carrie. I hadn't seen many things any scarier than the image of Carrie's mother, smile on her face as she poised a butcher knife to murder her own daughter. That particular concept is terrifying enough, and the image an illuminated-eyed Jesus on the cross statue as the house is sucked into the ground is enough to make one fear religious icons forever.

Another Stephen King adaptation I soon caught on network TV was the werewolf thriller, Silver Bullet. I had seen Corey Haim in the coming-of-age drama Lucas, so I followed him as a snappy but adorable paraplegic pre-teen pitted against a particularly hairy antagonist. The movie features the lovable uncle Red, played by Gary Busey. He's better to his nephew than his parents are, and builds the boy a speedy cycle that helps him thwart the pursuit of the local priest, who literally moonlights as a werewolf.

A movie my sister and I loved as kids was The Lost Boys, up there in terms of vampire films with Fright Night. The movie wasn't all that scary until the camera came swooping toward the would-be victim, intimating Keifer Sutherland's David and his fellow vamps on a path toward fresh blood. The Lost Boys featured "The Coreys" together for the second time, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, who both turn into pretty good vampire killers before the end. The movie also featured my first celeb crush, Jamie Gertz, as the timid and kind-hearted Star, a half-vamp runaway.

I'll allow my formative years to cease at 8th grade, when I first watched the original Halloween over at a friend's house. The deadpan Michael Myers was scary, with the scenes of him lurking behind hedges and clotheslines making me afraid of the daylight. The score was quite scary in itself, created wholly by legendary director, Wes Craven. Michael belongs in the triumvirate of eighties horror icons alongside Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees. And like the other two, Michael was made ridiculously immortal in the sequels that followed, prompting remakes by Rob Zombie, and an official re-sequel in 2018.

It's fun to now look back on the roots of my love for horror. My encounters with some of favorites, such as Scream and The Shining, came later, which ushered in other favorites like As Above/So Below, Cabin in the Woods, and Darling. Slashers have become my least favorite, due to the fact that they're not as scary as they used to be. The best vampire gems out there now are more dramatic in tone as of late, such as the highly-underrated Only Lovers Left Alive, a more music-infused, bohemian take. While I used to dismiss them completely, I've lately given demonic features a chance, such as standouts like The Blackcoat's Daughter, Insidious, Annabelle, Hell House LLC, and Hereditary. Psychological horror has become my favorite, along with any movie that provides a more subtle approach to their scares. Organic build-ups appeal the most to me now that I have been exposed to every type of sub-genre that horror has to offer.