30 Years of Loving Horror: A Retrospective

I’ll be the first to admit that 1993 was not a good year for horror. The most commercially successful horror film to arise was Leprechaun and it didn’t even open in March.

Where 1993 really shined was in its influx of Halloween films. The animated Halloween Tree adaptation won an Emmy for its screenplay. Double, Double, Toil & Trouble was a seasonal flick starring the Olsen twins. If you weren’t alive yet, you missed out on that obsession; the Olsens were everything! Addams Family Values radiated ooky charm that normies love to romanticize in autumn. One of Disney’s greatest features premiered in October, a stop-motion feature with a skeleton king and his stitched-together amour called The Nightmare Before Christmas (though I still argue that it’s a Christmas film.) Hocus Pocus, which needs no introduction, flew out into the night in July 1993. Not to mention both Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of The Dark? premiered the year before and were enjoying another successful run in 1993. Casper (1995) was another hit in the homes of ghost-friendly families.

I talked about my introduction into horror a bit in this post last year but it bears repeating. I come alive with these kid-friendly, spooky movies. There’s a comfort to them that never fails to envelop me. The monster kids of the 70s and 80s got their kicks sneaking late-night horror screenings, flipping through those dirty horror mags, and salivating over the exciting new developments in SFX makeup. Then there’s my generation; the spooky kids. We’re the slime green to the monster kid’s Kensington gore. We prefer fog machines and lightning booms to prop knives and chain saw revving. Monster kids wanted aliens and wolf men. Spooky kids wanted witches and vampires. Call me crazy but the youth was really catered to 30-some years ago. Halloween became a commercialized event that fixated on us. The powers that be said, “The children want to be scared.” Maybe that’s why we love Halloween songs and jack o’ lantern pails and those caramel apple suckers that royally fucked up your teeth. Kids could watch creepy media that featured actual kids. We could relate, even if these actors were chatting with ghosts or freaking out over a haunted mask that wouldn’t come off. Our parents didn’t have a cow because it was made for children. It’s not easy to define what made exactly the 90s-early 00s exceptionally spooky, but as the Irish man said, to define is to limit. You just had to be there.

Why am I bringing up 1993? Because I completed 30 years of living this week and it got me thinking, as these events often do. It’s clear that this fateful bounty of Halloween movies shaped me as a little kid but what about the rest of those years? What the hell happened in between? Let’s dish.

It’s difficult to remember where this journey into horror specifically began. I think most kids experience accidental viewings of inappropriate content one time or another. Perhaps it started then. My best guess is that since I was already a well-bred spooky kid, I naturally reached for anything that I thought was akin to that. Reality quickly settled in and I realized that some horror movies were a little too scary for me. Thus began the scaredy cat stage. Time goes on and I got a little braver. I’d say from ages 12-18 was when the horror took over.

I don’t know when the backlogging began. Many trips to Family Video, pillaging my sibling’s DVDs, and watching whatever was on TV was my exploration. I had to consume any and all horror. I was an excellent student in school and it was no different here. I didn’t absorb every movie but the ones that struck me stayed around for a few years (or a lifetime.) It was the supernatural movies that freaked me out the most. Book adaptions became fast favorites. Above all else, anything that could make me jump was thoroughly appreciated.

Some of my greatest memories as a teenager involve horror movies. Well, a lot of them.

1. Being scared shitless after watching The Ring and Darkness Falls.
2. Rocking my Corpse Bride t-shirt fresh from cool Hot Topic as a 12-year-old.
3. Traumatizing Adam with From Hell at my birthday party.
4. Torturing the entire household with Repo! The Genetic Opera.
5. Seeing white owls everywhere after seeing The Fourth Kind with Emma.
6. My mixed bag of friends gathering after football games or dances and somehow bonding over Troll 2 and Cabin Fever. I’m so glad Katlynn loves them.
7. Laughing my ass off watching Slither and Scary Movie with Clinton.
8. Screaming at Bathsheba on top of the wardrobe in The Conjuring with Josh.
9. Being completely paralyzed after watching The Strangers in a dark, dark room.
10. Falling asleep with the lights on after watching Insidious.
11. Insisting on a Creature Feature cake for my 16th birthday.
12. Receiving a Hannibal Lecter birthday card for my 18th.

Wrangling these memories together and thinking back on them is a good hurt. I’m laughing because I was hopelessly into this shit and you never realize it when you’re in it. I’m teary because I’m so grateful to have had these friends who indulged me and shared in my joy. Horror is and always has been an essential part of my function. I love it because it’s never left me. I guess I never left it either. I may have grown up and changed but stayed the same where it counts.

My twenties? A blur. I started attending conventions and socializing with other horror fans for the first time. It was incredible to see enthusiastic people celebrating this weird thing together. This decade lacked the easiness of my teens. Horror had to grow up a little with me. I started a blog. I tried being a critic. I started writing fiction. My preferences were shaping and that at times felt isolating, but never for long. The great thing about this community is that we’re all happy as long as you love something in it.

There was a time when I felt I was playing it too safe and wanted to branch out to the extreme side of horror. I had the opportunity to do that with my husband and our show A Couple of Creeps, where we watch the most extreme movies we can and talk about them. It was rough sometimes, especially with depictions of sexual assault and child harm. I lost the art in it and didn’t see a point in its purpose. My mother gifted me with a wicked sense of humor and with that, I was able to deflect whatever made me uncomfortable. Some things leave you speechless, either in their profanity or stupidity. I stepped outside of my own experience and tried to see what others saw. It became repetitive but I would have never done it on my own.

What’s new at 30?

I have a pretty good eye for what I’m into and I don’t squander the time I have left on things I won’t like. I don’t have FOMO. Maybe I should, a little? I’m enjoying revisiting films from my teens and grasping the themes much quicker. I’m tackling the films I didn’t think I was ready for when I was younger. I watched the entire run of Buffy The Vampire Slayer for the first time and it was fucking awesome. I’m reading the novels that seemed too big or too deep years ago. Now that I’m an auntie, I love sharing my childhood with those critters. Those poor kids know that if we’re hanging out Goosebumps or Paranorman or Scooby Doo or anything remotely spooky will be playing.

I still put on Bram Stoker’s Dracula on a regular basis. It’s my white noise machine. I watch The Exorcist when I want to be reminded why I love horror. It’s an never-ending education and has only gotten more special to me as time goes on. I still cry when I read The Halloween Tree. I still watch Hocus Pocus on Halloween.

It’s a special feeling when friends and family send me photos of dead shit or skulls or anything remotely tied to Halloween with the message “thought of you!” attached. I like being that person in someone’s life. I didn’t consciously choose this lifestyle or the things that would define me. They just happened and I never thought of fighting them. It must have been something in the August air 30 years ago. Probably fog juice.