People’s passions are something that are so unique to each individual and so fascinating to trace back especially when they have surprising origins. For some, it is something that caught their attention from a young age whether it was art or space, and these are passions fostered through years of love. Others have an experience with something in their later years and the passion just clicks with them, something that catches their imagination. While I fall into the latter category when it comes to my Horrific Origin, I can say I have had the unique personal experience of being terrified and hating my passion when I was younger.

My first memory of something absolutely terrifying me was in the opening credits of The X-Files where the man’s shrieking face was distorted. It was such a haunting image that I would run out of the room petrified leaving my grandparents confused about what could have startled me. Aliens and ghosts were a big trigger for me when I was a child, something about the unknown quality of them got to me, that they could be friendly or willingly mean you harm was a scary concept. This was only cemented by my nightmares of being stuck in the stretching room at the haunted mansion in Disneyland, a surreal and haunting experience for a youngster such as myself.

As I was getting older I feel like I was making great progress with spooky things, my love of Halloween was growing and that is the season of scares. That was until my parents couldn’t find a babysitter for their movie night and decided to take me with them rather than miss Tim Burton’s latest film Sleepy Hollow. To say I wasn’t ready to watch multiple people get decapitated including a boy my exact age is an understatement, I had days where I would barely sleep envisioning the headless horseman appearing in my bedroom doorway ready to cut my head off.

While I pride myself on my very active imagination, when I was afraid it would really go out of its way to make my night horrific. I would just stare at my doorway while breathing heavy and creatures would appear from the darkness. They would loom there threateningly until I dared to blink then they would disappear, rinse and repeat until I was falling asleep during class the next day. So years went by with me staying away from what I deemed scary, having yet another setback during one Halloween when I saw the braces scene from Poltergeist II: The Other Side while I had braces of my very own.

While renting movies one night, my best friend at the time wanted to watch Army of Darkness–the cover with the skeletons and Evil Ash’s bullet-ridden face? No thank you. After much convincing that it looked ridiculous and funny, I bit my lip and we watched it. Not only was it not scary but it was incredibly fun, the moment with the skeleton being crushed by the pile of rocks being a moment we rewound again and again with tears streaming down our faces. I realized that night of my Horrific Origin I was wrong about how scary the movie was and maybe I was wrong about the other movies I was was scared of.

In high school, I remember seeing a trailer for Shaun of the Dead, begging my parents to take me and my friends and my dad dropping us all off. It was shocking, to say the least, compared to what I was used to seeing but it was so damn funny and I couldn’t get enough after that. From there I did a lot of catching up, firstly with The Evil Dead movies after I found Army of Darkness was the sequel along with some of the more recent films like Jeepers Creepers and Final Destination.

As the years went by I became known as the horror kid, a title I wore with honor, so happy that I was known for the thing I had come to love so much. In college, I introduced my roommates to the horror movies I loved, including having the honor of not only showing them Friday the 13th for the first time but having them jump when Jason grabs Alice. Though it was mostly just watching franchises, I learned some lessons about curating horror films for my friends, and by watching so many films I could tailor a screening for their particular tastes. In my partner at the time I shared a love for everything scary but, like her patience for the more bottom-of-the-barrel horror movies, it wasn’t meant to last.

When we decided to go our separate ways I found myself in a very difficult situation where I not only felt I was losing my independence by moving back in with my parents, but I was now experiencing these struggles alone. In the dark moments of your life, it is hard to enjoy horror even if there is an amusing schadenfreude of watching people meet their end because they didn’t heed the obvious signs of a horror movie. It was close to this time in 2018 that I caught wind of a 16mm 80s horror sequel movie marathon that was taking place down in Los Angeles.

This was my first time in a while doing anything by myself because it just felt so lonely and sad, but my life was forever changed when I did. There I found a community of people just like me who all had a Horrific Origin of their own that were all there to have fun together and experience their love for these horror movies. People who will talk to a total stranger about what films do they think will be screened, is Halloween III: Season of the Witch the best Halloween movie, and just go out of their way to make them feel included. At the end of that event, I was told about another marathon that was happening the next weekend that had a rare print of the film Body Melt, knowing I couldn’t miss this newly presented opportunity, I went to that marathon as well, and made a life long friend.

It is wild how life can throw your passions at you when you’re not ready and only through experiencing them again do you know that they mean to you. After making friends at a marathon they recommended me to Horrorbuzz as a writer, which is kind of another Horrific Origin of its own. I told a girl I met on Facebook about Giallos on our first date, Strip Nude for Your Killer and What Have They Done to Your Daughters? to be specific, and now she is my fiance. Horror has inspired me, lifted me in my darkest moments, and made me feel closer to the world like I ever thought possible. This month if you find yourself at Beyondfest, the Secret Sixteen 70s Shocker Marathon, or the Aerotheater Horrorthon, keep your eyes peeled for me, I’ll be there.

That’s a wrap on my stroll down Horrific Origin Lane, but see you next time!