Freddy, Zombies, and Coked up Monkeys

I love horror movies, with some hot kettle corn and a coke, there is nothing better than sitting in a theatre waiting for the next scare. I don't like the artsier scary movies, I like the ones dripping with cheese, ones with horrible actresses whose only talent is her ability to wear tight tops and scream at everything. As a feminist that might sound a bit wrong, but I can't help it. I actually cheered when I saw the preview for Freddy vs. Jason and I was extremely disapointed when Alien vs. Predator came out with a PG-13 rating instead of an R, and I even thought House of Wax was very entertaining.

You have to wonder about horror fans. I would assume that for most of them there must have been some sort of traumatic event in their youth. For me it was when I was five or six and my teenage cousin came to stay with us for the summer. He would sit on the couch and watch movies all day long. One day when both of my parents were gone he popped in Nightmare on Elm St (the original and scariest one) and let me watch it. Now the concept behind Nightmare on Elm St is one of the creepiest, a mutilated murderer stalks you in your dreams, and (as the movie points out) eventually you have to sleep. So every night for a week I woke up screaming and would run into my parents' room and crawl into bed with my mom.

If I followed the Love Line theory of if something traumatizes you when you are younger you will be drawn to that act/person/thing when you are older, then the reason I love horror movies is because they scared me so badly when I was young. I wonder about other fans... were they traumatized like me, do they associate horror movies with a good memory, or are they just sick and twisted?

In the last few years I have moved from slasher movies (still love them though) to zombie movies. They are fun because often they are little commentaries on what the writer/director feels society has become. I like them because in a weird way I think the zombies are cute (I have already established that I have issues). And I have moved the movie Sean of the Dead into my all time best list. Of course most of these zombie and slasher films are worthless dribble that were probably written by coked up monkeys, but then thats probably why I love them.