What turned you on to horror? (Spin off from the “scifi thread” one.
For me, it was when I was in ninth grade (just two years ago!) and I was in the library. I had been talking to a friend online last week about Cujo for some reason or another…and I happened to see it there. So of course, I took it out. And since I don’t like just taking out one book, I borrowed Carrie as well, since I had started it the previous year and been unable to finish it. Off I went, books in tow! When I finished, I decided that 1). Cujo was so far the most suspensful book I’d ever read, and 2). SK rocked!
After that, I attempted to read every book by him, and that same year, books by other horror writers- The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, PSYCHO, etc, etc.
So- here’s my little poll…how did you become a horror fan. (That is, if you became one at all.)
I read “The Stranger Beside Me”, by Anne Rule. She knew Ted Bundy, before anyone knew he was a serial killer, and wrote about his life. Got me hooked on the true crime genre way back. From there I learned to enjoy thrillers, generally.
Or, maybe it was all those gruesome fairy tales I read as a kid…
Oddly enough, it was reading SK’s new book On Writing, which isn’t horrific at all. I’d read The Green Mile and Different Seasons, but those aren’t really horror - more psychological stories than horror. So I went to the local library in an attempt to find Carrie, but no dice… I ended up reading Misery and Bag of Bones. Hooooo… I’m still not sleeping well. I’m currently working on Four Past Midnight and Hearts in Atlantis. I’m liking the former a lot better than the latter.
I did read some Dean Koontz for a brief period in seventh grade, but his are too hokey. I like King’s style of realistic situations that have just enough of a twist to get you to sit up in bed in the middle of the night.
I read Poe in elementary school. Watched Twilight Zone, Dark Shadows and Night Gallery with my Mom at a young age. Most modern horror-or what passes for it now days-I don’t care for. I prefer the psychological horrors- the horror imagined is always worse than the bad thing itself.
Unless it’s Lovecraft. :: shudder :: I still can’t read his stuff when I’m the only one awake in the house at night.
Well, I saw Alien when i was around 5 years old. then at age 9,i picked up The Lurking Fear, because it was one of the few books on my dad’s bookshelf that wasn’t poetry. Ia! Ia! Then in high school, I grabbed night shift from the school library, since i figured short stories would give me a better feel for an author than a novel, and then I read carrie because i really identified with her having such a cuckoo mom, like mine…
i also think four past is much better than hearts in. Anyone really understand what the heck is going on with 'Blind Willie" and “why We’re in vietnam”?
How are people on clive barker?
I agree about koontz being kind of contrived, and i haven’t read any of his since dragon tears. Seems like he traded his writing talent (Lightning) for hair.
Anyone here read the road virus goes north? any thoughts?
Poe in 3rd grade, ditching Brownies to watch Dark Shadows every afternoon, Hammer horror films on Saturday nights, Roger Corman flicks, Creature Feature on Saturday afternoons, Night Gallery, August Derleth & HP Lovecraft stories, Shirley Jackson, etc.
All this before 6th grade. Then I really got into horror.
My grandmother had a “gingerbread” style house, like a monstrous A-Frame, but with the roof lines curved. All dark wood inside the house. Anyway, there was a small little room that was at the very peak of the roof, you had to climb a ladder to get to it. There was one small lamp, a comfy chair and a whole book shelf full of horror stories. It was so cool/scary. My uncle had been into horror.
I watched Silence of the Lambs when I was 8 or 9, but I think I was a horror fan before that.
I believe it’s my parents fault, actually. When I was five, they took me to Disney World and there was this Michae Jackson 3-D movie called Captain Eo, or something playing, and my parents took me. They didn’t think I’d put the glasses on but I did, and was scared out of my mind.
Ever since then, I’ve really been into horror films and books and pretty much anything else that has the potential to scare the living daylights out of me.
Oh, how I envy you guys just getting into Stephen King. And you’re so young! No offense. I’m 42, and got into The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery around 10 years old, I guess. I read lots of Alfred Hitchcock type stories as a teenager. I found SK when I was about 23. I read Skeleton Crew first (or was it Night Shift - the one with the hand on the cover) followed by The Stand. I fell in love. He is hands down the best author out there. I recommend The Talisman to all you teenagers. Also IT. Hell, read all of the early ones! Then read the rest. SK rocks! (Am I too old to talk like that?)
DC - Night Shift had the hand on the cover - one of the first SK I read, lo, these many moons ago. “Carrie” was published when I was in high school and made the rounds of all my friends. I have to admit that I gave up on SK several years ago, when it started to all sound alike and stopped scaring me. His books got sloppy & overworked. I think “The Talisman” was the last one I read and enjoyed.
I re-read his early stuff all the time and “'Salem’s Lot” and “The Shining” can still scare the bejeezus out of me. I still think that “The Dead Zone” is his finest book, and not really horror at all. I wish he would start writing more psychological interior stuff again.
Oh, I forgot to mention F. Paul Wilson - The Keep, The Touch, The Tomb, etc. He also created one of my favorite characters in moder fiction, Repairman Jack.
Jack! Leave Gia! I appreciate you in a way she never can!
There was this after school special that had a ghost boy in it. It terrified me. I have been a horror fan ever since. Steven King is clearly the best author of the genere!
Geez, I guess I was a late bloomer! I didn’t really get into horror in a big way until I was 17 or 18. I was more of a fantasy/sci-fi buff in my adolescent years. Then my best buddy, who had a taste for grade ‘B’ splatterfests like Driller Killer and Basket Case, dragged me to the masterpiece of modern day horror Evil Dead II. The sheer manaical energy and lunatic humour immediately hooked me. Thus began a lifelong quest to replicate that psychadelic experience.
As for books, my mother bought me a collection of Poe stories that I re-read countless times. I also used to enjoy SK who has a wonderful gift for characterization and vivid imagery, but his reliance on overly literal boogiemen grew old. Also, he appears to have some real problems coming up with satisfying endings, e.g., Tommyknockers. Today, I much prefer Peter Straub who tends to write horror of the psyche. Almost Jungian at times. Other favourites are Daphne DuMaurier, Shirley Jackson, Thomas M. Disch.
Hodge- I agree. Sometimes he can get “literal”- i.e., over the top. Like in IT, for example. Though that was good, just so much gore that it weighed it down a little. Sometimes its necessary to be that graphic, other times, it takes away from the story. I’ved liked his more psychological stories myself.
We really need a thread to critique him in full. Oh yeah and i’m gonna post at your new SK thread really soon, Togepi.
Hope this isn’t a double post. Wrote something, hit a wrong key and it disappeared, I think.
My first horror was movies – the Universal classics on Graves End Manor on Saturday nights, followed by wrestling with Gorgeous George and Vern Gagne.
I liked Frankenstein, the Mummy, Dracula and the Wolf Man, but the librarians at school and the town library wouldn’t let me have the books, so I settled for Oz. Not bad for a start.
Later on, most of the good horror was found in science fiction, especially “The Ant Men”, which was good for two oral book reports in sixth grade.
I think I was reading Lovecraft and John Farris and Frank deFelitta before King really got going. Never cared for Koontz. In fact, I’m the official Koontz Basher in a horror novel discussion group.
A subscription to Whispers was invaluable for finding new (and old) writers, and I’m forever grateful to editor Stuart David Schiff (and to Twilight Zone magazine) for giving horror a nice kick in the pants back in the 80’s.
A couple of small presses are reissuing some stuff horror fans shouldn’t miss – Gauntlet Press will be publishing Bradbury’s Dark Carnival next spring, and a couple of Fritz Lieber collections are coming too.
I’m 42, and got into The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery around 10 years old, I guess. I read lots of Alfred Hitchcock type stories as a teenager. I found SK when I was about 23. I read Skeleton Crew first (or was it Night Shift - the one with the hand on the cover) followed by The Stand. I fell in love. He is hands down the best author out there. I recommend The Talisman to all you teenagers. Also IT. Hell, read all of the early ones! Then read the rest. SK rocks! (Am I too old to talk like that?)