I must have had the coolest mother in the world. It was the mid-1980's and Freddy and Jason were the biggest faces in horror. My mom allowed me to rent these horror movies from the local movie rental, and it was not the big chain type. There were pool tables and arcade games in the back. Years later we'd play the hell of Mortal Kombat. As a youngster though, I was introduced to the world of horror and there were no restrictions or limits to my exposure.
The first movie that truly scared me was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Six years after seeing it my parents moved me north of Houston. The based on a true story part of that scared the hell out of me, and I had no idea that it didn't really happen in Texas. In most of the horror movies there were funny parts or non-scary parts to lull your mind away from the killer. Not the case with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - That movie opens up with the scariest intro I've ever seen.
This is the impact that Leatherface had on me 25 years later.(Halloween 2011)
Horror had become an addiction for me. Once you've gone as far as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, then you have to turn to the best to get that scare. That is how I found Stephen King. He might not have scared me out of my wits every time, but the creep-out factor was always high enough to give me my fix. I watched the movie Christine, and then read the book at the age of ten. I was captivated by the movie's storyline, and completely shocked at how much better Stephen King told it.
This is when I figured out that I wanted to be a writer. One man could fill your horror needs. I was sure there were other great writers, but I didn't know who they were, nor did the masses that could easily recall a great Stephen King movie. The way he mixed reality and fiction was incredible. That is what made his unbelievable supernatural horror work so well. Stephen King knows people and it shows in his characters. He was the best horror dealer in town.
King's books would continue to be made into movies, because he was so descriptive that it was a ready made screen play. I still read him today to feed my appetite for horror. These days I try to scare people with my stories, Teen Spirit and The Keepers. He'd proven to me that one man can deliver the scares, and I hope that people are properly horrified after reading my stories.
I don't usually write supernatural horror. There is so much real horror in the world today that it's not really necessary to use vampires and crap like that to scare you. The real horror is on your local news. What I do is show you things that will remind you of these kinds of stories, and I'll tell you a story that shows you things that you might not have noticed. You say things like, who'd do something like that? I want to show you who'd do it, and help you understand how and why.
I hope to scare you in the near future!
https://twitter.com/war34eagle
Great post john :)
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