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WHY I LOVE HORROR features a Murderers’ Row of horror authors writing essays that detail their own personal journeys to becoming horror fans/writers. It’s a fucking revelation, is what it is. Some of the essays are deeply personal & upsetting. Some of them are more nostalgic & fun. Some seem like they warrant further investigation maybe (do we need to check up on Grady Hendrix, perhaps?) 

They all have one thing in common (and it’s not Stephen King, but it’s a close thing…I think nearly every essay mentions his work in some capacity): they all seem to describe the landscape of horror as almost like…a homecoming. As sort of the ultimate place where people who feel like they don’t belong…belong. I really can’t describe how I inspirational & empowering some of these pieces felt. 

Hailey Piper’s essay is in part an ode to Godzilla, but is ultimately so incredibly moving & heartfelt. Oof, it’s the second essay in this collection and it really sets the tone, I think. 

Gabino Iglesias’s essay touches on how much diversity can be found within the genre, with this killer line: “ I love horror because most of the horror I read when I was younger was about fear of the Other and now it’s about a lot of things, including the experiences of the Other.”

Rachel Harrison’s essay is a primal scream of feminist rage, detailing what it’s like to grow up being taught to hate your own body. I’ve only read one of her books & I liked it well enough, but this essay has me wanting to buy & read her entire backlist. This was such a standout for me…she writes with tremendous passion for the genre, and with a hilarious, painful self-awareness. Her essay is unbelievably powerful. 

Look, I’m not a writer but reading all these great essays by such a varied group of horror authors got me thinking of my own journey towards horror. I think that’s one of the goals of this book, honestly. So I thought I’d try my hand at a (hopefully) brief history of my introduction to & relationship with horror, if you’ll indulge me (it’s my blog, so indulge me!) 

Growing up, there were multiple people in my family who were voracious readers, most notably my Mom & my Aunt Nancy (they have both since passed away). My Mom used to keep her current read in a basket next to this big La-Z-Boy chair we had. The chair was in the corner of the living room & I was always burrowing behind the chair, playing G.I. Joe & He-Man. And I can vividly remember seeing a book cover that chilled me to the bone: Stephen King’s IT. 

Goddamn, did that haunt me. That creepy claw, clinging to the grate? Nightmare fuel for seven-year-old me. I didn’t ask any questions about it, I just knew it was Not For Kids.

This was the 80’s and trips to the video store were a weekly occurrence. I still remember the layout & feel of our local video store, with the unbearably exciting moniker of Home Video. And I think it was here that I became even more peripherally aware of horror, sneaking glimpses at the covers of the horror movie tapes on my way to the more kid-friendly aisles of the store. One cover in particular is seared into my memory, for the 1986 movie “Vamp.” I’ve included an image of the cover, and damn, I can still recall feeling so scared by this. Incidentally, I have never seen this movie to this day. 

A few years later, cable TV was the thing, and my sister & I were (within reason) free to watch pretty much whatever. “Silver Bullet” and “The Lost Boys” became household favorites (maybe Corey Haim deserves more credit for being a gateway to horror?), along with endless horror-comedies like “The ‘Burbs”, “Gremlins,” and “Arachnophobia.”

And listen, I had a very good, ordinary childhood. And I’m very grateful for that. But I was born in 1979 & definitely grew up in that generation that stayed out unsupervised until it was dark, and well. Kids get up to shit. So I had my share of real-life horror-adjacent experiences. I was reminded recently (by my sister) of The Dead Cat Incident™️. The short version of the story: we walked to school every day (the school was almost directly across the street from my house, this is not a “in my day kids walked to school” situation) and there was this little hill along the way, leading into the woods. And one time, there was…a dead cat. Just laying at the bottom of the hill. So did we just ignore it & walk by each day? No, of course we didn’t, kids are disgusting goblins, so we got closer & closer to the cat each day, watching it decay. The thought of this now horrifies me, but as kids I guess we were just…curious?

I also had neighbors who were Born Again Christians. And they were good people. Our friends. They looked after us. But there was definitely a weird rift/tension with them & my family about some of their beliefs (my family was never religious). We had a Ouija board; our neighbor told my Mom he wanted to burn it & bury the ashes. 

So we did what any family would do & named our next dog Satan (this is a true story!) My Mom did not like being told what to do! WE WILL PLAY WITH THE GODDAMN OUIJA BOARD, THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONCERN. 

I also remember staying at my friend’s house overnight (or attempting to) and being told by his mother that “Jesus is watching” just before bed. And I just lay there on the floor, absolutely terrified. Frozen with fear. In my memory, my friend had a closet with louvered doors, and I was just like WHAT THE FUCK, IS JESUS IN THE CLOSET, WATCHING?!! HE IS, ISN’T HE?!

My Mom came and picked me up and I slept at home, where Jesus was definitely NOT in the closet. 

This was also the time when missing kids were on milk cartons & there was always a rumor of a blue van snatching kids off the street. Whether these were just rumors, based on truth, or mere urban legends, we lived with it. Anytime you saw a blue van, you just fucking booked it home as fast as you could.  

The reading bug didn’t really bite me until I was a freshman in high school (I unfortunately do not have any stories of reading GOOSEBUMPS or SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK under the blankets with a flashlight), and it was a movie trailer that actually got me into reading, oddly enough. I was a HUGE movie fan, and this was the era when the first time you saw a trailer was at the actual movies (another lifetime ago, it seems), and the trailer for “Needful Things” absolutely captivated me. The fall vibes. The small town horror. The music. I just knew this was Extremely My Shit. And it said it was based on a Stephen King novel. There was a great indie bookstore in the same shopping center as the movie theatre, and I bought a copy of NEEDFUL THINGS as soon as the movie let out. I loved it then & it’s remained my favorite Stephen King novel all these years later. 

In my late teens & early 20’s, I was reading & watching horror at a frenetic pace. I scoured used bookstores for hardcover Stephen King novels (my aunt graciously gave me so many of her books, and would ALWAYS take me to the bookstore to buy King’s new releases as a teenager…she spoiled the heck out of me!). I remember not-so-patiently waiting for each new installment of THE GREEN MILE to come out. I rented EVERYTHING from the local video store where we lived. Mom & Pop video stores operated quite differently from Blockbuster in that they never got rid of anything, so the horror section was PACKED & I just rented everything. Got really into Fulci & Argento. I just couldn’t get enough horror. 

Until I did. 

It’s hard to explain, but I went through an extended period of time, starting in my late 20’s, where I pretty much stopped watching horror movies (I was still reading horror, but less & less). I often “credit” the American version of “The Grudge” with scaring me so much that I just lost the taste for horror for a long time. 

My reading tastes changed & evolved a lot in my thirties and into my forties. I’ve been reviewing books for just about ten years now, and that period of time was mostly dominated by fantasy & sci-fi. I would still read the occasional horror novel & I slowly started watching more & more horror over the last ten years. But something really shifted for me over the last few years (state of the world, maybe?) and I am reading more horror than anything right now. It’s kind of all I think about, if I’m being honest. I’ve got an INFINITE amount of fantasy & sci-fi that I have been meaning to get to for years, but right now it’s the horror novels that are screaming the loudest to me from my shelves. I’ve come to accept that my reading tastes will change, and my interest in any one genre may ebb & flow over time. But I’m seizing on my mood right now & goddamn, I have read some truly amazing horror novels in the last few years! And yeah, this really does seem like a golden age of horror! How cool is it to see dedicated horror imprints like Nightfire & Run For It just filling the shelves with such diversity? 

Some of the essays in WHY I LOVE HORROR really spoke to me. I’ve often struggled to explain to people how movies like “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Seven,” and more recently, “Barbarian,” are legitimately my comfort movies. Why in my own times of difficulty or grief, I’ll turn to horror novels & movies as a refuge. But a lot of the essays in this book make me realize I’m not alone feeling this way about such dark stories. 

Someone mentioned in their essay (I forget, but it may have been Alma Katsu) that they believe there’s a horror story for everyone, and I tend to agree. I’m endlessly happy to have found my way in (and out, and back in again) to this wonderfully human, haunting, and bloody genre. I think I’ll be sticking around for good. 

Massive thanks to Saga Press for sending the ARC my way! WHY I LOVE HORROR releases September 23rd!

Extra massive thanks to anyone who took the time to read this whole thing. I recognize it’s about three times as long as my average blog post 🫣