February is Women in Horror Month, and I thought I would join in by telling my horror story. My life as a lifelong horror fan.
When I was growing up, my best friend Catherine and I would rent movies a lot. Back in the long long ago days of renting VHS tapes from a movie rental store. There was on a block or so from our houses, so we’d frequent it. And they were pretty easy going when it came to rating restrictions. We watched a lot of horror movies growing up. I can remember watching A Nightmare On Elm Street (my personal long time fave), Friday The 13th, Child’s Play, Tremors, and so many Stephen King movies. We loved them and watched whatever we could. And her family had a large movie collection as well, so that fed our hunger for horror.
And the thing is, I can only remember 2 instances of kinda being scared from a movie. 1 was after watching Tremors I didn’t want to walk back across the street to my own house, so I made my mom walk across and then walk back with me. And 2 was a dream (not really a nightmare) of a Pennywise shadow waving outside my window after watching IT. But I don’t really count those as truly being scared by a movie. We never were. We usually laughed at the movies. We knew they weren’t real, and we didn’t really find them that scary.
And from childhood Horror movies were always my thing. I went thru phases of loving the old school slashers, and then onto ones with a good story like Stephen King movies. I never really got into the torture porn movie phase. But I did enjoy the “fun” horror movies of the 90s and 2000s.
The only time I wasn’t really into horror movies was after my mom passed away. I went thru a weird phase of being really messed up mentally, and not feeling the horror genre. But I slowly found my way back to it, and recently have fallen in deep. I’m back to my old horror fan self. And I’m really liking the return to good stories and fun horror.
Along the way I did keep up with horror in some respect, mainly by doing horror related make up. Either for Halloween, or just for fun. This site has a bunch on my Costumes page, but you can also find a bunch on my Instagram @cherrycyannide where I do make up all year long. So be sure to check those out.
And last year I got involved with the local horror movie film fest Terror In The Bay. And this year I am more involved and can’t wait for the event in October.
I think over the last year or 2 I have found my way back to being who I really am inside. Goth, horror, witch. Kinda how I was at 16, but in a way better more confident way. And I am really happy with where I am. A lifelong horror fan.