Why do I Love Horror?

     I love horror films, I have since I was a little kid. And not only do I love them but I love every aspect of the genre, I love bad horror movies, great ones, how they're made and what goes into the psychology of creating a truly scary movie.

     The question was proposed: why? Why do I love seeing all that gore or suspense or why do I enjoy seeing a character that harms people? The question why is an interesting one and I want to explore that in me and in society. Let's get into it.

     Starting with me, I saw my first horror...well suspense movie when I was 2 years old. It was the first movie I ever watched, I watched a scene on a beach when a woman was swimming and something grabbed her. Jaws made a huge impact on me at that young age and my first reaction (as I've been told by relatives many many times) was how I saw the movie from the shark's point of view. At 2 years old, I cried when they killed the shark because my innocence didn't understand the shark was endangering people. 

But here's something that ALSO happened subconsciously: that movie put my fears into a box. At the time I'm sure I had simple fears; things that a 2-4 year old are scared of can be considered simple to us at 20-30 or older, right? A few years later when I was dealing with family abuse and being bullied and not fitting in, things that teenagers deal with, and I realized that those horror movies became an escape and it taught my mind how to put fear in a box.

     Here's the societal part of this: more often than not, we find ways to cope with terrible things by putting our fears in a certain box. If we contain our fear, whether it's by running away from it or putting a face on it or running at it head on, just about everyone puts their personal fear in a box.

George Romero explained Night of the Living Dead as his depiction of aids, racism and anything that we face that cannot be stopped no matter how far away it is and how slowly it comes at us. That movie gave death (something we can try but never outrun) a face and a mental idea of how to look at it, we put death in a box with zombie movies. These fears or concepts are hard to fathom and can be destructive to our conscious minds, so gaining some control over how we understand these can be really helpful in truly grasping what they can be or do. 

     Another thing I personally use on a regular basis that came from horror films is sensitivity to situations, to people and to real life potential dangers. Probably the most relatable example of this is from a 2003 movie that shows a traffic scene where a truck holding logs is in front of the protagonist. It definitely created some over thinking of that particular scenario but the positive thing it DID do was give many of us a sensitivity to our own surroundings. 

We watch movies where a masked villain is following  the main character and we, as a society, look around when we're in situations where there could be someone following us later in life. And again, though we'll have many times where we're overanalyzing moments, there are times when wedevelope more sensitivity to actual dangerous times and have caught ourselves before entering actual danger.

     So in answering this question, it's been eye opening to dissect and figure out why I love horror movies on both a conscious and subconscious level. I think those of us who are able to see these films and hear these stories with our subconscious open to what the underlying lesson is can actually help in ways. All of that is said with the knowledge that there is a 'too much' of literally everything, so limiting even favorite things is always smart. And not liking horrors only means you are in a different phase or you aren't in need of quarantining some aspects of life, it's very interesting to be in every phase of your subconscious life.

     If this helped you in any way, please let me know. We can learn a lot from why we enjoy things we enjoy and how we react to things. Thank you for reading this far and I hope you have a legendary day!

Beginning from Scratch (October 19, 2022)

     Ok so...things are about to get real. Have you ever felt like you were in a rut? Or  better yet, have you ever felt like you're miserable in life, but like you didn't want to do anything because though it's miserable...you were comfortable?

I have. I did. I am. I do.

That's a hole of a feeling, it's the worst. I've been to the point of wanting to end myself because I just...I hate feeling so empty and stuck. So I am currently doing something about it. I am currently getting ready to move. Out of the Philadelphia market, something I've never done in my 40 years (with 2 very short exceptions in the early 00's) I'm moving to the Nashville Tennessee area and I'm terrified, I'm nervous, I'm excited and mostly I'm busy trying to find a place to live there.

     The background: On a whim, I decided to see if there were any openings with my company out of my area and randomly applied for one that I found in Nashville. Before I knew it, I got a phone interview set up and I was then looking for places there.

This is insane and I'm terrified that things won't work, I'm also cleaning my room up and getting rid of A LOT of junk I've collected over the years...but ya know what I'm not feeling? Suicidal. Depressed. And I'm not homesick. I've never felt like I had a home, the closest is I've wanted to not be wherever I was at the moment. The only thing I'm going to miss is seeing my Philadelphia Flyers in their home arena

     Now part of the background is why I decided to make a move and that's a beast on it's own. Wanna get into it? Ooook.

I lost my entire support group, my friend group not too long ago. For around 2 years now, I've had a very few friends and really Tiktok has been my main way to talk to people outside of work. And with having some kind of connection outside work situations being such a big and important part of me, I started to shell up and need that more and more. 

And I wish I could say this wasn't true but it was, I had very strong feelings for a person that did not even slightly return those feelings, making my life as uncomfortable as could be. I want so deeply for her to see what I see and feel what I feel but I never ever ever want to become a negative in her universe, which I think started to happen. 

Who knows, maybe I needed that to kick start a giant change of scenery. Maybe that was part of the plan all along (I doubt it because God seemed to have a distaste for anything good happening for me in any way) 

So those and probably a few other insignificant reasons, I felt the need to get up and go rising over the last...maybe year

. So I am Nashville bound, with no place to live yet and (at this very moment) my phone interview at the store there not an actual certainty, I am terrified that some or all of this won't work out. I can say this, no matter what happens from here on out, my life is about to change in a very very big way. Could be for the better, could be for the worse, it could kinda even out in some way but...things will be different.

Can I tell you a story?

 

When I was 6 years old (I'm 40 now) I moved to this apartment complex. The first day, I went with my mom and her boyfriend to check the place out.

 I wandered away bc that's what I've always done and I saw a playground across the street.

I was about to go there and a little kid started to run across the street right when a car was speeding by. I pulled him back and saved his life.

Just then a girl ran over and yelled his name. And I still remember that moment like it was yesterday.

Her perfect golden hair flies as she ran and she had on a white sweat shirt with a pink decorative heart on it.

I knew in that moment I was in love with her...at 6 years old. 

We moved there and I ended up living in the apartment right under hers, she and I became best friends and I loved her like no one else. I truly thought she was 'the one' 

Even when I moved and didn't have contact with her, I remember thinking, 'this is only an obstacle, a growing up lesson but someday we'll find each other and it'll be the perfect love story' and I really expected that to be how it went.

I went to middle school, highschool and every single day I thought, 'maybe today or next week or next school year she'll randomly show up' not only did I not doubt this but I "knew" it was going to happen.

Then things went crazy and I got scared. There was abuse, drugs, people were threatening me and people around me, life really was insane and I had to move.

I moved to this small terrible town, I had no friends, I had no reason to think life was going to be liveable. BUT...There's that girl out there somewhere.

I knew I had to stay alive, I had to succeed, I had to save her. It drive me to not attempt suicide multiple times, just the thought I'd that girl looking for me and finding out I was dead. I absolutely couldn't do that to her. "She's the one." 

Depression hit me really hard, I was stuck in a world with drug addicts, drunks and a school built to ruin people like me. I started to doubt that one true love for the first time in my senior year of highschool. 

I was kicked out of school by the principal, I had no plan and still had my family there, two drunks and one drug addict.

I thought all life was is you either are a drink or you get abused by a drunk...nothing else.

I fought hard to get away from things like drugs and a lie kind of life, started going to church and in 2012 I did a thing that I thought was finally that thing that was gonna change my life.

I wrote letters to the people with that girls name. Like, I hand wrote 3 letters and sent them to people with her name in hopes that one of them was her. I had no idea if she lived in any of those locations or is she was even still alive. I still had that strange confidence that she and I were meant to be.

Long story short: one of them was her and she wasn't interested in anything I had counted on. She was in a long term relationship at the moment (which ended a little while after we stopped talking)

And as much as I still don't want to admit this, we had some connecting similarities but we also had some very very big differences that probably would have broken us up if we did get together.

Anyway, since then I've been just kinda floating around on this rock. No plan, no destiny, no one to save our to save me.