A Year of Horrors

I think of myself as a horror fan. I read magazines like Rue Morgue and Shock Cinema. When I found out that Famous Monsters of Filmland had risen from the grave I bought an issue even though it was $13 and funds were tight. I have an opinion whether Gary Oldman, Bela Lugosi, or Leslie Nielsen made a better film Dracula. I want to know why Damian Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, hasn't teamed up with John Constantine.

Yet I consider myself a dabbler. I don't watch all that many horror movies, maybe five a year. Ditto for novels, and in the case of novels there's a lot of questions regarding categorization and hair-splitting and tight or loose definitions of genre: the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series is definitely within the paranormal romance sub-genre, but most of them have genuine moments of suspense and enough gore to satisfy many splatter aficionados. Is that good enough to call it horror? Twilight on the other hand, is a horror only to feminists and lovers of good prose.

So, I've decided to start a project. For the next year, I will try to once a week view a movie, read a book, or read a comic book within the horror genre. I will report back to you my findings. I will probably be using a broad definition of the genre that includes supernatural horror; mystery/suspense/psychological/thriller; monster mashes, like Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman or Van Helsing; paranormal romance; dark fantasy; morbid poetry like “The Raven”; scary science fiction, like Day of the Triffids; maybe even a little Japanese kaiju eiga,like Godzilla or Gamera.

Who knows, if I can keep it up? I start a lot of projects and then get distracted.

I did finish reading a novel yesterday that I'm going to count toward this project, and I'm writing up a review on it. So, that's one week down already.