Trying to make sense of life has perhaps been my only real vocation. As I continue to work on horror-themed books, reasonable people ask why I keep doing this. It’s a question I ask myself. The other day, while working on one of these projects, I had a realization. The narrative I’d been playing in my head is that I grew up watching monster movies and then, apart from a few slip-ups, fell off the wagon again after my career malfunction. That’s largely true but I suddenly remembered that seminary was actually another period of my life when I watched a lot of horror. Regular readers know that I’m intrigued by the connection between religion and horror, but I’d forgotten how early this started with me.
A friend, nameless here, was a fellow seminarian and a total cinephile. He and I would watch movies together quite a lot. As I was recollecting which ones, it suddenly struck me that many of them were horror films. And it wasn’t just this unnamed friend. Another anonymous comrade frequently talked me into theatrical horror. He’d go with his girlfriend (something I lacked at the time) but he liked to chat about the movies with me and often invited me along. So it was that I was watching horror into the mid-to-late eighties. I stopped, pretty much cold turkey, when I married. It seemed that the therapy horror was offering was no longer needed. Life settled into a happy, if weird existence stretching several years into Nashotah House. This was the locus of said malfunction.
Losing my only full-time teaching post led directly to watching horror again. My wife had to take a job out of state. We crammed ourselves into an apartment after having a four-bedroom house. Jobs were not coming my way, no matter how low I aimed. Horror was cheap therapy. What’s more, it’s remained a hobby ever since. (Read into that what you will.) People who know me personally (but who don’t frequent this blog) are often surprised to learn that I watch horror. I don’t act like someone who does. At least according to this usual, prejudiced image of the horror fan. What’s more, the friends who share this fascination are nice people. I was recently asked to speak about Holy Horror to a senior seminar at Transylvania University (it’s in Kentucky). The students all seemed to be upstanding, bright young people. They, however, like horror. I don’t know their stories, but I’m guessing that they’re probably quite interesting. They’re just beginning to try to make sense of life.