Meet the Horror Bloggers: Day of the Woman

Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, League of Tana Tea Drinkers' member Brittney-Jade Colangelo of Day of the Woman brings a youthful approach to an old genre.

Horror has always been a huge part of my life. Before Kindergarten I was a Craven Crusader, I had conquered Carpenter, and I bellowed with laughter at Barker. My mother introduced me to the films at a young age, but my father brought me into the horror culture. My parents also used to run the haunted hayride for our community.

People from all over would come to our town to experience the terror that my family would provide. While it would drive down creepy trails and scary wooded areas, my parents were lurking. My father may have been the big man in the hockey mask that jumped on top of the ride towards the end, but my mother was Pamela Voorhees. She was a woman dressed in the hockey mask at the beginning of the ride. Sort of a symbol for the terror that was about to come. In my opinion, it was brilliant.

My mother also chose a babysitter for me who shared a love of horror. I had a babysitter named Jillian who LOVED horror films. She would come over to watch me for the evening while my parents went out galavanting and she would come over with bundles of horror films. While most parents would probably freak out, my mom encouraged it! We even had a night where all the neighborhood kids came by and we watched Sleepaway Camp. Knowing it would scare us sheetless, it lead to an up all night party of ghost stories shared by not only the children and the babysitter...but my parents as well.

I know it sounds completely ridiculous to think that one of the "worst horror remakes" could have influenced me to enjoy old-school horror, but I promise it does have a point. After that weekend, I ran home to my computer and used Ask Jeeves (yes, this is before Google blew up) and typed in "the house on haunted hill movie". I was hoping to see if it, in fact, WAS the guy from Night at the Roxbury in this film. Instead of getting a bunch of images from the movie I had just seen or finding out that YES Chris Kattan did a horror film, I was given a picture of Vincent Price. Being only 9 years old, I had no idea who the HELL Vincent Price was. My mother did a great job leading me to the Freddy films, Jason, Michael, Carrie, and the rest of Stephen King's characters, but I had no idea who this guy was with the Boris Badinov mustache. So I went to my local family owned video store and asked "Do you have anything with Vincent Price?" The man smiled at me and said "Of course I do, and I wouldn't let most kids rent his stuff, but then again Brit...you've never been like most kids".

I scurried out happily from the video store with VHS copies of House of Wax, The Pit and the Pendulum, Theatre of Blood, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, The Fly, and on top of the stack...The House on Haunted Hill. Along with those films, he sent me home with a few of Castle's other greats, like Uranium Boom, The Tingler, Macabre, and what ended up my personal favorite, 13 Ghosts.

I must have looked pretty bad-ass to any middle-aged pedophiles down the street--a little 9-year-old girl with a vast collection of horror films bungie-corded on the back of her Huffy.

I started DotW for the sheer fact that for some reason or another, people think the horror genre is dying. I want to change that opinion. I am barely 19 years old, female, a competitive baton twirler, a beauty queen, poster child for my former high school (literally, I'm on the website) and yet I live and breathe horror films. I like that I don't quite "fit in" with the stereotypical horror fanatic. I started writing to show the world that horror is thriving through the generations that weren't born in the Golden age, and that the future of horror is bright and booming :)

Day of the Woman: A Blog for the Feminine Side of Fear

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Vault of Horror

Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging, up close and personal.

In this installment, League of Tana Tea Drinkers' member Brian Solomon of The Vault of Horror squarely places the blame for his horror fanaticism.

I've been fascinated with horror ever since my parents let me watch The Exorcist at 8 years old (what were they thinking??), and I ran up to my bed screaming when Linda Blair's eyes rolled into the back of her head.

There were also all those classic Universal and Hammer flicks that syndicated TV piped my way on lazy weekend afternoons. But the one that grabbed my attention and didn't let go, the film that truly sparked my lifelong fascination with the horror genre, was The Return of the Living Dead (or ROTLD, as its fans so succinctly call it.)

Much as with my very life, it all started thanks to my parents. You see, they were horror freaks from back in the days when I had to stay holed up in my room just listening to the screams from downstairs, too young to sit in on the "grown-up" horror movies.

For me, ROTLD was a gateway movie, opening the door to so much more. My next stop was the Evil Dead flicks; then came George Romero, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Vault of Horror

Meet the Horror Bloggers: TheoFantastique

Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging, up close and personal.

In this installment, League of Tana Tea Drinkers' member John W. Morehead of TheoFantastique tells us about his life-long journey with the fantastic on film and television, and how it provides a catalyst for his studies in religion and culture.

I have had an almost lifelong connection to the fantastic, including horror. Some of my memories going back to early grammar school in Stockton, California include my dad's offer to my brother and I to forgo the weekly family viewing of The Wonderful World of Disney for a scary movie. Although we loved Disney, we jumped at the chance to see something we had never seen before. The movie that evening was The Creature from the Black Lagoon. I was younger than eight at the time, probably five or six, and although the creature frightened me, it also opened the door for a love of horror and science fiction even at this young age.

After this experience I discovered a number of sci fi films on television such as Invaders from Mars, War of the Worlds, The Thing From Another World, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Later I would discover fantasy films, particularly the stop-motion animation classics of Ray Harryhausen, and his cyclops of The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad contributed to my deep appreciation of this art form. Continuing into the 1970s as I grew up we had our local Creature Features host, the late Bob Wilkins, who at one point had weekly programs out of both the San Francisco Bay Area as well as Sacramento, California.

Through Creature Features I discovered horror in greater depth, beginning with the classic horror films of Universal from the 1930s and 1940s, moving to the remakes and re-envisioning of these classic cinematic treats through Hammer Films.

Added to this mix was the Star Trek television series in early syndication at the time, and of course the release of Star Wars created a situation in the culture in which geeks of the fantastic were joined by rank and file members of the genuine population who were willing to publicly express their enjoyment of the struggle for good and evil across the universe "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away."

The fantastic on film and television had a profound effect on me, nurturing my imagination, stretching my thoughts about what was possible, and perhaps even enchanting my understanding of the boundaries of reality itself. Later I would become a person of religious faith in a conservative religious subculture, and for a time I thought that my faith was incompatible with the enjoyment of the fantastic, particularly the darker sort as expressed in horror. Several years later I reassessed this way of thinking and once again embraced my love for the fantastic.

As an adult I have had the opportunity to reflect anew on these things, not only as a continuing fan, who at times feels the tug of nostalgia and for a moment experiences the fleeting memories of childhood as the television and movie screen flickers with its images of wonder and fright, but also to ask myself what these things mean as an adult. By education and training I have a background in intercultural and religious studies, and I have discovered that these disciplines provide insights and the means for appreciation for the fantastic that helps me explore the fantastic beyond its entertainment value. Who would have thought that King Kong might have something to tell us about racism of the 1930s, that Invasion of the Body Snatchers can shed light on McCarthyism and fears of conformity in the 1950s, that John Carpenter's The Thing has something to say about AIDS and the fear of the loss of bodily integrity, or that The Dark Knight metaphorically explores the Bush Administration's war on terror?

In my academic exploration of the fantastic I tapped into the growing body of academic literature on the topic. I discovered fellow scholars thinking through the same issues and exploring the same films as I was, and as a result, their explorations became the source of further personal explorations. And many times, these same authors were often all too willing to discuss their thoughts through interviews on my blog TheoFantastique. Once the first interview was posted I then pointed to it and invited other authors. Soon I had a collection of interviews not only with scholars, but also other authors, editors, indie horror actors, and even one Hollywood horror and science fiction film director.

I am pleased and humbled that TheoFantastique has been well received. I am enjoying the journey that I chronicle through its posts, and I hope that it continues to be valued by my readers.

TheoFantastique: A Meeting Place for Myth, Imagination, and Mystery in Pop Culture