Horror

I have always been a fan of scary movies, from my two year old night terrors of watching my bed burn to being sweetly terrified that the shadows on my nursery windows were Santy Claus.

As a child the gentler versions of horror like Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, were monsters I felt sorry for. I got to stay up late and watch them with my Dad. Reading all the ghost stories or scary stories in my Dad's library was simply an extension of both my interest in them and a camaraderie with my father.

I was not, and am not, so much a fan of the horror my mother introduced into my life at the ripe old age of three when she informed me that she might not be who I thought she was. She might really be Santa Claus masquerading as my mommy. That was and is the fodder for many nightmares where people, especially my mother are really werewolves, or terrifying doppelgangers.

The idea of haunted houses full of secret rooms, hallways, attics and maybe ghosts lured me into every movie and book I could find. I am not surprised to realize that much of this might have simply been the haunted precursors to HGTV.

And there is still that attachment to my Dad, who when I asked him if there really were ghosts, simply said, "There might be and there might not."

I honestly don't think I really believe in any kind of supernatural things, so they are simply forms of novel escape for me.  (But that being said, I believe that nonbelievers might be the ones hardest hit if they ever did have a supernatural experience that was scary.)

And that being said, I have had enough strange experiences that were not scary at all to wonder if the scary stories are simply another way to deny the miraculous beauty in this world that we will probably never understand.

Also, just as a note to those who wonder: I prefer hauntings to blood and gore, so I'm not sure I am as much a horror fan as I am supernatural manifestation fan, but either way I love seeing what someone else's imagination comes up with.

Then I wonder how and why they did that and why you like it.