Why I Am The Way I Am

Recently I was discussing my latest art project with my sister. By discussing, I mean I was demanding to know if this busy, working mother of two was up to date with my most recent nonsense. She apologised that she wasn’t quite up to date, but it did prompt her to ask what on Earth ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ was and why I liked that kind of thing. It begged a further question many have pondered before: why am I the way I am? Well, let me enlighten you.

I think I have always been fascinated with storytelling, from the time I hung on every word of a teacher at primary school reciting East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon. I was intrigued, not just by the story itself, but by the way this teacher told it, leaving me on edge, open mouthed and completely captivated.

I lost myself a lot in books, television and films, escaping out of the world (i.e. from staying indoors), or otherwise I’d be setting up my Barbie dolls whilst devising a storyline for the day’s play.

One day, I was sitting with my dad who thought it would be appropriate to recommend the book Helter Skelter to his under ten year old daughter. He informed me of the notorious Charles Manson, in particular an eerie passage from the book: during the trial of the infamous Manson Family Murders, in the courtroom, Manson supposedly managed to stop the lead prosecutor's long running wristwatch via the power of a death stare, causing it to never work again! Oooh, spooky, tell me more. No wait, I’ll get the book and begin a lifelong fascination with true crime, a world of the macabre at my fingertips. Thanks dad!

My dad has always had a penchant for storytelling, with tales of spine-tingling urban legends, from the married couple who’s car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, to the woman who comes across what appears to be a dead body in the road whilst driving. Thanks dad!

Then there was that time when I was eleven and my mum was away for the weekend entrusting my dad to take care of me alone. Was it fate that the Saturday night film was a horror classic that would change my life forever? Who knows? All I do know is, up until that point, my experience of horror was Lou Ferrigno’s terrifying ‘Incredible Hulk’ contact lenses (it still gets me today!) and the gory bits in ‘Casualty’.

So, my dad turns off the lights, we both tuck in on the sofa, me with a duvet and pillow (which would come very much in handy) ready to watch a film he insisted would be totally ideal for me. He didn’t tell me much, but the expression on his face, the ghoulish tone in his voice and some spooky, mysterious motions of his fingers when he told me about main character Freddy was enough to lead me blindly to agree to settle in, sit back and enjoy this not at all ominous sounding movie called 'Nightmare On Elm Street’. About 20 minutes in, the last few moments of remaining untainted by the creative horrors that filmmakers could come up with, I am seeing a poor young woman get sliced open by a man who hunts people in their dreams. That’s right, when they are sleeping. The next hour of the film was me under the duvet cover, with the pillow for extra visual obscuring, as I tried to digest and make sense of what my fragile mind had taken in. Convinced the coast was clear, since surely nothing could be worse than that opening kill, I emerged, to see Johnny Depp on screen, lying on a bed having fallen asleep watching TV and listening to music through his headphones, when suddenly, he has fallen into the clutches of Freddy … who sucks Johnny into the bed. Oh god! How horrifying! Still, at least that’s all that happens – wha-whaaaaat?!?! Suddenly, an entire geyser of blood shoots from the Johnny Depp shaped hole in the bed, washing over the bedroom ceiling and … that is it. My innocent mind is now forever corrupted with the images of people dying horribly in their sleep, in their own beds, by an unseen entity, who by the way, when you do see him, is the most terrifying vision of a cinematic monster you could imagine (at least for an eleven year old). What was to become of me? Well, my mum returned, perplexed as to why I was so terrified and when the truth was revealed (I can’t remember how exactly, maybe my dad confessed, maybe he gave things away when he’d stick steak knives between his fingers, as a means of what he considered to be jovially taunting me; or maybe after some time when I was coming out of my catatonic state I managed to mumble the words “F-F-Freddy” and “N-n-never s-s-sleep a-a-again!”), needless to say, mum was furious and probably a tad more stressed out over the next two years during which time I couldn’t sleep through the night, because that’s when Freddy would get me!!

So wait, if I was so traumatized, why did I become the way I am, i.e. why do I now love all things horror and macabre? Well, once I had been able to fully understand the line between reality and fiction, something in me just … needed a fix! It was like I was chasing the dragon, I needed to be scared, to experience that otherworldly thrill of adrenaline, regardless of what it was costing my sanity. I’d query the contents of my classmate’s Point Horror books, I’d read about the vast array of horror films made over time, until I felt secure enough to read and watch those spooky, grisly, unnerving stories that challenged my peculiar head to face my fears. Soon, I’d be a horror connoisseur, spending three years at university studying film and really getting into the guts of horror! By the end of it, I’d become versed in the obscure world of exploitation horror films, the outrageous noughties New French Extremity, low budget amateur horror and most specifically of all: Italian cannibal horror movies. I even wrote my own cannibal horror homage screenplay. Ah cannibals, so underrated!

Yet it isn’t just the visions of horror I seek. Horror can be used very creatively as a means of storytelling. Reaching into the depths of our psyche, to discover the worst kind of nightmares we can imagine, not because we are sick, but maybe to test ourselves in facing our fears; or in an effort to imagine the worst forms of humankind, because we simply cannot understand how some horrors can truly exist.

Furthermore, when it comes to constructing a horror film, particularly when scarce of budget, the challenges to creativity it provides can be innovative and inspiring. ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ itself used numerous mechanisms to create special effects, from revolving sets, to spandex walls. Inspired!!

So, do I thank my dad for enlightening me to this wonderful world of what we would consider to be the innermost terrors projected in our minds, in print and on screen, despite the years of insomnia, anxiety and acquired awkward social skills where I could be found starting a conversation along the lines of “Hey, have you seen ‘I Spit On Your Grave’?”?

I love you dad.