I’ve often been painted with a fairly unfortunate brush. In my case, it’s the curse of being the American surfer dude who is actually a European intellectual (loosely speaking, perhaps), all of which is prompted by my long hair and baggy clothing. If I then explain that I am a horror-movie loving metal-head, who just happens to like colorful clothes better than black ones. My looks it seems are my bane. I get judged a bit too quickly, based on what I look like. Of course, I can safely say that many people judge a bit too quickly, but of late there is a different stereotypification that has become more and more prevalent in discussing horror. And that is the idea of there being a true horror fan. I point out how much my appearance fails to match expectations of my personal interests only as an analogy. With the ‘True Horror Fan’ I think there is far greater insinuation and expectation that is far more serpentine. It’s the idea that true horror fans should live the lifestyle, love the gore, collect the cheesy stuff, and be a pasty goth. I exaggerate for effect. Is this the case, and is this a good thing?

 The issue is one which is very near and dear to me for a number of reasons. First of all, I am very happy to watch and defend bad horror films. I love Jason X, I love Uwe Boll movies, and I love some really lame stuff. At the exact opposite end of the spectrum, I love giving the ‘great’ movies a lot of stick. Busting balls, might be the correct wording. I think that the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is really poor. It is fine for what it was, but to put it up on such a pedistal, is a joke, a mockery of great cinema. The actual footage therein is no better, if not significantly worse, than some of the stuff coming out 50 years earlier. Yes, it’s not a big budget classic, but for me great films need to have something great. I digress. My point is that I am the unconventional horror fan. I didn’t grow up with it, I grew up with Steven Segal films and Sean Connery epics. Then I started watching horror at a relatively late age. Certainly compared to many of my fellow posters on this site, I might as well have been in the retirement home when I started watching horror films. Yet despite all my differences, I consider myself to be a horror fan.

Others, however, do not really seem to agree with me. Very often you hear about how Hollywood is no longer making horror movies for the real fans. Recently, with the trend leading towards remakes and reimaginations, with Bloody Disgusting reminding us day in day out about the upcoming Friday the 13th remake and how great it will be, many horror fans feel dissatisfied. As though they deserved better horror films. Even many of my fellow contributors have written articles to this effect. This bothers me. It has done for a long time, and when some of our Independent Horror greats, many of whom are guests on our Radio Show, continuously point out how Hollywood is betraying horror fans everywhere, I have to pause and raise an eyebrow.

For a start, is it not a great assumption of infallibility to think that what some of us like as horror fans is what we must ALL like. I was brought to this idea most recently when I was discussing our guest-list for horrormoviefans.com’s radio show. My friend was informing me, adamantly, that Hollywood needs to get their act together and get back to making good horror films. I asked the obvious question. Why? The Obvious answer, because they are just not listening to us true horror fans. Right away, my alarm bells are ringing. Who is this mythical True Horror Fan. It is very easy to form a stereotypical assumption about horror fans. Even I can google for an image of some goth guy with his massive collection of Hellraiser figurines. And that is fine. Those kind of horror fans are awesome in their own right. But I really don’t think it’s fair that we constantly paint everyone with this brush. There are teenagers who love The Ring and The Grudge nowadays, there are plenty of fans who don’t mind some of the remakes. I personally thought Texas Chainsaw Massacre the remake was an infinitely better film than the original. Of course, my viewing them out of chronological order helps that idea. We all have our pet peeves

So where is the danger? Why would I even bother pointing out that we aren’t all the same goth dude? Because these days we are criticising our horror industry for the exact same assumption that these stereotypes are aimed at. We say they are making films that aren’t aimed at the true horror fan, when the true horror fan is a myth. They are making films that people are going to see, just as many of our favourites at some point in time were. You can safely say that the older generation were not all thrilled when it went from Hitchcock style suspense and psychological terror to Texas Chainsaw Massacre implied brutality. Even more old people, some of whom are actually fairly friendly with the horror genre of yesteryear, have failed to make the leap to Torture Porn and Gorenography. The older generation complains about the young ones. The young ones consider the older dudes nothing more than relics of the old order, and they rebel. It’s somewhat cyclical, but the one fundamental thing that you can take from this trend is that there is no right answer.

So by all means, hate the modern output by Hollywood, pretend that all you really want is nothing but guts and gore, mock Uwe Boll and his approach to film making, but do so assured that for all your hatred of those things, you are no more the true horror fan that I am, with my obsession with Jason X, my defense of terrible films. There just is no right answer, there is no singular way to view the world. Ultimately we will be much more well-rounder horror fans the more of us there are that lock horns and do battle in the realm of forums, coffe-shops, and sleep-overs. The greater the diversity, the more likely that everyone can find something they truly love. So please, stop saying that hollywood betrayed us true horror fans. Hollywood did not betray anyone, perhaps you’ve grown sentimental, or perhaps they’ve grown sentimental, but all movies can be good movies to someone, and ALL fans may be real fans, true to themselves. Even if they dont’ conform to your stereotypes, and your ideas of what is good and what is bad.

 I end this brief and arguably rushed expose with a simple little anecdote. My friend and I were watching House of 1000 Corpses, and we both loved it. Turns out when we discussed what some of the stuff meant, I had one take, he had a completely different one. I loved the idea of a slow descent into madness, the film mimicking reality for the guests, as we are transported through a journey of ever-increasing mental anguish. The reality is almost inconsequential to me. He saw it as a cool bloody film with an evil family. The fact of the matter is that by discussing it, we both gained greater perspective, even though we both initially disagreed with the paramount conclusions we reached. The point? Be tolerant, you never know what others think, and you never know what talking to them about it might yield.

-A True Horror Fan