Horrible Trashy Old Shorts

Although I’m as much of a sucker for vampires and zombies as the next geek, I can’t really call myself much of a horror buff. As a teenager I was pathetically oversensitive to horror film cliches: I can remember lying on a sofa in a friends house as he watched the David Cronenberg remake ofThe Flyand refusing to turn to face the screen for the entire film. I’ve got rather less wimpy since then, but I guess some of that original distaste has stayed with me. I also have a fantasy-fan’s desire to explore the roots and details of fantastic creations and so I find the tendancy of horror writers to skip that sort of material in attempts to make what you don’t know all the more scary intensely frustrating. Never mind the fashion to focus on all-too human serial killers and sadists instead of the supernatural. But you can’t carry your nerd card without having a soft spot for at least some of this stuff, so I thought it might be interested to do a culture piece on what I am familiar with: an outsiders view of the genre so to speak.