Oh, The Horrors!

Back in the day I was a Horror Movie fan. I lived for a good horror movie. I believe it started when PBS used to show the classic black and white horrors on Friday nights. I remember Mom making Jiffy Pop and allowing me to stay up late so I could watch Boris Karloff in Frankenstein. I was hooked. The following week it was Bride of Frankenstein, then Dracula, the Wolfman....maybe even some where Frankenstein met the Wolfman...maybe Abott and Costello was mingled in there somewhere. I was only in about third grade and I knew there was more. I wanted to see more.

When Cable TV (WHT anyone??) and VCRs entered homes, I was treated to "real" horror movies. I became an instant fan of Jason Vorhees, Michael Meyers, and Freddie Kruger. I loved low budget movies with great gore and blood. I would sit on the green shaggy rug (that had lost it's shagginess sometime in the mid 80's) and was mesmerized by Sleepaway Camp, Children of the Corn, Night of the Comet, and all the sequels to the great trinity of Horror (Jason, Michael, and Freddie). And of course all the Stephen King movies (and became a HUGE fan of his books too...read The Shining at age eleven!)

I laughed at my little cousins who cried if I teased them about burn victims with knives for gloves haunting them in their dreams. I wore pale lipstick and painted two bite marks on my neck to pretend I was a vampire. I started buying Fangoria Magazine every month and marveled over the artistic side to the FX of blood and gore and brains and guts.

When I hit my teens, I seriously considered going to some FX and Make Up school. I declared that I wanted to be the one behind the gore in the movies. The one who made the pretty prom queen look as if she had been eatened by a possessed trollish cat then coughed up like a hairball. I wanted to be in the Make Up and FX department. I wanted to turn corn syrup and red food coloring into blood. I even practiced with make up, arts and crafts paint, and household objects on myself. It's amazing what red paint, green eyeliner, purple eyeshadow, concealer, and scotch tape can do. I became pretty good. Actually had a knack for it. I would walk out of the bathroom, scare the crap out of my mother and then she would compliment me. For such a straight laced Catholic Mom, she actually encouraged my passion for horror movies, Fangoria, and artistry of make up.

But, I grew up. My dreams of possibly being the next Kevin Yagher (guy who is responsible for Freddy Kruger's face among other horror movies) were short lived. Gone were my teen years and I was eased into adulthood. Got married. Had kids. And then....

And then, I discovered that Horror Movies FREAK ME OUT!!! I hang my head in shame as I say this. What went wrong?? I was once a girl who would have loved a Chucky Doll in my room and Freddie Kruger on my pillow case! I was actually a vampire in a staged Halloween Haunted walk through one year, wearing a long white gown, roses in my teased hair, fangs krazy glued on my teeth, and blood down my neck and the white gown. I even invented a name for "character": Rosa De Nosferatu and loved jumping out behind a tree to scare the hell out of tweens and teens who dared to go through the walk. And now, you couldn't pay me to go through a Haunted walk through or house (unless it's the Disney one in Orlando...because that one ROCKS...and it's not so scary, when you get in the Doom Buggy).

I think it's the kids. They took away my guts. They took away my bravery. They've turned me into a quivering, fearful, Oh-My-GOD-The-World-Is-A-Scary-Place-Don't-Get-Hurt-Babies! Mom. You know the type. The kind that would LOVE to put her kids in a big plastic bubble and home school them until they are thirty.

But, I try to be brave. I plastered a smile on my face when my son smacked his head and cracked it open. With a gaping hole, DH and I calmly took him to the ER. While I really wanted to puke or faint or both, I smiled and promised him it would be all right as I held him down so the Doctor could stitch him up.

And last night, when my daughter's earlobe revealed an infection and then suffered an erupted volcanic blast of puss and blood, I wanted to run screaming from the room and hide my head under a blanket. But I tried to remain calm as I cleaned it up. Long after she was in bed, I was up shaking for hours. That's when I remembered my old Fangoria obsession. That's when I realized that I had Paranormal Activity sitting next to the tv because I'm to chicken to watch it at night or without my DH or both. That's when I thought to myself "WTF happened to the girl who wanted to be the one to bring Blood and Gore to the Silver Screen?"

I guess I realized how scary the real world is. I guess I see how my precious, golden children are growing up in this scary, scary world. Everything from War to Terrorism to Natural Disasters to Disease. Those things could kick the Horror Trinity's ASS. Michael Meyers has nothing on the panic of a pandemic. Freddie Kruger would never survive a high scale earthquake. And Jason Vorhees seems minuscule next to any real life killer (both terrorists and serial). But, most of all, every horror movie villain monster ever made can't even compete to the real injuries of your own child.