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Fresh Meat: A Newcomer's Guide to Horror

By. Pleatherface

Each month, Pleatherface dives headfirst into horror’s dark depths...armed only with curiosity and your recommendations.

 

 

Hello!

While I could start off by rattling on with the few facts I know of the horror genre in film as part of my general pop knowledge, such as you can see with my non de plume, I would be quickly caught by the more astute visitors to our website as who I am: a neophyte, a newb. Of course I do know who Freddy, Jason, and Michael are, as I’ve played enough NES games and been sent enough memes to feed some passing knowledge on these icons. I’ve read the work of friends who enjoy the genre and been caught watching the odd review online. I was a fan of a youtuber who specialized in videogames but expanded into reviewing horror films during October for a long time (I don’t know if he still does). But I have never really sat and watched horror films. I’ve been sent Youtube clips of gruesomely creative and ingeniously disgusting kills by some of these and other silver-screen maniacs but have yet to really see those stories in full. So when the opportunity arose to collaborate here @ professor horror, I offered myself as a blank proxy for those who like me had passing genre knowledge but were rather curious about slowly diving into the pool (hopefully the camp counselors here are not distracted with other pursuits!).

While my background has had me explore plenty of comedy and science fiction, having written reviews for the obvious pop culture touchstones of the last half-decade, I had not really tackled horror. I did watch, with friends mostly and not really paying attention as a teen, late 90’s classics like Scream, The Faculty, and I Know What You Did Last Summer (as any self-deprecating teen at that time in the late 90’s would have done). And I’ve enjoyed a few hybrid gems (especially comedies) such as Shaun of the Dead, Gremlins, Scary Movie, The Frightners, and Zombieland. But again never really diving in or even applying the same type of critical eye as I did with other genres. This is something I seek to correct with this collaboration.

With all of this in mind, the idea of this journey is to ask for your help, Professor Horror’s audience, in being my guides of sorts. We will be making a poll available for readers where we want you, our readers, to chime in with your votes on what I should watch. The list will include some of the bigger names in the genre of course, but will also have suggestions from other people who collaborate here at Professor Horror. There will also be an option for the audience to put forth write-ins. To help the voting, I’ve chosen my first two forays as they connect to an area of scholarly interest to me, the behavior of consumers. I’ll start of with a major zag in one of the most well-known horror film franchises, Halloween III: Season of the Witch. My second pick is a classic, George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (not to be confused with the Zach Snyder remake as I learned while searching for titles). My intent is to post something at least once a month (starting during the holidays may have not been the best of ideas) and would really appreciate readers’ feedback as I wade through some of the genre’s best (or worst, we will include some of those or if you got any fun suggestions I would love to hear them!) with an eye towards documenting my journey for your reading pleasure.

 

                                                       

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