"We Have Such Sights to Show You..."

Joe's Little Blog of Horrors 

"We have such sights to show you..."

Vital Stats 

Name: Joe McCormack (Joe Kerr if I ever wanted a stage name, that's it)

Age: Endless (or 26)

Nationality: British-Australian - with the accent of your typical British villain

Job: Out of work law graduate, looking for work in criminal law (think mildly less sleazy Saul Goodman) and currently employed as casual at Myer packing up all your pervy orders of g-strings, bras, minimisers (and that's just the men! Ho, how funny!)

Why blog: Inspired by my current audiobook - A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay - and his framing device of introducing each part of the book through a horror blogger analysing the fictional documentary that makes up the bulk of the book. 

I've been obsessed with horror from an early age. My earliest memories of horror were things like A Nightmare Before Christmas, the Tim Burton film (but not directed by him, that honour goes to Henry Selick - check out his stop motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Coraline for a sinister "children's" story). I was entranced by the twisting trees, and gruesome inhabitants of Halloween Town. Growing up I can't say I'm a fan of musicals but the lyrics to that film are seared into my mind.

This on screen horror seeped out of the TV (like a waterlogged Samara of The Ring fame) into my own life. I would and still do, take any fancy dress party as an opportunity to play the bad guy. As a kid it was the Joker and Dracula, as an adult I've been Hannibal (of the incredible tv series) and Edward Scissorhands (not technically a horror, but again shot through with Mr. Burton's distinctive gothic lens. It is, after all, a modern take on the errr "Modern Prometheus" [fancy alternative title for Frankenstein]).

In school my favourite subject was English and in particular any instance where I was allowed to flex my creative muscles with creative writing. I would use any opportunity to force all creative writing essay ideas into a horror scene. Write a story about wishing? Well all the wishes go bad, horribly bad. Write a story about the playground? Well one kid bites another as he is a vampire and then a Mr. Van Smelting has to get involved to save the kid. You get the picture. 

I still try to keep up the horror writing, and reading. Having moved on from Goosebumps and vampires in the playground to my favourite H.P Lovecraft and creating my own cosmic terrors. 

This obsession has not wavered in my lifetime although my tastes have somewhat changed. Where once upon a time I could happily watch all the Nightmare on Elm Street films now I'd only plump for the first and Wes Craven's New Nightmare (precursor to the meta fun in Scream). Young teenage Joe would happily gorge on gore over plot but now, once you've seen one severed eyeball with yellow pus (thanks Hostel), you've seen them all. One of my favourite horror movies, Alien, was shown to me at around 12 or 13 by my aunty and uncle. Little did I know what I was in for but I remember to this day hearing them say "Joe can watch this with us, yeah? It isn't too violent?" "No it isn't...although there is the 'dinner scene'."

Horror outside of the movies and books has also held sway over me. The tv show Hannibal has to be the greatest horror tv show I've ever seen and perhaps just one of the greatest shows period. Horror on the small screen has blossomed over the past few years. Whilst American Horror Story and The Walking Dead have proven immensely popular, I've lost interest in both of them. One of them just throws every gory idea they have at the wall and hopes it sticks, the other is just, well walking on aimlessly. I've high hopes for demon possession show Outcast which I'm soon to start. 

Video games too have always been a ripe ground for horror. My earliest days of horror in games for me did not come from a traditional place. Playing the original Tomb Raider games at my mum's friend's house terrified me stupid. The silence and vastness of those underground caverns (in the game, not the house of the friend) had me on edge. And Cthulhu forbid if there was a body of water poor Lara needed to traverse. Instant game over for me. The game just would end there. No way did I have the courage to get into that water, not knowing what lies beneath (Harrison Ford or a shark. Another clever clever reference). Now some of my favourite experiences of horror have been found in games, with particular highlights being Amnesia (fuck water that is properly scary), Alien: Isolation, and Bioshock (would you kindly go play this if you haven't already...). 

Mission Statement 

So hopefully this has proven my horror credentials to you blog devourers. Now the big question is what this blog will be about?

Hoping to make posts weekly or fortnightly about some form of horror in the media. Be it film, tv, games, books. And the discussions will vary from reviews, retrospectives, trends in horror, you name it I'll try write about it. 

Plans for first real blog will be a post about the recent wave of terror based horror, such as The Babadook, The Witch, It Follows, and Under the Shadow (the last of which I will provide an in depth review as I just watched it this week). I'll also be writing about what sets these films apart from the pack, for better or worse, primarily revolving around the distinction to be made between terror and horror.

So I hope you tune in (is that what you do with a blog? log in? click in?) for the next blog.

Sleep tight, don't let the Babadook bite.

Joe