Mine is the first horror experience I can remember clearly and I think I was about 10 or 11. I'd seen horror films before this, but they'd always been of the Universal monster movie variety and I don't actually remember how I felt watching them.
This particular film was at a friend's birthday party, for which she was having a sleepover. We persuaded her big brother to go to the video shop for us and bring back either a 15 or 18 rated scary movie. He did not disappoint. What he brought back was Candyman.
I remember jumping out of my seat and screaming during the opening sequence when the hook comes through the ceiling. I also remember snorting limeade out of my nose after nearly choking when the guy in the chair gets killed from behind (at the time I completely felt his pain, the limeade was particularly cheap rubbish and stung my nose). I think my most vivid memory is, after pausing the film for a loo break, having to use the bathroom in twos and threes because we were too scared to be alone in there.
But most of all I remember, after the film had finished, when we were all sitting around pretending we hadn't been scared at all (all of the screaming, choking and jumping was just for show, honest), how I felt. It was that morbid fascination that comes with horror films - the feeling of not being able to look and yet not being able to tear my eyes away from the screen. The feeling of being so scared that you have to keep on watching, even though you're too frightened to, just because you have to know how it ends. I really enjoyed that feeling of fear (if "fear" is the right word), of tension. Knowing I was completely safe and yet being afraid anyway. It might be bizarre, but it was that emotion that got me hooked on these films and made me want to keep searching for more films that could work my emotions in that way.
It's perhaps a testament to how much Candyman actually did scare me over a decade ago, that I cannot watch my DVD copy in my bedroom - simply because my TV is right next to my mirrored wardrobe door.
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