How Did the Obsession Begin for You?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

A fantastic post B_E.

Like you i don't know how i began collecting horror films. In my late teens during the late eighties i used to trawl film fairs and collector's places in Manchester at the Corn Exchange and Afflecks Palace with a couple of mates because someone we knew although weren't close with collected nasties and had that friend that we never met that had everything, allegedly. Whilst collecting and paying silly amounts for originals and ninth generation copies that made today's worst public domain prints look like Blu-Ray i never really bothered with mainstream cinema bar the odd Indiana Jones film.

However that all changed when a long term relationship ended one Friday night. After a meal out we decided it would be best to call it a day. I'm not sure if i was depressed or elated or relieved but my ex-girlfriend's face turned to bemusement as i walked into the nearest Blockbuster, bought Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven on vhs, dropped her off and raced off home. I bought another two films the following day and it all kicked of from there.

[Frankie Teardrop]

This is an interesting thread. I remember my first experiences with horror - I was one of those cliché kids traumatised at a young age by so-called video nasties. I was less exposed to them than I subjectively recall, but even glimpses of my cousin's collection of horrible shit (at that age) like ZFE etc left an indelible impression. Even the covers had me enthralled - 'The Thing', 'The Deadly Spawn', 'Zombie Creeping Flesh' - all so innocuous now - seemed incredibly potent at the time. By the age of ten I was a regular in a dodgy house where cannibal movies flickered in the corner of a room full of smoke and cider bottles, courtesy of my friend's obviously doting parents. Not that I'm judging - I was into it. Later on in my teens, nineties horror seemed largely vacuous and safe, but the underground scene in the UK was thriving, and like Dem said there were always certain contacts, people in the know who used to procure the goods. I wasn't massively involved, more a leech taking in what I could on the back of other people's bootlegs. It was a certain kind of era with a certain kind of aesthetic - local kids in run down terraces trying to recreate a Butthole Surfers show with surgical footage, porn, f*cked up bits from f*cked up films and LSD, Throbbing Gristle groaning in the background (ie we were pretentious goths). Later I went to uni, then more uni in London, and whilst I kept my oar in a bit my passion simmered down a little. There were some highlights, like seeing Salo at the ICA, but it wasn't till I headed back up North and got a job that I noticed the DVD explosion and thought "wow, I can get everything that used to seem really distant and transgressive and weird in a two disc set with pristine picture quality". So my horror fixation has really taken hold again over the last ten years. I know I've said it before, but it's so odd thinking you could only ever get these scuzzy, horrible movies on some icky tenth generation copy VHS devoid of any identifying marks apart from something illegible scribbled on a half torn label. If you had told me twenty years ago that 'Cannibal Holocaust' would one day be on the high street, I would've been sick on your shoes. It's pretty strange now thinking 'Nekromantik' will be in HMV!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Pete

I got into it thanks to my Dad and Nan who both love horror movies and also thanks to companies like VIPCO, who were releasing movies with previously banned on the cover, and made these movies irresistable. i distinctly remember going into video shops and seeing movies like The Nostril Picker, Zombie Flesh Eaters etc. They were happy days, and i think DVD has ruined the magic a bit.

I know Pete's post is old and his views may now have changed, but i fully agree with this statement.

There's something almost cold and clinical about pressing buttons on a keyboard and a pristine blu-ray of Zombie Creeping Flesh or whatever, lands on your doormat a few days later.

This isn't what collecting horror was all about, it's too easy, almost pointless, a product of the age of everything served to us on a plate. Had i known what was going to happen tech wise back in the day i, we, surely wouldn't have bothered hunting for those dusty, murky, blurry gems.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Mojo

Another old timer here

Started watching Dr Who as a kid at the beginning of the Pertwee era and loved the scary / horror element. Sometime later I bought World Of Horror magazine as it had a Dr Who cover and got interested in the horror films they featured. As a result I then started watching the Friday night horror films on my local ITV station. Onwards to the brilliant BBC2 horror double bills....and the rest is history, as they say

I could have typed this.

[nosferatu42]

It's lovely to see post's being put up in an old thread i sort of had a hand in once-upon a time. I agree with Dem that having everything upon Dvd or blu etc kinda destroys the era of searching out those long lost obscurities, but that's kinda balanced out by being able to access the films we always heard of but never got a chance to see. Personally i'd rather see these films and collect decent copies than see fifth generation scuzzy versions.
Having said that i can't forget the first time i saw these films, a scuzzy version of Texas Chainsaw that made the film somehow more disturbing, same with the Exorcist,The excitement of finding a mate with a copy of that forbidden film,Getting stoned, drunk or whatever but finding something new,unusual, seeing A clockwork orange for the first time.
It's weird to me that we finally saw these films unleashed in my lifetime, but now collecting and viewing films doesn't have that same buzz.
I'm lying of course, the new buzz is finding,Valerie and her week of wonders,let's scare Jessica to death or any obscure film, it's just a shame most companies release the same old shit over and over and leave the interesting stuff to languish in obscurity.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I know Pete's post is old and his views may now have changed, but i fully agree with this statement.

There's something almost cold and clinical about pressing buttons on a keyboard and a pristine blu-ray of Zombie Creeping Flesh or whatever, lands on your doormat a few days later.

This isn't what collecting horror was all about, it's too easy, almost pointless, a product of the age of everything served to us on a plate. Had i known what was going to happen tech wise back in the day i, we, surely wouldn't have bothered hunting for those dusty, murky, blurry gems.

The thrill of the chase was all part of the experience for sure, and whilst my 'chasing' was limited and slightly different to others' experiences (chasing TV schedules to record some interesting sounding films off of TV; making trips down to the local video rental to see what tapes they had in) as my first forays into buying physical media was supported by the mass high street chains of HMV, Woolworths, Virgin Megastore, Silverscreen, MVC, W H Smith - most of whom are now remnants of a retail past. There were also a lot more second hand independent stores about then too. Choice like that meant I actually enjoyed physical shopping and digging up a gem here and there to feed my collection. The internet was merely supporting my habit, but now due to the decline of brick and mortar stores and the death of independent stores, the internet is the primary source for most discerning film fans as they cannot be beaten on price, choice, and sheer availability 99% of time. However, there is something less exciting about seeing an image of a product on the screen and ordering it rather than rifling through bargain bins and shelf racks to uncover that all important gem that has been missing from your collection - and that brief but intense flutter of joy that pierces your heart as your eyes connect with the title in question.

Joy replacement can often occur via the wait for the e-title to appear through the letterbox, and that subsequent Christmas feeling of unwrapping the title and adding it to the collection. Whilst I think we are spoiled in respect to quality and quantity of titles nowadays but in no way begrudge this from a film viewing and collecting point of view, and despite me not being around during the real 'age of discovery' where the only way to see cult and horror gems and oddities was to buy them from a bloke down the pub or pay £200 a tape to import them from Holland there is a degree of sterility to collecting nowadays.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I could have typed this.

Yes, in retrospect Doctor Who probably played a big part in shaping my tastes from a young age. I was also a big fan of the books as well as general horror fiction. At that age I was definitely more of a reader than a viewer, but the tables have certainly tilted now... which is sad in many respects.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Don't want to go all sociology, but it's interesting, the shift from one kind of 'fan identity' to another (from when it was a much more underground, and in some ways quite risky activity which involved pretty much only 'the hardcore', to the more mainstream, internet forum-based fan of today who operates at a time when all the old forbidden stuff is now legit, and latter-day variants eg 'Murder Set Pieces' safely obtainable by anyone with a laptop).

[Vampix]

I feel I'm pretty much rooted in the past in regards to my taste in horror flicks, as I rarely watch any modern horror. So, I think my obsession is more about nostalgia for me more than anything. It's the same with music -I'd rather listen to the old stuff than anything more contemporary. Also, I'm glad we no longer have video to watch these old horrors on, as I hated watching films through a layer of snowy fuzziness and getting them chewed up in my VCR. I was also extremely jealous of laser disc owners back when Elite was releasing the likes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Maniac, The Evil Dead, Dawn of the Dead, etc and I was not able to afford a player or the actual discs. So, when DVD hit and I was able to buy a player, I felt I'd joined the club of the laser disc owners in being able to enjoy my fave films in almost perfect clarity. I've felt absolutely no nostalgia for video since then.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Vampix

I've felt absolutely no nostalgia for video since then.

I too have no nostalgia for the format. The art works were in many cases rather fine but they took so much space to store them.

Don't get me wrong i love having all these titles on disc, even the worst disc is preferable to some of the transfers of Island of Death doing the rounds in the early nineties.

In a way this step up is one of the reasons i'm not fussed about blu-ray, especially when you read the fuss about grain, noise issues etc. That always makes me smile to myself.