FRIGHT-RAGS : HORROR SHIRTS

My parents never wanted me to see them. So I would constantly sneak to try and see whatever I could.

1. The Exorcist was on regular tv back in the day and I was sent to bed so I tuned in the station on the radio and listented to it. I was scared shitless.

2. I was over at a friend’s house and he was upstairs taking his weekly scrubdown. His Mom was in the kitchen washing dishes and I was in the den watching HBO. She was like ” Michael are you in there watching Friday the 13th?” I said Nooooooo and she said turn the channel!

3. 1st time I actually got to see a horror movie in the theater was for Elm St. 4 I was at Nags Head on vacation with same friend and his family. His Mom and Pop told me to not tell my parents this time. I was so excited to go!!!

Hey guys. I have may great horror memories from over the years. I have always loved horror. Probably the first that I truly remember was watching Childs Play when I was six or seven. I still ejoy this movie today. It truly scared the crap out of me. I actually had a my buddy doll that chucky was modeled after. Another great one was the Exorcist. My cousin and were about ten when we decided to watch the exorcist. We had also bought a ouiji board the same day so it was pretty awesome. Still my favorite movie to this day.

Oh crap, I got to share another one. Was at the video store in 1984 and the clerk was playing Creepshow. All we saw was the big Crate monster and my dad said we should rent it. We did and on the car ride home, he looks at the video and sees its Rated R. My parents made me go to my room and they watched it. I woke up at something like 5-6 am the next day and went downstairs and watched it on my own. Scared the hell out of me. I was about 8 years old so this or the Night of the Living Dead story was my first introduction to horror films. Funny how they are two Romero movies…

Great, detailed story Ben! I recall the first film, let alone a horror film, I ever saw was A Nightmare on Elm Street when I was about 4 years old. It still remains my favorite horror film to this and that startling image early on in the film of Freddy with his arms extended out in the alleyway always scared the crap out of me. Interestingly enough, I decided to watch it last night at 2AM in the living room to truly get into the Halloween spirit, and still to this day it scares the crap out of me. A true classic that will never die in my eyes and one that I am always thankful for getting me into the world we love as horror. Thanks again Ben for your story and enjoy your Halloween man!

Hi Ben,

Great story and great shirts! I remember watching The Fly (1958 version) with my best friend one Halloween night back in the 70’s. Although the movie was an old one even back then, it simultaneously delighted us and scared the hell out of us. For years after that, we would hold our hands up to our faces and cry in a very high voice, “Help me! Help me! Hellllp meeeee!” That movie is 50 years old now and tame compared to the horror flicks of today, but it’s still a great one, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget the ending as long as I live.

Hey Ben, cool story!

My uncle actually got me into horror movies. I was no older than probably 6 or 7 when I went over to his house and looked through his GIGANTIC laser disk collection and pulling out different ones to see what covers looked “scariest”. Well I dont remember exactly if halloween was the first one I saw, but I remember that A Nightmare On Elm Street scared the crap out of me. It was either first or second. But just the music and uneasyness of the original Nightmare freaked me out! However, Halloween was, and always has been my number 1 favorite movie of all time. I really dont think there is any flaw in it at all. But I would have to say that A Nightmare on Elm Street got me hooked. I also had HBO around the same age. I remember seeing Jason pop out of his grave and stab 2 people trying to dig him up. Many years later I found it to be Friday part 5, but that scene really scared me at that young age.

Awesome, I love stories like these.

My earliest experiences that I can remember were watching the Nightmare On Elm Street movies with my mom. Like you said, I really wasn’t scared by them, I was just drawn to them for some unexplained reason. One night in particular my dad and brother had gone off camping with some friends and my mom and I stayed home and watched Elm Street 3 while eating circus peanuts. I don’t even like circus peanuts but that movie remains to the this day my favorite in the series and I really credit it with kicking off my love for horror movies. I remember buying the cheap Freddy mask and glove and walking around the house rockin it all the time in my youth. In fact, I still do that!

Hi Ben,
My first great horror experience (now I am really going to give away my age, but like my famous namesake I’ve managed to retain my youth over the years.) was “Horror of Dracula”. I was seven and went with my aunt and cousin who were from England. They were very familiar with Hammer horror films,I wasn’t. It scared the crap out of me and I loved it. Slept with the covers over my head, it was the middle of summer. I’ve been hooked ever since, the gorier the better, I have a great appreciation for the independant film makers. Thanks for opportunity to share. Oh and the secret to staying young is a steady diet of horror films, and stay out of the sun.

Now I can’t get enough of scary/horror movies. I still from time to time find myself jumping or peeking through my fingers, but it’s gotta be a really good movie.

I forgot to add Creepshow 2 into that list as well. All the episodes on there were very frightening and stuck with me also.

I hate Bit-O-Honeys too!!!!!! Loved the video.

I think I was about 9 or 10 and I remember watching Friday the 13th pt. 3. To this day that movie is a part of my life and the reason why I love Jason and horror in general. I have this joke still today that Jason was my childhood hero… the backwoods retard Jason not the new jason,lol. Long live the slasher film.

i was a young kid, and i really didn’t know what my father had planed for the fall afternoon, but i was extreamly happy at the result. i watched a horror triple feature on the sci fi channel. it was wes cravens shocker, and Halloween 1, and 2. i was scarred shitless and i loved every minute of all three movies.

I dont exactly remember how old i was, i think i might have 4 or 5. The first one i ever saw was Childs Play 2, my two older brothers and I were in my parents, room when they were gone of course. My oldest brother had the remote, and was flipping through the channels and then he stopped on Childs Play 2, it was the scene where Chucky is in the Good Guy Dolls factory, and hes killing all the workers. I was scared shitless, but i didnt look away. I’ve always been a halloween freak, every year growing up it was the best night of the year. I loved monster books and other ghouls, but the next movie that got me completely hooked on the genre was Dawn of the Dead, man no movie before that scared me so bad. Since then i have watched every horror movie i could get my hands on.

I don’t know that I’ve ever thought about that seminal moment before. They’ve just always been there. It seems like so many elements came together virtually at once and…splat, I’m a horror buff. Some of my earliest memories of being a child are of Halloween. I was fanatical. I think I went as a vampire 4 or 5 years in a row. I’d insist that my mother buy buttloads in masks and makeup every time October rolled around. I loved it, I loved the fantasy, the aesthetic, the atmosphere. I loved the idea of a fog rolling over my backyard and some ungodly thing crawling out of it. My sister and my cousins, all older than me, used to watch Elm Street with my grandmother (a very hip brit who just recently passed) and for as long as I can remember it’s been one of my favorite genre movies (although its scares are maybe not quite as effective as the chill you get watching Halloween). Every chance I got I’d watch something in the horror vein, even something as benign as Teen Wolf. I needed my fix. One of my more memorable bonding moments with my dad was a weekend spent watching some of the more serious classics for the first time– The Omen, Amityville Horror, The Exorcist (which to this day disturbs me). As I’ve gotten older I’ve branched out into wacky-ass Cronenberg and early Ferrara, old cult and grindhouse stuff, and other avenues of the genre. But it always comes back to those mainstays: Freddie, Dracula, the Wolf Man, Michael Myers, Linda Blair and the living dead. Man, the sheer weight of the memories! This is one of those questions that can quickly lead me to an existentialist breakdown. I guess horror is so ingrained in me that to question its source is to question my entire concept of self. While it may not define me, it is a major part of who I am and what I love most. And it’s nice to be reminded of it from time to time. Thanks for gettin’ me into the spirit, Ben. I’m looking forward to Halloween now more than ever.

Best Horror Moments/Memories is my dad getting chewed out by my mom for taking us out of school early to see all the great horror movies that were out at the time in theatres. Thanks dad! Love ya for that.

Well my first horror movie experience was seeing Child’s Play. My parents would always put that shit and make me watch it. I was scared but I liked it. What mostly freaked me out is my parents fucking with me and buying a chucky doll. This was back when I was about 6 in ‘96. I was never really told what to watch… just not to watch the fuzzy channels.

My uncle used to work in a video rental store when I was 7 and would bring me tons of cool movies, my mom didn’t want me to watch them when they would be on tv so he would bring them and I would watch them during the day when she wasn’t home, haha. Lots of them horrified me back then, like: Braindead, Lord of Illusions, etc. Then he changed the job so that kinda ended for a while until I saw Army of Darkness when I was 12 and got really obsessed with Evil Dead, it was a pretty big deal to get it back then, but when I finally got it and watched it, my mom said she saw that movie when she was pregnant with me (pretty cool, huh?). Anyway, since then I’m on a quest to see all the 80’s horror flicks

My first wasn’t a movie.

This is one of my earliest memories. I was sitting on my mom’s lap while she read to me from this book. I don’t remember the book, or most of it, but in the middle of it, she turned the page and before my eyes was a sight I’ll never forget.

A haunted house on a hill, with Dracula, Wolfman, Mummy, Witches, bats, spiders. I was too young to know what it meant, but all I remember thinking was, “Whatever this is…I need it. This is me. Give me more of this.”

Ever since then I’ve been hooked.

Thats an awesome story you shared in that video.

I was first was fascinated with the world of “horror” movies with my first viewing of Dawn of the Dead (1978) on video tape, and i just had a ball with that terrific gorie zombie film. From there i just had to check out more zombie films from different directors like George A. Romero and Lucio Fulci.

I also love the “slasher” genre and yes my favorite slasher movie has to be Friday the 13Th Part VI: Jason Live’s because its the first Friday the 13Th movie i had seen in the movie theater and it introduced me to Jason Voorhee’s. Thus thats why i prefer that sequal to all the others including the original.

As a kid a would stay up late to watch those saturday night creature feature’s also! I LOVE HORROR FOREVER!

My quick horror list for veiwing for halloween night.

1. Halloween (1978)

2. Black Christmas

3. Friday the 13Th Part VI: Jason Lives

4. Dawn of the Dead (1978)

5. Day of the Dead

6. Deathdream

7. Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things

8. My Bloody Valentine

9. The Burning

10. Sleepaway Camp 1-3

Wow…My dad is a HUGE horror movie fan. He got me into horror at about 5years old. When most dads were putting on kids movies for there children to watch and keep them distracted on saturday afternoon….my dad was like ” Ok TT…u have a choice….Dracula, The bride of Dracula, or Dr Terror House of Horror? I picked 3 of ‘em out sweetie…but i will let u pick the one we watch”. That was quality time with my dad. It was the best. Popcorn, can of coca-cola, and Christopher Lee’s bloodshot eyes. It was fantastic. Im 33 now and my dad is 63…and we still have our horror movie nights. Some are new releases.. some are the old Hammer and Amicus films. Either way it is still quality time with my dad. I also have a group of friends ( females) that gather every fri nite to watch horror movies…the cheesier the better…cuz in my eyes if u r a TRUE horror fan u have 2 be able to endure all genres of horror..and that includes the REALLY BAD ONES! We love ‘em all! For those who dont know…find the original movie ” Wizard of Gore” and watch ” Re-Animator”..if u can make it thru that cheese…u r a lover of horror.

Great story Ben!!! I really don’t recall what got me into horror movies, or exactly when. But, I do remember being completely addicted to the original Halloween from about 10 years old (I’m 33 now). I love horror, but suspensful horror. Stuff that gets too bloody or gorey looses it’s “scare” value. Love the late 70’s to 80’s horror movies. Thanks for the youtube video, it was a trip!!!!!!

I’m only 17 but, I do remember when I was very young I was over at my Grandpas and he had Child’s Play on the Television set and I was hooked ever since. Like a normal 6…5 year old girl watching Child’s Play for the first time they would have nightmares but, when Chucky killed his first victim I giggled. Ever since then I was a very big fan of the Horror Films.

I must say… I have loved scary movies since…well… forever!! At least as far back as i can remember. My husband and I have been together 11 years, so we have been actually “collecting” horror movies since day one. LOL!! My favorites are the originals…..Micheal Myers, Jason, even Freddy. I must admit though that no sequel was ever as good as the original EXCEPT for the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween!! KICK ASS MOVIE!! I love all of his work though….can’t wait for more. He keeps that 70’s feel while adding a modern spin on all his work. I love his sense of horror…he’s definately got an “old soul”, and I love the violence he adds. I wonder….what is your absolute FAVORITE horror movie?? I would love to know what EVERYONE thinks….Mine is the original Halloween with Zombie’s remake running a close second. Hope everyone shares…..Happy Halloween!!! O ya…the AMC channel has been running horror movies and will until 4:30 am on Nov. 1st!! Don’t miss’em!!
Michelle

Hey ben I just want to say thanks for all the great horror
shirts. My story starts at age six it was midnight and I could not sleep I lived in a small house with my mother so I could hear the tv
blaring. I walked to her room and sat by the door so she would not her me and what I saw was the opening credits to american werewolf in london with the song blue moon and the shots of the london moors. I remember that movie scared the shit out of me but oddly I
wanted to see more and over the years I discovered filmakers like George Romero John carpenter mario bava wes craven and dario argento. I started geeting into graphic novels and writers like stephen king and clive barker as well over the years. I do agree that horror fans do have similar stories of how they discoved it. Your story was cool Halloween is still one of my fave movies. By the way I saw alice cooper in concert to it was the best show I have ever seen.

thanks again

Khan

I was 5 years old when I saw and fell in love with my first horror movie.
My dad always loved horror movies so he let me stay up one night with him to watch Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse back in 1981. For some reason I wasn’t scared but intrigued.
Years later I found out that my dad got in big trouble with my mom for letting me stay up late and watch a horror movie at age 5. Little did she know my dad created a monster that night. I couldn’t get enough horror movies. My dad and I rented them every weekend and when I wasn’t renting them, I was watching the saturday night horror movies on t.v.

Loving horror movies at such a young age created a dream in me to be a special effects makeup artist so that I can work on horror movies. Well, I finally got to L.A. and I have been working on movies now for over 6 years. I love it!!!
Thank you horror movies! =)

I was 6 years old and my Parents dropped my older Brother and I off at the Saturday Matinee to see Pinocchio (wrong weekend) It was actually was night of the living dead. I was a little freaked out, but my Mom used to let us watch Saturday Night Horror films. It became #1 on my top horror list and just last year had the honor to meet Mr. Romero at the hollywood opening of “Land of the Dead”. When I told him my little story all he could do was look at me and say “I’m sorry”.

Hey Ben!!

First of all, I just made a purchase from your web store for the first time and my shirts actually got here in record time! I love them more than I could express with words! Btw: before I start my small story of how I got hooked on horror, I have some suggestions: More Jason and Friday the 13th please… More Return of the Living Dead; maybe even one of the characters “Freddie” and “Frank” and it reads: “Watch your tongue, boy, if you like this job!!” Then Freddie’s response beneath it saying “Like this job?!”… A few of Freddy from “Nightmare,” like how about “Welcome to prime time, bitch!” LOL!

Okay, so… The first time. I was at my best friend’s house, sometime in the fall, when he had “Friday the 13th: Part 6″ on — “Jason Lives!”. I must have been about 7 or 8 years old, and I was absolutely glued to the screen! I was absolutely enthralled — from the opening scene, to the climax of the film!! I needed to know all I could about Jason Voorhees!! When that same childhood friend and I would go camping as children, we were so convinced that Jason Voorhees was lurking about in the surrounding woods! But somehow, even with the suspension of disbelief, it was more fun to believe that the “hockey-masked killer” was really hiding in the shadows of the Adirondack mountains! To this day, I am completely engrossed in anything that has to do with Jason Voorhees!! Not to mention that my horror DVD collection is nearly unmatched in comparison to anyone else I’ve ever talked to! These t-shirts are just the cherry on the gore sundae that compliment our (horror fans) diverse and alternative tastes! Hell… My fiance and I even decorate our house as though it were either a shrine to horror, or Halloween all year long! Keep up the good work, Ben!! I love your shirts, and you have a customer for life!! Here’s me: anxiously awaiting more designs (hopefully in the fashions that I’m wishing for)…

I grew up watching It (my parents actually helped me tape it, they rock), and rewatching that tape over and over (the first part, I only got to the second one a few years later) more fascinated than scared. Later it scared me though, funny how that works as you say.

Later I gave both Jason Lives and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre a shot, but the openings scared me enough to close the TV off. And then I caught Jason Takes Manhattan and Jason Lives, and I’ve been hooked on Friday the 13th ever since. I also saw Halloween, Night of The Living Dead and A Nightmare On Elm Street for the first time ever on Swedish television. I didn’t see The Exorcist until late in the game (the Director’s Cut when it came out on VHS), but it’s become my all time favourite film because it’s just so haunting and well made. I don’t find it particularly scary, but it works on many more levels than that.

I’ve definately enjoyed reading these. I think we all could have hung out and had good times.I guess I’m not the ontly Nick who was big on Creepshow.I was four when it came out,5 when I saw it.”Fathers Day” had always been my favorite segment..I would recite it word for word to anybody who’d listen..I was a weird kid.”Dolls” was huge for me too.I remember the promo on HBO or Cinemax and watched it in my brothers room the night it aired.I was big on horror that had punks, new wave characters.Thats why Friday The 13th part 5 got me hooked…Violet was awesome!Some damn good soundtracks from these movies…Return Of The Living Dead,The Gate, Night Of The Demons….scores and soundtracks to these flix were amazing, sadly, not always available

Great story, Ben. Halloween (the movie) is one of the best. I remember seeing it on its first release when I was 16 – there had been anything like it before and there was so much screaming and people actually running out of the theater. It was great. I’ll have to show you my Halloween tattoo….

For me, as far as I can remember, there were the monsters, the movies telling their stories (B&W, classic Universal, Val Lewton, etc) and I identified with them because if anything I felt I was more like them than anything (or anyone) else. I don’t remember the first movie(s) specifically but I was probably 2 or 3 and, like I said, I was affected, fit in, whatever. That never changed. Sort of like the guy in Nightbreed. Everyone eventually finds their place. For some, that place is with the monsters.

Viva la horror!

Believe it or not my first horror movie was when I was four years old, I saw witch hunters with Vincent price,They tore a witches tounge out in 3D it was awsome love your shirts do they come in tall.Your story was awsome by the way.

I began with monster movies, and eventually graduated into slasher flicks. I was 14 in 1979 when i first saw the original “Dawn of the Dead” at a drive-thru in upstate new york (where i’m from). I didn’t go to a mall again for a while : )

Well, I was terrified of horror movies until about age 16. I didnt really show much interest in them until I was 18, though. What really got me into it, interestingly enough, was music like horror punk, such as bands like Blitzkid, The Misfits, The Spook, etc.

I have always liked the idea of monsters and have been intrigued (and simultaneously terrified) of the idea of zombification. Therefore, this interest, combined with the music naturally got me into horror, and I started grabbing the movies. Nosferatu, the Howling, any Dracula movie, Evil Dead, etc. all helped me get into it.

However, I’m not a big fan of slasher films. If it’s a good horror movie about a decline into insanity (such as the Shining), I will enjoy it, but for the most part I do not enjoy horror movies where the antagonist is cruel human being as much as I do movies about the undead or other such creatures.

First horror movie I saw was Halloween 4 when I was 5 years old. It scared the hell out of me when I first saw Michael Myers, but the rush it made me feel was unbelievable. I was immediately hooked on horror. Ever since then I can’t stop watching.

Great story!

I don’t remember how I got into horror movies. My Mom used to always watch the 4:30 movies with Vincent Price, so that probably did it for me. She’d them as she made dinner and I helped her. She also was into Dark Shadows and that got me started. My uncle took me to movies like The Conqueror Worm and other horror movies that were playing at the time.

My beginnings with horror can be traced back to 2 places. First was watching Commander USA’s Groovie Movies and USA Saturday Nightmares with my dad in the mid-80’s. Saturday afternoon my mom would be at work and my dad would watch movies such as ‘The Children’, ‘Bug’, ‘Motel Hell’, ‘Bloodbath at the House of Death’, the list goes on and on. I remember my dad playfully chasing me like one of the zombie kids from ‘The Children’ and hiding in the bathroom lol.
My intrest was taken to the next level in 1985 when one night my parents went to a party with our neighbors, the Jensens. The Jensens had 2 teenage boys who were babysitting me at there house while our parents were out. We played Atari when we first got there but once our parents left they pulled out a new release they had rented from our towns only videostore, ‘Friday the 13th-The Final Chaper’. For that hour and a half I sat in the dark watching this movie unlike any of the day cable horror movies from the 70’s I watched with my dad. Throughout the movie they would explain things that happened in the 1st 3 films and my vision of what they discribed was much different that what actually was in the film; I remember them telling me that “Jason’s mom gets her head cut off on a beach”. I’m picturing Ocean City NJ in the middle of the afternoon with tons of tourists on the beach. I can still picture me original vision of that.

All of the other kids in my neighborhood were significantly older than I was. My friend Mike and I have been friends pretty much since I was born (He’s four years older than me). He was an introvert like me so we didn’t really talk to anyone else. When I was about four or five years old he came over to my house with these books by a guy named Alvin Schwartz. He’d read these stories to me and I’d be absolutely terrified – this fear was further enhanced when I saw the books’ horrifying illustrations.
A year or two later my family went to Universal Studios for vacation. While walking around the theme park I happened to see Frankenstein walking down the boulevard. He wasn’t as frightening as the monsters I’d seen in the Scary Stories books so I thought it would be safe to approach him. I asked if he was going to hurt me, he shook his head no and extended his hand to me. He pointed to my autograph book; I opened it and he signed it. I was so overjoyed to have a monster’s signature (and not have been eaten) that I gave him a hug. My parents were astonished that I wasn’t scared; there were about nine or ten other kids my age in the vicinity and they were all staring fearfully at me and the monster, clutching their parents, waiting to see what would happen to me, and probably wondering what the heck I was doing by approaching something that many of them had nightmares of. Frankenstein patted me on the back and stumbled away. I asked my parents what kind of monster he was and they told me he was a movie character (my parents aren’t the slightest bit literary) created by a mad scientist. After that, my childhood career endeavor had changed from carpenter to mad scientist. I wanted to see the movie so I knew how “Mad Scientist”(as I had referred to Dr. Frankenstein at the time) did it but my parents wouldn’t let me…
All of the 80’s and 90’s slasher movies scared the crap out of me, I only watched them if my parents were gone and if I had someone older, “tougher,” than me in the room, but I enjoyed black and white horror movies because I always thought that if those monsters really did exist then they’d probably be dead, too old, or too friendly to hurt me. It also helped me learn what kinds of monsters I wanted to create when I got older.
The more movies I watched the more prone I got to being scared. After getting in trouble at school I ultimately realized the difference between being scared of something real (punishment) and being scared of monsters – Monsters didn’t exist in real life, detention did. This (somewhat) helped obtain a tolerance for the slasher film.
Eventually I realized that making an actual monster was unfeasible, but making people look like monsters was not. I collected masks for a long time and eventually worked my way up to makeup. I turned myself into a monster. Eventually I got into SFX makeup.

I know this isn’t a great explanation of how I got into horror MOVIES, persay, but it is how I became interested in the horror GENRE which later resulted in an equal infatuation with horror motion pictures.

I loved the story! I have a similar story as Ben. I was 4 years old and my parents had put me to bed and then went to watch a movie in the living room. I got out of bed and hid around the corner and as I sat I started to watch Halloween. I had no idea what it was, or really what was happening, but I couldn’t stop watching it. I eventually got caught and put back to bed. I was able to see it again, although I don’t recall when it was, and I learned at that early age that the music was the scary part to me. I watched that movie with my parents and when the scary music would come on, I would go up to the t.v. and turn the volume all the way down. My parents were amazed that I did that,and that I would also go to sleep in my own bed, that from then one they would let me watch horror movies. I found out that I loved to be scared and horror movies did that and it fascinated me. In the second grade I became best friends with a boy because I was the only girl that knew so much about Freddy Krueger. When I was getting older, they would put the Friday the 13th movies on USA when it was actually Friday 13th, and I would stay up all night and watch them, Man I miss those days! So there you have it, but needless to say, Halloween is still my favorite horror movie to this day!!

First, I need to say how awesome it is to hear Alice Cooper playing in the background, while someone recants a story similar to mine in regards to Halloween 1. Though, my story starts a bit earlier at age 3….

It was 1981, I was 3 years old, and my parents couldn’t find a babysitter. The last one that they had employed the week before decided to have a house party right after they had left. I remember coming downstairs to a raging heavy metal party, complete with metalheads, chicks who looked like they fell off the back of the Van Halen tour bus, all wrapped up in the smell of beer and nicotine whirling around. So with no one available to babysit, they decided to bring me along to a movie that had just came out called “The Funhouse”. They figured I wouldn’t remember I suppose. It scared the hell out of me, ahaha! Now it’s 2009, I am 31, and still talking about it, ha…

Cheers,

Rick

When I was really young(anywhere between 5 and 10) I read and watched Goosebumps. I remember the first somewhat horror movie I saw was “The Legend Of GatorFace”. Then I think the very first one I saw was “Sleepy Hollow”. Then I really got into it by watching alot of zombie movies like Night of the living dead and got into movies like Evil Dead as well.

Great story Ben! I got started on horror when I was no bigger than a peanut. My mother went to see The Exorcist at a drive in theatre when I was in the womb(whew! that dates me dosent it?)Once you get started on something that early you have no choice but to LOVE it! The first movie I remember watching was the original Friday the 13th. My mom rented it and I’ll never forget Jason jumping out of the water at the end. For an 11, 12 year old that was the coolest thing ever! Since then I have been hooked. Thanks mom!

My first experience? Well…

I have a brother who was/is obsessed with Halloween. I was three when I saw Halloween 1. I grew up in a family that loves horror. My Mom and Brother both decided I was mature enough for Halloween and other horror movies so on Oct. 31st 1990 I saw it and loved it. I,unlike my fellow age group, always wanted the Boogeyman to be in my closet.

Good stuff Ben, if ever there was a night AND movie to kick start an obsession with horror films Halloween is obviously a great start. I would have to say my interest began around when I was four years old, I remember my dad and I lived in a tiny little apartment and in his bedroom at night we would stay up for a while just surfing the cable. Being that this was in the late 80’s I don’t remember a lot but I distinctly remember gazing at the screen one night just in time to see Jack Nicholson poke his head through a hacked door and with that unforgettable psychotic look on his face uttering the infamous line “Here’s Johnny!”, being that I was so young I was amazed at seeing someone so deranged and, well, evil. Not long after that I also remember catching an episode of Tales From The Crypt where this rocker guy had got a tattoo on his chest that greatly displeased him because it had the portrait of a woman he had previously killed, with her face poking from behind a dragon that expanded across his chest and at the end of the episode the tattoo comes to life and the dragon starts ripping itself off his chest and tries to kill him, but instead he stabs it with a shard of glass and at the end of it everyone walks in the room to see him with his chest torn open and a dead serpent hanging from it, which I consider to be my introduction to gory horror. After that horror became more of a fascination than an obsession as I was still very young and easily frightened, but every time from then on I would be at the video store with my dad and would always make sure to walk down the horror isle. The artwork on the boxes themselves were enough to terrify me as a kid because they were so vivid and realistic in my mind. Then a few months later I was up late at my grandparents one night and started to watch Poltergeist II and it scared the living shit out of me, to this day one of the only movies that can still give me shivers is the original Poltergeist. One thing I am grateful for though is my dad starting me off with the “Classics”, matter of fact one of my favorite movies when I was about 5 or so was the original Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff, so I was able to get schooled in all the classic Universal monster movies and enjoying all of them, especially Frankenstein Vs. The Wolf Man and the original Dracula. That’s what’s so great about horror is that it comes in so many different forms and categories, but as time went on I began to find more and more horror films that terrified but attracted me at the same time such as Jaws I & II, Aliens, Child’s Play, Subspecies, The THING and the Howling series-primarily the first one. Needless to say it has turned into something that I can’t help but be intrigued by, especially because horror isn’t something that’s hard to imagine, because as a fan of the genre in general we can all appreciate it regardless of how cheesy or fake it can seem because in these horrific visions we are able to get a taste of our fears and phobias but at the end of the day rationalize to ourselves that it’s all a part of our imagination regardless of how much it reminds us of our own frailty and mortality.

Cool story. John Carpenter’s Halloween was also my first horror experience. I was around 4 or 5 and caught the ending of Laurie hiding in the closet and stabbing The Shape in the eye. By the time she told the kids to get help and he popped up in the background I was hiding under my grandparents table shaking while my aunt was laughing.

My father introduced me to “Halloween” when he had his co-workers over for drinks. He would relish showing the opening scene on home video to unsuspecting viewers. It left an indelible mark on my psyche!

My first horror movies were Halloween and the original The Thing (from another world). My aunt took me out trick or treating when I was five years old and we watched those after we returned home. I had been reading kid’s books about ghosts, monsters like bigfoot and the mothman, and the scary stories series like at that time so it just fit perfectly. From then on I was hooked even more on horror.

I have random memories.

In a basement in the late seventies watching Beware the Blob on channel 9 (after Battlestar Galactica!)
Or, Scared, up in my room watching Peter Cushing in Corruption one night and The Green Slime another night at 3 AM on channel 9.
Of course, the seventies and the 4:30 movie week on Channel 7. Vincent price week, Planet Of The Apes Week, killer animals week…
And, If I was lucky, I caught some Chiller on another channel.

I saw Friday The 13th in 3-D in the theaters along with Jaws 3-D and Parasite in 3-D. I saw Pieces as a double feature with National Lampoon’s Vacation at the Levittown Twin.
I was also fortunate enough to see the Toxic Avenger in the theaters (where the audience in the Massapequa theater got up at the end of the movie and gave it a standing ovation. Amazing…) Also saw The Nest in a drive-in. In December. With no heat.

There’s always the element of being scared that thrilled me. I knew I couldn’t get hurt, however, what was that around the corner…? Friday the 13th terrified me when I first saw it on cable. Now, it is one of my favorite franchises.

I’m glad there’s so many of us fans out there. (And you’re right. Alice is awesome in concert!)

-Pat

I have no attention span what so ever! i dont read emails longer then 3 lines. i just left the living room cause a second episode of scrubs just came on and i was beging to twitch. all that being said just sat through a 5 min 44 second story from you. Wanna know why? cause everything you said was just like my story. i snuck down watched halloween behind my dads back when i was like 6. after that i watched that movie probably 1000 times. BY the time i was 10 i knew every line. anyway thanks for the awsome shirts i have alot of them. every night i check for new ones. i seriously belive some day i will have every shirt u offer. ohhhhh one more thing my girlfriend and me recently shot a full length zombie flick maybe some day we will have a shirt on your site. HORROR FAN TILL DEATH!

Yeah, my first real scare was seeing JAWS in the theater. But yes i recall the movie HALLOWEEN was probably it as well for getting me into horror. Back then you didn’t have VHS really and so TV was the only way you saw anything other than theaters. HALLOWEEN was kinda like a major deal – you only saw it “on” Halloween. Then with the boom of VHS rental, the world of horror just opened-up. It was a shorter drive and the parents didn’t need to care about if they wanted to watch the movies – pop some popcorn in the air popper and sit back and watch horror VHS over and over til you had to return it.

I blame (or rather, I thank) my older sister for getting me into horror. I stayed up with my sister once when I was 3 years old. We watched Tales from the Darkside. That is when I got hooked. That was 21 years ago and my love for horror has not waned.

My history with horror has been an interesting one.

As a kid in the early 90s, I originally didn’t like horror movies; they were scary and didn’t help so much in the sleep department. However, I had a huge passion for the Universal Monster films and I could watch those over and over again (Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was the favorite, as I could see them all in one video alone). The “new age” horror icons such as Freddy Kruger and Jason made me curious, and I often asked older friends about them who had seen their films, yet I would not dare watch one myself.

Drawing pictures of Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, and more in Kindergarten was how it went for a while, and I stayed away from any source of horror film in colour (Hammer was in between, as I could handle it a bit but I still didn’t enjoy it).

I assumed that maybe the idea that any horror film in black and white would be less scary, so I one day decided to test that theory and popped in Night Of The Living Dead… Once Barbara got into the car, the tape came out and I was shocked.

Few more years later, I got a bit older but still didn’t watch or own any horror films other than the Universal ones and a few Hammer films. It was a Halloween night that PBS ran Night Of The Living Dead, and I really enjoyed the seclusion and action aspects of the film.

So I went from Universal Classics, to Hammer, to NOTLD, and then saw Army Of Darkness. With the comedy involved, I was able to digest horror films without my parental Tums afterwards.

I guess though the defining point to a change from Universal scares to more frightening scenes would be the PBS Halloween showing of Night Of The Living Dead.

And no, they didn’t ask for money during the film.

One of the first horror movies I ever saw was Poltergeist. Two scenes in that movie scared the hell out of me were when the son is counting during the storm and the tree bursts into the room. I never looked at thunder storms the same again, plus it didn’t help me much that the boy’s name was robbie. I used to always have a four foot raccoon stuffed animal at the end of my bed, but after seeing the clown at the end of his bed attack him, regardless to say I never had another stuffed animal at the end of my bed ever again. That’s why horror movies rock!!!!!!

My first horror experience, I used to visit my grandma every weekend so through the week she would tape any TV shows or movies that she thought me and my brother would like to watch when we came over. One week she taped Childs play, what with it having “child” in the title it would be great for an 8 year old and a 6 year old.
We watched It, she was horrified, I loved it, my brother cryed alot and couldnt sleep for a few days.

I watched the entire “The Thing” from behind my parents couch in the dark. I was memorized by what I saw, and from that moment on obsessed with horror films. Thank god nothing went on between my parents that night, or I would have a completely different horror story to tell.

Thats a great story! I suppose my love of horror started very early – starting around 2 watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents and all the Universal Monster movies with my grandmom. But then my dad took me and my brother to The Waverly Theater (Drexel Hill, PA. now closed) to see The Amityville Horror. It was 1979 and I was 4 years old. That sealed it for me. I am now 34 and more into horror films then ever, my love increases every year. My dad recalls that I sat on h is lap during the film because I was scared and I peed myself. *hahaha*

P.S. thanks bro. and you wonder why I’m an insomniac!

I’m sure I had caught a few 50’s B Horror & sci-fi flicks on TV at a very young age, (The Thing From Another World, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Fly, etc , etc,) and by 5, I had seen the Universal monster movies, and Abbot & Costello’s run ins with them as well. But I clearly remember the first time I begged my parents to take me to a horror film… it was 1978, I was 5 yeas old, and a commercial came on the TV.. duh… duh… duh..duh… “Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water…”… duh duh duh duh… Jaws 2!

I didn’t even know what a Jaws was, but a killer shark movie had me hooked! My mother said no way, but my father eventually broke down and said he’d take me. Even though I realize Jaws 2 was a pretty crappy film, I was blown away at the time. It was pretty intense to see kids getting eaten by Jaws.. hell, he took out a helicopter!… I had promised I wouldn’t be scared, but that night, while thinking about our next trip to the Atlantic in Maine, I started bawling. My mother asked me what was wrong, and I said I said I didn’t want to go into the ocean any more, because Jaws was gonna get me. She gave my father a look,… man, I realize now the trouble I probably got him into. I was scared as hell of the movie, but still went out and bought the bubble gum cards, coloring books, etc… and after that, I was hooked on horror and sci-fi movies. All thanks to a cheap sequel to Jaws. It could have been worse.. if it had been Jaws 4, I probably would never have bothered watching a horror movie again.

Well, I don’t remember exactly when I got hooked but I know that my sister was a big influence. I might have been 7 or 8 and my oldest sister was about 16 I think.She had bought the texas chainsaw masacre 2 and made me and my other sister watch it. I ofcourse was horrified (even though today I laugh at the hilarity of the whole film). Everytime she would put it on I could not watch all of it including the parts where leather face scliced and diced. But even though I was scared, I was still intriuged by horror movies. As I got older, I started watching old school B horror movies like Halloween, happy birthday to me, friday the 13th, nightmare on elm street, the creep show, hellraiser, killer klowns and the list goes on. Ever since I was little, I have not and probably never will stop watching horror flicks.

Hey Ben! Liked your story!
What got me in to horror movies was my Mum!She used to let me and my friend watch them when we were younger as long as we knew that it ‘Wasnt real’ and wouldnt scare ourselves sleepless!
That was always fine….until one day,she got Nightmare on Elm St for us to watch,and she watched it with us…all sounds good..until she decided to tell me that Freddy would be waiting upstairs for me!!!!Haha,bless her,think she thought i wouldnt believe her..she was wrong!I spent the entire night trying to keep my eyes open and with the landing light on!
Nightmare on Elm st still gives me shivers to this day,but yet i always feel the need to watch it from time to time…and i am conatantly ridiculed by friends for my fear or the dreamstalker lol!
But i love Horror!Especially any thing from Clive Barker which always intriged me when i was young!
Keep up the good work with the shirts dude!And lets keep Horror alive!

I must have been around 5-7 years old and my mother sat me in front of the TV and played Night of the Living Dead. My brother had the belief that when an actor died in a movie, they did in real life, so I think she wanted to make sure I didn’t get that idea in my head.

I think I was fascinated more with the actual special effects these movies had. So my interested where in how they did that, and I was more interested in what Rick Baker and Tom Savini did and coming up with my own ideas. The movies that have stuck with me throughout the years are American Werewolf in London, Return of the Living Dead, The Thing & Evil Dead 1&2

I wanted to get into the make-up effects field, but once I got older I saw that the field was becoming more computer based. I also have friends that work in special effects and see how disheartened they feel. But, I was able to direct my imagination and love for horror movies to art like painting and photography.

well it was on hbo and in a way i dont think it counts as horror but it was the troma movie terror firmer.

i was about 12 and i was shocked and amused. and after that other movies felt boring and nothing fun happened. then i was introduced to the evil dead series and thats when i fell in love with horror movies.

Cute story. Mine is a little bit like yours except that I was trick or treating as a werewolf. My cousins and I had been promised that after we were done going around to all the different neighborhoods, we could watch a movie. We got done and set up an air mattress covered in sleeping bags in front of the television. My mom put in the movie and we were all so excited. The movie was Nightmare on Elm Street 4. We were all so scared but we couldn’t look away from the screen. To make matters worse, my uncle gave us this elaborate story about how Freddy was his next door neighbor. He said that when he got home he was going to wave goodnight to us. He told us to watch the whole movie to make sure that we saw him when he got to his house. We were all about five to seven years old so we believed him and watched. Once the movie was over my mom shut off the television and all the lights and told us to go to sleep. We couldn’t sleep at all that night. The fear and the rush of that movie lasted with me for a long time until i saw the next film and the next. The rush that you get from witnessing the kind of carnage that you may not see otherwise is like nothing else. You can’t get enough.

I don’t really have an interesting story. I’ve been watching horror movies since before I can remember. I remember when I was five (I think) and I used to love watching Return of the Living Dead. I used to eat spaghetti when I watched it because I thought it looked like eating brains. My brother and I used to foam-up our mouths when we would brush our teeth and say “Braaaains”. For the longest time I couldn’t watch the part with the Tar-Man zombie. I thought that guy was scary as hell.

when I was 6, me and my dad went down to the local video rental store which was called movie madness. At that point my mom wouldn’t let me watch any scary movies with him but since she had just gotten a new job working night shift he felt like it was free game. I wanted him to rent Super Mario Bros 3 for Nintendo but he wouldn’t unless i watched a scary movie with him. The box for the movie that he rented had a creepy little creature holding a blue and red ball in front off him and on his left hand, had a green ring with a needle coming out of it. The movie was TROLL. Yeah, that movie was cheesy as shit, but it made me shit my pants when i was little. Good Times

i had fond memories of being a child but very few of them were without horror movies. i was turned onto A Nightmare on Elm St. since freddy and I share the same surname ( pronounced KreeeGuur) I guess I feel a sort of kinship with the character and find myself rooting for him 99% of the time. i saw Nightmare 2 in the theater when i was little with my aunt and that is what sealed the bond for me. on live horror and my buddys on Elm street!!!!

To Klye Blockelman. There is a pitition link on Joe Bobs web site.

I think for me to say I like horror movies would be putting it too lightly.
To paraphrase a song I hear in church often; Horror movies are the air I breathe. My daily bread, etc.

They became a part of my life at a very early age from watching one on home video to telling each other scary stories to reading them.

I remember one time when me and my little brother ran off from the restaurant and just kind of roamed the area for a bit. When my sister and her friend caught up to us, they told us about a monster that roams the Oak Park area (where we were) and catches kids alone and…you know the rest.
I thought she was bs-ing us, but she sounded so serious and plus, a little girl did go missing from the area a few days ago so my brother and I felt she may be onto something.
From that point, horror movies were no longer for entertainment, but for research. What is it? How do we stop it? Will it be for good?
My imagination could win the indie 500 (LOL).

Thanks Ben for sharing your experience with us. I thought Halloween was one of the best movies (horror or not) ever made.

My very first experience of watching horror was an Indonesian horror movie that I watched during one afternoon on familly holiday. It was about a farmer who was struck by lightning and then he become living corpse after a black cat jumped on him at his funeral. Since then he started terrorize the whole village and finally being defeated by religious leader of the village (typical Indonesian horror movies in 70’s & 80’s). As for western movie, I would say Lucio Fulci’s Zombie gave me a long nightmare for several nights

wow, where do i start, oh i know, evil dead, halloween 2, nightmare on elm street 2, and friday the 13th 3, when i was 6 yrs. old, i rented this movie called the evil dead, holy shit, i was sitting by the fire in our living room and i almost shit myself, i will never forget it, and raw head rex, that was the shit, now i wish they would make another raw head, total classics, ben your shirts are cool as hell, i will be buying from you forever bro.

i think its a more common story than i thought, as my parents forbidden me to ever watch horror movies at least right up until i was about 15… All because i had nightmares for a good 6 months when i was 8 after watching Troll! (dont laugh) I think these nightmares were due to the script as opposed to the movie monsters… (if you can call them that)
Of course i didnt listen to these instructions and it had only fueled my thirst for horror films and monster movies, so i used to sneak a viewing at my friends house (as his mother and father werent too bothered about him watching them) as he had cleverly fused all 3 evil dead films into one whole film.
I remember having a ginormous video shop across the road and spent most of my free time helping out in there and stacking the videos into the right category. I loved nothing more than to peer at the backs and fronts of the horror videos, the artwork on some of them really peirced into my imagination. it wasnt long until i realized that movies made me happy and it is because of this video shop (now closed down due to the dvd revolution) that i am now a collector of rare, out of print and banned horror movies.