The mid to late 1980s moving into the 90s: I was a tyke of seven years when I noticed a significant shift in my media consumption. Somewhere in between my every Friday night anticipation of Philly 57's feature movie being A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, I played special attention to the stark images playing on my mother's television as she watched the likes of Hellraiser and Child's Playwithout any consideration to possible anxiety or trauma from my end. And I will never forget the sea of dubbed VHS tapes and why I ONLY remember the handwritten Friday The 13th Part 7: The New Blood. Okay, I do remember Eddie Murphy Raw and Krush Groove but I'm working with a theme here. What brought this shift home was a theatre outing to the much tamer 1988 culty classic Beetlejuice. Genre film (including science-fiction, fantasy, and action) was so accessible and I enjoyed many titles, but it was horror and the impact The Dream Master would have on my life that played an important role in who I am today.
You may or may not remember the lovely Lisa Wilcox who played Alice in A Nightmare on Elm Street film's 4 and 5, but she was my first cinematic she-ro.
The Dream Master made me believe women and girls had societal value; it helped me make the connections to what some of us now know as the horror film trope, the final girl. In short, it branded my feminist tendencies. The intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality I found to be challenged, negotiated, and repackaged in these films. In college, I re-imagined the these films in theoretical work. The hundreds of pages I drank just for a degree in the humanities helped me understand the value media texts had on our personhood and society. I nerded this stuff up so much, I went on to get another degree because I couldn't stop talking about horror in academia inside of a classroom. I watched many, many horror titles and wanted to continue to give horror films the validity they deserved discussing them with peers and superiors that remained apprehensive at best. With some success, one of my more open-minded film studies professors lauded my efforts (she was sick of reading papers on Family Guy and The Simpsons) and a letter of recommendation noting how I helped her re-consider horror films through my writing assignments from a professorial convert who was my Captain Doreen Lewis.
No need to get into the general positivity in finding a community of good acquaintances and friends that the benefits of technology and the internet has afforded. Horror films have certainly given me that. It's a song we can all sing proudly and at times, off key.
My favorite kind of cosplayer.
So when I think back on a question I am commonly asked, 'How did you get into horror?' some historical pieces I can frame into a clear explanation, others are long-winded, wordy exuberant symphonies even as I struggled, and in a dormant sense continue to struggle to fully embrace the Black/female/horror film fan dynamic that has been relentlessly inescapable to ignore when I'm around others. Because I don't look like the "typical horror fan," which I'm reminded of often when I venture out to spaces where the folks take this horror stuff as seriously as I do. Although it's never easy being 'the only one' or one of the few flies in the buttermilk, what horror fandom has afforded me, in spite of any trepidation, is an opportunity to be confident, bold.
I will never forget Ken Sagoes and his verbal wink-wink, nudge-nudge to me at Rock and Shock 2011 in Worchester, Massachusetts:
"You don't see a lot of Black people here."
The genuine extension of camaraderie was overwhelming. What I took from that brief exchange was a proposal of a cultural shift I wanted to see happen. There is no doubt that Black folks love some horror movies, but I became deeply curious about the Black women who were treading the terrain of horror filmmaking, critical writing, journalism, cosplaying, blogging, and fan convention hopping. The geeks or nerds if you will; the Black women who go beyond casually seeing the mainstream theatrical released thriller on opening night.
The Black Girl (Horror) Nerds series that will transpire on this site throughout the month of October, a highlight of a few of the underrepresented Black women who have made a space for themselves in the horror community, is my first widely paraded baby. And my clarion call. For the sisters and brothers who walk the carpets of Monster Mania's, Horrorhound's, and Days of the Dead's, it's inevitable I quote MJ:
You are not alone...
Me & Ken Sagoes (Kincaid, A Nightmare On Elm Street 3 and 4)
The genuine extension of camaraderie was overwhelming. What I took from that brief exchange was a proposal of a cultural shift I wanted to see happen. There is no doubt that Black folks love some horror movies, but I became deeply curious about the Black women who were treading the terrain of horror filmmaking, critical writing, journalism, cosplaying, blogging, and fan convention hopping. The geeks or nerds if you will; the Black women who go beyond casually seeing the mainstream theatrical released thriller on opening night.
The Black Girl (Horror) Nerds series that will transpire on this site throughout the month of October, a highlight of a few of the underrepresented Black women who have made a space for themselves in the horror community, is my first widely paraded baby. And my clarion call. For the sisters and brothers who walk the carpets of Monster Mania's, Horrorhound's, and Days of the Dead's, it's inevitable I quote MJ:
You are not alone...
The following are some horror blogs authored by Black women to kick things off!
Pixie's Horror Galore: http://pixieshorrorgalore.blogspot.com/
 Nerds Introduction: The Origin Of My Horror Nerdom){kind=link}