I used to be a scaredy cat. Growing up I hated being scared. Ursula from The Little Mermaid gave me nightmares for years. I refused to get on roller coasters. And there was no way in hell I was going anywhere near a movie in the Blockbuster horror aisle.
All of that changed when I watched The Thing.
The Great Unknown
Unlike horror, I definitely loved Science Fiction. So when I kept hearing about this amazing sci-fi movie, I knew I had to take the plunge and finally watch a true horror movie.
And I loved it. It was thrilling and terrifying in equal measures. It gave voice to fears I knew well but hadn’t seen on screen before – of coming face-to-face with a universe much stranger and unknowable than we ever allow ourselves to admit.
Now it wasn’t an immediate 180 for me on horror, but The Thing opened the door for me to love this genre. And ever since I’ve been trying to capture the same feeling in my own horror writing – the fear of the unknown and the feeling that you are completely lost, adrift in an unfamiliar universe that owes you nothing.