I think we all remember how much we loved Halloween as children. We would cosplay as our favourite characters and go house to house collecting sweets. However, as I grew up, I lost interest in this holiday as the appeal of dressing up and collecting sweets lost their appeal. However, I love Halloween again now for a completely different reason!
It may surprise you but I adore horror! I love horror movies, books, video games etc. Back in secondary school (around the same time as the events of “Why I like Anime”), I heard of and saw a film called “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”. The general look of the film, the fact that it was supposedly based on a true story and the surreal nature of the events captured my interest.
I began to grow my collection of horror films (much to the chagrin of my parents), began reading horror books (Clive Barker’s Books of Blood are a particular favourite of mine, watch my review here) and playing horror games such as Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead. However, I came across a problem as my interest soared.
I very quickly realized that most people that I came across held strong biases against horror and did not desire to discuss and learn about the genre. This contributed to an increasing sense of isolation as my passions (which included animation and video games) saw me with a dearth of topics to talk to people about.
However, I soon discovered that there was a time of year that people became unusually receptive to horror. During Halloween, people who used to show active disdain for the topic of horror suddenly became interested in hearing about the various films, books and video games that I’d experienced.
Understandably, the holiday drew my love and adoration as I suddenly felt relevant and interesting. Since then my love of horror has not waned (my film collection’s largest genre aside from animation is horror) and I actively look forward to Halloween when I get my chance to watch my horror favourites with my friends and family.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk, amazon.com or bookdepository.com for all of your needs!