Where The Insanity Began
Before I moved to Hollywood and somehow became one of 80’s/90’s
cinema’s perennial monster victims, I was actually a huge fan of the
genre. It wasn’t long after I arrived in
the city that I started booking acting jobs in many of what are considered the
classic franchises. Friday the 13th
VII, Night of the Living Dead 1990, Leatherface and The Ghoulies among
countless others. Still to this day,
when fans ask me why I was chased around by so many famous murderers, I can
only answer with my stock response which is…”I don’t know, I guess I have the
kind of face you just want to hit with a butcher knife”. I had such a great time acting, I loved every
minute of it. I was truly the happiest
horror fan ever. But growing up, I was anything
but quick to embrace the things that go bump in the night.
My obsession with all things horror started at a
disturbingly young age. As a plain, fat
kid who had a somewhat unhappy childhood, reading became an escape from the
tough reality that was my life. I would
lock myself in my room and read for as long as I could, that is, before the
real-life monster known as my Father would surface, never hesitating to remind
me that reality was far more unpleasant than any fictional work could ever be.
I think I was about 11 when my Mother gave me a thick book entitled
“The Tales of Edgar Allen Poe”. After
one story, I was an instant fan and quickly read it cover to cover, ultimately reading
everything he wrote, even the stuff that I wasn’t old enough to totally understand. Still till to this day, I have that same book,
I must have re-read it a hundred times.
I love the smell of the pages and looking at all the weird notes and
doodles I wrote in it as a youngster. Nowadays,
I keep a framed picture of Poe hanging in my dining room as reminder of the man
who began my love of all things mysterious and macabre. Thank you, Edgar. You have no idea how the worlds you created
helped me get through my own. And thank
you, Mom for giving me the book that helped me become who I am today.
Soon after, I moved on to those cool 70’s witchcraft novels,
maybe you know the ones, they were modern day pulp novels filled with stories
of spooky children who used voodoo to seek revenge against their hateful step
parents or ones of witchy 70’s housewives who practiced the black arts to
control their lovers or prematurely age their enemies. There was no gore, no monsters, just big
hair, black candles…and usually a dinner party featuring a naked go-go dance in
the name of the dark lord…I was riveted and I grew to love the genre.
It wasn’t long after, that I saw my first horror film.
My parents went out a lot when I was a kid and my siblings
and I were often left with babysitters.
I was a very neurotic mess as a child. In regards to my abusive Father, I felt
totally unwanted and unloved. I peed the
bed till I was in sixth grade. I felt
completely out of place and most of all…almost everything scared
me. Dogs, Halloween masks, strangers, hippies,
other kids…and most especially the dark.
I had a horrible time falling asleep at night. I would lay in my room for hours, terrified
of what might come out from under the bed or from within the shadows of my room. I used to stare at my bedroom window at
night, worried that leftover members from the Manson Family would break in and
kill everyone, except me, who they would force to join the cult and help them
rape and pillage. I remind you that I was eleven, ladies and gentleman. It also didn’t help that my hardcore Christian
Grandmother, God love her, would fill my head with stories of a horrific beast
named Satan, and how he would climb in my window and drag me by the hair to a
fiery hell if I misbehaved or dared to listen to Alice Cooper. I was a class one fraidy cat and had
excellent help achieving that status.
When my parents were gone out at night, I would always be
too afraid to go to bed alone, so I would tell the sitter that I wasn’t tired
and would stay up with her until my folks returned. Every Friday night on channel 30 in Fresno,
California, a goofy old man and local celebrity named Al Radka would host a late
night show called Chiller Theater. Al
would dress up in a vampire cape and sit in a coffin surrounded by bubbling
bowls of dry ice and present a chosen horror film. I remember begging the sitter to change the station
as I was always horrified by the music and sound effects they would play on the
show.
One night, she told me she would bake brownies if I watched
the movie that Al was playing that night.
Being a little fat-ass more so than chicken, I of course somehow overcame
my fear and agreed. As it turned out,
the film is still to this day, one of my favorites. It’s an old black white feature called “The
Innocents” starring Debra Kerr. The film
is an adaptation of the classic tale “A Turn of the Screw” with a screenplay
written by Truman Capote. If you haven’t
seen it, I highly recommend it. It’s
really scary and keeps you guessing as to what exactly is happening to this terrified
Nanny who has agreed to take care of a duo of spooky children. I was riveted by how great it was and despite
the fact that I was still a horrified fraidy-cat, my romance with horror films
began.
After that night, I watched anything and everything from the
genre…and still do till this day. And
it was that also that night that I decided that somehow, I would figure a way
to grow up and become a writer and film maker myself. I am one of the few people that I know, who
has known what they wanted to do, ever since they were a little kid. Whether or not I would ever get a chance to
do it, was beyond me. But I for sure
knew its what would make me happy if I could only find a way. The very fact that I have somehow pulled it
off, on whatever level you that want to consider it, really blows my mind.
I got through adolescence and made my way to LA in my late
teens.
Next time, I’m gonna write about moving to Hollywood, what I
went through to survive and how I figured a way to worm my way into the business. Ttyl bb
