I own an obscene amount of horror films. No matter how bad or how good a horror film is I will buy it and then add it to the collection. No matter how many horror films I see be they bad or good I will buy them and watch them probably more than once. Any other genre of film I am picky and will not just buy it, if it is bad I will have no intention of watching it again or even think about owning it. I can’t decide whether or not it is an Asperger obsession of mine that I need to get them and collect them because it is my thing and I need them, or I just enjoy horror that much. Having worked in a film rental store horror and comedy where the two genres that most people asked about, they wanted my opinion which is interesting seeing as both genre’s are subjective to the audience interpretation. Comedy I didn’t know, I don’t watch comedy unless someone I am with wants to watch one.

All horror no matter what it was that came into that store I watched and all my colleges knew this and when someone wanted an opinion of a film they were sent to me, I became “The Horror guy”. Some people can’t stand horror and wouldn’t watch it, some people are easily scared and wanted to be scared, others I think on some level knew that horror films have never scared them and they either just wanted to see something disturbing or wanted to show their other halves or friends how much of a bad ass they are. Bit like when someone orders the hottest curry they can on a take away menu, even though they don’t like it just so they can show that they are a god amongst men. People always asked for a horror, when one came out they would watch it, even if it was awful and they kind of knew it would be. This is what makes me think this is just how people are.

Asperger’s is known for causing people to collect various things and become obsessed with them. I watch at least one horror film a day, I TiVo films from the horror channel. My ringtones on my phone are themes from horror films. Right now as I write this post I have a horror film on and sometimes I like to put a horror film on in the back ground when I am trying to sleep and weirdly enough it does the job. This doesn’t make me a bad person or a twisted person for doing this I just have an interest, well more than an interest in this genre. Now ASD obsessions have been known to be intense and fully absorbing however they are fleeting and somewhere down the line we lose total interest and then never both with them again. I have a long, long list of things I was into and then after a few weeks never bothered with again like formula 1 racing, games workshop, painting etc. For as long as I have known though horror has been something that has stayed with me. I remember owning a VHS of Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street and Sean S. Cunningham’s Friday the 13th and watching them to death, Also the old TV movie Stephen King’s IT with Tim Curry.

So why doesn’t it even matter? why am I talking about this? Don’t know Asperger’s does make you analyses the hell out of everything and seeing as I have just bought the Hostel Trilogy it has made me think about this. If the only films I ever watched were horror I would be happy and to be fair all I have watched constantly for the last two weeks is horror. I don’t watch it to be scared and I just enjoy the stories, it could be that because my emotions are so filtered that I like horror because I get some kind of emotion from it, or some kind of enjoyment. Also it is interesting to see what NT people find scary, not knowing how the normal mind works its nice to see what is scary for the rest of the world (In a non patronising way).

For all other horror nuts out there or people who are new to the genre here is a list of films to try.

The Classics

• Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”
• John Carpenter’s “The Thing, The Fog & Halloween”
• Wes Craven’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street & The Hills Have Eyes”
• Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”
• Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser”
• Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead Trilogy”

The Gorey

• Eli Roth’s “Hostel”
• Rob Zombie’s “Devil’s Rejects”
• Marcus Dunstan’s “The Collector”
• Pascal Laugier’s “Martyrs”
• Jaume Balaguero’s “[REC]”

The Spooky

• Scott Derrickson’s “Sinister”
• Ole Bornedal’s “The Possession”
• Hideo Nakata’s “Ring”
• The Vicious Brother’s “Grave Encounters”
• Takashi Shimizu’s “Ju-On”
• Andrew Douglas’s “Amityville Horror” (I know it is not the original)
• and my personal favourite Paul W.S. Anderson’s “Event Horizon”

Obviously like I said its all down to the person, so don’t start giving me a hard time because you don’t agree.