Like many others born in the 1990s, I have distinct memories of walking through the aisles of our local Blockbuster and picking out a movie to take home. This would usually be a movie based on a video game, a movie for kids, or something my dad loved and was convinced we would too (I usually did, my sister was a different story). But, my most vivid memories come from seeing how long I could stay browsing the HORROR aisle. I was a bonafide scaredy cat and on this day, in particular, seeing the cover art for a VHS copy of Child’s Play 2 is what sent me skittering away to find my dad.

As a kid I hated horror movies, I couldn’t handle ghosts, gore, or anything involving a masked man stalking and killing people. This fear can be traced back to three “situations”: my mom showing me Scream 2 when I was about 5 years old, my dad playing an AMC Halloween marathon on the tv which involved me watching Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers from behind a blanket, and finally, secretly stealing and watching my parents’ copy of A Nightmare on Elm Street II: Freddy’s Revenge. I know, I know. Secretly watching Freddy’s Revenge is a little telling but believe me, I didn’t even have an inkling of my sexuality yet. And I wouldn’t for a long time. Horror wasn’t really a world I had any interest in until 2008 when I was 13. I was sleeping over at my friends' house and I had managed to sneak out a few DVDs my parents would never have permitted me to take. That night for the first time I watched Saw and Hostel and from the moment Dr. Gordon turned the lights on in that grimy blue bathroom, I was hooked.

When I was 15 I started becoming somewhat aware of my sexuality. Aware enough to realize that any outward exploration or acknowledgment would not be thought too highly of. When my mother came out as a lesbian the reaction from our family was mostly negative and something that I internalized for a long time. If she wasn’t accepted why would I be? So I repressed it and let myself sink deeper into the genre that was now my security blanket. Horror had become a comfort for me but as high school progressed and I started to understand myself, that comfort would evolve.

It’s not a coincidence that my first deep headfirst dive into the horror genre came around the same time my family lost my childhood home; the housing crisis was cruel and my family was one of many that fell victim to it. I threw myself completely into the genre, I devoured as many that my local video store (RIP The Video Station) would let me rent. The dimly lit back corner that housed their surprisingly sizable, and sometimes niche, horror collection is where I found solace. I spent hours and hours in my room with Behind The Mask, Sleepaway Camp, House of 1000 Corpses and so many others keeping me company.

Before I came out (officially) in January 2020 my family constantly suspected and questioned my sexuality and I know my obsession with Sidney Prescott definitely didn’t help. Scream 4 came out in April 2011 and I begged my dad to take me to see it in theaters. In the months leading up to its release, I spent hours rewatching the series and talking nonstop about Sidney, Dewey, and Gale. But Sidney was by far my favorite; she was cool and witty and kind of weird and quiet and I saw so much of myself in her. As a teenager going through what I now realize was trauma, having Sidney there was comforting. I could turn on a Scream movie and there she was! Understanding her trauma while I was going through mine. Neve Campbell was also devastatingly pretty but at the time I just thought I wanted to “look like her”, a feeling I’m sure so many other closeted teen girls know. But I also wasn’t the only gay Scream fan in our family! My mom loved the movies just as much as I did and even though she passed away before I could come out to her, I like to think us bonding over Scream was our own unique type of gay solidarity.

If I’m being totally honest, I owe a lot of my resilience and survival in high school to Darren Lynn Bousman. The Saw franchise kept me alive and so did Repo! The Genetic Opera. Writing about how horror saved my life sounds silly but only to people who don’t understand the effect these movies truly have on their viewers, especially ones like me who were trying to repress a sexuality that scared me and cope with trauma I never asked for. That’s why John Kramer’s messages about cherishing your life and not taking your life for granted deeply affected me. I was struggling with so much internalized homophobia and the weight of my parents’ addictions that I had to stay alive, simply because I had to see what was on the “other side” of the test that was my teenage years.

In Repo! All Shilo wants is to go outside and experience the life she had been denied thus far. She wanted to see anything besides the four walls of her room and she deserved that. Shilo meant a lot to me in high school because she went through hell and still made it through. The Saw movies and so much of Darren’s work helped me escape from my normal life and in the same breath connected me to a whole world of people just as obsessed with horror as I was. They were also my perfect escape from the everyday hardships of being a queer teenager in a small town. I could immerse myself in the world of Repo! or the lore of John Kramer and his games and feel like I belonged somewhere.

It made sense that horror ended up as my genre of choice; it helped me feel alive during a time in my life when I wanted the exact opposite. The rush I felt watching a new movie, the sweaty palms and racing heart, the stuff that would scare other people didn’t scare me! It gave me a purpose; it gave me warmth. With so much going on in my life and in my head, in my room with my movies I was safe. Because of this in a way, I’m here writing this, because of James Wan and Leigh Whannell and Wes Craven and Darren Lynn Bousman who connected me to a world that should’ve scared me away but instead gave me comfort and allowed me to begin to understand myself.