Beginning of My Fascination of Horror Genre

When I was a little kid, I used to watch tons of movies. I guess that is how parents keep their kids quiet so they can rest for a while. Most of the movies I watched were Disney movies about princesses and beautiful world where good always wins over the evil. However, one day my father fell asleep in front of television and he did not realize that I came in to the room and begin watching a scary movie. I can’t really remember what movie it was but I have a theory that it was one of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.  Anyway, the character in that movie really frightened me and I had a couple of nightmares but finally I forgot about that movie. As I grew older I noticed my sisters buying lots of Stephen King books and literally finishing them in 2 days. It was surprising because my sisters were not big fans of books. A couple of years later as I begin to mature, I picked up a book with the most interesting cover; it was called Carrie written by Stephen King. The first scene in the book was so disturbing, that I immediately got hooked on it. I could not put it down. As I read more I begin to think about the character of Carrie. She was a daughter of a religious fanatic, and she also had a special power of telekinesis. Carrie was such a powerful character because of her strangeness that it really made me realize that horror genre is not sadistic but interesting. Carrie was really fascinating to me because she never meant to do evil things, all she wanted was to be accepted in her school. Unfortunately, her classmates did not have any compassion towards here and she was a constant target to bullying and jokes. The last scene in the novel really freaked me out because it showed what a human being is able to do as a result of mistreating. Of course her power of telekinesis was made up and it was a fantasy, but it made me wonder about people’s minds and what sometimes we fantasize about and wish we could do to punish a person who did bad things to us. That was the whole power of Carrie, because it revealed the twisted mind of people and what we are able to do to seek revenge. After I read the book I saw a movie that was based on this novel. Even though it was pretty powerful I still thought that the book was more impressive. For some reason I love to imagine the characters my own way and the movie ruined that for me. Well, after my experience with Carrie, I begin to read other books of Stephen King’s such as Cujo, The Shinning, and Salem’s Lot. I enjoyed all of them. And to this day, sometimes I have an urge to reread some of them.