“13 Killer Kills – Prologue”

By Remington J. Osborne

If anybody know me or listens to WMD Radio they know by now that I’m a huge horror fan, Friday the 13^th in particular. To be honest with you, the way I was introduced to horror movies you’d think I would have sworn them off for the rest of my life.

When I was younger my parents traveled a lot. This one time when I was 8 I had a babysitter who didn’t want to do much babysitting. Instead she wanted to watch “When a Stranger Calls”, and insisted that my sister and I sit on the couch and close our eyes at the scary parts.

I had to sleep in my sister’s room for 3 months after that. I’m not sure what was more traumatizing, the movie or sleeping with my sister for 3 months.

I didn’t watch another horror movie again until I was 11 when, yet another babysitter came over with “An American Werewolf in London”. I don’t know where my parents found these people.

So there I was, 11 years old, forced to watch a werewolf rip people apart for 2 hours. The best part about the whole experience is that at the time we lived out in the country, surrounded by 20km of woods in every direction, and in every inch of those woods, thanks to my young idiot overactive imagination, stalked a werewolf. I’d like to be able to tell you my parents never hired her again, but no they did, and I think the next time she came over she brought “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, or “The Exorcist”, or some other child appropriate horror movie.

The summer I turned 13 we moved back into the city, where I met a friend named Jason. I shit you not, I was 13 and my buddy’s name was Jason. Jason, go figure, was a Friday fan. He tried for months to get me to watch a Friday the 13^th movie, and for months I refused. Then one night we were having a group sleep over at a friend’s place, there was about 6 of us, when Jason pulled out a copy of “Friday the 13^th Part 5: A New Beginning”.

What could I do, I was trapped. I wasn’t about to go home and cry to my mother and say, the mean kids tried to make me watch a scary movie. So I watched it, and I loved it. Maybe it was because I was with 5 other friends, and not a psychotic babysitter, and we were all laughing and trying to scare each other when we thought Jason was about to jump out at us.

So that’s where it all began, my love of Friday the 13^th and all things horror. The summer of ’86. This was also the summer that Friday the 13^th Part 6 came out, so Jason made sure that I saw the other 5 movies before we watched the 6^th one when it came out on VHS. Yes, on VHS. Being 13 and 12 we were hard pressed to find an adult to take us to see it in theaters. My mother would take us to see “Aliens” and “Robo Cop”, but not “Friday the 13^th”. We actually stood outside the theater and asked adults if we could go in with them. It did not work.

I should point out that I was still a big wuss when it came to watching horror movies for several years. If I was home alone and I just finished watching a Friday movie, or Texas Chainsaw, or anything, I had to turn on all the lights in the house and put the VHS cassette in the freezer. Don’t ask why, I really have no idea. My parents didn’t really care that I was watching horror movies; it was the extra high power bill that came with it. After all the lights were on I would have to watch “Police Academy” or “Revenge of the Nerds” in hopes that I would forget about all the terrible things I saw in the first movie.

So as one might think, being forced to watch a movie about a babysitter being stalked and murdered while YOU are being babysat, or watching a movie about a werewolf tearing people limb from limb on the moors of London while you live in an equally creepy log cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Yes, that’s right. My parents moved us from the suburbs of Fredericton, to the middle of God’s country to live in a log cabin. Why? Because, nature. And fishing.

Where was I?

Right, should have screwed me up.

No, in fact, little did I know I was becoming desensitized to it from an early age allowing me to enjoy them from an early…….ah fuck it what do I know, I’m not a psychologist. I love horror movies, end of story.

Tune in next week as I break down my favorite kills from Friday the 13^th.

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