I’ve only met Matt once in my life. It was four years ago at a bar in Florida. Though I’m not legally allowed to discuss the details of that ill-fated evening, I can disclose that there was a lot of beer, awkward silences and a giraffe (that poor creature never had a chance). I must have made quite an impression on him, however, as Matt has asked me to write a column here at Where the Long Tail Ends.

Though this is my third contribution, I suppose now is as good as any time to explain what TOO SOON will be about. For those of you who’ve asked what the title means, I really can’t say; it just amuses me for some reason, and it’s vague enough of a title to represent a column that will inevitably be many things.

As of now, TOO SOON will focus on my re-watching horror movies I haven’t seen in years to see if they still hold up (like Alone in the Dark), as well as watching movies I’ve always wanted to see but never got around to (such as Blast of Silence). Plus, since my love of movies is often eclipsed by my love of books, I’d like to go through my library and share not only what I feel the best books are, but the books that altered my DNA and completely changed who I was as a person – you know, those books. In fact, I’m finishing up a piece on Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves to get us started.

I’ll probably be circling around horror as a genre quite a bit. I’ve always identified with horror stories ever since my father read me H.P. Lovecraft stories at bedtime when I was a child (“It’s best if you were asleep by the time I get to the end,” he’d say, “or you might go insane.”). I have fond memories of seeing previews of The Fog on television when it was in cinemas and being terrified of the decayed arms pushing through the stained glass windows of the church, and all the while thinking: I must see this! Even to this day, I have a strange emotional connection to The Fog. And when other children were pretending to be Indiana Jones and Rambo, I was pretending to be Roger from Dawn of the Dead. When all the boys loved Heather Thomas from The Fall Guy, my crush was aimed at Adrienne Barbeau.

On the weekends, I went to the used book store and purchased horror books with spooky covers, which is how I discovered Stephen King. And when I wasn’t reading on Saturdays, I was watching horror movies. In the evening, once Dr Who was over on public television, my father, brother and I (my mother had given up at the sound of the Dr Who theme song and went to bed) put in the VCR the horror movies we had rented from the video store (5 movies for $1) and watched as many movies as we could before we passed out. During breakfast on Sunday morning, we’d explain to my mother all the wonderful things she had missed. I’d say, “And then his eye popped out of his head and flew across the room!” while she glared at my father.

I don’t have the best memory in the world, but you can name a movie and I’ll tell you the year it came out, what day I saw it, which cinema I was at, and who I was with. The movies I’ve seen serve as historical landmarks for my memory. And while this applies to all movies, the ones I remember the most are the scary ones. The first time I saw Psycho was an event that even my mother stayed awake for. I could barely sleep the night before The Thing premiered on HBO. The Friday the 13^th marathon on USA was nirvana. I couldn’t wait to buy my 3-D glasses so I could watch The Mask on the television; I loved the way the movie prompted you to put the glasses on when they said, “Put the mask on now.” Evil Dead 2 must’ve been played in our house about ten times the first weekend we ever saw it. Back when they showed Night of the Living Dead almost every hour on one channel or another during the Halloween season, I remember how it had scared my friend Jack so badly that he simply wouldn’t talk about it, and his silence made me want to see the movie all the more. Creepshow was amazing. Fright Night was the perfect vampire movie. And Goremet Zombie Chef from Hell was, like, the best thing, like, ever when I was a kid.

It won’t be all about horror. At least, I don’t think it will be.

Anyway, my name is Christian A. Dumais.

This is TOO SOON.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 7:01 pm and is filed under Movies, Too Soon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.