I grew up in the 70s and 80s, when horror was ruled by the slasher flick. I saw the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre from the back seat of a car in a drive-in theater. I was supposed to be asleep, while my parents sat in front and watched. It was a double feature, I’m sure. The first early movie was something kids could watch; the second movie was not. The drive-in was a huge thing when I was young. I remember seeing the first Star Wars at the drive-in. 
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released in 1974. I would have been two years old, so it must have been played again at the drive-in several years after its initial release.
I remember it caused me to be deathly afraid of chainsaws as a kid.
I saw the first Friday the 13th on VHS, with my mom. She was a big movie buff, and we rented movies all the time. I remember Betsy Palmer as Mrs. Voorhees, slashing her way through campers. And the surprise ending made me jump out of my seat.
We got my dad to watch it the next night so we could see him jump at the end, too.
I watched Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street with Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger running through the dreams of teens, at the theater and jammed with Dokken to The Dream Warriors.
Michael Myers of Halloween fame came out in the late 70s. He was awesome, but I was always partial to Jason Voorhees. He was unstoppable and always came back.
Friday night was filled with going to the movies or renting VHS tapes and watching them at sleepovers with friends.
At that time, we even trafficked in the film Faces of Death on VHS, which claimed to be real footage of death but was mostly fake.
Those were the videos we had to sneak around to watch, along with certain other videotapes, when mom wasn’t home.
I liked horror so much I was one of the only kids who was reading Fangoria magazine, first published in 1979. I planned on growing up and doing make-up for horror movies.
Those were my early dreams. I wanted to write stories and do horror make-up for movies, while playing Dungeons and Dragons.
But then the real horror happened.
Life.
Life reared its ugly head, and the dreams of youth became a thing of the past. As I fell victim to the teen pregnancy epidemic of the times and had to get a real job to raise kids.
So, let that be a lesson for you youngsters.
Choose better fathers.
Not losers who get drunk watching horror flicks and get their girlfriends pregnant.
I could have been a famous make-up artist in Hollywood.
I could be working on the latest movie blockbuster right now, trying to put the moves on some famous actress.
But no.
Life gets in the way.
So, here I am as an old man trying to recapture some of those dreams as I face the new horror.
Old age.
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