Origins

Since you’ve found yourself on the Origins page and have taken the time to visit my dear little blog, I suppose the very least I can do is tell you a little about myself. I’m not really good with this kind of thing so please bear with me. The name’s James and I’m a 26-year-old born-and-bred Cape Townian living in sunny South Africa. Saying I come from South Africa usually elicits a few stock questions so let’s just get those out the way first: yes, I do in fact speak English, yes, there are white people in Africa, and no, I don’t ride around on an elephant / giraffe / gazelle, nor do I have to outrun lions with any regularity I’m a paper pusher and part-time lecturer by day, and by night I laze my hours away reading, being a Nintendo geek with my 3DS and Wii U, playfully tormenting my two cats, or flipping my hair to whichever Britney Spears track takes my fancy at that moment.

So why horror? To be honest the genre kind of just happened to me. Back in the day when I was but a wee lad of 5 my dad, in no uncertain terms, forbade me from staying up to watch It. Being an all-knowing toddler I thought he was being silly; what was wrong with a clown movie? So I hid behind the couch and watched the movie before traipsing back to my room absolutely terrified. To this day seeing a clown still tends to make me break into a cold sweat but the appreciation for the genre that can make you feel that rush of adrenaline and fear has never died.

So why b-horror? Again, this was one of those things that just kind of happened. After discovering this genre that could absolutely terrify you I spent many years making my mum take me to any video store we could find so that I could browse the shelves for my next good scare. The search obviously yielded a lot of crap as well, something that I had absolutely no time for and cursed the people involved in making these movies. But then we got satellite TV and with that came the (then) Sci-Fi Channel and Mystery Science Theater 3000. Nelson, Mike, Servo and my dear Crow T. Robot taught me that there is a reason terrible movies are made: just because you can’t enjoy them doesn’t mean you can’t laugh at them. With this dawning realisation I understood that, while they may not hold the great scares I enjoyed, supermarket bargain bins were the place to find an entirely different kind of movie gold and I my love for b-grade horror was born.

For many years this little hobby of mine didn’t leave my home and it certainly wasn’t something that was discussed in polite company. Then one day in 2010 I was sitting in my lounge during my December vac and going through my DVD collection and thinking back on the many horrible gems I’d seen. For some or other reason I thought that I should start a blog to chronicle by misadventures in horror. It’s never been about having a readership or racking up big numbers; all I wanted was a place to put some thoughts and dry quips out there and see if any like-minded people cropped out the woodwork. The B-Horror Blog is now going into its 3rd year of operation and the cheesy times keep on rolling!

So there you have it, all the important stuff you need to know about me. I sincerely thank you for taking the time to visit and read my reviews and hope that my writing and attempts at humour have justified your time