Introducing Scott

Dear Reader,

Thank you for checking out OFLON, and hopefully joining us on a journey into horror.

Although I have relied on critics for reviews of books and Oscar worthy (or non-worthy) films, I throw much less weight when it comes to horror reviews. Here is the thing, I think horror is extremely subjective, for some it is the gore and violence, for others it is the build up of dread, or embracing the afterworld and all its dark features. Me, I have sailed my ship across all of horror bodies of waters, and I have found as I age, my tastes in horror change as well.

When I was younger, I was handed Stephen King's Christine by a family member. From page one I was captured, and by the end I was ravenous for more. This started an obsessive journey which led me to every type of horror, including Clive Barker, James Herbert, F Paul Wilson, Dean Koontz, Lumley and so many more. As I read, I found myself navigating real horror which, over 10 years, I read every true crime I could find, along with the rest of my collection. I began to see the collision of reality with the imagination, and the psychological need to separate the two through movies.

I believe we watch and read horror to escape the true terror around us today. Home invasion movies, Purges, mass murder all through a screen and actors, and as we leave the theater we focus on what we watched and not what we saw on the news or our social media feed. Horror is a necessary evil, for it shows the good when all seems bad. As we age, our taste for horror changes, we begin to shy away from the gruesome, because we realize that could be our neighbor, so we change to dread and foreboding, the supernatural, cryptozoology, zombies, because, that isn’t ever going to happen. Then a pandemic and movies like Contagion or Utopia on Amazon hit way to close to home, so we turn back to Michael Myers, cause that is better than catching a flu which leaves you struggling with each breath.

So, dear reader, Senthil and I have decided to further the quest for what is horror by avoiding traditional critic approaches to discussing horror, and rather approach it from a fan's perspective . Recognizing fans of horror watch and read for reasons a traditional review will not cover, we seek to identify qualities of horror that grab our attention as fans.

When we found ourselves disagreeing over quality horror, and couldn't decide the better movie - A Quiet Place or Bird Box, Senthil and I decided to watch small budget movies and read horror from different styles and discuss them from a fan's perspective. In the process my hope is, Senthil learns what quality horror is, because thinking that only shows he has much to learn, from a master such as myself.

Enjoy the journey with us, whatever horror tributary you are currently running,

Scott