I say "ish" because some movies are hard to classify. For example, I have that awesome Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection. There's 14 movies in that thing, but I only counted four of them as horror. On the other hand, I also have a fair bit of TV season sets, and they count as one each. And then there are things that I DID list that are dubious in and of themselves, but f**k it, Predator and Alien have the primary intention of scaring audiences, thus, they're horror to me. And then there's that godawful $12 "Horror Classics 50-Movie Pack" that I bought at the online equivalent of Family Dollar that upped that total in a big way. It counts, dammit!
At any rate, I've been collecting horror movies for a while. Nine years, to be exact. Admittedly, I've tailed off with this a lot in recent years in no small part due to me finally joining the 21st century and doing stuff like...subscribing to Netflix. Shudder. The first couple of years were no doubt the most fun I've ever had being a movie fan, starting off with the familiar movies of my youth, loading up on slasher films, discovering J-horror and becoming borderline obsessed, and finally branching out into European stuff with Dario Argento as my guide. Also, by and large stuff was cheaper then. Nothing was out of print like it is now, and people on Amazon and eBay weren't such vultures. You'd be surprised how many of those DVD's up above were found for less than five bucks. I'm guessing well over half.
Now? On the sporadic occasions that I still buy horror movies (and I just added 38 films to the collection last week - more on that later), I sample a little bit of everything. It's all been culled from this journey that I've been on since childhood, being fascinated with campfire scary stories, terrified as all hell by Jason Voorhees, and now as a curmudgeonly, nerdy adult. But horror is a film genre that contains more variety than any other type of film, and as such, the Lick Ness Library (shudder #2) contains its fair share of slightly interesting stories.
THE BREAD AND BUTTER: JASON, FREDDY AND MICHAEL
Yeah, any self-respecting horror fan owes it to themselves to have these guys in their collection. I've now TRIPLE-DIPPED on the Friday the 13th series, first in the "Crystal Lake to Manhattan" crappy set, then the Deluxe Edition DVD set, and now the super-nifty Blu-Ray set. I still have my original New Line platinum series NOES box set (complete with scratches that make it look like Krueger is attempting to claw out of the box on one side) from back in the day, and I'm perfectly satisfied with that. Halloween, though, is a different animal. For years, I was perfectly content to just have the first two movies and call it a day since, to me, that's where the series ends anyway. But that new Blu-Ray set kept calling my name, like the sweetest Stevie Wonder song. Eventually, I gave in, which means I now have the entire series in glorious 1080p HD - even those godforsaken Rob Zombie abominations. Shudder #3.
BANG FOR THE BUCK: JU-ON
Long ago on a January night in 2008, I popped in the DVD of Ju-On: The Grudge, the O.G. Japanese version of the Sarah Michelle Gellar flick you all know and either love or loathe. I paid exactly $2.98 for that DVD, and even less for its sequel. I can say with complete confidence that I've gotten more entertainment out of these two discs than any other movies in my entire collection, because for the next couple of years that series became my life. There wasn't much else to track down - a cheap set containing the first two prequel movies found with the help of an online forum acquaintance, the duo 2009 "Black Ghost/White Ghost" films, and the AmeriJap trilogy. I've watched all of them at least ten times, but nothing will ever top the original two theatrical Japanese films. Hell, sometimes I still give them a watch when I have nothing else going on, which is admittedly a pretty common occurrence.
THE NEVER-WATCHED AWARD: THE "HORROR CLASSICS" BOX SET
The AFOREMENTIONED Horror Classics 50-movie pack...ah yes. Classics. They might be classics, but not everything with that label has to be good. I bought this set on Amazon for less than $15 as a nice, quick and dirty way to add a bunch of cheap public domain horror movies to the collection. That's what it was intended for, and that's what I use it for. Pretty much exclusively, since it has pretty much sat on my shelf ever since and done nothing else of note. Now, I HAVE watched a couple of the movies contained within: Carnival of Souls and the original Night of the Living Dead. Everything else has been neglected, and I don't know if there's enough wild oats in this world to make me devote 70 minutes of my life to The Giant Gila Monster.
TV SHOWS RULE!
I own a few horror-related TV series in their entirety or near-entirety. Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Night Gallery, Tales From the Crypt and The X-Files, to be exact. I've always wanted to own the original Twilight Zone series as well, but now that I have Netflix, I'll just save my $100 and play it on repeat. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of these sets. For that reason, I LOVE TV on DVD. For sheer volume, they can't be beat, and I really do need to start looking into more of this stuff. What say you, guys? Are Sleepy Hollow and Bates Motel worth buying?
THE CROWN JEWEL: UNIVERSAL MONSTER MOVIES
The most recent addition to the collection just arrived in the mail last week. At the low-low price of $115, it was the box set containing all 30 classic Universal Monster Movies. For a lesson in horror history, it doesn't get any better than this. Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Creature From the Black Lagoon, if you know your film history, this is pretty much ground zero of where horror started. While there are series and sets containing movies that I definitely LIKE more, this is easily the coolest thing that I have so far. The presentation is just amazing, the extras and documentaries are fascinating as all hell, and it even comes with a very well-written little book detailing the entire history of Universal Pictures' Horror Dynasty. For fellow horror nerds like me, I can't recommend this one enough. As for the films themselves, reviews are forthcoming...this October. /lightning crash
CURRENTLY OUT-OF-PRINT
Just last week, I sold my DVD set of Unsolved Mysteries for the whopping price of $400. The last thing I ever expected when I BOUGHT that set was for its value to skyrocket after going out of print, but that's exactly what happened, and since I'd already watched it three times I essentially said f**k it, I'll take the quick bucks. I'm not sure that I have anything else of similar potential in the collection, but I DO have a couple items that are no longer produced and could appreciate in value - the Sleepaway Camp Survival Kit containing the original trilogy of slasher classics and the Puppet Master DVD collection, which actually WAS highly valued for a few years before dropping recently because they've since released a newer, snazzier box set that has that stupid Demonic Toys movie in it.
THE FUTURE
Sometime within the next five years, I'm going to put together my dream project. In my spare bedroom, no less, so if I ever have guests, sorry, you've just going to have to sleep on the couch. Basically, I want a room in my house that looks just like the video stores of my youth, with shelves of DVD's lining the walls and the long, "artwork" side of the boxes all facing outward. I plan on going all-out with this theme, planting a TV up in one corner of the room that can play any movie in any format; a section devoted to various horror books, both fiction and nonfiction; and posters lining the walls, from ones I have to expensive-as-shit rare ones that I'll have to buy just for the project. It also means that I'll have to get some movies that aren't currently in the collection, because who's going to want to go into a room like this and NOT see The Exorcist or Dawn of the Dead?
Anyway, that's where I'm at as a horror movie collector in 2016. When I give people that number of "349," there's usually an audible reaction that's a mix of "impressive" crossed with "wow, you're a loser." I like being somewhere in the middle. So, to anyone out there who likes horror movies and is beginning to think about dabbling into starting that physical collection, the only advice I have is that no collection is built in a day. Be patient and spend wisely, and you can up that number pretty fast with movies that you actually WANT to watch and more than a few movies that you'll likely never pop in the DVD player. Happy collecting!
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