Two Years

Yesterday was the end of Panic Fest 2022, a local film festival for horror, thriller, and sci-fi movies. It might sound weird, but I feel like Panic Fest 2020 played a large part in the turning point of my life back in early 2020, even as I am still trying to live up to what I wanted to do then. Going back this year was an amazing experience that just solidified where I already was. 

A lifelong horror fan, often on my own though, I had wanted to go to Panic Fest for years, even though I didn’t grasp at the time what a film fest entailed. I just saw movies playing there and guests coming on social media or in flyers when I went to the theater that hosts it. In 2019 I got the opportunity to go to a festival in Salem that was mostly horror films but also had parties and such, so I had a better idea of what film festivals entailed after that. Finally, in 2020, I had decided to go, at least to a few movies, since it would be a kid-free weekend for me. When I was trying to decide on which movies to go see, my secondary boyfriend, referred to as G in previous posts, offered to just buy me the full pass. While I mostly went alone, my bestie met me for one movie and my primary boyfriend at the time also went with me to one movie. I had an amazing time. When I was in my 20s with very few friends, when I had the cash, I would often plan a full day at the movies by myself on an off day during the week, 3 or 4 movies in a row. I had also gone to Oscar nominated movie marathons, both alone and with others. The opportunity to spend 4 days doing nothing but watch horror movies with other people who also love horror movies enough to be there was unbelievable to me. 

It also highlighted issues in my primary relationship. My primary partner didn’t like horror movies, though he supported my love of horror in his own ways. Spending the whole kid-free weekend at the festival meant that we would only get one weekend that month together with no kids. He desperately wanted to spend as much of my kid-free time with me and was upset about losing what he saw as "his time." His reaction highlighted in my mind how much I had gotten to a place where I didn’t necessarily want to spend that time with him. In the end, several months later, an argument over this same issue - what I was planning on doing on a kid-free weekend - would end up being the straw that broke the camel’s back for me and I would end the relationship. Looking back at it now, it also brings up how differently I feel this year about the current relationship that I am in, as well as how the person I'm with now feels and reacted to me going to Panic Fest in 2022. 

Looking back from 2 years on, it feels like no time at all between Panic Fest and Covid-lockdown and the end of that relationship, but it would actually be several months. I have heard Colors of the Dark podcasters Dr. Rebekah McKendry and Elric Kane, who I met at Panic Fest 2020, talk about how it was the last festival that they went to, about how they were joking about this new virus in China as they got on the plane, and about how Dr. McKendry. who always wears a mask and gloves on the plane because she tends to get sick if she doesn’t, warned Elric and their other friend that they would be wishing they did this if that new virus from China ended up over here in the U.S. At the time, it was all jokes. It didn’t stay a joke though. My primary boyfriend and I would go to an Oscar nominated movie marathon in February. We would host a dinner party with a couple and a triad we knew, joking about how it was a “mask of the red death” party. We would go through almost all of the strict lockdown in our metro area before breaking up. 

Last year, Panic Fest was all virtual. I did not have the money, or the time, I don’t think, to participate. This year, when it rolled around and was both in person and virtual, I jumped. We are transitioning to thinking of money as “our” money still and do not have a joint bank account, so even though it was more moving money around between accounts, in my head it still felt like my husband giving me money to be able to do this thing, especially after I had a week off with the stomach flu left me without the planned money from my paycheck to pay for things like food and drinks and souvenirs at the fest. He was happy I was getting to go do this thing that is big for me. He never complained about being without me. And then a thing that caught me off guard happened. I realized as I was planning which movies to see that I was going to really miss him. I didn’t want it to stop me from going, but I started to feel like I would enjoy it more with him than alone. He became kid-free on Saturday evening and asked if I would like him to join me. I gladly took him up on his offer. While I wrote out the movies that were playing, so he could decide what he wanted to see with me, he told me that he would just go see whatever I wanted. (My husband would not describe himself as a horror fan, but he will watch most horror movies with me and grew up watching all the 80’s horror movies with his friends as teenagers. He just doesn’t want us to only watch horror movies, which is fine because I don’t either.) He joined me for what I was planning on watching on Saturday night and then watched movies virtually with me in the evenings of the next week. I really enjoyed his company for everything in a way that I have often struggled with when it comes to horror movies with other people I’ve dated. I guess this just highlights why we are a better fit than the other people.

 Like many people, my life has changed significantly since I went to Panic Fest 2020, in ways that were largely completely unexpected. While the rest of the world went through Covid lockdowns and many people lost jobs early on, I wouldn’t lose my job until the summer of 2021, when I couldn’t come back soon enough after a back surgery, and then lose 2 more jobs in the fall of 2021 and early winter of 2021-2022. While I have a job now, of the same sort I was working in January of 2020 when I went to Panic Fest, I have had car issues, health issues, and been bouncing around assignments so I haven’t enjoyed a regular and dependable paycheck in the last few months. In summer of 2020, I would start dating, at first casually dating, the man who is now my husband but was then a years long friend. Our relationship would grow increasingly serious, leading us to decide to move in when my lease was up but then deciding to get married before that. My kids would go from being in school to being virtually schooled, including one semester where I was the parent helping them during the day while working 2nd shift, to being back in school. It has been an eventful two years and I could not have predicted I would be where I am now the last time I went to Panic Fest. In fact, if you had told me, I would have probably laughed in your face. 

Being at Panic Fest would help to continue other changes in how I saw things as well. It would open my eyes to all the other horror lovers out there, in my area, who are just regular looking men and women with regular day jobs. After going to Salem Horror Fest in October of 2019 I knew that these people existed, but it was hard to believe that they were here with me in the Midwest. I probably need to explain something. After about the time I was in 8th grade, coming across other female horror fans in person seemed difficult. For several reasons, I had trouble fitting into goth culture when I did find it, but even befriending goth people was no guarantee of finding other people who actually liked large swaths of horror films. Maybe they liked vampire films or The Crow or a few here and there, but no one who had much of anything beyond that interest or knowledge. As I got older, I could find more men who liked horror but we often don’t see eye to eye on why we like horror movies or what we get out of them. Also, while I love a pop culture or an academic reading of horror, many of these people I have met decidedly don’t. While there isn’t anything wrong with that, I have found it hard to feel like I belong in what often felt like a conservative (white, ok so I am that one) cis (and that one too, though I try to be an ally as much as I can) hetro non-feminist horror fandom that glorified the killers. As I started to listen to horror podcasts, even ones with men on them, who have the same feelings I do, I knew there was a place for me somewhere, but I had never found it. Being at Panic Fest  with a pretty even mix of men and women, both with people who wore their vests full of horror pins or were gothed up as well as people who one would never guess were horror fans, made me feel like maybe I could find that locally. 

It also helped push me to keep my desire to write in my head, even if I haven’t always devoted the time I wish I had to it. I remember talking to Dr. McKendry, telling her that I just loved horror but didn’t have a film horror story in me. She told me that everyone has at least one script in them, even if I haven’t found it yet. I kept that in my brain and when I found my story, I decided to start a screenplay, which I’m still working on. I have also continued to write, as my life and time and mental health have allowed. It hasn’t been as much as I might have wanted, but it has been something. That desire to keep devoting some time to writing lead me to decide to work fewer days a week and set aside one of the days for writing. 

In the last two years, I have also started to find my horror voice as well as find more horror voices. In giving credit where credit is due, the primary boyfriend I had in 2020 pushed me hard to embrace my love of horror and let my horror flag fly, even if he didn’t like horror movies. I have horror decorations, horror jewelry, and horror clothes. At the time, sometimes, it felt a little too pushed. It sometimes seemed like things went a little overboard in an effort to make sure that I felt comfortable being my horror-ness, especially while living with someone who didn’t like most horror movies. I feel like since then I’ve found a place that is more comfortable for me. One of the areas that I’ve spread into recently is horror twitter, specifically horror author twitter. It is lovely to see horror writers who don’t look goth at all, showing me I don’t have to always look goth to be taken seriously in my horror-dom, as well as ones who seem SHOCK happy, showing me I can enjoy all the dark I want while being happy. 

Like with most of my writings, as I peter out, I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say. I think I just wanted to have some external processing for all the feelings that doing this thing 2 years later brought up. I am eternally grateful for all the people that helped me find all these feelings these last two years, from the man I now call my husband to the horror authors on twitter who inspire me to the masses that came out to the Fest who showed me that I’m not alone. I’m crossing my fingers and working hard so that I am even more a part of the horror community, maybe even having something published before the next Panic Fest.