All My Friends Are Monsters: The Ever-Present Need for Familiar Characters
By Harper Smith
When I used to co-host a podcast focused on franchise horror films, a friend and recurring guest Nat Brehmer made a great comparison between the love that people of my generation feel towards Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers and the adoration others hold towards the classic Universal Monsters of the 1930s through the1950s. While I had not thought of that in previous moments, that statement latched onto me like a cold. What was it that made not only the Universal Monsters so special to my grandmother and even myself but also made The Shape a character I will forever want to see more of? What some may consider being b-movie low-grade cinema, we consider the genre and its monsters to be family.
There’s something special in finding characters you love. From a very early age, I fell in love with the Halloween franchise, it forever being a series that I hold dearly and close to my heart. Whether it be the fact that, to myself, Laurie Strode personified my childhood abuse, or that Myers was a stand-in to allow me to confront how I felt about past trauma, it was something that made me immediately want to follow for life. Through the Halloween franchise’s many twists and turns, good and bad moments, and so on, I never once lost the desire for more.
The Friday the 13th series to me, while not as profoundly and emotionally impactful, was also one from which I want to see additional tales. Jason Voorhees didn’t represent anything to me aside from being a character that I simply loved. The love so many of us have for that franchise lies within the slasher-by-numbers approach that most critics and some naysayers picked apart. The interesting thing is that it’s in the repeat cycle approach of the first few films that we as audience members want to see. It’s only when the series began to venture into ships sailing into Manhattan and body-switching worms that some viewers, like myself, felt not as interested in pursuing. That said, the love we have for our favorite momma’s boy makes us want to keep coming back for more. I don’t know why that is, but like the Universal Monsters of a long-gone era of Hollywood, we found something in these iconic villains that make us take the best parts (and the worst) and still have adoration and appreciation for an annual ritual of new films (although we all know how dormant Crystal Lake has been thanks to lawsuits). The creators of the franchise might have dollar signs in their eyes all the way to court, but while they hold out sequels in order to get paid more, the only ones hurting by the selfish bickering are us, the audience.
We live for these films and wear that affinity proudly on Fright Rags or Cavity Colors t-shirts. We spend more money than we should on 1:6 figures from Trick or Treat Studios, and we write extensive pieces on the smallest elements of each film. I could write 2,000 words on the tragic love story between Laurie Strode and Ben Tramer, and they never shared a single moment together in any of the Halloween films.
When the Saw films were churching out a new one every Halloween season, we didn’t care that some of them missed their marks completely. We were just happy to see more of the stories we fell in love with. Jason, Freddy, Michael Myers, and so many other iconic slashers and villains and their exploits became, to many of us, like our own horror soap operas. We followed the arcs of Tommy Jarvis, Laurie Strode, Jamie Lloyd, Alice Johnson, and others living vicariously through their quests to not only survive but also to save their friends. These characters were quickly held close to our hearts, characters whose plight and turmoil became our own. When Laurie Strode or Jamie Lloyd unceremoniously met their ends in later Halloween sequels, we took it as personal attacks and voiced disdain to those involved.
We keep coming back for more because there’s a familiarity in those films and characters, something that for most monster kids like myself lacked at home. When mainstream audiences — who often scoff at the idea of horror — dissect the genre as lesser entertainment, we consider the films and the monsters found within to be comfortable and closer confidants. My father never showed up to a single baseball game I played, never showed up to any of my music performances or even my wedding, but you better believe that The Shape, Chucky, and Pinhead never let me down once during those times. Yes, I had to see Jason go to outer space and watch Freddy become a caricature of what made him scary, but it has always been worth it to see more of the characters I grew to rely on. I don’t know what family really is, and to one extent, I had to define family when I married and started having kids myself. That said, my family will always include members from Haddonfield, Crystal Lake, and Springwood. 🩸
About
Harper Smith is a film journalist and composer, hailing from the Central Valley of California. For over a decade now, they have annoyed readers of many sites and magazines with an overabundance of Halloween 4 love and personal essays. Follow them on X @HarperisjustOK and visit their website Rainydaysforghosts.bandcamp.com.
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