I had a bit of an existential crisis last week. There was a moment when I had a horrible epiphany: It has been a decade since I first went to university.

A decade. Ten years.

TEN!

YEARS!

Sure, I knew my high school reunion was this summer. That was fine. High school was an absolute age ago, and I fully accept my own mortality. But for some reason, I never fully connected that fact to the fact that my university days followed right after. Unlike all four years of high school, moving away to college was actually a significant turning point in my life.

It was difficult to put myself into the mind-frame of 18-year-old me. But this is the universal truth: I was a baby. I mean, Baby Me basically boiled down to these things (and trust me, it was all she cared about):

Favourite bands: The Smiths, The Adicts, New Order
Favourite horror movies: Night of the Living Dead (1968), The Exorcist (1973)
Favourite novels: A Clockwork Orange, Catcher in the Rye

Sure. She was a bit basic and angst-y, but she was also a country girl meeting the “Big World” for the first time. So cut her some slack

Never fear! She was on her way up. This year was also one of the most formative for my love of horror. For one, this was still the height of zombie-mania. Zombieland was released. Seth Graham Smith published Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (thanks for that one, dude). My sister made my friends and I pose for zombie-related photos for her graphic arts project… (see low-res picture above).

One of the first things I did by myself at school was see Max Brooks speak. It was the first time I realised you could be a massive horror fan AND be articulate. Somehow, I had always been taught that the two couldn’t go hand-in-hand. Thanks, Mom!

For this week’s post, I had wanted to watch a horror movie made in 2009. You know, celebrate the culture! But to be completely honest, I watched the first 20 minutes of literally four different movies. Absolutely nothing was really interesting enough to carry on with. So…here we are?

It was a mixed bag for horror, 2009. For one, you had ALL the remakes: Black Christmas, Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, Friday the 13th, My Blood Valentine 3D. Yes, kids. We’ve been putting up with this for over a decade…

There were countless sequels as well. Saw VI, The Final Destination, Cabin Fever 2, The Descent 2 (which I didn’t even know existed until three days ago…).

But there was a lot of originality sprouting up too. Both for better and for worse (I’m looking at you Human Centipede).

Personally, I look back fondly on this year because there were a lot of movies release that are still favourites. It was one of the first years that I could drive myself to the cinema with my friends and go to horror movies by ourselves. Absolute grown ups! I killed my car battery during a screening of Zombieland after I forgot to turn off the headlights. Then my friends and I got fried cheese curds.

I was particularly obsessed with some movie called Paranormal Activity. You could “demand” a screening in your state, and I was absolutely passionate that Wisconsin partake. I shared a link on Facebook and everything. The marketing was not quite Blair Witch Project-level, but the fact that makes me smile fondly counts for something.

Favourite 2009 horror movies:

1. Paranormal Activity (US limited and wide release)
2. The House of the Devil
3. Zombieland 
4. Drag Me to Hell
5. Orphan

It’s kind of fun to look back, even if it is a bit scary to think about how long ago that all was now. I can barely remember what I was even like then. Probably really annoying, but then again – have things changes that much?

Moving to Milwaukee really forced me to grow up. And thankfully that gave me the confidence to be an out-and-out horror geek. The following year, I would discover this website called Netflix. You could order DVDs, and they’d send them to your house. And that was the straw that broke the camels back. I haven’t looked back since.

But there seems to be a lot of gaps in my 2009 movie knowledge. Think I’ve missed anything important? Want to berate me for my basic movie choice? Go ahead! I rarely approve comments anyway. And what were you doing in 2009? Hopefully it was a good one, and hopefully this one is too.