When?

[RCMerchant]

When? Did you discover-that you were a Bad movie geek? Or a geek in general? When did it start? When you realized-"Dang-Im not like other people-"
Hmmmm? I think I realized this-back in -oh-1972-I was 10 years old. But even then....EVEN THEN- I Knew--Iwas considered a "weirdo".I read FAMOUS MONSTERS,CASTLE OF FRANKENSTIEN. When my buddies were into comic books-I wanted to know about the artists who drew them. So. When did you turn into a "geek"?

[Jack]

In the early '80s.  Between Elvira's Movie Macabre, a bunch of straight-to-video '80s post-apocalyptic movies, USA's Up All Night movies, and then Mystery Science theater 3000, I descended into geekdom.

[RCMerchant]

I remember watching ASTRO ZOMBIES on Shock Theater on chanell 41 uhf...and thinking-"this is just part of Witchie's (the local host-some guy dressed up as a witch-) shtick.. was un warrented. .nope....it was the film. This was about...oh...I dunno...1972?   Bout the time FM had DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN on the cover of FM...yeah...I knew...I was in the minorty....I liked it anyway.....
I realized...not all of the stuff I liked was accepted by the world at large....


I also recall being horrified that Dracula-my favorite monster-had an afro!

[RCMerchant]

BUT-before I realized this...I was already into FM...but I thought all kids liked it....like kids nowadays like video games....I was wrong. My first issue of FM was #81-1970....



Back then-monsters were popular-like Power Rangers or video games were for future generations...but ive noticed Monster Kids (thats what they call us nowadays) have a loyalty that transends age....I am proud to be a "Monster Kid". 

[Flick James]

Oh, I think I always appreciated bad movies. I think I first intellectualized that it was a "thing" when I was in my pre-teen years. Several things contributed to it:

* Reading alot of MAD Magazine
* Older siblings who were cracking up to movies like Reefer Madness and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
* Spending many hours with my buddy during sleepovers watching b-movies on late night television back in the day

To name a few.

[RCMerchant]

Oh, I think I always appreciated bad movies. I think I first intellectualized that it was a "thing" when I was in my pre-teen years. Several things contributed to it:

* Reading alot of MAD Magazine
* Older siblings who were cracking up to movies like Reefer Madness and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
* Spending many hours with my buddy during sleepovers watching b-movies on late night television back in the day

To name a few.

I think MAD magazine had an influnce on all of us...intoduced us to parady and questioning of everyting! Comics? MAD ragged em. Movies? Mad ragged em. Politics. Yup. MAD was just as influntial in my life as FM was.

[Raffine]

Definitely when I saw my first issue of FM:



It was an older issue a friend of my older brother brought over one afternoon.

This was the first issue I actually bought:



I spied it at the Rexall drugstore and begged my mother to let me buy it rather than some comic books.

I was hooked!

There were some huge gaps in my personal collection due to my mother's wariness over my monster obession ("You're going to warp your mind!"), but my buddy Steve had a whole stack and never missed an issue.

This was the last issue of the initial run I had:



My parents decided "enough is enough" and the magazines, models, etc. all went into the garbage. 

[ImaginaryFoot]

Watching The Creeping Flesh on the local saturday afternoon horror show when i was 7. I started early

[RCMerchant]

What made me think that this stuff was actually an ART FORM...something to take seriously...was...oddly...about the same time-(age 10!)  CASTLE of FRANKENSTEIN magazine...which-unlike FM-dont get me wrong-I loved FM) but it was more of a film and pop culture analaysis (I KNOW I spelt that wrong...) kinda like the later PSYCHOTRONIC magazine. I was a weird kid. Raffine-my Dad didnt care about my weird interests...but he did get drunk once and busted up all my Aurora models...old basterd! I had em all too! Old f**ker!

[The Burgomaster]

As far back as I can remember.  I was begging my mother to let me stay up late to watch horror movies when I was about 5 years old . . . maybe younger.  Now I beg my wife to let me stay up late and watch horror movies. 

[Mr. DS]

Little bits and pieces of my past kind of contributed to my love of the genre.

I think MAD magazine had an influnce on all of us...intoduced us to parady and questioning of everyting! Comics? MAD ragged em. Movies? Mad ragged em. Politics. Yup. MAD was just as influntial in my life as FM was.

Mad Magazine indeed fine tuned my wise ass side growing up. Being able to parody things is an acquired personality trait to take on the movies we do.  MAD always and continues to teach the message its ok to like things but don't take them too seriously.

At an early age my brother played a huge part in my love of horror and scifi.  I'd also intake a lot of slapstick comedies with him. He'd let me watch movies my mother would have flipped out at.  However, he never let me watch the gory parts until I was older.  My brother was a rabid fan of Elvira who also shared with me the joys of parody.  Where certain kids grew up on a primarily on Disney, I was tuning in to a lot of stuff they weren't.  

My father also let me watch many movies with him like spaghetti westerns, action films, slapstick etc.  He'd often tune in to late Saturday night matinees on TV and I'd watch them with him.  Speaking of Saturdays, I used to catch a lot of cheesy Kung Fu flicks after cartoons.

Thats the start of it really.  I really got majorly into B-Flicks in college.  I had a professor that actually introduced me to Dead Alive.  I'm his friend on Facebook and thank him from time to time for hooking me up with that.  

[Paquita]

Much to the protest of my mother, I watched a lot of horror movies with my dad starting when I was a baby.   She’d come home and find me cuddled up on the couch with him watching something gory- werewolves, zombies, vampires, axe murderers – we’d watch them all!  He’d be making jokes about it so I wouldn’t be scared and I’d be giggling.  I also have to give some credit to my uncle.  We’ve lived in the same house with him all my life, and he’s big on hobbies and tech stuff.  At the same time we got cable, he bought a vhs recorder and recorded EVERY movie on cable for years.  There were 3 movies to a tape, he’d label them and stick them up on the book shelf – a custom made book shelf that fit the whole wall and was 3 rows deep.  There had to be hundreds of tapes.  We still have them!  It’s kind of fun to put one on and see the old Cinemax and HBO intros before the movie started.  I’d usually watch one when I was up late, or when I had a sleepover my friend and I would peruse for the scariest title or one that we thought might have boobs.  I also watched the USA up all night movies.. I loved Rhonda!  I never really thought of myself as a geek for liking that stuff, I always thought I was way cooler than the other kids because I had such a great dad with good taste in movies and my super cool uncle with all the movies I could ever want! 

I didn’t really realize no one else thought I was cool until I was in 7th grade and the kids at school started a rumor that I was a witch.. and I didn’t deny or confirm it because I didn’t want to be friends with them lame-os anyway.  Weekly sessions with the school counselor solidified it for me – I was weird, no one liked me, and I was going to be alone the rest of my teenage life!  I’m over it now, and I still think I’m cooler than them!

[JaseSF]

Whe I realized I preferred collecting comic books (I loved The Mighty Thor, The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, The Avengers, The Justice League of America and the Legion of Super-Heroes) and watching superhero cartoons (Marvel Superheroes Action Hour!, 1960s Spider-Man, He-Man, Astroboy) over sports trading cards, car magazines and playing outdoor sports which all my friends were more into (although I was always a big lover of pro wrestling (it was like watching superheroes and villains battle for real?! ...which also tended to make me seem geeky later in life to many). I also watched The Incredible Hulk TV series as well as The Bionic Woman.

[Allhallowsday]

This was the first FM I bought, I'm not sure what the first issue was that I saw (it was my older brother's and had a picture of FRANKENSTEIN standing on MAE CLARKE's wedding train on the inside back cover).  Practically PORNOGRAPHIC in our house. 

Thanks RAFFINE, I followed your image URLs to find mine (my scanner isn't working, but I do have the issue 'round here somewhere!)

[Trevor]

When friends of my family took me to see the awful musical version remake of Lost Horizon when I was six. I came home and my mom asked me what I thought of it: my answer was "It was sh*t." My mom's first reaction was to laugh and then to clout me upside the head for using the word sh*t.  

Thankfully, my folks took me to see Murder On The Orient Express the following year. They had to drag me kicking and screaming into the cinema because I didn't want to go in and then when the film was over, they had to drag me kicking and screaming out because I didn't want to leave.