What year did you become a movie geek?

[RCMerchant]

I aint really a movie geek-mostly a monster movie geek.
I think it may be as early when I seen FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943) in 1967-I was 5.
But I think by 1969-when I read my first Famous Monsters magazine-I went apes**t.

[Rev. Powell]

Probably when my family got its first VCR when I was 16 and I went out and rented THE GODFATHER, TAXI DRIVER, all the Monty Python movies, BARBARIAN QUEEN, THE CHEERLEADERS... all the classics!

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

My second or third movie ever was DeLauerntis' King Kong in the theatre.   From there it was Saturday Matinees of monster films at the base theatre and then  Night Flight on USA. 

-Ed

[javakoala]

Somewhere around the age of 4 or 5. My oldest brother, who I looked up to in both meanings of the term, watched Fantastic Theater. http://tulsatvmemories.com/fantastic.html Check out the theme music and Peter Hardt's voice. Awesome stuff.

Naturally, if he liked it, I liked it. And, like RC, once I found Famous Monsters magazine, that was all she wrote. I was addicted.

[indianasmith]

When I was around 5 or 6 years old, there was a three o'clock show on Sunday afternoons called FAMILY THEATER that featured all the old classic monster films - DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN, THE WOLFMAN, and many others.  I would watch them every Sunday after church with my Aunt Willie, burying my face in her arms during the scary parts!

[lester1/2jr]

as far as bad movies I really liked "Pigs in Space" on The Muppet Show and also the live action Spider Man on electric company. I always thought what some people would call campy and cheap was stylish and entertaining.

as for movies proper: I think the first ones I got into were late night horror movies, usually some sort of animal attacking, different movies with a Satanic theme (that was very taboo in the 80's), of course Elvira. my sister got a job at a video store at one point and I got to rent movies for free. that set in motion endless rentals of horror and kung fu which are still the base.

[Trevor]

Friends of my parents dragged me along to see this POS in 1973 when I was six:



I hated it: that is when I became a bad movie fan although it nearly put me off watching films forever.

Then the following year, my parents took me to see this and that is when I became a movie geek:

[FatFreddysCat]

In the late 70s I was a Star Wars crazed grade school kid. I'd always liked going to the movies and watching them on cable but I don't think my movie-nerd obsession was truly planted till my family got our first VCR in the mid 80s.

[alandhopewell]

     I can't recall a time when I wasn't; when I was three, I saw the original FRANKENSTEIN on "The Nite Movie", and I was enthralled....and crying.  Ma thought it was because I was scared, but I explained to her that I was sad for the monster-he hadn't done anything, and everyone was mistreating him.



    When I was little, as long as I didn't have to get up early for school, I was allowed to sit up and watch the movie(s) after the news, with the provisio that, if Ma or my grandfather got up and found me asleep in front of the tv, I'd lose the privilege. So, I learned to shut off the set and go to bed if I got sleepy. I saw comedies, westerns, melodramas, horror, sci-fi, and I loved all of it....still do.

    Some of the most entertaining movies I've ever seen were the ones where the TV Guide  would just say, "Movie".






    This one comes immediately to mind....

! No longer available

[sprite75]

I took the film studies class my junior year of high school (1992) but failed that class.  I guess he was really tough due to him not wanting students to think that they could just watch movies the entire semester and not have to work.

Probably 2003 or so when I started watching MST3K pretty seriously is when I really became a movie geek - especially bad ones.  I wrote to that teacher a couple years ago and said that he should consider inflicting Manos on his film studies students just to show how bad movies could get. 

[HappyGilmore]

I grew up with a vcr and 80s horror.

Plus, in Philly, there was a UHF station, each weekend was themed. One weekend was martial arts, the next horror, and then Sci-fi like Gamera

[RCMerchant]

    I can't recall a time when I wasn't; when I was three, I saw the original FRANKENSTEIN on "The Nite Movie", and I was enthralled....and crying.  Ma thaught it was because I was scared, but I explained to her that I was sad for the monster-he hadn't done anything, and everyone was mistreating him.



    When I was little, as long as I didn't have to get up early for school, I was allowed to sit up and watch the movie(s) after the news, with the provisio that, if Ma or my grandfather got up and found me asleep in front of the tv, I'd lose the privilege. So, I learned to shut off the set and go to bed if I got sleepy. I saw comedies, westerns, melodramas, horror, sci-fi, and I loved all of it....still do.

    Some of the most entertaining movies I've ever seen were the ones where the TV Guide  would just say, "Movie".






    This one comes immediately to mind....

! No longer available

I lived in upstate NY-Milton NY to be exact-and I usta watch this show-



http://youtu.be/XXjHvhpRQ8U

then when I lived in Paw Paw Michigan,in 1969,I watched Double Creature Feature on channel 28,UHF out of Indiana-I saw old Universals, 1950's monster movies,and weird s**t like BEAST OF MOROCCO and ASTRO ZOMBIES. I started collecting the Aurora models-I had books,posters,skulls,puzzles,a Frankenstein garbage can,the Mego toys,rubber jiggly monsters on elastic strings,those corny monster bubble gum cards,-I had a black lite Frankenstein poster!

[RCMerchant]

It seems I see a common factor here-we most all started very,VERY, young.
That's interesting in some kinda way.  
Cripes-I wonder why some folks are almost BORN to be obsessed by a certain...I dunno-thing.
Well-I'm glad Im a Monster geek-It's better than obsessing with women's shoes with the feet still in them.
In his closet....MooohoooHAHAHAHAha!  

[LilCerberus]

Hard to say...
It might have been when Star Wars came out, and for the first time in our lives, life was centered around a movie. Even when we still went "OutSide" to play, even long after it had left theaters, we couldn't get enough toys, trading cards & picture books, and was a factor in every pretend adventure.

Or it might have been when cable came out, and our parents would try one or two of those premium channels, and we'd get to see Star Wars rip offs we'd otherwise never heard of.

Or it might have been when UHF started to catch on, showing old reruns by day, and by night, classic sci-fi, lot's of kung fu, horror, action, as long as it was cheesy.

I think a big one for me, was when I'd had my own cheap black & white for a year & my parents got divorced, so the bedtime concept went out the window, and I started watching those movies that come on between midnight & six AM. The more I'd watch, the titles would get more obscure, the plots would get sillier, the content sleazier, and sometimes the censors would miss something...

I'd had a VCR for several years before we had our first video rental store. I would visit those pretty regularly, renting all those movies that my mom wouldn't let me see when they were in theaters. But I don't think it was until I saw Not Of This Earth (1988) with it's plethora of borrowed footage that I really began to obsess.

Then again, my high school library had a copy of The Book Of Cult Movies by Danny Perry...

[Newt]

It seems I see a common factor here-we most all started very,VERY, young.

Agreed!  I do not know when I first watched bad movies, but I know I sat with my Dad at a very young age and learned from him to love them.  I have a very early memory of a babysitter allowing me to watch "THEM" on TV, maybe around 1963-4.  Also know I saw Lugosi's Dracula with Dad very early on, as well as Frankenstein and the Wolfman and Attack of the Crab Monsters.  Must have been back in the mid 1960's.  62-67.  Somewhere in there.  Yeah, I'm old.