Editorial

A Field Guide to Horror Fans: Which One Are You and Why Are You Like This

Published

2 months ago

March 20, 2026

Horror fans are not a monolith. We are a collection of deeply specific personality disorders united by a shared interest in watching terrible things happen to people in dark rooms. We have our own internal hierarchies, our own tribal languages, our own inexplicable feuds about films that made seventy thousand dollars at the box office in 2003.

I have spent years among these people. I am these people. And in that time I have identified the distinct subspecies that make up our community, their habits, their natural habitats, their mating calls, and the exact thing they say at a party that makes everyone else in the room quietly back away.

You are one of these. You know which one. Read anyway.

The Purist

Identifying characteristics: Has very strong opinions about what counts as a horror film. Will spend eleven minutes explaining why Get Out is “really more of a thriller” before you have finished your opening sentence. Owns physical media. Refers to decades by their full name with a reverence usually reserved for deceased relatives. “The Seventies.” “The Eighties.” Pause. Significant look.

Natural habitat: The horror section of an independent video store, if any remain within driving distance. If not, a meticulously organized shelf that functions as a memorial to the concept of the horror section of an independent video store.

Signature move: Recommending a film from 1974 in response to literally any question, including questions that were not about film.

The thing they say at parties: “Have you seen the original? No, the original original.”

What they actually are: The backbone of horror fandom. Annoying in the specific way that people who are mostly right are annoying. The Purist has watched more films than you, knows more context than you, and will loan you a DVD of something extraordinary if you ask nicely and demonstrate appropriate reverence. Treat them with respect. They have earned it through suffering.

The Evangelist

Identifying characteristics: Cannot encounter a person who has not seen a specific film without immediately making that person’s film education their personal mission. Sends links. Sends clips. Texts you at 11pm to ask if you watched it yet. When you say you haven’t, sends the link again with additional context this time.

Natural habitat: Any group chat. Every group chat.

Signature move: “Okay but have you actually SEEN Hereditary though. Like actually watched it. Because I don’t think you have or you would have texted me.”

The thing they say at parties: “I have the perfect film for you. It’s going to ruin your week. You’re going to love it. I’m sending it right now.”

What they actually are: The reason any of us have seen anything. Horror fandom propagates almost entirely through Evangelists who grabbed someone by the sleeve in 2007 and would not let go until they had watched The Descent in a dark room alone. We owe them everything and they are exhausting and both things are completely true.

The Academic

Identifying characteristics: Has a framework for everything. Does not watch a film, processes it through an interpretive lens and reports findings. Uses words like “liminal,” “abject,” and “the male gaze” in casual conversation without apparent awareness that casual conversation has different rules than a dissertation. Has opinions about Carol Clover that they will share whether or not you asked.

Natural habitat: Letterboxd reviews that are longer than most published essays. Film studies classrooms. The comment section of any article that refers to a horror film as “just fun.”

Signature move: Finding the feminist subtext in Leprechaun 4: In Space. There is feminist subtext in Leprechaun 4: In Space. They will find it. They will not be wrong.

The thing they say at parties: “Well, the monster is really just a projection of the protagonist’s unresolved relationship with maternal authority—” and then they keep going.

What they actually are: Genuinely useful. The Academic is why horror is taken seriously as a genre worth discussing, which means they are doing important work and also they should maybe sometimes turn it off. The best ones know when to stop and just watch the film. The worst ones cannot. There is no middle ground.

The Thrill Seeker

Identifying characteristics: Measures films in units of “how scared were you” with the intensity of an Olympic judge who is also personally invested in your performance. Will watch anything if it has been described as “the most disturbing film ever made.” Has a list. The list is long. They are working through it with the focus of someone training for a marathon.

Natural habitat: The “extreme horror” section of any streaming platform, which they found on day one.

Signature move: Watching Martyrs for the first time and then immediately telling everyone they know that they need to watch Martyrs.

The thing they say at parties: “Okay, but did it actually scare you? Like, really scare you? Because I’ve been looking for something that actually scares me and nothing has scared me since—” and then they list six films that scared them, because the truth is they are scared all the time and love it.

What they actually are: The most honest horror fan. The Thrill Seeker has not convinced themselves they are watching horror for intellectual reasons or cultural education or because they appreciate craft. They are watching it because it makes them feel something immediate and physical and they want more of that. This is a completely legitimate reason to watch horror. It is, arguably, the original reason.

The Lore Goblin

Identifying characteristics: Knows the canonical timeline of every franchise simultaneously, including the contradictions, especially the contradictions. Will explain the difference between the three separate Halloween continuities unprompted and with diagrams if given access to a whiteboard. Has opinions about which Hellraiser sequel counts and the opinions are detailed and specific and not even slightly flexible.

Natural habitat: Horror wikis at two in the morning. Reddit threads about retcons. The comment section of any article that gets a plot detail wrong, which they will identify within minutes.

Signature move: “Okay but technically in the Halloween 4 through 6 timeline, Thorn curse continuity, the reason that—” and then fifteen uninterrupted minutes of context that is somehow all accurate.

The thing they say at parties: Nothing, because they are not at parties, they are at home watching Jason X and updating a spreadsheet.

What they actually are: The institutional memory of horror fandom. When a franchise contradicts its own canon, the Lore Goblin noticed. When a filmmaker gets a detail wrong, the Lore Goblin noticed. They are occasionally unbearable and permanently essential.

The Reluctant Fan

Identifying characteristics: Does not consider themselves a horror fan and will tell you this immediately before proceeding to demonstrate extensive horror knowledge that contradicts the claim entirely. “I don’t really watch horror, but The Shining is obviously one of the greatest films ever made, and Hereditary genuinely disturbed me, and I’ve seen the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre seven times, but I’m not really a horror person.”

Natural habitat: The periphery of every conversation about horror, where they hover, listening, occasionally contributing something excellent, and then backing away again.

Signature move: Knowing the director’s complete filmography for a horror director they have “never really gotten into.”

The thing they say at parties: “I don’t really do horror.” Proceeds to recommend three horror films.

What they actually are: One of us. They are one of us. They just need time. The Reluctant Fan always comes around eventually. The genre gets them every time.

The Apologist

Identifying characteristics: Defends everything. Every film. The ones with the 4% on Rotten Tomatoes. The ones that were finished in ten days. The ones where the monster is clearly a person in a suit who kept breaking character. The Apologist finds the good in all of it, which is genuinely a gift, and occasionally argues for films that genuinely do not deserve defense, which is a separate and also admirable quality.

Natural habitat: Any conversation where someone has said something negative about a film the Apologist loves, which is any conversation.

Signature move: “Okay but if you watch it as a product of its time, with the budget they had, and you understand what they were going for—”

The thing they say at parties: “I actually think Leprechaun: Origins has been really unfairly maligned.” Reader, it has not been unfairly maligned.

What they actually are: The warm heart of horror fandom. The Apologist watches the bad films so the rest of us don’t have to, and occasionally pulls something genuine out of the wreckage and holds it up and says look, there is something here, and sometimes they are right. This is a valuable service. It costs them something.

The Converter

Identifying characteristics: In a relationship with, or close friendship with, someone who does not watch horror, and has accepted this as a personal challenge. Is currently in month four of a very carefully calibrated “gateway film” curriculum designed to bring this person gently into the genre without traumatizing them. Has opinions about which film to show someone first. Strong opinions. Has researched this.

Natural habitat: A living room, next to someone who is about to watch horror for the first time, positioned near the remote in case intervention is required.

Signature move: “Okay so this one isn’t that scary, it’s more of a psychological— actually let me just sit next to you.”

The thing they say at parties: “My partner watched Hereditary last week. First horror film. We’re fine. We’re working through it.”

What they actually are: An optimist. The Converter believes, genuinely, that there is a horror film for everyone. They are not wrong. They are just going to require patience from the person being converted, who will eventually come around and immediately become an Evangelist, completing the cycle.

Which One Are You

You are probably two or three of these simultaneously, with one dominant. The Academic who is secretly a Thrill Seeker. The Purist who occasionally functions as an Evangelist when something new earns their respect. The Reluctant Fan who is, come on, clearly a Lore Goblin.

The taxonomy is not a judgment. It is a mirror. We are all in here together, in the dark, watching something terrible happen, and loving it in our own specific and irreducible way.

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Editorial

Jonathan Tiersten’s Greatest Role, and it isn’t Sleepaway Camp

Published

12 hours ago

May 13, 2026

Piper St. James

Horror actor and musician Jonathan Tiersten passed away May 4, 2026 at 60 years old. To many in the horror community, Tiersten will forever be Ricky Thomas from 1983’s Sleepaway Camp. The actor later reprised his role in 2008’s Return to Sleepaway Camp. In the summer camp slashers, Tiersten plays Angel Baker’s (Felissa Rose) protective older cousin; and boy does he have a mouth that would make a sailor blush!

While Sleepaway Camp is certainly the most popular horror movie Jonathan Tiersten is known for, it is arguably not the best.

The Perfect House

In 2011 Tiersten participated in a horror anthology titled The Perfect House. The movie was written and directed by Kris Hulbert, and co-directed by Randy Kent. While they did not share the screentime together on this project, Felissa Rose also participated in this anthology.

The premise of The Perfect House consists of a young couple who think they have found their dream house. Little do they know the foundation holds many secrets from the prior inhabitants who once resided within the walls. As the real estate agent takes them from room to room, stories of the past resident’s atrocities unfold.

Tiersten Gives of Killer Vibes

Tiersten’s short story in the anthology is entitled Chic-ken. His portrayal of a serial killer in collaboration with Hulbert’s script is pure horror gold. Known as Angela Baker’s savior time and time again in Sleepaway Camp, serial killer John Doesy in The Perfect House is anything but sympathetic to the men and women who are unfortunate enough to cross his path.

In this segment he plays a killer who keeps a female victim permanently imprisoned in his basement. Every week he brings new victims to torture and kill in front of her. In his twisted mind he affectionately calls her his muse. As he tortures and kills his new victims from week to week, he also tortures, rapes, and taunts his “muse”. He forces her to watch his “performance” and is fueled by her witnessing the pain he inflicts on those he deems as useless members of society.

Tiersten’s effortless delivery as a self righteous maniac surpasses many others who have tried to conquer similar roles both before and since. The fact Tiersten does all of this without hiding behind a mask adds an extra level of fear. Let’s face it, Tiersten is very easy on the eyes with his blonde hair, blue eyes, and muscular arms, which would initially lower anyone’s guard. To know someone who not only appears “normal,” but attractive, is capable of such atrocities is extra unnerving.

The confidence Tiersten exudes in his voice and postures, as well as how he carries himself throughout the scenes, sells his character’s excessive ego. He completely sells the fact his character full heartedly believes in the demented behaviors and murders he is carrying out.

Where to Watch

While The Perfect House did not have a theater release, it was the first feature film to premiere on Facebook. The creators released the movie on the social networking site with a seven day rental period. In 2014 the movie was released for home distribution on DVD.

Unfortunately, many horror fans still do not know of this movie’s existence. Hopefully now they will search for it on Amazon, Ebay, and streaming services such as Roku, Tubi, and Google Play, and Plex to continue Jonathan Tiersten’s legacy.

Editorial

Sleepaway Camp Knew Before I Did: The Legacy Johnathan Tiersten Left on Queer Media

Published

5 days ago

May 9, 2026

Luna Gray

Jonathan Tiersten died May 5 at his home in New Jersey. He was 60. He played Ricky Thomas in Sleepaway Camp, and I want to explain why a very specific group of people is taking this one harder than a 1983 summer camp slasher would usually warrant.

What The Film Means To Me

I am trans. That goes on the table first because nothing else I am about to say makes any sense without it.

I have been showing Sleepaway Camp to people since I was eleven years old. Everyone who mattered to me has sat through it. Friends who thought slashers were beneath them, partners who loved me enough to watch things they would never have chosen, my teenagers.

I give the same speech before every single viewing. Something is going to happen in the last few minutes, I tell them, and whatever your first reaction is, please sit with it for a moment before you say it out loud. Not because the reaction is wrong. Because there is almost always a second reaction underneath it and that is the one I am actually interested in.

What The Film Actually Is

Robert Hiltzik made a low-budget slasher set at a summer camp. Angela Baker is strange and barely verbal and is tormented by basically everyone around her while her cousin Ricky tries to run interference. The ending reveals that Angela was born Peter, that her father died when she was small, and that the aunt who took her in had always wanted a girl and simply decided Peter would become one.

Angela did not choose any of this. Not her name, not her clothes, not the gender she was made to perform in front of every single person she encountered every single day. And after years of living inside something she never chose, the pressure found somewhere to go.

That Ending

The transness is framed as the horror, as the explanation for the violence, and there is nothing there any trans person would hold up as a victory for representation. I understand all of that.

But I was eleven when I first watched it, and what I heard underneath everything it was trying to do was something nobody was trying to say. If you force someone to live as the wrong thing long enough, they will eventually stop being able to contain what that costs them. The film turned that into a monster story. I recognized it as a thing I had been trying to explain to myself without having the words for it yet.

Trans Representation In Pop Culture

For context, consider what came the year after. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective came out in 1994 and its treatment of a trans character is a two-minute sequence of Jim Carrey vomiting, using a plunger on his own face, burning his clothes, and sobbing under running water upon learning he had kissed her. The joke is that she is contamination.

My classmates quoted this film back at me for years. That was what mainstream culture had decided trans people were good for, and it went more or less unchallenged for a long time. Angela Baker, for all of Sleepaway Camp’s genuine limitations, is the protagonist of her entire film. Her history is the engine of the whole story. She is not a punchline. She is why the movie exists.

Trans representation in horror has never been particularly good, and I am not about to argue Sleepaway Camp is the exception. What I will say is that it accidentally told the truth in the middle of trying to do something else entirely, and horror films that stumble into the truth are still telling the truth. I have built twenty-five years of love for this movie on that.

Ricky

Ricky is most of the reason I keep coming back, which brings us to Jonathan Tiersten. He played Ricky as someone who never needed to understand Angela in order to be fully in her corner. He does not study her. He does not puzzle her out, he just shows up every time with the kind of furious loyalty that does not require an explanation because the explanation is right there. He loves his cousin, and he is not going to stand there while the world is unkind to her. That is not a complicated thing to put on screen. It is also rarer on screen than it should be.

Tiersten reprised the role in Return to Sleepaway Camp in 2008 and kept working in independent horror until the end. His most famous performance is forty-five minutes of a teenager planting himself between his cousin and everything the world wanted to do to her, and for some of us who grew up watching this film, that was the first time we saw someone treat that as simply the obvious right thing to do.

It was an answer to a question I had not yet figured out how to ask.

Editorial

HHN35, Jack vs Oddfellow: Place Your Bets!

Published

2 weeks ago

May 1, 2026

Piper St. James

Halloween Horror Nights is back for its 35th installment at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida as the Infernal Carnival of Nightmares!

Over the years HHN has proven original houses draw as much of a crowd, if not more, as the intellectual property (IP) houses based off of established horror movies.

Leading each year of fear and headlining some of these original houses includes some of the most beloved and iconic characters. These icons include; Jack the Clown, The Caretaker, The Director, Chance, Dr. Oddfellow, The Usher, Lady Luck, and The Storyteller.

This year Orlando’s convention MegaCon had a highly anticipated and attended panel focused on Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Nights 35. The masterminds speaking of the 35th year celebration included Michael Aiello, Lora Sauls, and Charles Gray. The creators teased the landmark year to salivating fans.

Gaged by the audience’s reaction as each icon was reminisced about and displayed on the panel’s screen were Jack and Oddfellow. Here it was announced to the fanatical audience that these two icons will be returning to lead Halloween Horror Nights into its upcoming year!

Bring in the Clown!

Jack the Clown, born Jack Schmidt, is an icon created by Universal Studios for Halloween Horror Nights. Jack made his debut during the Halloween event’s tenth year in 2000. He immediately won over attendees and became a fan favorite. His popularity grew so much that he has reappeared again and again in many of the Halloween Horror Nights events.

Jack has been featured in three of the five Universal parks that have hosted HHN; Orlando, Hollywood, and Singapore. He has even claimed a spot in Universal Horror Unleashed.

Unleashed is a haunted attraction residing in Las Vegas that offers a fully immersive experience for guests. Unlike Halloween Horror Nights, this attraction is open year round! Universal Horror Unleashed features haunted houses, live entertainment, and themed bars and dining.

Jack and Chance at Universal Horror Unleashed in Las Vegas.

Here Jack stalks guests year round with his mistress in mayhem, Chance.

Jack’s History

In the late 1800s Jack was born with his brother Eddie inside the walls of Shady Brook Rest Home and Sanitarium. Jack escaped and ran away with the circus, leaving his poor and abusive family behind.

However, it was soon apparent he was not the jolly, entertaining clown he convinced his carnival spectators of.

Jack was a child murderer. As the traveling sideshow made its way through the southern states, a trail of abductions and disappearances followed. This attracted unwanted attention from federal authorities.

As the feds closed in, the clown disclosed his murderous ways to his employer, carnival owner Dr. Oddfellow. As the star attraction of the circus he hoped Oddfellow would hide him. However, the doctor was a man with his own sordid past with the law. He decided the best plan of action would be to cut ties with Jack, for good.

The circus owner had Jack Schmidt murdered, but not before the clown gave Oddfellow his trademark facial scar. A scar none of Oddfellow’s dark magic could erase.

Always the showman, Oddfellow decided Jack’s time in his show had not yet come to an end. Not even in death. The carnival owner hid Jack’s body, in addition to the thirteen children the clown had killed, inside his House of Horrors.

The Doctor is In!

Just like Jack “The Clown” Schmidt, Dr. Rich Oddfellow has a very long and evil history. He was introduced to Halloween Horror Nights in 2000, the same year as Jack. However, unlike the menacing clown, the doctor did not rise to instant fame.

Finally the Doctor found his time in the fog and in 2023 he was established as an icon of HHN.

Oddfellow’s History

Dr. Oddfellow is the notorious, darkly charismatic sideshow owner of Dr. Oddfellow’s Carnival of Thrills. He employed Jack Schmidt, the murderous clown who claimed the lives of at least 13 children. However, the clown was not the only member of the circus who had evil intentions.

Oddfellow was an evil sorcerer, and preyed upon his unsuspecting spectators from town to town. Using the souls of his victims, Oddfellow hoped to gain immortality as well as harness the power of the Dark Zodiac for himself. With this power he would have undying power at his fingertips all harnessed in the skull sitting on top of his trademark cane.

Dr. Oddfellow always left his mark of chaos, destruction and death. From the Jungle of Doom, to the 1939 Dustbowl, and an infamous 1969 Music Festival in upstate New York, Oddfellow reigned down his evil upon the innocent.

A Glimpse of HHN35

Not much has been revealed about how these icons of horror will be intertwined in the upcoming Halloween Horror Nights. However, we do know that despite how much these two despise each other, they will be sharing the spotlight as co-hosts for the much anticipated HHN35.

One of the ten haunted houses will feature the returning duo together. The house is called; Jack and Oddfellow: Chaos and Control.

As you travel through the house the stories of each icon of horror will be unraveled. You’ll wind your way through their evil dimension and see the two battle each other in a deathmatch that has been brewing for decades. However, as you near the end of the house Jack and Oddfellow come to realize that their power is much stronger together than separate. Will the souls of the guests be the fuel to their ultimate evil plan?

Tell us at iHorror who your favorite icon of horror is in the comments! If the two were to face off, who would win?