Hello, my friends, and welcome to the By Night Horror Blog! I’m Jordan (26 going on 27, Cincinnati, OH; she/her), and I am lifelong horror lover and aspiring writer who just really wanted an outlet for her fangirling and analysis of horror (and cult) films, literature, history, and culture. I am a library services professional by day, a devourer of the frightful by night (get it?).
From my earliest memories, I have been fascinated by horror and the straight-up strange. It started at a young age when pleading with my parents so I could stay up late and watch spooky cartoons with the lights off. Halloween has always been the highlight of the year for me, even over my birthday that takes place just a couple weeks later. I started reading Stephen King when I was fourteen years old, popping open a thick and terrifying volume when we would take five at musical practice or after I finished my homework in study hall (I have now read over fifty Stephen King novels). I have always seen horror as beautiful, visceral, exploring what we are afraid to think about with finesse and often romantic artistry. Horror helped me realize who I am and what I value.
College opened up my world, my way of thinking, and my modes for expressing myself. As long as I followed assignment requirements in my English, culture, or gender studies classes, I could write about anything I wanted. I took those opportunities to discuss issues of gender, race, poverty, identity, mental health, and many other relevant topics as they are presented in the framework of horror films. When I began to feel the ache of losing that outlet after graduating, I decided to create my own space for pondering all that the world of horror shares with us (and here we are!).
Something else about me that I take the opportunity to share as often as I can is my experience with obsessive-compulsive disorder. I was officially diagnosed on April 30, 2019 after many, many years of struggling with my mental health and my disorder insidiously affecting every single aspect of my life. This is a topic I will definitely discuss again. There is no room for stigma here, so I intend to have authentic and respectful conversations on mental health when we take a look at those issues within the texts chosen for this blog. As we know, the way mental illness is presented in horror is…not great. However, these conversations are happening, and I intend to explore it myself here, too.
I am very excited to get this blog going and share what this all means to me. Horror/cult stories are so much more than entertainment. They reflect our culture from generation to generation, and they inspire change and action more than any other genre. I love it, you most likely love it since you are here, and this blog is therefore dedicated to the complexity and relevance of these misunderstood genres. I hope to eventually create more content in the form of videos and podcasts, but for now I will enjoy exploring various topics with the written word.
Since I love having conversations about these topics, I will periodically ask for your favorites and your input.
Why not start right now?:
What is your favorite horror movie, and when did you see it for the first time?
Comment on this post or send me your reply at bynightblog@gmail.com!
This is new to me and I still have a lot to learn, but I am so excited and grateful to have a platform to write what I love and engage with others who share my passions. There is so much more to come. Thank you for joining me.
Jordan
By Night 
Hey, Jordan! I’m excited for you to get this blog up and running! (I know how strange and scary it can be to throw out your thoughts to the world, so I commend you for doing so.) To answer your first question: Candyman. Not only did it terrify me when it emerged in the early ’90s, but it is still one of the most provocative explorations of racial trauma and the limits of the white scholarly imagination we have in cinema. Anyways, I’m looking forward to seeing where you go with this!
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Hi Tony,
Thank you so much! I’m looking forward to this as well. I loved writing about social issues in horror films for my college classes. I watched Candyman for the first time just this year, and I absolutely loved it! I’m excited for the sequel by Nia DaCosta, which will hopefully be available soon!
–Jordan
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After way too much internal debate, I think I will settle for Blair Witch Project as my favorite horror movie. I was ~11 by the time I watched it, and I grew up walking through some beautiful woodlands, but there is still an eerie quality to the forest when my imagination runs wild.
The Blair Witch Project hit home because I was watching other people suffer through some of the frights I always imagined. Getting lost, making bad decisions, second guessing every move, and the pitter patter of unknown feet when you are trying to sleep, especially in the dried creek bed in my case.
Looking forward to future posts!
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I have actually never seen The Blair Witch Project! I thought that would be a fun one to watch for the first time soon and write a reaction blog or maybe even record a reaction video while watching.
The movie that affected me the way you describe was Mother! by Darren Aronofsky. I was in a bad living situation with awful college roommates when I saw that movie in theaters. The parts with people barging into the house, damaging and stealing their stuff, and simply disrespecting Jennifer Lawrence’s character and her home really got under my skin! I love it when horror taps into real and personal fears instead of leaning on jump scares and such. Thanks for reading!
–Jordan
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