In my teens, I developed a strong love of fantasy, sci-fi, and monster movies. Old, classic, black and white monster movies to be specific.

First of all came Frankenstein’s monster, who was the most sympathetic character of all to me. Karloff’s 1931 performance locked in a tragic persona of a monster who never asked to be the way he was, who yearned for friendship and belonging, but who was hated and feared by everyone everywhere. The 1931 and 1933 movies made him sympathetic, and Mary Shelly’s novel showed him as noble, sensitive, and more virtuous by far than his creator.

Dracula upset me because he was a voracious manipulator and abuser of others – it was all about power and fear. The novel was dark and morose to me, but onscreen, Bela Lugosi made the character look charismatic and powerful – his portrayal changed my image of the vampire entirely. I actually ended up loving Lugosi more than Dracula, by far.

Throughout both of these characters was the tension between their powers and their weaknesses – their dominances and frailties.

Robert Louis Stephenson’s novel “Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde” struck me as the perfect mix of these two aspects of human beings. That novel, and a movie re-make I saw called “I, Monster”, made me think about the dualities of behaviour in people I knew. Sometimes sweet, gentle, and loving, people could become dark, desperate, and violent under extreme circumstances.

I’d reflect on the dualities in my father: his harsh temper when drunk, but his gentle good humor when sober. I’d think of my mother’s helplessness in the face of her bipolarism and chronic depression.

Old black and white monster movies provided me with the reassurance of fantasy and escapism when reality became too real.

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“Famous Monsters of Filmland” magazine cover gallery