By - Stephen Mezo
If it weren't for James Harris
there would have never been a Storage Unit of Terror...
After I had a long run and falling out with a much loved Horror website (in complete rock band style) that I had written for I simply said "Okay now what?" Seriously I was just done with it...
So I moped around for a couple months and drove my wife crazy with one less thing to do that brought me enjoyment (I hadn't started collecting monster toys again yet) and my wife had told me to start up my own horror site. And after a long think I came up with the name "The Storage Unit of Terror" in honor of all all the missed it by that much Entertainment moments of my life. But I felt like this time out with the site was just going to be yet another one of those times.
But then James Harris "Doc Terror" himself got to talking to me about it and when I told him that I was going to pack it in he simply asked me why? And my response was "How many horror sites does the world need? And does anyone really care about what I thought of a movie that a thousand people already typed about?"
And that's when he did what he did best and made a lot of us do now. He reminded me that I was out there doing a lot what others never had the chance to. Yeah sure I never made a million dollars out of it, but I got to live the life.
Even though I was getting pretty jaded with the cliques and cool kids at the table attitudes of most out there in the horror community James was there telling me to keep making contacts. And I am forever grateful that he did because of all the new friends I've made over the years and all of the new experiences I've had and all of the new talents I've been fortunate enough to meet.
And he even had me write a little something for one of his
Italian Horror Week Specials.
Click the picture above to check it out.
Okay enough blah, blah about me and I've finally ran out of stupid eye rain so I can see and type about him.
Click the image above to witness the greatness of Doc Terror.
Cancer fought dirty and took James Harris away from all of us but his legacy is unequaled. And part of that legacy is all of us with keyboards in front of us letting his three little girls know how awesome he was to make us love him this much. It may be a long time before they read any of this but I can tell them that he was the main force in making me wanting to be a better person in the horror community.
I know that this doesn't sound like much in the grand scheme of things, but to seek out and connect so many creative people and then influence them to do the same on their own is very impressive.
And then to have so many of these same people show so much love during his fight and then post their grief of his loss says even more.
One of the things I really liked about James the most was him living the quote made in the movie Spinal Tap "Have fun all of the time" and reminding all of us to not take ourselves too seriously
and that the ride isn't as long as we think it is.
He was the biggest horror fan out there and they'll never be another like him. So the best we can do is keep on supporting each others projects and keeping the positives in the scene alive until we all meet up at our tables in that Great Horror Convention in The Sky.