As Halloween is fast approaching, the Fanbase Press staff and contributors decided that there was no better way to celebrate this horrifically haunting holiday than by sharing our favorite scary stories! Be they movies, TV shows, video games, novels, or any other form of entertainment, members of the Fanbase Press crew will be sharing their “scariest” stories each day leading up to Halloween. We hope that you will enjoy this sneak peek into the terrors that frighten Fanbase Press!
I have watched horror movies since I was about five years old. Since then, I’ve also watched horror television, read horror books, and played horror video games, not to mention I’m a scare actor and SFX makeup artist for an extremely popular haunt. I won’t say how long ago all that started for fear of aging myself, but, suffice it to say, it began with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Gene Wilder version, of course) at a very tender age. And, yes, that is a horror movie for children—and still gives me the tingles—and I’ll argue that until my dying day.
But that’s not why we’re here. The whole purpose of giving my history is to say I do not scare easily. I watch horror movies on the daily, and that’s not an exaggeration. I watch all subgenres, foreign horror, extreme horror, basically whatever I can get my hands on. It takes a serious amount of horror and terror to frighten me.
From scared me to my very core.
I discovered the Epix television series one day on my Roku on that side thingy that tells you about new shows to watch. I saw From and clicked on one of my streaming channels to watch another horror movie, then quickly clicked back and refreshed my home screen until it showed it to me again. There was just something about that poster with Harold Perrineau that caught my attention. I had no clue what it was about. I didn’t even know it was horror. Since I stream horror movies all day while working, I’m not privy to a lot of commercials. I usually find out about new movies or television, books, or games via word of mouth. But From stood out to me for whatever reason. I forgot what I had planned on watching and tuned into the Roku channel to see what this was all about.
The first episode hooked me. The second one sunk its claws into me. The third one turned me into a superfan. Since that was the last free episode, before I knew it, I was subscribed to Epix for the first time in my life to binge the next three episodes. That was all that had aired at that time, and it absolutely destroyed me to have to wait week after week for the final four. When I hit number seven, I contacted my best friend and told her and her sister they had to watch. We watched the entire first season up till then together, then the final episodes. Since then, I have turned an additional five people onto From (seven in total), joined a Facebook group about the show, read all the fan theories, and watched the first season eight times. There are some who have me beat on that number, but considering the most I’ve ever watched a single season of a show is seven times, From stands very high on my list of the best horror television out there. I agonized for what seemed like a lifetime until Epix finally announced a second season. And now, we’ve learned that February 2023 is the release date of that season which makes me want to sleep through November, December, and January just so I can journey back to the town.
If you’ve never heard of the show, like most people I know, here’s a quick overview. A town exists outside of our known reality, monsters come each night, people die, and new people arrive in the town by paranormal means and have to learn to survive in this horrific and uber-dangerous environment. It’s almost like a dystopian wonderland, and I want to live there so badly. I want to watch every moment of these people’s lives. Of course, mysteries abound, certain people know things and others know other things, and if they’d just all get together maybe they could figure it out. This show is from the executive producers of Lost, which I’ve yet to see but understand it also to contain many mysteries, although I’ve heard From is far more terrifying than Lost could ever be. The last episode left us on such a cliffhanger with a ton of questions, but in a very good way that’s frustrating and also reassuring that we get to go back to the town. Characters are just so much fun. Whether it’s the couple that should be together, the beautiful couple that is, the newest folks in the town, the people on the hill just wanting to live, or the sheriff trying to figure it all out, everyone belongs to this world, and every character is so fleshed out that they become real. The viewer cannot help but want to jump in and hug or console or strangle the characters.
That’s just the basic story and characters. The atmosphere is incredibly creepy 100% of the time. The town and surroundings are gorgeous enough to want to vacation there. The monsters are horrifying to the point that you almost can’t breathe when they’re on screen. To put it mildly, I live on the edge of woods. I have trees surrounding my property, and I love the peacefulness. I’ve never once been scared to venture out at night, but by the seventh episode of From, I was terrified of my own home. I had to shut my windows and blinds at night. I could no longer take a stroll in the dark around my property with my dog. Even after so many viewings, I still glance into the woods and wonder what they hell kind of monster is going to emerge, walking slowly and smiling at me.
I wish I could fully explain what From means to me. What the mysteries, the paranormal happenings, the monsters, the characters do to me that make me want to revisit that world every single day, but I can’t capture it in words. There is something so beautiful and horrific and yet enticing about that world, and I pray it never ends. It will, one day, and hopefully not before we have answers, but that’s what multiple rewatches are for.
If you have not discovered the world of From on Epix, there is no time like Halloween. Watch alone, with friends, however you prefer, but watch it at night and in a dark room with no distractions. With only ten episodes in the first season, you have ample time to devour it about twenty times and get thirty or more people hooked on it before Season 2 drops in February 2023.
