"This book is my love letter to the horror genre. It is about what it means to be a horror fan; about how the genre can nurture an adolescent mind; how it can be a positive force in life.
This book is set during a time when horror films were vilified in the press and in parliament like never before. It is about how being a fan of so-called ‘video nasties’ made you, in the eyes of the nation, a freak, a weirdo, or worse, someone who could actually be a danger to society. I wanted to address that. Show how a love – a pure love – for a piece of art can make a young man want to better himself; how being inspired by a certain film – in this case, The Evil Dead – can propel someone to want to break out of his class, out of his town and out of his limited prospects, and be set on a path of creating a life for himself. A positive, creative, and fulfilling life.
This book is partly autobiographical, set in a time when Britain seemed to be a war with itself. It is a working class story about hope. All writers, filmmakers, musicians, painters – artists of any kind –were first inspired to create their own work by the guiding light of another’s. The first spark that sets them on their way.
This book is about that spark." – Andrew David Barker