The Horror Rookie Academy has been operational for 15 straight years now! Good heavens, it's almost unbelievable. It's time for a little look back at the origin of the Academy.
When I was little, my dad worked as a captain in foreign trade, and my brother and I used to join the boat during the summer holidays. (It was a simpler time, before the age of HSE...) Norwegian seafarers are so lucky to have the Norwegian Sailor's Church (Sjømannskirken) which works for their well-being. The Sailor's Church used to run a library service on Norwegian ships, providing books and films for the sailors.
Either someone responsible for such things at the Sailor's Church was a horror and sci-fi lover, or their insight into the contents of the films of the time was so-so: the library cabinet onboard the boat was filled with the VHS tapes that basically made me the horror fanatic I am today. Jaws, Frankenstein, The Shining, Poltergeist, Rosemary's Baby, The Thing... All of which were movies I noticed in the video stores back home but was not allowed to rent. I would sneak up at night to watch all these movies. Alone in the mess hall on the boat. With foreign candy and unlimited access to cans of Coca Cola. And cake sprinkles from the pantry.
But I digress, I digress.
My interest for horror films continued to grow as my brother jumped on the VHS wave and filled a cabinet in his room with pirated horror movies and thrillers. Faces of Death, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street... It was the best of times!
This horror film interest has only grown throughout my life, and with the internet and social media, access to both films and like-minded individuals naturally became vastly greater. To begin with, I linked up trailers for various horror films on my personal Facebook page.
That didn't work well. Not at all. Most people don't really understand horror. I got quite a few negative comments on my interest in horror films. It may appear that for the non-horror person, a horror head may seem like a mix between a dangerous person and a crazy one.
As Facebook introduced the groups feature, I immediately started the Academy.
In the street where I grew up, a guy named Arne lived. Arne and I shared an early interest in adventurous and dramatic film - Critters, The Goonies, Friday the 13th... The whole eighties package. It was the best of times! In the parallel class (a wonderful term!) was Silje, who has always shared my interest in the peculiar and the absurd. I guess you could call us the “kids on BMX’s” of that time. When I decided to start the Academy, it was natural to include these two.
So, what about the name "The Horror Rookie Academy"?
Part of the point of starting the group was simply to learn more about horror films. A kind of… horror rookie academy. (Duh…) A place for everyone. It's as simple as that.
The Academy revolves around horror, sci-fi, and absurd film. People who seriously like horror films also often have a taste for the absurd - and everyone likes sci-fi!
Initially, the rookies shared links to films that were cool, films they were curious about, and experiences within horror films in general. Gradually, the Academy began to revolve around more than just film; games, books, music, memes - and more and more people took a liking to what we were doing.
15 years later, and literally hundreds of thousands of posts, comments, and reactions deep into the history of the Academy, we are quite proud to state that The Horror Rookie Academy is one of Norway's most resilient Facebook groups for horror and sci-fi film. We have expanded onto platforms like Instagram, Mastodon, Hudd and Threads, and the blog you are reading now continues to increase in readship, with approximately 2000 views per month.
The horrors persist. so does The Horror Rookie Academy!
