A facinating article.

I am not sure where my deep love of the horror genre originates, but my wife suspects it is rooted in my experiences growing up amid a cult for the first seven years of my life, then trying to come to terms with that whilst my parents switched from cult to evangelical Christianity (less traumatic than the cult, but with a slew of other things that left scars), combined with my personality type, temperament, and a certain tendency towards masochistic catharsis. I've also written horror novels and short stories, so yes, my love of horror goes wide and deep.

One thing I absolutely reject is the idea that horror fans are "desensitised". I write about that in more detail here, if you're interested:

https://medium.com/writers-blokke/are-horror-fans-desensitised-51834d14dce7