On a cold September afternoon in 1987, a woman gave birth to... well, that'd be me. Lucky her.

My name is Elyse, and I'm not really your average 20-year-old. True, I'm a girly-girl, enjoying pink and craving boys, but I also enjoy gorenography... way too much. When my friends are watching romantic comedies where the guy gets the girl, I'm watching a movie where the guy kills the girl, and THEN he gets her. Nothing like necrophiliacs to brighten up your day.

My unconventional enjoyments are not limited to a few splatter movies. I also enjoy studying the paranormal, criminal techniques, and the occasional serial killer. I can't help but wonder what makes people behave the way they do; so I research my lovely little butt off on topics that other people shy away from. My professors cringe when essays are due. They must have weak stomachs.

My writing also tends to lean towards the miserable and the macabre. It's in my nature, and it really can't be helped. When a person sees beauty in something, I see tragedy. It's not that I want to; I just do, and I've learned to work around it.

So, if you stumble on one of my articles here on Helium, you're most likely going to walk away from it feeling bad. Sorry about that.

My passion is ...

writing. May I never have my fingers amputated, amen.

I know too much about ...

horror. The genre is my obsession, and I watch and read way too much.

My parents always told me ...

"Why can't you be normal?" I laughed, all the while watching a severed head give commentary on television.

My childhood ambition ...

was always to be a writer. It's in my blood.

My favorite memory ...

would have to be the moment my favorite teacher (English, what else?) announced to me that he would be nominating me to be an honoree at a Tribute to Women.

Why I write ...

...couldn't really answer that without writing a novel.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

I'm always reading horror, watching horror, and listening to the most disturbing music ever (this includes George Gershwin, that horrific composer!)

My first job ...

Never had one. Lucky me.

My best moment ...

Realizing I wasn't alone. Deep.

My inspiration ...

My nightmares. They are both creative and scary, and I often end up basing stories around their premise.

Entertainment > Movie Genres The use of comedy in horror movies

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In 1992, future Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson created one of the greatest movies of our time - Dead Alive (A.K.A. Braindead). This splatteriffic comedy gave new meaning to the term "bloodthirsty," and it forever sealed itself as a must-see in the horror community. It could also be said that Dead Alive provided a valuable lesson for filmmakers, a lesson that has yet, to the annoyance of the horror enthusiast, to be fully utilized in films today.

Dead Alive was not a horror comedy as much as it was a comedy that employed horror as the base of its plot, and that's where a lot of ...

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