The Lists Are In! 42 True Heroes of Horror Later....

I never like to have an idea without getting input from others.  And when I decided to share my True Heroes of Horror throughout the month of October, I knew I couldn't possibly honor everyone.  Thankfully, there are always Midnight Warriors out there to join the FMWL party.  A half dozen of my favorite folks on the interwebs offered up their own lists of their Top 10 Heroes of Horror...and the resulting mega list has me doing my patented fistpumpdance of joy.

First, let's recognize the awesome Midnight Warriors who added to this megalist....

• Morgan from the tubular The Kid in the Hall
• Marvin the Macabre from The Montana Mancave Massacre
• Christine M. from Paracinema Magazine
• Nicki from Hey! Look Behind You (See her full list here!)
• Christine H. from Fascination with Fear (See her full list here!)
• Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr

I gotta say, these fine folks brought their best to the table, and are a testament to horror fans everywhere.  The names listed vary across hundreds of years, cover both genders, and are varied from authors to actors to TV hosts to directors.  Heck, they even named some folks I'd never even heard of.  Really.  I feel like a proper tool.

Between the six of them and the one of me, we listed 42 names.  And I'm going to share them all with you now. Names will be listed in alphabetical order, and the name of each voter will be shared in parentheses.

The following True Heroes of Horror received one vote each....

Clockwise from Top: Atkins, Lewton, Wood, Peterson, Pitt, Perkins.

Tom Atkins (Morgan), Clive Barker (Marvin), Joe Bob Briggs (The Mike), Poppy Z. Brite (Nicki), Lon Chaney Sr. (The Mike), Roger Corman (Andreas) (Note from The Mike: Corman was officially the last cut from my list; my #11.  Kills me to have left him off!), David Cronenberg (Andreas), Fred Dekker (Morgan), Guillermo del Toro (Marvin), Johnny Depp (Christine H.), Robert Englund (Morgan), Adam Green (Nicki), Herschell Gordon Lewis (Nicki), Val Lewton (Andreas), Takashi Miike (Nicki), Morgus the Magnificent (Nicki), Kim Newman (Andreas), Anthony Perkins (Christine H.), Cassandra Peterson (Nicki), Ingrid Pitt (Marvin), Roman Polanski (Andreas), Anne Rice (Christine H.), Susan Hill (Christine H.), Mary Shelley (Christine M.), Bram Stoker (Christine M.), James Whale (Andreas), Edward D. Wood, Jr. (Christine M.), Mary Woronov (Andreas).

That's 28 of our 42 right there, which means 14 folks received more than one vote.  Also, the fact that Mary Woronov got on to this list MAKES MY DAY.  I <3 Mary Woronov.

The following True Heroes of Horror received two votes each....

From Left to Right: Lugosi, Craven, Hitchcock, Argento

Dario Argento (Morgan, Christine H.), Bruce Campbell (The Mike, Morgan), Wes Craven (Morgan, Christine M.), Jamie Lee Curtis (The Mike, Morgan), Alfred Hitchcock (Christine H., Nicki), Boris Karloff (The Mike, Marvin), Christopher Lee (The Mike, Marvin), Bela Lugosi (Christine M., Andreas).

There go 8 more, leaving us with only 6 folks who received votes from three or more of our 7 voters.  A lot of my favorites are in here, and I expected many to do better. The Hitchcock thing makes me think too, because I argued with myself for days about whether he should be on my list.  Love the guy more than any filmmaker ever, but in the end I didn't feel his impact was specifically "horror".  Semantics can trip me up.  Anyway, glad to see others voting for him!

The following True Heroes of Horror received three votes each....

H.P. Lovecraft (Marvin, Christine M., Andreas), Tom Savini (Morgan, Marvin, Nicki.)

An interesting combination if I've ever seen one.  And I didn't vote for either of these guys, which makes them the top folks on the list who didn't make my ten.  And now, we've got just Four of our 42 folks left to name!

The following True Hero of Horror received 4 votes....

Vincent Price (The Mike, Marvin, Christine M., Christine H.)

I don't know why, but sometimes I get the feeling horror fans don't like Vincent Price any more.  Clearly that was not the case among our small sample of voters, as he gets the fourth most mentions of anyone.  I'm quite OK with that.

The following True Heroes of Horror received five votes each....

Stephen King (The Mike, Morgan, Marvin, Christine M., Christine H.), George A. Romero (The Mike, Morgan, Christine M., Christine H., Nicki)

For a while, it looked like Stephen King was gonna run away with this thing.  The first four lists I received had him on them, as did mine.  Then he dropped off to land in this tie for second.  It's also worth noting that it's me and the ladies of the internet who love Romero. Why's that worth noting? Because if you read the word "ladies" like Isaac Hayes would say it, then it makes The Mike sound cool.

And then....there was a True Hero of Horror who received six of a possible seven votes....

John Carpenter (The Mike, Marvin, Christine M., Christine H., Nicki, Andreas).

Like I said at the beginning...these results make me FISTPUMPDANCE.  John Carpenter might not have been #1 on my list (he might have been too, I was too scaredy-pants to pick a #1) but I have no problem with him winning the vote here.  It brings me happy.

As do all the Midnight Warriors out there!  I want to thank these fine folks for joining in the October fun, and I sincerely want to thank everyone who's watched the True Heroes of Horror train pass through FMWL this month! I've been truly humbled by all the comments and kind words about the posts, even if I haven't always been the best host and responded to them.  Y'all have helped remind me what I love about horror this month, and that's exactly why I keep writing this stuff.  Seriously, thank you all so much.

With that, the True Heroes of Horror experiment at FMWL has passed.  But for how long? I've had a blast putting my posts together, and it's quite possible I'll bring them back in the future for all the people I left off my list.  Ten is such a small number anyway, isn't it?  

Until next time, I'm The Mike, and you're all awesome.  Don't forget it, because Halloween is only 364 days away!