Meet the team members of The Horror Lounge: Contributor Jacob Harper

From a young age, I was interested in horror films. I came home from school one day and told my parents I wanted to watch a horror movie. In an effort to not scar me for life, they decided to start me off on the classic Universal Monster flicks of the 1930s and 40s. I think the ones they showed me were Dracula, The Mummy, and Frankenstein. I was hooked. After my monster movie marathon, I asked my parents "What else you got?" It wasn't long before I was knee deep in the horror films from their era.

Through the many films they'd shown me, my favorites were the slashers, and I took a particular liking to one specific slasher film... 1974's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It wasn't until I was a bit older that I was able to pinpoint why that one had struck me as much as it did, besides the fact that I had lived in Texas my whole life and seeing my home state in the title of a disturbing horror film marked as a true story was compelling. When I was around 9 or 10, I was gifted a DVD of the film for Christmas, and in 2012, at my first ever horror convention, I met Gunnar Hansen, Leatherface himself, and got it autographed. It was a surreal moment and a memory that I will always carry with me. Another thing happened that day, though, at the horror convention. I realized I wasn't alone. There were others, so many other people that took comfort in the macabre. That day I had discovered the ever-growing horror community.

Throughout grade school, I would continue to develop a love for the genre, and eventually, I started writing about my thoughts out on social media, posting my opinions and movie reviews for all to see. At the age of 17, I got my first celebrity interview with genre actor Damian Maffei, star of Wrong Turn and The Strangers: Prey at Night (great sequel btw). At the University of North Texas, I continued studying film and writing reviews, eventually attending film festivals, including Fantastic Fest, and covering them. Around this time, I also started my horror podcast Talking Terror, where my friend Arianee and I would discuss various horror topics and interview industry professionals in the horror genre.

Besides being a critic, I'm also a filmmaker. The majority of my body of work is in the horror genre (who could've guessed). My most popular are the short films Hunting Terror and Initiation Night, both of which I wrote and directed in college. My passion for discussing and reviewing horror films fueled my hunger to make some of my own, and I hope to continue making fun independent horror films for horror fans to enjoy

Over the last few years, I've had the privilege of writing movie reviews, entertainment news, and opinion pieces for a handful of outlets such as 1428 Elm and Book and Film Globe, so I'm excited to begin the next part of my journey as a horror film critic, commentator, and fan here on The Horror Lounge.