As far I remember it was 1987 and we were visiting at our grand ma's house that was in a rural countryside and the movie was THE EVIL DEAD! I started to watch the movie with my cousins in a dark TV room and I still remember we were so frightened that we stick together rest of the day to share and avoid that nightmarish experience.

The first horror film I saw was Octaman, on TV.

I couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 years old at the time, but I loved it. I saw The Blob as well when quite young (a far superior film to Octaman!), and I was hooked.

Tried to see as many horror films as I could manage on TV (no VHS then :) ), and really developed a liking for films from Hammer and Amicus (which seemed to be most of what was played in the late 70's in Australia).

Started reading classic horror literature (eg Dracula, Frankenstein) when I was about 6 or 7, and since then horror has been a favourite above all other genres.

For some reason I developed a specialized skill at waking up early and finding old sci-fi movies on the TV. There were at least half a dozen times I would run upstairs and wake up my parents because some black and white film had scared me. I specifically remember The Blob and War of the Worlds causing me to hide behind the couch in the den because I was so scared.
After that I realized that those stories just seemed to have something ~more~ to them than, say, most of the stuff being dished out in the 80's. I watched Friday the 13th and was scared to be by myself for 6 months. Hellraiser did the same thing to me. And after spending 6 months scared that Jason was going to pop out of a closet and kill me with a machete, I started to realize I actually kind of liked the sensation of being scared. So it's been a slow-developing thing over time.
Right after I realized that I saw Aliens and the original Halloween and fell in love with them. They've always been in my top faves ever since.

Heh heh heh. Octaman has that great scene where the monster smashes into the tent and starts beating those two poor guys and stomping them...and before he leaves, he kicks a chair over with his tentacle-leg. Sonsabitches.......don't F with Octaman, mo fo!

I don't remember exactly how old I was. I know I was at least in grade school. There used to be a show on Saturday afternoons called "Dr. Shock" and he would show all these old horror movies. Plus, back then, movies didn't have ratings so I would be able to go to the Saturday afternoon matinee (for 25 cents) and watch a bunch of horror movies. The theatre was the first place I saw "Mark of the Devil".

For me, it had to be my craving for Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark when I was younger. I remember saying that I'd never watch horror movies. Little did I know that Goosebumps and AYAOTD was my segue into horror. God, I miss those shows (well, I guess I can't miss Gooesbumps anymore since it's on Cartoon Network again).

I guess I never thought about it, but I watched those a lot before I started with actual horrow movies. I watched Are you Afraid of the Dark every night when I was a kid. I think they have been playing it on BBC Kids lately, I should check it out for nostalgia sake.

Goose Bumps was great too. Didn't like it as much as AYAOTD, didn't have the same creepy vibe to it. Only episode that really freaked me out was Night of the Living Dummy. I love the choose your own adventure books though. Those were fun!

As much as I loved Goosebumps, AYAOTD takes the cake. So many of those episodes freaked me out when I was young. You can catch a lot of episodes of both Goosebumps and AYAOTD on YouTube.

yay. I love technology.

So do I. Though it can piss me off sometimes.