I see people are sharing a strange house in Louisville.

I remember once going to a house party in Louisville that was held in the house of a strange little man. He had eyes that seemed to be trying to escape his head and a high, singsong voice. /1

While at the party we noticed the house was...interesting. There were random holes in random walls, as if he had been searching for something. There was a chest freezer packed to the top with Marlboro cigarettes.

Not packs or cartons. Loose cigarettes. /2

The host came up to a friend and I and asked if we wanted to go into the basement to see his "col-LEC-tion."

That's exactly how it was phrased, too, in his soprano singsong.

"Y'all wanna go in the basement to see my...col-LEC-tion?" /3

Of course we agreed.

Even though we were fairly certain we were going to lose our lives in the basement of this house at the end of a dead end street in Kentucky.

Because once you accept death is coming, you might as well have an experience on the way out. /4

So down into the basement we went, my friend and I, with this strange mixture of Peter Lorre and Leslie Jordan leading the way. And it was, I mean, the CLASSIC horror movie basement. Dirt floor, brick walls, just...just terrifying. /5

"My col-LEC-tion is just in this room," announced our host as he fiddled with a padlocked door at the bottom of the basement steps.

"Dude," my friend whispered, "We're gonna die down here."

"Yep," I said.

"Should we go back?"

"No," I answered, "I wanna see where this goes."/5

And then Leslie Lorre opened the padlocked door and slid it open, flicking a switch to turn on buzzing, sputtering lights dangling from the ceiling to illuminate...

...rack after rack of VHS tape cases. Like, at least several hundred VHS cases. /7

We're talking a couple Blockbusters worth of VHS tapes.

And my friend and I spilled into the room looking at the titles and folks, EVERY ONE was some low grade horror movie. Like the blockbusters were there, but so were just random grindhouse flicks he'd found a VHS of. /8

And we were AGOG at this, because we were massive horror geeks, going through the racks and picking them up, calling out shit like "DUDE, THIS IS LIKE THE ENTIRE HAMMER HORROR CATALOG!" and "IS THIS...HOW DID YOU FIND THIS?" as our creepy little host stood at the door smiling. /9

And then I picked one up and said "OH MAN, LESLIE LORRE, YOU GOTTA LET US WATCH THIS ON...wait a second, this case is empty..."

And it was then, whispering in my ear because this little dude moved at the speed of an offscreen Voorhees, came that singsong voice. /10

"Oh, I don't co-LECT the VIDYAS," he whispered into my ear, "I just co-LECT the BOX-es."

There was a pause as he licked his lips.

"S'like the VIDYA skins."

/11

...We never went to another party there.

Actually, I take it back.

I did go to one more party there. That was the one where the cops showed up, I was sitting on the front porch, looked at the officer, and said "Yeah, the bleeding dude is in the back and I'm going home. Good luck."