With the opening of Epic Universe, and of course with it Dark Universe, something I haven't seen talked about nearly enough: That land and Monsters Unchained will be the first introduction to the Universal Monsters for this generation and many more to come, a great one at that! The ride (as much as I do wish it pushed its scare factor more), manages to find a great balance between being thematically intense while staying lighthearted enough to not scare off any potential young fans permanently (or at least for a very long time!), and I find that beautiful to think about, especially with how important the monsters are to film history and pop culture.
Combine that with us now marking 10 years since Beetlejuice's Graveyard Revue was shuttered and Dark Universe marking the return of the monsters having a prominent presence in the parks since then, I wanted to have a cool lil thread here just to talk about what our introductions to the monsters were, as I'm sure for many (myself included), they were also an introduction to horror period.
For me? It was my 4th birthday, which was a surprise trip to USF, and is actually my first full conscious memory! I still remember us going into Graveyard Revue, and Beetlejuice interacting with me in the pre-show, making me laugh. Once the show proper began and the monsters first came out, I was spooked, that's a scary dude in a cape, big scary green guy! But then, the Ghost with the Most worked his magic and transformed them into rockstars, and from there I saw them as just fun silly cartoon characters brought to life, and wanted to see the show again the next day! Still got scared before they were transformed, but I loved them, and that was my introduction to the Universal Monsters, and horror in general!
Let's hear your stories!