I remember an argument with my Mom when I was 12 years old. I was about to watch Mortal Kombat for the first time, which I recorded on a VHS tape the previous night. My mother tried to argue helplessly and desperately as the movie started playing, saying that she’s not ok with this, and she doesn’t approve.

I just lied, saying that I saw the film before, and I’ve seen much more brutal horrors anyway.

Well, the latter was actually true because my first horror was From Dusk Till Dawn, which required a well-thought-out web of lies from me and my best pal from school. On a Friday afternoon, we watched Robert Rodriguez’s classic, and then we began playing in the garden, pretending the plants were vampires needed to be killed by any tools we could find. And they were killed by our great effort.