About Me

My name is Jordan Pressler, and I am the proud creator of The Cherry Hill Chainsaw Massacre. Having spent the current entirety of my 26-year existence in the safe, quiet neighborhood of Valley Run Drive in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, it all started one night at the tender age of just three. I must have been having trouble falling asleep -- a factor that made waking up every morning at 7 a.m. for high school a legitimate torture -- because I found myself downstairs in the dark watching television with my father, who came up with the brilliant idea of allowing me to watch William Friedkin's 1973 supernatural horror masterpiece, The Exorcist, and thus, my lifelong love of horror had taken root. From that pivotal moment forward, when my dad would ask me, "What do you want to watch? Blue's Clues? Teletubbies? Clifford the Big Red Dog?" my response would endearingly be, "No, Daddy, I want to watch the scary man." (I'm now aware the source of horror in that movie isn't a "man" per se, but what can I say? I was three.) 

However, rather than continuing in the direction of supernatural horror, my thirst for more cinematic terror shifted toward the realm of slashers. In fact, that change in genre flavor occurred when, on yet another monumental night of watching TV with my amazingly misguided father, I caught my first glimpse of Michael Myers standing atop a roof in what turned out to be Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. Friedkin might have officially indoctrinated me into the beautifully macabre world of horror with his depraved tale of a twelve-year-old girl becoming possessed by a profanity-spewing demon, but it was the classic slashers who ultimately won my heart. Before having entered kindergarten (I kid you not), I was dressing up as Michael Myers for Halloween, a mild surprise for my Pre-K classmate, who had no idea who that character was. My favorite activity after school became going to Blockbuster to rent my latest horror fix.

Proud to admit that my relationship with horror is still going strong over twenty years later. After graduating from Cherry Hill West High School in 2017, I began writing my own horror film articles in early August on a fiction-oriented encyclopedia called Fanon Wiki. As of my "retirement" from the platform in December 2024, I have published a total of six stories: five in the horror genre and one outlier -- a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama inspired by my unsurpassable favorite movie, Stand by Me, which has held that title since May 2021.

In July of 2022, I awoke one Thursday morning with a "Screw it, just do it!" attitude and decided to finally pursue my secondary, hitherto dormant passion for film critiquing, and so began the genesis of The Cherry Hill Chainsaw Massacre. With this personal blog, I intend to express and share my unabashed love for the art form that practically raised me since early childhood and has been my guiding force and eternal source of comfort that I will never have to worry about losing through the passage of time or development of maturity. It's my one true constant. 

What I love most about horror, apart from the visceral thrills and iconic costumes and overall sense of pure fun, is similar to what we all cherish about ice cream: there are so many diverse flavors (i.e., subgenres - slasher, supernatural, psychological, comedy, zombie, sci-fi, drama, amalgamations of more than one of the above). Some people seem to have an egregiously oversimplified misconception that "horror" automatically implies the following description: "Group of sexually attractive twentysomethings head out into the woods and get hacked apart one by one by a hockey-masked, machete-wielding psychopath." In reality, that couldn't be further from the truth. The art of horror provides a canvas on which anybody with ambition and an artistic vision may express their complex emotions, suppressed desires, irrational fears, or personal commentary on the state of the modern world. Nothing is off limits. Horror is a cinematic universe, not a confining box in which every participant is obligated to conform to a long-established formula. However, plenty of entries aim no higher than to merely give audiences a good time with a healthy dose of jump scares, gore, and female nudity, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that in my book.

I don't know where my future will take me. After completing half of one semester at Rowan College Burlington County in December of 2017, I realized that I never again want to step foot in an academic environment. My goal is to monetize my laborious efforts here writing reviews and carve out a name for myself, chiefly within the horror community, as a passionate, dedicated, meticulous writer. And hopefully provide readers with some entertaining, informative insights as well.

Feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of my posts (I'm very open to constructive criticism. I'll go first: I have an undeniable tendency toward verbosity.), check out my articles on Fanon Wiki, follow me on Twitter, connect on LinkedIn, or send me an email at jordanpressler22@gmail.com if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or just to chat in general. I'm fairly approachable.