Why Horror?” they ask us.
“I dunno why?” we respond, hands in pockets, arms stiff, “ I just like it," we say, tired of the question.
Sound familiar? Yeah, thought so. My relatives, most of which have never read this blog, nor ever will, nor have they seen many of my films, ask me the same thing. Been doing it for years.
I get emails msgs and tweets all the time asking me how I became so educated in horror cinema and especially the philosophy behind what scares people. Sadly the answer is not that I spent years in some faraway Eastern European country deep underground hunting monsters, or on some mountain top in the Far East digging through tomes of ancient wisdom. Although the latter is not far from the truth... you just have to replace "The Far East" with "my video store," and tomes of ancient wisdom with "tons and tons of films."
I get a lot of email from young film makers and horror fans asking advice of all kinds. But recently I got one that rocked my world.
Ever since I filmed Camera Obscura, my horror web series, last year at the ACTUALLY haunted Linda Vista Hospital in East L.A., I’ve been fascinated with real ghosts and haunted places. So much so, that I spent several terrifying nights aboard the ALSO VERY haunted Queen Mary Ocean liner in Long Beach last March, just to look for ghosts.
So now, in addition to writing and filming horror, I've become a supernatural tourism junkie. I still dunno if I believe in ghosts, and I don't know an EVP from a PVP. If I were a ghostbuster I'd be Venkman, if I were on Scooby Doo I'd be Shaggy not Freddy. But nonetheless, I'm now hooked on checking out haunted places every time I go on a vacation, a business trip, or even head back east to visit relatives.
I write about fear. Generally I write about how to create fear, how I respond to fear, what tactics and philosophies work when generating fear, how fear translates to the language of cinema, etc. So when I got the offer to write coverage on my trip to Comic-Con, I hesitated a little bit, because frankly, the mere word Comic-Con fills me with joy. Comic-Con is Christmas in July around here.
Then I thought, well maybe I'll cover the horror events and releases down there. But I'm not much of a fanboy and that angle just felt shallow. Besides, other people were doing that, and doing a much better job of it than I ever could.
So I decided to find the fear in Comic-Con. And if you look close enough... you'll find it...
Okay, with all the buzz about Comic-Con this week in San Diego, (I'm packing & heading down as soon as soon as I write this), it's gotten me to thinking about comic art, pop art, pop iconography and icons in the very general sense of the term.
Okay, so last week I talked about this spec script I'm going out with to all the studios. It's a creepy, dread-oriented ghost story as opposed to a gore or spectacle-filled kill fest.
(Don't get me wrong here - if you know me, you know I love gore and spectacle as much as the next guy in a perpetual state of arrested development. It's just that this story happens to be something quieter, more cerebral).
Well there we were, on the cusp of going out wide (getting a copy to all the studios and producers at once), when I'm contacted by an A-list star. I can't give out names at this point, because there's no news yet. But anyway, we talk. I find out he's looking for something like this, and more importantly, something like this to do with me. Great news! So we hold off on going out wide with the script to give him and his team time to review the material and get first dibs.
Here's a funny thing. Next week, my agent and I are going out with a spec script to the studios, so we had some producer friends get "coverage" on it for us. Now, if you know what a spec script and coverage are already, just go ahead and skip down a few paragraphs. If you don't, read on, MacDuff, and damned be him that first cries!
I wiped some blood off the sink the other day, (don't worry, it was my own blood, and it was from shaving), and for some reason, I was amazed at how easily it just wiped away. It got me to thinking about our permanence, as human beings, or rather, our lack of permanence. Our temporal state. And the illusion of immortality that we shroud ourselves in. I mean, we're not only NOT permanent, we're water soluble. After we're gone, you can just mop us up and we don't even leave a stain. How's that for a cheery thought before I'm even dressed and ready for the day? But for some reason it didn't bum me out. It just left me ponderous for the whole next 24 hours. All I could think of was, what would our world be like if we were truly permanent, actually immortal, 100% here for good?
The rotting mansion, the ruined castle, the abandoned hospital...why are decrepit, deserted, man-made places so interesting? Why is it that almost all horror, be it literature or film, takes place in broken, forgotten locales?
If you've been reading my blog, then you know I'm big on isolation as a fundamental component of building your horror. Isolation can take root in many forms, be it physical isolation, intellectual isolation or emotional isolation. And the really good horror tale will use all three to isolate a character. They'll find themselves in a lonely location, misunderstood by even their best friends, and completely alone in their feelings and fears.
The easy answer to why dystopic, decayed locations make a great place to abandon a character is that they're rotted and creepy. Well YEAH! But the interesting question, if we dig deeper, is “WHY does rotted and ancient equal creepy?”
Okay, so you're a horror fan. Have been all your life. In your teens you were at the opening of every scary film and you lived in the horror section of the video store. Your walls were lined with posters of maniacs and sadists. In your 20s, you found that special girl who not only looked like a vampire Betty Page, but also knew what names like Myers, Krueger, and Voorhees meant to you. Things went so well with Betty that you even got married.
Now you're in your 30s and you and Betty have...well... kids. Here's the conundrum: how do you introduce your kids to the one thing that you love most about pop culture (horror) without scarring them for life? I got two myself, and I'm constantly being asked how I can be a horror director AND a father. Well it's not like I'm forcing them to watch The Exorcist every night before bed.
Here's my Top 12 list of films & TV shows to show your junior horror scouts that will introduce them to the world of fright films without messing them up (that much).
// More: A Dad's Guide to Introducing Your Kids to Scary Movies
With all this talk of Father's Day this Sunday, I got to thinking about my own dad. He's no longer with us, God rest his soul, but while he inhabited the material plane, he sure gave me some great memories to live with until, like him, I'm as gone as an ethereal wisp of smoke. (I prefer to think of leaving the earth in a wave of my arm and a PUFF of smoke, but whatever. I doubt my exodus will be quite so theatrical.) I see a tunnel and there's light at the end... and... oh holy cow, there's Jesus... but he's got a gun! Fuck! Run!
Then blackness.
Wait. WTF was I talking about? Oh yeah. Dads. Dads and horror films.
