30 Days of Night writer Steve Niles knows his horror, which makes him a lot of fun to interview. We chatted with the man credited with starting a new horror comics renaissance about his feelings towards the 30 Days film, the next movie that's likely to be based on his work and why it's tough to make vampire movies scary. He also spoke candidly about his his vision for the next 30 Days of Night movie...

What are your favorite vampire films? You?ve said that only a couple have scared you in the last twenty years.

Yeah. There are some others, if I really start getting into it. The vampire from Night Stalker was excellent. There are those little moments. I say ?Salem?s Lot? because of the little scratching scene. But Nosferatu was pretty scary. So there are these moments. Like Christopher Lee. Of course Christopher Lee is scary!

Hammer?s Christopher Lee films belong in their own genre category.

Yeah, I was gonna say, Hammer is in a league of its own. They always treat the stuff with a lot of respect. But it?s just been mostly American films?we have a tendency to tame our monsters. That?s all there is to it. That?s why we have Count Chocula, or Duckula?don?t forget about him. We love taming the things we?re scared of, to the point where now? Have you watched Moonlighting???Tall, Dark and Immortal?? I never watched Angel. Though I like Joss [Whedon]. I liked his X-Men.

But Buffy and Angel weren?t part of your formative years?

It?s partly because of my age. I?m forty-two, I was off doing other stuff. But it just didn?t speak to me. I never knew a cheerleader. They didn?t talk to me, so I couldn?t relate to that whole popular group. And I didn?t find her charming. I was always like, ?Oh yeah, they?re the ones who ignored me??

"And now they?re heroes!"

?You decided to make them heroes! Like they weren?t popular enough?? So I never got it. That whole thing where she meets Dracula and he looks like Frank Langella? Nothing against Joss at all, because obviously he created something that was hugely popular. But it?s just not for me. I like to be scared. I like a little of intensity to my horror. I don?t want too much comedy. I enjoyed Slither, I enjoyed An American Werewolf in London, but?

But since the genre obviously has the potential to frighten people, you?d like to see it fulfill that potential?

Yeah, basically. I always saw vampires as having so much potential, and they?ve just been hoity-toitied away, y?know? It?s become so many different things. Fangs going into the neck has become a metaphor for sex. That was the readers reading into it. I don?t know why we do this. But I always thought, ?Boy, if I ever get a chance to do a vampire, they are not gonna like humans at all!? I think they would resent humans. They would resent their position in the world, and that would make them pretty nasty creatures. That was always the thing I wanted to do [with 30 Days of Night]. Then, when Ben [Templesmith] did his designs on top of it, I was like, ?Great!? It was just dark and murky. I thought it was really gutsy.

Which of your works is most likely to hit the big screen next?

I?m gonna be pushing for Criminal Macabre, for Cal McDonald. That?s what I?m gonna start working on first.

You don?t have a script for Criminal Macabre yet?

They?re all in the garbage pail.

You weren?t happy with them?

I hate mine. I absolutely hate mine. I refuse to read Bragi Schut?s, because I?ve heard they?re even worse. When we first sold it to MGM? 30 Days of Night is my dream Hollywood experience; selling [Criminal Macabre] to MGM was my nightmare. Because everybody lied to me. They said, ?Oh great, we love your character. We?ll do it.? We got in a room, and the first day??Okay, no drug references.? (Because Cal is a recovering junkie, so that?s sort of the updated noir thing.) So I had to write a draft with my hands tied behind my back, and it sucks and I hate it. And then Bragi Schut came on to do some and there was some article in The Hollywood Reporter in which he said, ?Oh, I?m not even gonna read the books. I?m just gonna do what I want.? Basically, one of the producers said I shouldn?t read the scripts, because I might go on a kill-crazy rampage. So everything Cal movie-wise, so far, is going in the garbage, and we?re starting from scratch, because we want it to be Cal McDonald. I?m talking to a director right now who gets it. Because there?s all this stuff?novels, [comics]?and we want to find the right story to tell. So that?s the reason I want to concentrate on it a lot.

Regarding 30 Days of Night, one of the major ways in which it differs from your graphic novel is that Eben and Stella are, in the film, estranged. At what point in the script development process was that change introduced?

That started almost immediately. That was something that Sam really wanted. His argument was that we needed it to maintain an arc?start at one point and end at another. My whole argument has always been, ?Name a movie where there?s a loving couple throughout.? So I think that was just another case of there being certain Hollywood conventions. The thing is, now that I?ve seen the movie, they don?t play it heavy-handed. Because what I wanted to avoid? I said, ?Just don?t do that Titanic thing.? You know? Hundreds of thousands of people are drowning, and Kate Winslet and Leo are worried about their love life. I said, ?Don?t let me see that, and we?ll be fine.? And they didn?t do that. I think Eben and Stella?s relationship is really wonderful in the movie now. I?m very happy with it, very happy with it. The estrangement is just a little thing. Because what I said was, ?It can?t be bigger than the situation at hand.?

You felt those two situations might be at odds with each other.

Yeah. I mean, if the room was on fire right now, would I be going, ?Do you like me?? ?Uh, we can talk about this later.? I just didn?t want that, you know? I think David [Slade] just negotiated it brilliantly. In case you haven?t noticed, David Slade is my hero. We?re working together again. We have such a good vibe going.

But no studios are involved yet?

No studios. We got a couple of official offers. Some people offered us some stuff.

Offered it to the two of you, huh?

It was more like coming to me and going, ?Can you get us Slade?? [Laughs.] I go, ?I will if I can write??

The two of you seemed to have similar agendas going on with 30 Days. You?ve spoken of your interest in returning vampires to their roots, and of doing a vampire tale unhindered by all of the baggage they?ve accumulated. And David apparently wanted to just do something completely new and different, especially compared to what he?d done before.

It was perfect. He absolutely agreed with me, about all of the problems that I ever had with vampire movies. He agreed. I was so glad he was up for the challenge, because people have tried to make scary vampire movies for decades, but very few have succeeded. Slade?s just got this great imagination. He explained it to people, and he gets it out on film. I guess it was one of those really wonderful moments of synchronicity. The moment when I finally felt safe on this movie?because I?m faced with the worst-case scenario at all times; living in LA does that?was when they hired David and I saw Hard Candy. I?ve been relaxed ever since. I could stop paying attention at that point. Then they kept me in the loop anyway! I would get constant updates from David?checking with me on this, checking with me on that; making sure that we were on the same page when we lost the two villains in the comic. Danny Huston was gonna take on both.

We talked a long time about that. I was crushed. That was another one where it?s not done, and therefore nobody wants to take the chance on having the new villain show up in the third act. Anytime anybody says to me, ?It?s not done that way,? that?s the argument to do it. Because nobody?s done it! It?s there! Come on?let?s try it! But Danny Huston completely encapsulates all the dynamics of both characters. So once again, David proved me wrong. I couldn?t be happier.

Is there a chance we might see you and David adapting the sequel to the 30 Days of Night graphic novel?Dark Days?to film?

Well, that depends on a lot of different factors. Box office, who wants to make it?

Is there a script already floating around out there?

No. It?s one of those things? I?m projecting the arguments already, and I?m pretty sure that if 30 Days is a big success and they want to do a sequel, they?re gonna want to go to Barrow. They?re gonna equate the success with the fact it was in Alaska. But you can?t skip ahead [to the third book, Return to Barrow]. There are things that happen in Barrow that wouldn?t make any sense. So I think there?s a way? I mentioned this to David and I mentioned it to a couple of the producers. I said, ?I think there might be a way to do half of it Dark Days, half of it Return to Barrow.? That could be really cool, if in half of the second act and the third act we return to the original place. That would be really fun. So I just have to see if we can pull it off.

Melissa George seems game to reprise her role as Stella. [Laughs.]

She?s very happy to do that. [Laughs.]

One of the intriguing things about Sam Raimi is that?as much of a genre filmmaker as he is?he brings people to work on his projects who aren?t normally associated with genre films. Such as Ordinary People screenwriter Alvin Sargent on the Spider-Man films or Brian Nelson on this film.

I think Sam will be the first one to admit this?he?s not the same guy he was when he made Evil Dead. One of the great pleasures of my life was when we saw the first test screening and there?s the scene with the axe and the girl. I looked down, and Raimi covered his eyes. I went, ?Score! Oh my God?this is the guy who throws eyeballs in people?s mouths and we made him look away!?

I think it?s just the same thing?people perceive horror people as never being able to go outside their genre. I think there?s just interesting writers that can be found. And Brian Nelson? Yeah, he seems outside, but he has a bigger comic collection than I do. And I think that?s the thing?horror, even if you?re not a diehard fan like me, a freakin? horror geek, everybody has a little bit of it in them. It?s worthwhile trying to mine that. I don?t know if it will always work, but if I were to guess I?d say that?s what Sam is doing.

It?s not entirely unlike how Disney started the Disney animation studios. They didn?t have animators. No one knew what animators were. So they were like, ?Let?s hire commercial artists and political cartoonists and writers.? He got all these people together from different creative backgrounds, and came up with Snow White and all these unbelievably great, original ways to tell these old stories. That was by pulling different people in. Because sometimes, honestly, I think if you get all horror people in a room, you wind up with a big mess.

It can be incestuous.

It?s incestuous, and everybody?s like, ?Oh, I?ve seen that. I?ve done that?? And you just wind up with something that?s so far from what the mainstream can swallow. Because, in the end, we?ve got to appeal to more than just our niche group. If I only had to make 30 Days for the niche, it would be one thing; but we?ve got to appeal to people who are watching Regis and Kathie Lee for God?s sake, y?know? So I think mixing it up like that, you just get good results. It?s the same thing?I wouldn?t want somebody to not give me a gig because I?m a horror guy. I?ve written children?s stuff. And if somebody offered me a romantic comedy? Okay, that?s a bad example. I?d turn that down. [Laughs.] But I would like to be given a chance to try other genres too at some point. So I don?t see why they can?t. And, like I said, a lot of times you meet these guys and they just wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, but then you find out they have a giant comic collection and they?re major horror fans.

Dan DiDio, with DC Comics, I had dinner with him last night. We spent the entire time talking about ?50s b-movies, because they?re all coming out for Halloween, all these new collections. So he said, ?Did you see The Two-Headed Transplant?? I said, ?I love that! Did you see Trog is out?!? We were going back and forth, and I never would have expected it. So there it is.