Voices in the Dark: Interviews with Horror Writers, Directors and Actors

265 Pages·2010·7 MB·English

by  Paul Kane

Voices in the Dark
ALSO BY PAUL KANE
The HellraiserFilms and Their Legacy
(McFarland, 2006)
Voices in the Dark
Interviews with Horror
Writers, Directors and Actors
PAUL KANE and
MARIE O’REGAN
Foreword by ANNE BILLSON
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
All photographs and images used in this book are from private collections or picture libraries and
are used solely for the advertising, promotion, publicity and review of the specific motion pictures, books
and individuals they illustrate with all rights reserved. They have not been reproduced for advertising
or poster purposes, nor to create the appearance of a specially licensed or authorized publication. Grateful
acknowledgment is made to the following for the use of their material. While every effort has been made
to trace and acknowledge all creators and copyright holders, the author apologizes for any errors or
omissions and, if informed, will be glad to make corrections in any subsequent editions.
Maggie Ellis and Jo Cadoret (Film London), Amanda Boyle, Helen Giles, Kate Meyers and
Tracy Brimm (Forward Films), Sean Garrehy (Little Brown/Orbit), Sarah Pinborough,
Tracy Heydweiller (Leisure Books), Peter Medak, Greg Goldstein and Ted Adams (IDW),
Gordon Correll, Jo Fletcher and Edward Bettison, Silvia Baglioni, Damon D’Amato, Caitlin Raynor
(Headline Books), Andy Gould, Kate Harvey (Bloomsbury), Dave McKean and Chris Riddell,
Mike and Lin Carey, Mickey Choate and Joe Hill, Dara Hoffman (Gauntlet Press),
Richard Christian Matheson, Steve Niles, Richard Chizmar and Brian Freeman (Cemetery Dance
Publications), Eric Red, Mick Garris, John Gullidge, Kathi and Tom Holland, Graham Masterton,
Meghan Tillett (Grand Central), Tim Sullivan, Christa Campbell, William Malone, Fiona Carpenter
(Pan Macmillan), Aine Leicht, Ryan Meyer and John Carpenter, Sandy King, Magnet Releasing,
Vincent Chong, Mark Chadwick and Peter Crowther (PS Publishing) and Dominic Harman.
Parts of the following interviews were published in the magazines listed, reprinted with kind permission
from the publishers: Clive Barker (DeathRay#3, SFX#163, Writers’ Forum#78, Dreamwatch Presents
Total Sci-Fionline), Mike Carey (DeathRay#5, Writers’ Forum#74), Neil Gaiman (Writers’ Forum#75,
FantasyCon Souvenir Booklet 2006), James Herbert (Writers’ Forum#76), Shaun Hutson (The Dark Side
#134), Joe R. Lansdale (The Dark Side#135), Mick Garris (DeathRay#7), Stuart Gordon (DeathRay#1),
William Malone (The Dark Side#131) Tim Sullivan (The Dark Side#126), Christa Campbell (Red Scream
Special Obituary Issue), Zach Galligan (TV Film Memorabilia#5), Ron Perlman (TV Film Memorabilia#12).
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Voices in the dark : interviews with horror writers, directors and actors /
Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan ; foreword by Anne Billson.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4634-6
softcover : 50# alkaline paper
1. Horror films—United States—History and criticism. 2. Horror films—Great Britain—History
and criticism. 3. Screenwriters—United States—Interviews. 4. Screenwriters—Great Britain—
Interviews. 5. Authors, American—20th century—Interviews. 6. Authors, English—20th
century—Interviews. 7. Motion picture producers and directors—United States—Interviews.
8. Motion picture producers and directors—Great Britain—Interviews. 9. Motion picture actors
and actresses—United States—Interviews. 10. Motion picture actors and actresses—
Great Britain—Interviews. I. Kane, Paul, 1973– II. O’Regan, Marie.
PN1995.9.H6V65 2011 791.43'615—dc22 2010036433
British Library cataloguing data are available
© 2011Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover:The Fog(1980, AVCO Embassy Pictures; courtesy John Gullidge)
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
To horror fans ... everywhere.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
Foreword by Anne Billson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
PART ONE: WRITERS
Clive Barker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Joe R. Lansdale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Mike Carey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Graham Masterton . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Neil Gaiman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Richard Christian Matheson. . . . . 88
James Herbert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Steve Niles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Joe Hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Sarah Pinborough . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Shaun Hutson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
PART TWO: DIRECTORS
John Carpenter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Peter Medak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Mick Garris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Eric Red . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Stuart Gordon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Tim Sullivan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Tom Holland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Rob Zombie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
William Malone . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
PART THREE: ACTORS
Christa Campbell . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Ron Perlman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Zach Galligan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 Alex Vincent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Betsy Palmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
vii
Acknowledgments
Thanks go to the following for their help with
organizing and securing the interviews for this book: Erik Kritzer;
Rehana Razvi; Ed Peters; Mick Garris; David Bidwell of
The Monster Company (www.themonstercompany.co.uk);
Katie James; Angie and Ryan of Big Deal Pro; Sarah Martin;
George Walkley; Bryn Hammond; Hillary Golding;
and Samantha Smith.
viii
Foreword by Anne Billson
Horror gets a bad press. At best, it’s regarded with scorn, like a spotty adolescent
habit, a refuge in fantasy which needs to be outgrown so we can face facts and grow up.
At worst, it’s viewed as a corrupting influence which ought to be stamped out, especially
when society’s moral guardians or publicity-seeking backbenchers are on the lookout for
a scapegoat to drum up tabloid outrage. More than a thousand years after Beowulf, more
than 400 years after Titus Andronicus, more than 100 years after Draculaand after a century
of cinema, horror remains perhaps the most despised and reviled of genres, one that has
yet to be accorded even that limited measure of respect occasionally bestowed on crime
stories or science fiction.
In fact, horror often overlaps with both crime and science fiction, not to mention
other genres such as romance, the historical yarn, comedy and social realism. Because what
its unthinking critics don’t understand—and what a perusal of the following pages will
make clear—is that “horror” is a versatile term. It can be applied to Gothic fiction, ghost
stories, fantasy, morality tales, Grand Guignol, psychothrillers and outright splatter. In
the cinema, it can embrace the Expressionist nightmares of Weimar Germany, the dark
fairy tales of Universal and Hammer Films, the zombies of George Romero, the body
horror of David Cronenberg, slasher movies and the torture-porn of the Saw franchise
and its like. The house of horror doesn’t have a dress code, and its fans don’t have to think
or behave in a certain way in order to be admitted; all comers are welcome. Just so long
as they’re willing to be shocked out of their socks, or for their spine to be tingled, or for
their own mortality to be dangled before their eyes.
In short, horror covers the waterfront in subject and style, but what its many different
manifestations have in common is an ability to tap into our subconscious like no other
genre. Horror stories have always been a way of addressing our deepest fears and desires,
those ideas and emotions it might not always be possible for us to articulate even if we
wanted to. Sometimes these fears and desires are smuggled past our defenses disguised as
zombies or werewolves—not in an attempt to slip one over on the censors (though there
was that too, back in the day) but because it’s a way for us to reflect on notions about
death, decay and the human condition which in their unadulterated forms would be just
too vast, distressing or embarrassing to contemplate. And maybe a tad boring, as well.
Who has time for grim social realist tracts about old age and disease when Jeff Goldblum
is providing a running commentary on the breakdown of his own body in The Fly? Who
wants to struggle through an intellectual analysis of man’s propensity for evil when you
can read all about it in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Who wants to watch a dry documentary
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