From the Shadows

I make no apologies about being old school influenced when it comes to my horror writing and horror influences. I have little interest in slasher/blood gore stuff and the more reality-based type horror, like Saw and Chain Saw Massacre. They don’t scare me. They either sicken me or gross me out, and neither feeling is one I particularly cultivate. I like supernatural horror, spooky stuff, and try to write that, mixed with a bit of mystery, suspense and even western.

Probably a good deal of that influence comes from my growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s and watching the Hammer Draculas and older horror movies on late night TV. A notorious night owl even as a kid, I just waited for summer vacation to be able to stay up all night, first watching the movies—the local channel in Portland, Maine, played them at 11:30 pm on Fridays—listening to CBS Radio Mystery Theater or reading.

But my earliest interest (aside form the Catspaw episode of Star Trek I got to see on Halloween as a kid) came from the gothic soap Dark Shadows. I was addicted, even at 6 or 7 and probably lucky my parents understood I was capable of handling such fare, considering what went on in it. Still, for a time, they banned me from watching it, wanting me to be more “normal” in my childhood activities: i.e. go outside and play with the other kids or stay in my room. I, of course, chose staying in my room because I could at least hear what was going on, since my mother was also addicted. They soon relented, realizing it was a losing battle.

A lot of the scenes from the show left a lasting impression on my distorted young mind. The scene where Rachel Drummond wakes up to find the ghost of Quentin Collins rocking in a chair in the dead of night in her room scared the crap out of me. Another where a headless body was lying in wait in the woods to grab unsuspecting young gals and whose head, which belonged to the warlock Judah Zachary, resided in a glass case was probably the scariest damn thing I had ever seen at that point. The severed hand of Count Petoffi, despite his candy bar sounding appellation, was pretty darn creepy, too.

Recently I watched some of those episodes on DVD, occasionally cringing at things I never noticed as a kid, but some of the moments are still pretty spooky. The ‘90s version of the show, which I also watched on DVD, was exquisitely done. But the old episodes still have a magic to them. That hand is obviously rubber but still gruesome enough to make me wonder why I didn’t have nightmares as a kid or why I am so pleasantly adjusted today (heh, some candy, little girl? Bwa-ha-ha). There are moments of unadulterated spookiness that transcend the genre and a chemistry that brought it all together. Mostly together. For the most part I think seeing it as a child, in that period where things are magic and influence our lives, latent creativity and puerile imagination, is best. I’m not sure if an adult who has never seen it would find it as charming, but besides an interest in the supernatural it led to a chain of events in my life that influences what I do today (it was because of Dark Shadows I picked up my first Doc Savage novel, Brand of the Werewolf—werewolf on the cover, how could I resist?—which led, to writing for fanzines, then fiction).

I owe a lot of my novel Grimm to Dark Shadows, I guess (and Kolchak, The Night Stalker, another Dan Curtis prodcution--he was the master!) in particular, and of course that just happens to be the lead character’s favorite show. And since The Chloe Files spins off of Grimm, I guess I owe her series to it, as well, along with the other old-school supernatural horror shows and movies of my youth.

What do you owe your current writing or life interests and goals to? What ignited your imagination as a kid?