What's Your Favorite Scary Movie? Interview Extracts (Part 1)

DARRIN MCDONALD

Filmmaker – The Horror Convention Massacre (2007), Out of Place (2009), She Devils a Go Go (2011)

What would be your favorite horror double feature drive-in choice?
My favorite drive in memory happened during An American Werewolf in London. I was in a car with three other guys, one of which wasn't a horror film fan and he was a little on the squeamish side. All of a sudden, some guy in a werewolf mask jumps up next to his window and howls. Soda went everywhere! Popcorn went everywhere! I was laughing! Werewolf guy was laughing! The whole drive-in was laughing! Everyone was laughing except our squeamish friend. A few minutes went by and he makes the statement that he had spilled soda all over his pants. About ten minutes after that, the car just reeked of urine.

MICHAEL A. SIMPSON

Filmaker – Funland (1987), Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988), Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1989), Kidnapping Mr. Heineken (2015)

What’s your favorite scary movie?

My favorite depends on my mood on any given day. I love Phantasm (1979) - I recently watched it again. I first saw it stoned in '79 with my brother and it scared the bejesus out of both of us. It was playing at a majestic old theater house in downtown Atlanta that had gone to seed. The place reeked of piss and alcohol. Street people were sleeping around us. There was so much petty crime happening inside the theater that the manager refused to dim the lights during the show. And the Tall Man and his flying orbs of death were still scary as shit. Great use of sound design with the spheres flying through the air. The dead shrunk down into dwarfs and reanimated. Classic insanity.

RICHARD STANLEY

Filmmaker – Hardware (1990), Dust Devil (1992), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), The Theatre Bizarre (2011), The Otherworld (2013)

What is your favorite horror movie franchise?

I'm not a fan of any of the existing franchises and only feel a deep sense of weariness each time a new reboot shows up. I do have fond memories of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, which was the first film I got laid in, but after that the series went right off the boil.

MARK SHOSTROM

Special Makeup Effects Artist – Videodrome (1983), The Mutilator (1984), A Nightmare on Elm Street 1-3 (1984-1987), From Beyond (1986), Evil Dead II (1987), Prince of Darkness (1987), Phantasm II-III (1988-1994), Toolbox Murders (2004) 

What’s your favorite zombie movie?

Kerry Prior's The Revenant (2009), hands down. I knew Kerry from working with him on Phantasm III (he handled the silver sphere effects). To be honest, any time one reads a friend's script or watches his/her film, you never know what to expect. There's always that dread of 'will it suck?' But I was blown away by Kerry's film; it's great fun and a clever twist on the zombie-horror-comedy genre. It's also much funnier than the one or two zombie-comedy films that have been done (and in an odd way, more insightful). Kerry's script was tight, it was really well shot and the two leads were cast right. Also Kerry supervised all the visual effects himself, and they're stellar. Many first time directors fail at doing only the directing. I was impressed that Kerry not only wore many hats, he also delivered a terrific film. That's quite an accomplishment.

DAVID CHASKIN

Screenwriter – A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985), The Curse (1987), I, Madman (1989), Midnight’s Child (1992)

What has been your favorite Halloween costume? 

Years ago, when I lived in Manhattan, I used to make the scene at a friend’s annual Halloween party; it was a massively attended affair and everybody always went all-out on their costumes. One year, I went as a (now most likely extremely politically incorrect) “Shopping Bag Lady”. Wig, rags, latex stipple on my face, neck and hands. I wrapped my legs in dirty bandages to cover the oozing sores and there was a severed human arm in my shopping bag full of street-crap. I had hoped to hook up with a woman with whom I had a long-time telephone relationship. She was coming in from Ohio and she had a really sexy voice and I had never met her. Needless to say, when we finally met face-to-face she seemed visibly disturbed by my costume and, ultimately, I went home alone that night.

On my way to my neighborhood, I came out of the subway and broke a heel on one of my mismatched shoes. I sat down on a nearby stoop and tried to repair it - I still had a bit of a walk back to my apartment. A few minutes later, some lady handed me a buck. I didn’t "get lucky" that night but I ended up making eight and a half bucks sitting on that stoop.

Taken from WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SCARY MOVIE? 

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Killian H. Gore asks over 100 horror filmmakers and fans from all over the world the same 13 questions regarding their favorite scary movies.

Includes interviews with such horror legends as Joe Dante (Gremlins), Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes), Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad), Marcus Nispel (Friday the 13th), Bill Johnson (Texas Chainsaw 2), Jack Sholder (Nightmare on Elm Street 2), Rob Schmidt (Wrong Turn), Mark Shostrom (Evil Dead II), Richard Stanley (Dust Devil), John A. Russo (Night of the Living Dead), William Malone (House on Haunted Hill), Greydon Clark (Wacko), Jeff Burr (Leatherface), Chuck Parello (Ed Gein), Adam Marcus (Jason Goes to Hell), Tom Sullivan (The Evil Dead), Michael A. Simpson (Sleepaway Camp 2 & 3), Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut), Victor Garcia (Hellraiser: Revelations) and Sean Clark (Horror's Hallowed Grounds).

Plus lots more from the makers of the Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hellraiser, Evil Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Child’s Play, Gremlins, Phantasm, Sleepaway Camp and the Wrong Turn movies, as well as some of the most hardcore horror fans on the planet!

Killian asks about favorite films, directors, sequels, franchises, monsters, remakes, TV shows plus favorite "bad" horror movies and Halloween costumes!

"A Very Entertaining Book!" - Tim Ritter (Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness)

The Complete List of Contributors!

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SCARY MOVIE?

Bianca Allaine, Michael Aloisi, Michelle Anderson, Dustin Austen, Michelle Ayala, Dean Baldwin, Michael Berryman, Joe Bizarro, Ed Boase, Jason V Brock, Dominic Burns, Jeff Burr, Edison Chandler, David Chaskin, Greydon Clark, Sean Clark, Patricia Ann Coleman, Ryan Compton, Peter Cornwell, Michael Coulombe, Bryan Coyne, Thomas Lee Curtin Jr., Joe Dante, Mr. Dark, Fred Dekker, Carl V. Dupré, Richard Dutton, Jet Eller, Tony Elwood, Scarlet Fry, Víctor García, Adam Gierasch, Barry J. Gillis, Jonas Govaerts, Anthony Hamer, Melissa Hannon, Roy Hayes, Nathan Head, James D.R. Hickox, Jeff Himmel, Jason Hull, Jason Impey, Tom Irvin, Angela Jane, Bill Johnson, Andrew Jones, Bruce W. Jones, Len Kabasinski, James Keating, Matthew Klapmeyer, Chris Kuchta, Daniel Lavington, Steve Lawson, Joonas Makkonen, William Malone, Adam Marcus, Adam J. Marsh, Darrin McDonald, Eric Miller, Nathan Thomas Milliner, Aaron Moorhead, Robert Mukes, Thomas Newman, Tony Newton, Marcus Nispel, Courtney Ogle, Jim O’Rear, Dan Palmer, Chuck Parello, Andrew Parra, Monstermatt Patterson, Mike Peel, Eric Petterson, Rex Piano, Andrew Pollard, Marc Price, Tim Ritter, Kiah Roache-Turner, Benjamin Rocher, John A. Russo, Rob Sacchetto, Chris Sawin, Rob Schmidt, Jeff Scott, Jack Sholder, Mark Shostrom, Jim Shrader, Brett Simmons, Adam Simon, Lou Simon, Michael A. Simpson, Scott Sliger, Paul Solet, Richard Stanley, Neal Marshall Stevens, Tom Sullivan, Patrik Syversen, Stephen Thrower, Jim Towns, Trippy the Clown, Stephen Volk, Casey Walker, Bill Warren, Sean Weathers, James Webber, John Williams, Dan Yeager, Reyna Young, Kelsey Zukowski

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What's Your Favorite Scary Movie? - Foreword

FOREWORD

I’d like to begin by explaining the genesis of this book…

Earlier this year I had been idly browsing, as usual, on Facebook when I happened across one of those favorite lists that urges you to nominate your friends and share your answers so that everybody knows your favorite breed of dog, favorite color underwear, favorite body part to scratch, etc. I initially groaned at seeing yet another fad-challenge but found myself reading through all of the answers with an avid interest, clicking to expand the post to peruse every mundane detail of a total stranger’s life. But, the thing is, it wasn’t mundane. I was reading it after all, and I was completely fascinated by all of the answers, subconsciously comparing them to my own choices.

         A day or so later I was watching the first Scream movie again, having recently purchased it on Blu-ray, and Ghostface’s iconic question echoed through my mind. “What’s your favorite scary movie?” I scribbled down the following in my notebook… The Horror List – Same set of questions on horror to horror folk. Okay, so it was badly worded and devoid of any specifics (as my notes usually are), but over the next few weeks I intermittently jotted down a list of possible questions with a heavy focus upon positivity. From the onset I wanted it to be a list of favorites, I didn’t wish to enquire what horror films people didn’t like. I know from the various horror groups I belong to that plenty of folk love dissing particular horror films and spreading negativity about them. Sure, we can’t possibly enjoy every single horror movie ever made but we don’t have to keep whining on about the ones we don’t like. I wanted this to be a collection of the movies we do like. Whine-free.

         After much tweaking and adding and subtracting I finally settled upon thirteen questions that I felt could glean an interesting array of answers from the “horror folk” out there in the world, and so it was time to put them to the test on my first “victim”. Enter Warrington-born horror actor Mr. Nathan Head, someone I knew I could trust to not only give his honest opinion on both the project and the questions, but also provide me with his own answers. Once Nathan had offered me some kind advice I felt confident enough to start sending out the questions to people all over the globe. I didn’t want to solely focus upon people in the movie industry, I also wanted to approach the fans of the genre too because we are, after all, the people that help keep horror alive. If it weren’t for our collective passion for horror movies, fewer of them would ever get created.

I sent out the following pitch to hundreds and hundreds of fans and filmmakers from all over the world in the hope that they would be kind enough to take the time from their busy lives and schedules to answer the proposed questions…

Hi (name),

I’m currently working on a book in which I ask the same thirteen questions to horror fans and horror film personalities from all over the world regarding their favorite horror movies.

I’m not interested in the negatives (most hated films etc.) I want to capture the positives and chronicle the passion for the horror movies that we horror fans love the best.

It’s entirely up to you how much you want to elaborate on your answers. One-word answers are absolutely fine, but if you want to say a little more, well that’s groovy too!

If you wish to take part then please feel free to drop me a message and I will gladly send you the questions on here or via email.

Many thanks and my best wishes to you,

Killian

If the selected horror fan or filmmaker opted to respond I sent them the following thirteen questions…

1) What’s your favorite scary movie?

2) Who is your favorite horror movie director?

3) What’s your favorite type (sub-genre) of horror movie?                            

4) What’s your favorite “bad” horror movie?

5) What would be your favorite horror double feature drive-in choice?

6) Who is your favorite horror movie killer?

7) What is your favorite horror movie creature/monster?                               

8) What is your favorite horror movie franchise?                 

9) What’s your favorite horror movie sequel?                                   

10) What’s your favorite horror movie remake?

11) What’s your favorite horror television show?

12) What’s your favorite zombie movie?

13) What has been your favorite Halloween costume?

The book that follows is the full collection of everyone’s fantastic answers. Yes, some are short and some are long but I did state in my original pitch that I didn’t mind either way, so hopefully you won’t too. I think it’s a really great collection that showcases a huge range of horror film titles from the early days of cinema to the modern day, peppered throughout with tremendously entertaining anecdotes, insights, opinions and musings from a wonderful concoction of horror movie aficionados. Hopefully, like me, you’ll discover films in this book that you hadn’t heard of before and be compelled to seek them out. I’ve always found people’s passion for their favorite movies rather infectious and I love having movies recommended to me by likeminded “horror folk.”

So, turn the page (or click the button on your electronic reading device) and let’s see what those kind “horror folk” around the world had to say after they collectively chose to respond to my request with a generous, “Sure, send me the questions.”

TAKEN FROM WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SCARY MOVIE?

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