Carpe Noctem Interviews - Volume 2

by Carnell, Thom

  I notice that most of the films you mention, even some of the foreign films, are all basically mainstream films. Do you have any interest in Euro-trash, Asian-trash, Euro-Splatter, or Hong Kong action type of films?

  In general, I think it’s a good idea to stay away from anything that can be accurately described as ‘trash.’ But no, not much interest in those areas, except Hong Kong cinema, which, thanks to Christa Faust, I’ve recently become acquainted with.

  With atrocities being played out on our television screens every day, do you think that it is more difficult to “scare” an audience?

  Absolutely. But I don’t think I’m really trying to “scare” my readers, so for me it’s not really an issue. I’m more interested in some of the other emotional components of horror, things like loss and awe and wonder. But, yeah, if you’re out there trying to frighten people, sure, it’s a lot harder than it would have been a hundred or fifty or even ten years ago.

  I understand you used to sing with a rock band. Tell me a little bit about that.

  Music’s something I flirt with when I get afraid I’m burning out with my fiction. Most recently, I fronted a band called Death’s Little Sister. One reviewer said we sounded like Nick Cave auditioning for Wall of Voodoo, which I could never figure out was very good or very bad. We only played locally, Athens and Atlanta. We did a four-song cassette sampler, Three Regrets and a Curse, that sold out, and got some local radio play. I finally found myself having to choose between writing for DC and going on with the band. Our shows were starting to draw good crowds and the rest of the band wanted to tour. There was no way I could tour and keep my writing career on track, and I had to be very practical about it in the end. So I left the band after a very wonderful last show at the 40-Watt Club here in Athens, and the others split up right after that. It made me awfully sad, and I miss doing music, but it eats time and energy and money like mad.

  Since we’re on the subject of music, what kind of stuff do you listen to? Do you listen to different kinds of music when you’re writing?

  Lately, I’m especially into ambient bands like black tape for a blue girl and Love Spirals Downward, a lot of the other darkwave artists recording with Projekt. I’m a huge Concrete Blonde fan. I guess my favourite goth band at the moment is probably Switchblade Symphony. But I’m into a lot of nongoth musicians, too, people like Tom Waits, P.J. Harvey, Nick Cave, Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, Kate Bush, Jane Siberry. Composers like Henryck Gorecki and Danny Elfman. A lot of Celtic stuff, especially Clannad, Enya and Capercaille. Music is very important to my writing, in helping me set the mood, define the atmosphere of a piece. There’s always music playing while I work. So, I usually end up with two or three albums that I can play for someone and say that’s what a particular story feels like. For example, with my story “Anamorphosis” (in Ellen Datlow’s Lethal Kisses), it was mostly Nine Inch Nail’s The Downward Spiral and the first October Project disc. Of course, with Silk, which took almost three years to write, there are about twenty-five or thirty albums.

  What disc is in your CD player right now?

  The Changelings’ first. They’re really amazing.

  You are a part of what has been referred to as the “Reform School Riot Grrrls of Horror” with Poppy Z Brite, Christa Faust, Kathe Koja among others. How did you all meet and what is that draws you all together?

  I think that phrase was Dave Schow’s revenge for having been repeatedly accused of being the father of “splatterpunk.” There’s way too much variation in our styles and concerns and sensibilities to really put us all together under one umbrella. Christa and Poppy are very concerned with the erotic, for example, and Kathe with the process of art and the role of the artist in relation to his or her work. And I spend most of my time writing about transformation, in one sense or another. There’s common ground, certainly, but more differences than similarities.

  Is it safe to say that you and all of these talented women are friends? If so, do you all critique each other’s work?

  Yeah, we’re friends. Poppy and Christa and I are very close friends. We share a website, and we’ve helped each other a lot as far as offering critiques and such. Poppy was finishing Exquisite Corpse while I was finishing Silk and the manuscripts went back and forth. When I finish a new story, I usually send it to Poppy or Christa or both before it goes to an editor.

  You identify yourself as a Goth. What is it about that sub-culture that appeals to you?

  I grew up mostly in a couple of small towns outside Birmingham, and I was just this morbid, freakish kid, you know? I read Edgar Allan Poe and Lovecraft, dressed funny and got harassed a lot. It wasn’t until college that I discovered Goth as a distinct subculture, really. And then it was like something I’d been looking for a long, long time, maybe without even knowing I’d been searching for something. Goth feels very tribal to me… actually, it’s very hard to explain how I feel about Goth. But as for its fundamental appeal to me, personally, I think it comes down to decorum and ceremony, propriety, as much as the darkness and particular things, like vampirism and death. Goth seems, to me, like a holdout against a world drowning in a homogenizing sludge of convenience stores and talk shows. A sanctuary from a dead culture run by cynical sheep.

  Do you think that Goths are portrayed accurately in the media?

  Hah. That would be a no. Off hand, I can think of only a few examples. Poppy’s Lost Souls may have been the first time I actually encountered Goth portrayed anywhere near accurately in fiction. Authors and filmmakers tend to perceive no distinction between punk and death metal and Goth, and so you get this bizarre hybrid. And now there’s a lot of hysteria over cults and vampirism and you have these fourteen-year-olds getting raked over the coals on the fucking talk shows… Goths of all ages should avoid talk shows like the plague.

  What is your opinion of the deluge of vampire novels on the market?

  That gets back to what I said earlier about horror deserving a lot of the bad rep that it has. In the late eighties and early nineties, publishers wanted to cash-in on Anne Rice’s success, via imitation, and plenty of authors were more than willing to lend them a hand. So, you had, literally, dozens of books a year coming out, written by people with nothing whatsoever to say about vampires, writing about them simply because it was a subject that was selling, a quick buck. And it was even better if you were writing a series of vampire novels, right? So it was almost all bullshit. There were a handful of exceptions: Lost Souls, Tim Lucas’ Throat Sprockets, Andrei Codrescu’s The Blood Countess, three or four films like The Reflecting Skin and The Hunger and Dance of the Damned. I’ve said, repeatedly, we need a six or seven year, self-imposed moratorium on vampire stories. Give the archetype a rest, already. Fortunately, I think the big publishers have lost interest and the market’s losing interest. It’s gotten really hard to sell a vampire novel lately.

  What can you tell me about your own vampire novel, The Five of Cups?

  The Five of Cups gave me an opportunity to practice what I’d been preaching. It was purchased by Transylvania Press in ‘94, and it was supposed to be an illustrated limited edition of the book released in ‘96. But the publisher got behind and his contract expired. By that time, I’d finished Silk and I’d developed considerably as a writer since that first effort. Plus, I’d watched Poppy have to struggle with fans who only wanted her to write a sequel to Lost Souls. Plus, I was really fucking sick of vampire novels and meant what I’d been saying to other writers about a self-imposed moratorium on vampire stories. So… when the editor at Transylvania Press offered to renew the contract on The Five of Cups, I declined, opting to let Silk become my ‘first’ novel. It was as hard as hell. I spent nine months of my life on that book, and there’s probably some good stuff in it, but I think, ultimately, I made the right decision.

  I understand that you recently resigned your membership with the Horror Writer’s Association. What lead up to that decision?

  A lot of shitty, stupid politics, mostly relating to t
he HWA’s Bram Stoker Award and membership rules and stuff like that. It’s probably best if we don’t talk about the HWA.

  How did you score The Dreaming gig?

  I’d written a short story called “Escape Artist” for Neil Gaiman’s prose anthology, The Sandman: Book of Dreams, the story that was sort of my “big break,” I guess. Anyway, Neil called me early last summer and said that he and Alisa Kwitney, who edits The Dreaming, had been talking about getting someone to do a Corinthian story arc, and knowing certain of my, um, interests (knives, for instance), Neil thought of me. So, I wrote a three-part story called “Souvenirs” and DC liked it a lot and asked me to write another one, and then, finally, Alisa asked if I’d like to do the comic on a more or less permanent basis, sharing it with the very talented Peter Hogan. It all seemed to happen very fast, and it still feels weird. Of course I said yes, immediately. The Sandman is very dear to me. It’s a wonderful opportunity.

  I also have a…um…interest in knives. Can you explain what it is about them that attracts your attention and interest?

  They’re sharp and cold. Shit, I don’t know. I’m very attracted to cutting and piercing, as ritual, and, sexually, to vampirism and bloodplay, and it’s probably all tied in together somehow. Maybe you should ask my therapist.

  What direction do you plan on taking The Dreaming?

  Well, I think readers will see it getting somewhat darker, more like The Sandman, at least for the next couple of years.

  Now that Silk is almost out and your work on DC’s The Dreaming is underway, what else is there in the works for you?

  Evil question! About a week ago, my agent asked me what the next novel was going to be and I was, like, “You mean I have to do that again?” I have two or three ideas, but I haven’t settled on any one of them, yet. Right now, most of my time’s going into The Dreaming and some other comic projects. And hopefully I’ll be ready to do a short story collection in another year or two – I’d much rather be writing short stories than almost anything else. Well, actually, to tell the truth, I’d like to take a long vacation and spend about six months traveling and clubbing.

  Nacho Cerda

  A friend once asked me if I’d ever seen a film called Aftermath. I said I hadn’t and he subsequently gave me a VHS of the film. Needless to say, I was stunned. Having been involved in the funeral business for some time and after spending a lot of time in a Medical Examiner’s office, what I saw in Nacho Cerda’s film boggled my mind. The images were undeniably beautiful. However, the subject matter ran contrary to everything I felt was acceptable given the environment in which the story took place. When Nacho and I spoke, the conversation quickly took a turn that I don’t think either of us expected. I am exceedingly proud of this interview, not only for how well it went, but also because of the subjects that were discussed, all in a very respectful tone.

  A Voyeuristic Trip into the Inferno of Human Nature – Volume IV, Issue 3

  The business of making movies is, despite what many ‘insiders’ want you to believe, a safe and conservative one. Studios do market research and demographic studies in attempt to prophesize what will and what will not make them money. No one seems willing to take chances, deal with subjects that are too controversial, or, heaven forbid, actually get into its audience’s face. However, lately, some independent filmmakers are risking it all and going out on a limb dealing with subjects that were once considered taboo. Names such as Lynne Stopkewich, Atom Egoyan, David Cronenberg, and Katsuya Matsumura have begun to appear in ‘film insider’ publications as part of a new breed of filmmaker who dares to deal with subjects that are still considered ‘off limits.’ While these artist’s films do indeed deal quite frankly with the forbidden and the proscribed, none of them has dared to touch the ground Nacho Cerda has with his film Aftermath. Cerda’s film is a beautifully shot excursion into the darkest part of human existence: necrophilia, which is used as an allegory for the manipulation of the dead by the forensic surgeon. Aftermath makes no excuses for itself or its stance and its filmmaker does not either. Its graphic depiction of the autopsy procedure is not an easy thing for most viewers to take and just when they have accepted the visual mugging these images give, Cerda turns up the heat and gives us the visual equivalent of an ass-kicking by showing his main character sexually brutalize the body of a young dead girl. Upon first viewing, Aftermath seems like pure exploitation, not unlike Jorg Buttgereit’s Nekromantik films. It is a film that, most probably, will offend the faint of heart and weak of stomach. However, when it is probed deeper, we find that Aftermath is a subtle, sincere, and heartfelt confrontation between the silent sanctity of the world of the dead and the brutal manipulation of the living’s quest for understanding of that which is incomprehensible: death. Nacho Cerda is a brave filmmaker who is willing to focus his artistic eye onto the unthinkable and, thereby, dragging once-taboo subjects into the light, daring us to confront the unfathomable and forcing us to face our greatest fears.

  You attended USC Film School.

  NC: Yeah, that was just for some workshops that we did over the summer of 1990 and 1991.

  You’re from Spain, so what prompted you to travel so far from home?

  That was a long awaited project that I had in mind. One of the first things I did was to be an exchange student in Oregon. I wanted to learn English well enough for me to be able to direct a film. So, that’s when I first went to the US, in the twelfth grade in high school. Right after that, I started at the university in Spain. I studied journalism. And then, in my third year, I decided to take a break over the summer and go to USC, which I wanted to go to after I graduated, but I just couldn’t wait. So, what I did was I applied for the summer workshops and I traveled there because, for me, the center of the film industry is over there. It wasn’t my first time in L.A; I was there before to visit the city, so I was kind of familiar with the university.

  Who are some of the directors who had an influence on you as a filmmaker and what films do you consider to be crucial viewing?

  That’s very hard to say. It’s the big one million dollar question. Let me see, one of the directors who I really like, and I have liked him for a long time, is John Carpenter as well as David Cronenberg, James Cameron (which doesn’t really have much to do with the horror genre, but it does have a lot to do with fantasy and high tech action films, which I really like also). There are films in particular that really stick in my mind like The Thing, the 1982 film. That was a great film. I’ve seen that many, many times. There are a lot of films like David Cronenberg’s The Fly and films that are more recent film that I consider to be crucial for me in terms of filmmaking, in terms of storytelling. There’s another older film, Jaws, which I happened to see when I was six years old and that had a big impact on my mind. [laughs] So, those are films I really like, but it’s so difficult and I would not really be able to answer this question because there are many, many, many films.

  I understand. I mean, being a filmmaker, you try to expose yourself to as many different perspectives as possible. How does Spain differ from the US in its attitudes toward explicit depictions of violence or horror in film? I know you mention in the Aftermath Special Edition that you didn’t have many problems with it.

  No, in fact, Spain is very liberal in those terms. We’ve been suffering a dictatorship for many, many years. I was born right after this generation. Things, at this moment, are quite on the other side from this. Things are never censored, not even on TV. I think that young people, especially teenagers, look forward to these films. They want explicit things on screen. They want the hard stuff. There’s craziness coming all over. In terms of difference from the US gore films, there’s not much. There’s not a big difference. When I was in Canada, I felt the same way. When I first showed Aftermath in 1994 (when it was released in Spain) I felt the same way. People were taking the film in a similar way.

  Are you and Alex de la Iglesia, [the director of Accion Mutante and Day of the Beast,] the only people in Spain who are
really doing edgy films?

  Not really. Alex de la Iglesia is more on the comedy side. I believe that he has always been defending this position as a way to confront or to resurrect the new Spanish horror movies. I don’t agree with that. I think that’s just one option, but there is the other option which is as good as the first one and that’s doing a very serious horror movie. So, in this regard, Alex is directing films that have a lot of humorous content. He just directed a film called Perdita Durango and I happened to see that two weeks ago when it was released here. It’s some kind of a change of direction. He’s doing a more serious type of film. I guess he’s growing old also. [laughs] He’s thirty-two, I think and I’m twenty-eight.

  I’m in your camp on this one.

  Thank you, because people, especially some fans, tend to call us pretentious when you’re doing a film like ours, which I really hate. I have a friend here who I produced a short film for and he’s also on our side. He’s trying to make serious, scary films.