Prime Time Replay:
David J. Skal
on V Is for Vampire
MsgId: *omni_visions(14)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:08:26 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
Good evening, everyone, this is Ed, and welcome to Prime Time Omni Visions. I'd like to welcome my guest tonight, David J. Skal. These days, Dave is promoted by his publishers as "the world's most resourceful researcher into all things macabre."
MsgId: *omni_visions(15)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:09:54 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.231.155
Greetings from Transylvania...
MsgId: *omni_visions(16)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:10:00 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
In the years that he's been writing pop culture bibles such as *Hollywood Gothic*, *The Monster Show*, and *Dark Carnival*, David Skal's become one of the attractive, articulate, knowledgeable experts the network and cable talk shows call when they need someone to comment on the world of the Hollywood macabre. Indeed, he knows his material cold.But David Skal is also the author of some of the last decade's most horrifyingly dark science fiction, novels such as *Scavengers*, *When We Were Good*, and *Antibodies*. Sadly, all are out of print. And publishers seem to balk when faced with manuscript of his recent novel, *Eat Me.* Before we talk about the nonfiction, David, have you got any firm plans to continue with fiction?
MsgId: *omni_visions(18)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:12:51 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.231.155
Yes. But I've never done an online interview before. Please be gentle. I've actually got two novel manuscripts nearing completion, plus screenplays based on my books "Antibodies" and "Scavengers." When I finish my latest book from Norton--"Screams of Reason"--I want to get back to storytelling.
MsgId: *omni_visions(19)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:14:34 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
A historical question, then... Did growing up in the midwest contribute to any kind of gothic sensibility? What *did* lead you to either sf or to the darker side of popular culture?
MsgId: *omni_visions(21)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:18:46 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.231.155
I was a typical suburban babyboomer, growing up in the inhuman, ahistorical sprawl outside of Cleveland. I think the reason so many of my generation--I like to call us "monster boomers" got into horror is that we instinctively knew the importance of rot. So, armed with 8 mm movie cameras, we turned our rec rooms into crypts and dungeons. We wanted history, and mystery.
Suburbia, of course, had neither history or mystery. Still doesn't.
I was always interested in fantastic stories, and didn't care whether they were "science fiction" or "horror" It was all the same thing to me. I was very precocious and reading on the college level before I was out of elementary school. I devoured Poe, Bradbury, Bloch, Ellison.
MsgId: *omni_visions(24)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:20:35 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
Kids armed with cameras in the pre-Rodney King era... Many became filmmakers for real once they went to Hollywood. And now, after a lengthy stay in the Big Apple, you're in Hollywood. Any plans to follow in the footsteps of Dante and Carpenter and the crowd?
MsgId: *omni_visions(26)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:23:24 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.231.155
If my camera hadn't broken when I was a kid, I probably would have continued directly into a film/tv career. But instead, I started writing. You didn't need a computer then! So far I've only done documentary writing--three episodes for A&E "Biography," with a couple more coming up.
MsgId: *omni_visions(28)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:24:14 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
Who've been your A&E "Biography" subjects?
MsgId: *omni_visions(30)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:28:25 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.231.155
For Biography, I wrote and coproduced "Boris Karloff: The Gentle Monster" and scripted the shows on Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney, Jr. Hoping for some non-horror assignments this year.
MsgId: *omni_visions(31)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:29:59 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
Can you share at least what sort of non-horror assignments you'd incline toward?
MsgId: *omni_visions(32)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:34:31 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.237.93
Well, I've already learned in the brief time I've been in Hollywood not to talk about projects that aren't actually signed. But I'm interested in twentieth century literary figures, as well as theatrical personalities. I spent about fifteen years in New York working with theatre, music and dance companies. In fact, it was that line of work that opened the door for "Hollywood Gothic."
MsgId: *omni_visions(33)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:36:42 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
That might suggest part of the answer to a question that intrigues me--how did the process work by which you moved from being predominantly a fiction writer to being an historian and a cultural commentator?
MsgId: *omni_visions(34)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:38:54 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.237.93
One of my clients was the Big Apple Circus--I wrote and designed promotional materials, souvenir books, etc.--and the Circus' managing director was also one of the producers of the Frank Langella revival of Dracula. She introduced me to the Deane/Balderston estate which is how I got into all those negotiations files. Without the Big Apple Circus, I would not have a career as a horror historian.Although my books had gotten favorable reviews, they didn't pay very well. Editors didn't know what to do with the combination of horror and science fiction I was delivering. Then I found that nonfiction paid ten times the advances as novels. Or, at least the novels I was writing.
I started writing fiction again when my books started being translated. I have a sort of cult following in Europe, I guess. Radio France even produced a full length radio drama from "Scavengers" when the translation came out. I found the readers and reviewers much more connected to my fiction than their American counterparts.
MsgId: *omni_visions(36)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:41:57 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
Your most recent book is "V Is For Vampire," a cool alphabetical compilation of Stuff About Vampires. I know you've got the "Norton Critical Edition of Dracula" coming up in 1997, the centennial year of Stoker's novel. I suspect there'll be a lot of vampire material in the pipeline. Are you getting at all overloaded on this material? Maybe not stereotyped, but still locked into association?
MsgId: *omni_visions(38)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:46:03 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.237.93
Let's put it this way. I may have strip-mined vampires at this point, and they may have strip-mined me! I'm looking forward to the Dracula Centenary as a kind of retirement.Everyone tells me to write a vampire novel, but I'm not sure I have it in me. Metaphorical vampires, maybe, like in "Scavengers."
MsgId: *omni_visions(40)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:48:39 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
Glad to hear that, David. I've seen you in Real Life. You don't dress all in black, nor do you wear pallid white makeup. I wonder if you're a disappointment to Anne Rice fans... Speaking of Real Life, are you going to be able to mine Hollywood for material? Is it a big change for you from New York?
MsgId: *omni_visions(41)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:50:21 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.237.93
My infamous, unpublished novel "Eat Me" has a related, cannibal theme. I've just about finished rewriting it under the new title "Angel Food."
MsgId: *omni_visions(42)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:52:22 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
Very cool. Angels are certainly, though any ironic resonances may be lost on the average publisher.
MsgId: *omni_visions(45)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:55:29 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.237.93
"Angel Food," as you know, is a psychological horror novel about anorexia. The main character's mother calls her daughter "Angel Food"...a bodiless, ethereal ideal.
I have to admit that living in LA is like living on Mars--except that I'm having trouble finding signs of life. Seriously, it's a real cultural shock for me to be here after almost twenty years in Greenwich Village. But New York has changed a lot, and all my career opportunities, or most of them, seem to be out here. I had my first earthquake yesterday--just a little one.
MsgId: *omni_visions(44)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:54:56 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
I suspect many of your neighbors will be transplanted New Yorkers.
MsgId: *omni_visions(46)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:57:40 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.237.93
Yes, there are a number of ex-New Yawkers here. We're the ones who talk fast and know how to dash around the lumbering Californians in the supermarket.They talk on their cell phones in the checkout line, you know.
MsgId: *omni_visions(47)
Date: Thu Dec 5 22:58:42 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
I seem to recall that "Antibodies" was a novel about the obsessive giving up of flesh and fleshly concerns. And as for "Scavengers"... "Strange Days" only barely touched your treatment of a similar theme. Is your vision still as dark?
MsgId: *omni_visions(49)
Date: Thu Dec 5 23:03:33 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.237.93
The reason I'm doing my own screenplay based on "Scavengers" is that the same, or similar theme has been botched in films like "Brainstorm," "Strange Days," and "Unforgettable." (For the uninitiated, "Scavengers" is about the chemical transference of memory, and a cult that grows up around shooting up brain extracts.)Re my novels: "When We Were Good" (1981) is about hermaphroditic child prostitutes, and will never be made into a movie. German translation just came out, though. But I'm really pleased with the "Antibodies" screenplay I'm doing in collaboration with a New York writer friend, Ian Grey.
MsgId: *omni_visions(53)
Date: Thu Dec 5 23:07:54 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
Dave, I want to backtrack for just a moment. I'm very curious what angle of approach you and your collaborator will use with the Norton edition of "Dracula." Heavily academic? Pop? Political?
MsgId: *omni_visions(57)
Date: Thu Dec 5 23:15:19 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.231.145
I co-edited the Norton Critical edition with Nina Auerbach (author of the wonderful book "Our Vampires, Ourselves") Nina provides the academic pedigree; I'm told I have the distinction of being the only editor of a Norton Critical Edition without an academic affiliation or a PhD. It will probably be known as the "Gender Studies " edition of "Dracula," and gets heavily into the polymorphous sexuality of the novel. We were able to reprint some terrific essays.My new book, "Screams of Reason: Mad Science and Modern Culture" (to be published by Norton about a year from now) covers "Dracula" from a completely new angle--not as a supernatural thriller, but as a story of science-based angst, namely, the nightmares introduced into Victorian culture by Darwinian science. "Dracula" has a lot in common with "The Island of Dr. Moreau," though Stoker had no sense of irony...
MsgId: *omni_visions(59)
Date: Thu Dec 5 23:19:49 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.46
I'm curious about the process of delving into history. As you searched endless archives in regard to Dracula films and such, did you find anything totally unexpected and wonderful?
MsgId: *omni_visions(61)
Date: Thu Dec 5 23:23:26 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.231.145
I was really surprised to discover the name of the actor who played the male lead in a lost Hungarian film called "Drakula"--filmed the year BEFORE "Nosferatu." I found a clip of him from another film and am convinced that this picture was, indeed, the first unauthorized adaptation of Stoker, though I'm not hopeful that the film will ever resurface.I also read Stoker's theatrical adaptation of "Dracula" which was done as a marathon "copyright reading" and was struck with what a bad play it made. Stoker was a frustrated playwright with reason--he couldn't write plays.
MsgId: *omni_visions(68)
Date: Thu Dec 5 23:40:29 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.55
David, what's your take on contemporary movie horror and horror icons?
MsgId: *omni_visions(70)
Date: Thu Dec 5 23:44:34 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.233.75
I think horror needs to disengage itself from the strangehold of special-effects-driven movies and start being evocative again. Not because there's anything morally objectionable about movie gore, but because it puts the imagination to sleep. Campfires and radio drama were probably the best mediums ever invented for scary entertainment.
MsgId: *omni_visions(75)
Date: Thu Dec 5 23:46:57 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.55
What did you think of some of the lower budget things...like "Nadja" and "The Addiction"?
MsgId: *omni_visions(76)
Date: Thu Dec 5 23:49:02 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.233.75
They were both wildly overrated films, but interesting nonetheless. "The Addiction" got really precious, but I loved the device of having the vampire offer the victim the option of refusal, which they never took.
MsgId: *omni_visions(78)
Date: Thu Dec 5 23:52:34 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.55
We had a question from an audience member. She said some nice things about your work, David, and then asked for your take on the perceived downturn in horror. Dead? Undead?
MsgId: *omni_visions(80)
Date: Thu Dec 5 23:56:08 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.233.75
Not dead, only sleeping. The problem right now is that there's so much derivative crap that it's chokedeverything else off. Sooner or later, however, someone will buck the trendy trends and do something that seems to come from way out in left field, and thereby start a new cycle. What we don't need are any more Anne Rice clones...I think that science fiction/horror (my stuff, obviously) will continue to be "where it's at" as long as the implications of science and technology have a dark side. Mary Shelley really didn't really write a technological critique, but she created a metaphor big enough to swallow modern science as it developed.
A GOTHIC metaphor. The best science fiction, to my mind, never loses sight of it gothic roots.
MsgId: *omni_visions(100)
Date: Fri Dec 6 00:16:24 EST 1996
From: Ed_Bryant_Mod At: 206.80.181.41
Well, I think we're close to out of time. Sorry for all the glitches tonight. But I want to thank my guest, David Skal. Watch for his new books from Norton. Also thanks to my producer Ellen, and to that most persistent of questioners, Fiona Webster. G'nite, all.
MsgId: *omni_visions(101)
Date: Fri Dec 6 00:17:24 EST 1996
From: djskal At: 152.163.237.61
Good night, everyone. If there were any unanswered questions, please e-mail me at DJSKAL@aol.com
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