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Your MA was in Russian Literature, but you realized the world of academia wasn’t for you. What was the impetus to move into filmmaking?
What I loved about Russian literature was the drama, the humor, the romance, the politics. Academia felt like a very clinical and scientific approach to something magical. I had made a black and white silent short film about a Russian poet named Tsvetaeva. When it got into a film festival, it gave me the confidence to apply to film school.
Your thesis film, “The Wormhole,” is a lovely, poignant short about a family shattered by a missing child; the remaining son has a difficult relationship with his mother. Mothers are also at the heart of all three seasons of American Horror Story. Do you have a particular fascination for mothers in popular culture, or is it just coincidence?
Writers always have their obsessions and mothers are one of mine. The mother/child relationship is inherently impossible. Fraught. Dramatic. I’m experiencing this now from the other side with my own children. They desperately want independence but the moment you turn away—they’re upset.
You once said, “Russian literature is this amazing and unexplored wellspring of material for movies.” Have you ever considered adapting a Russian classic novel to the screen? Or have you used anything from a Russian novel in your work in the past?
Actually, the first professional writing job I had was to adapt First Love by Turgenev for Universal. And my dream project is a modern retelling of The Brothers Karamazov.
In 2004, you wrote (adapting from the novel by Laurie Halse Anderson) and directed your first feature, Speak. Can you talk about your experience on that? For example: Was it more or less difficult than you’d imagined?
We made the movie incredibly quickly, so it’s all a crazy blur. I don’t even remember what my expectations were. But everything was heightened. I was terrified to fail. And I had almost no craft so it was pure instinct, for better and sometimes for worse.
In 2011, you joined the producing/writing staff of American Horror Story. How did that happen?
I had written a spec screenplay that didn’t sell but got me some attention and a new agent. It was a thriller about a marriage in crisis so it dovetailed perfectly with the first season of our show. It was the right sample at the right time.
Had you worked at all in the horror genre prior to signing on to AHS?
I’ve never written horror per se, unless you count the stories I wrote in sixth grade to scare my classmates. But I write a lot of thrillers and it’s a similar engine behind both genres. Make the audience identify strongly with the characters and then put them in terrifying situations.
Is there a difference in how you approach writing a horror script as compared to writing a more mainstream drama?
Horror is somewhat hard to define. Stephen King does an amazing job of it in his book Danse Macabre. And my colleagues on the show have really taught me a lot about how to structure a scene to make it horror.
How thoroughly is the overall story arc of each season of AHS planned out in advance? Do writers of individual episodes have much leeway?
We have some big events mapped out along the way, but we also get inspired and change things as we go. The writing staff works as a team in a great way, so we all contribute to each other’s scripts. We take chances in the writing and then trust each other for when to rein it in.
You’re the credited writer on two episodes in each season of AHS, and they’re easily among the standouts. In the first season, Murder House, you provided the finale show, “Afterbirth,” which includes a sequence that must feature every ghost from the entire season. Can you talk a little about what it was like to write such a frantic and detailed scene?
It was pretty thrilling once we got to the final episode, to realize we could use everyone we had killed in the house—and it was all so organic.
What’s most interesting to me about “Afterbirth” is that the real climax is a magnificent monologue from Jessica Lange’s character, delivered to a mirror in a beauty salon. Is writing a monologue like that easier when you know the skill level of the actress who is going to deliver it?
We always write for actors we know, especially now in season four. And we like to give them amazing stuff to do and say. For Jessica in particular, we write arias. She inspires us and we try to inspire her.
For Season Two of AHS (Asylum), the first of your two episodes was “I Am Anne Frank: Part One.” I personally thought that two-parter was the most amazing two hours of horror on film I’ve seen in years, presenting Anne Frank as a disturbed patient in a 1963 lunatic asylum and having her confront the Nazi doctor who is hiding out there. Tell us a little about the development of that particular story.
It was Ryan’s idea—and he had it at the very beginning of the season. We went back and forth about whether she was really Anne Frank or not—and that debate is played out in the episodes. We always do a lot of research, but as the daughter of a rabbi I’m pretty well-versed in Holocaust stories. So it was meaningful to me to be credited on that episode.
Has the FX Network ever said, “No, this is too much,” for something proposed for AHS?
Maybe once about a particular shot, which we did take out. But basically we have a lot of freedom and that’s because of Ryan—and what he means to that network.
AHS has done an outstanding job of using horror as a means of social commentary and has addressed everything from homophobia to economic inequality to sexism. Is that one of the pleasures of writing for the show?
Absolutely. Whatever interests us, especially Ryan, finds its way into the show.
You also wrote the Asylum episode “The Name Game,” which featured a musical sequence that’s become justifiably famous (Jessica Lange performing the titular song). Was that your idea? Were you ever nervous about including that?
Again, it was Ryan’s idea. But I loved it and we had a lot of fun shooting it.
At what point was the decision made to lighten up the tone a little for Coven (the third season)?
We were all pretty worn out after Asylum. The set itself was a depressing place to spend six months. The idea was to do something sexy, fun, and youthful in season three.
Since AHS employs an ensemble cast playing different characters in each season, do you ever deliberately create specific characters for the actors and then figure out how to work them into the story arc?
We always do that. And the actors occasionally weigh in on what they would like to do.
Over its three seasons, AHS has tackled ghosts, serial killers, zombies, aliens, devil-possessed nuns, mad scientists, witches, and murderous infants. Is there any horror trope that AHS will never do?
Vampires. But let’s see if that’s still true in a few years.
Your filmmaking work has included some pretty serious accolades as a director (including a Director’s Guild of America nomination for Speak), but you haven’t directed an episode of AHS. Are you just too busy with producing and writing the show?
We are a very small team of writers so, thus far, we couldn’t afford to lose a writer for a month to production. That said, I would love to direct our show if I’m ever asked.
Would you consider writing and/or directing a horror feature film?
I would definitely consider it.
I know better than to ask if you can tell us anything about season four (Freak Show), but here’s an easy one: Are you back for a fourth year?
I am back this year and it’s going to be fantastic.
What advice would you offer to women seeking a career in Hollywood?
My advice to women would be the same as my advice to anyone trying to break in. Do your homework. Watch movies, read scripts, write and rewrite, be willing to work for free, take people out to lunch and ask for their guidance, listen to all notes and try them out, be humble, take your licks (you probably deserve them). I think people still come out to Hollywood “to be discovered.” It truly doesn’t work that way. For me, ten ye
ars to an overnight success is more than a cliché. Ten years is how long it takes to become proficient as a writer—and that’s writing every day diligently. Talent only gets you so far. Work ethic matters more.
And lastly, because the theme of this issue of Nightmare is “Women Destroy Horror”—does the genre need more women?
Probably. I don’t know how you would quantify such a thing, but women are most often the victims in horror and it’s a fairly dated trope. Our show always celebrates women’s strength—and I love being a part of something with a subtle feminist agenda.
© 2014 by Lisa Morton.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author of nonfiction books, award-winning prose writer, and Halloween expert whose work was described by the American Library Association’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror as “consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening”. Her short fiction has appeared in dozens of anthologies and magazines, including The Mammoth Book of Dracula, Dark Delicacies, The Museum of Horrors, and Cemetery Dance, and in 2010 her first novel, The Castle of Los Angeles, received the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel. Recent books include the graphic novel Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times (co-written with Rocky Wood, illustrated by Greg Chapman), and Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween. Also recent are the novellas Summer’s End and Smog, and the novel Malediction. A lifelong Californian, she lives in North Hollywood, and can be found online at lisamorton.com.
An Historical Overview of Classic Horror Novels
Lucy A. Snyder
How does a horror novel become a classic? First of all, it has to be good, or at least unusually compelling. But quality alone doesn’t ensure that a book will become a classic: it also has to be read, admired, and spread widely enough to inspire other creators. There are thousands of novels that could have been classics but instead languished unread on shelves. Statistics published by Strange Horizons (bit.do/strange-stats) and VIDA: Women in Literary Arts (bit.do/vida-stats) show that books written by female authors receive less attention from publishers, reviewers, and readers. That’s not just in horror; that’s everywhere in publishing outside romance and chick lit (two genres that get even less mainstream literary respect than horror). The result of women’s work being subtly and not-so-subtly ignored over the decades is pretty clear: if you take a look at the horror best-of articles on the Web, you’ll see lists of books overwhelmingly populated with male-penned novels.
But in even the most male-centric lists of classic horror novels, you’ll usually find one written by a teenaged girl: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (gutenberg.org/ebooks/84). When Mary Shelley’s 1818 science fiction horror novel was first published, her name wasn’t on it, and readers widely assumed a man had written it. And that novel has spread through popular culture like perhaps no other book. Even if a person somehow managed to graduate from school without having been assigned Frankenstein in English class, he or she knows Frankenstein (or any of the legions of mad/misguided scientists based on him) and his monster from viewing any of the hundreds of movies, TV shows, and cartoons based on Shelley’s characters and cautionary plot. Horror novels just don’t get more classic than Frankenstein.
But Shelley’s novel was certainly not the first horror classic by a female author. The Mysteries of Udolpho (gutenberg.org/ebooks/3268) by Ann Radcliffe was published in 1794; today it’s widely considered to be one of the most important early gothic novels. One major genre element the book helped establish was the brooding gothic villain, who later evolved into the Byronic hero, a figure familiar to any modern reader, television viewer, or movie fan who has enjoyed narratives about conflicted, bad-boy protagonists such as Lestat de Lioncourt, Angel, Eric Draven, John Constantine, Dream . . . or even Edward Cullen. With its dark castles, psychological terrors, and an atmosphere even creepier than Dracula, Radcliffe’s novel paved the way for other authors: Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and H.P. Lovecraft. It’s possible that in its way The Mysteries of Udolpho has left nearly as large an impression on the horror genre as Frankenstein, but comparatively few modern readers and writers recognize the importance of Radcliffe’s lasting influence on later, more popular authors.
Another author whose work clearly bears Radcliffe’s influence is Daphne du Maurier. Du Maurier, whose stories “The Birds” and “Don’t Look Now” are modern horror classics turned into influential movies, is known for her gorgeous, chilling prose. Alfred Hitchcock, who filmed “The Birds,” also turned her 1938 gothic novel Rebecca into a 1940 movie; both the movie and her novel received wide critical acclaim and commercial success. While some horror readers question whether Rebecca “counts” as horror because the terrors in it are subtle, it is unquestionably a modern gothic classic that influenced Stephen King and other horror and thriller authors.
Shirley Jackson, another of Radcliffe’s literary descendants, authored a great deal of classic twentieth-century horror. Her chilling 1948 short story “The Lottery” is familiar to high school students and English majors alike, and her 1962 We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a masterpiece of quiet horror: an unsettling novel about Otherness and mundane evil.
Jackson’s appeal as a writer comes from her skill as a storyteller. Her work is deeply textured and gorgeously written. It’s for mature readers, not because of graphic content, but because of its subtle complexity. Jackson expects that her readers are intelligent, fully capable of comprehending a metaphor, and in possession of an adult’s attention span.
Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, first published in 1959, is without question one of the most influential horror novels produced in the past 100 years. Jackson’s slim book has been filmed twice and has inspired dozens of other movies. Countless stories and novels have been written in Hill House’s literary shadows, including Stephen King’s Carrie and The Shining and Richard Matheson’s Hell House. What makes this small novel so hugely compelling? Part of its appeal surely comes from the subject matter: the haunted house. Jackson’s is a brooding, gothic country manor whose skewed architectural lines reflect the twisted madness of the man who built it. But Hill House doesn’t hold chain-rattling spirits; it has a supernatural intelligence that draws out and exploits the deep-seated fears of the people foolish enough to cross its threshold. And into this dread house Jackson puts a young protagonist who is familiar enough to be sympathetic and weird enough to be interesting. We can’t help but be fascinated as we watch her eccentric loneliness blur to insanity as her psychic powers bloom to create the haunting the other characters fear most.
In 1976, a new gothic horror novel crept onto the scene: Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. Although it received mixed reviews, the book went on to sell millions of copies and its enthralling mix of creepiness and eroticism attracted a huge following. Rice has gone on to pen a dozen books in The Vampire Chronicles series, and its vampire protagonists Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt became well-embedded in the reading public’s imagination, particularly after the 1994 film version of Interview With The Vampire and 2002’s Queen of the Damned. Many recent-generation horror authors (myself included) can mark Rice’s books as influences on our own work.
Another classic gothic horror novel is Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black. This supernaturally chilling novella was released in 1983 and has since been adapted for television, film, and the stage. During its initial debut, the book got positive reviews but gained relatively little attention. Then playwright Stephen Mallatratt happened upon the book in a shop while he was looking for something to read on vacation. He purchased the book, loved it, and later asked for Hill’s permission to develop it for the stage. It was only after the theatre production that the novella got the attention it deserved, years after its first release.
The story behind The Woman in Black’s gradual success highlights the difficulty of any book reaching “classic” status: people have to notice it, champion it, and it has to be read by other emerging writ
ers who then use what they learn from the book in their own works. So, it’s a tricky thing to determine what woman-authored novels written since then genuinely qualify as “classic” horror.
For instance, is Poppy Brite’s 1992 novel Lost Souls a classic? Of the book, Billy Martin (formerly Poppy Brite) writes, “[It’s a] first novel, and boy does it ever show.” But only the most narcissistic author thinks of her work as being flawless, and the stylish, bloody novel populated with amoral vampires got a lot of attention in the horror community. It was especially popular with college-age horror fans. So, many fortysomething authors working today can definitely count Lost Souls among their literary influences.
Another contender for a modern horror classic is Nancy Holder’s nightmarish Dead in the Water, which debuted in 1994. For that book, Holder earned the first Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel ever won by a woman author.
Other women-penned novels have won Stokers since then, and many of them could become modern horror classics. For instance, one of the most critically acclaimed (and prolific) authors in the past fifty years has been Joyce Carol Oates, and she has written tremendously influential fiction. Her 1995 novel Zombie, an exploration of the mind of a serial killer, won the Stoker but did not receive especially wide attention. If the novel ever becomes a major motion picture, will it capture a wider readership and be considered an influential horror novel, as happened with The Woman in Black?
Only time will tell. But the moral of these classic novels’ stories is clear: good books should be championed. If we as readers want to see more women-written books on the best-of lists, we have to enable the change we want to see in the genre. If you find a book that you think is stellar, don’t sadly watch it fade into obscurity. Or, worse, selfishly keep it to yourself like a literary Gollum hoarding a golden ring. Share the book with your friends. Share it with strangers on the train. Blog about it. Review it. Get the word out. Show the world the gorgeous dark prose and delightfully terrifying tales you have discovered, and the world will thank you for it.
Nightmare Magazine Issue 25, Women Destroy Horror! Special Issue Page 19