I met Todd Farmer at Comic-Con in July while visiting the RAW Entertainment booth. A crowd was forming along a couple of tables and I saw actor Thomas Jane (The Punisher, The Mist ) and comics superstar Tim Bradstreet (The Punisher, Hellblazer ) holding court at their publishing company’s kiosk. This was all very cool, but what caught my attention was the tall guy working the back of the booth, a person I’d last seen with a pickaxe being removed from the top of his shaved head. I instantly recognized Farmer from his small part in My Bloody Valentine 3D, a film that he also wrote, along with Jason X and The Messengers 2: The Scarecrow.

Over the din of the convention center, I told him that I was a fan of “Jason in Space”, which seemed to catch him by surprise. We chatted briefly about horror movies and—on Tom Jane’s recommendation—he signed a copy of his RAW graphic novel, Alien Pig Farm 3000. Before leaving, he agreed to an interview with Chateau Grrr and also volunteered to take a picture of me with Jane and Bradstreet.

Todd Farmer is a very funny, very nice guy, despite that fact that he’s built a career out of creatively eviscerating teenagers on the page. I caught up with him via phone from his office in Northern California, and we had a lively discussion about his career, the creative process, and the importance of respecting horror movies.

On your Web site, I saw that you were born and raised in Kentucky, but then you moved to Dallas and picked up a couple of books on screenwriting, one of which was a book of [Quentin] Tarantino screenplays. Can you tell us about how that inspired you to change your writing style, from perhaps writing the great American novel to working in movies?

I just wasn’t patient enough for the great American novel. Once I had the story figured out, I didn’t have the patience to write the three, four, five hundred pages, whatever it would be.

But with a screenplay, I flipped through a small book—I think it had three or four screenplays—and True Romance was one, Reservoir Dogs; I’m not sure if it had Pulp Fiction or not—probably. And the first screenplay I wrote, I sort of mimicked that structure—or at least I thought I was mimicking that structure; it turns out I had no idea what I was doing. What jumped out at me more than anything else was—especially with Tarantino—the dialogue was just so perfect. It was quirky, yet at the same time it was real. It was the kind of thing that you would hear people saying on the street. For me, that was the biggest influence.

The structure for screenplays, all that stuff came later. Once you’ve done it for a number of years that stuff becomes secondary. It’s interesting to me, if you ever go into arbitration with the writer’s guild, [where] a couple of people are going up for the same credit, the dialogue is one of the least argued [points] as far as the writer’s guild is concerned, which I think is kind of silly; the dialogue is one of the vastly important parts of any movie, and some people write great dialogue and some people don’t. I got off onto a tangent, but that’s basically how I started writing, was imitating somebody else’s structure. And I didn’t get it right, but that’s how I got started.

When you started out, I understand you had ideas for some fantasy films. Is that true?

Those were the stories that I liked the most. You know, I started out playing Dungeons & Dragons. I loved fantasy back before it was cool. I mean, I think a lot of people did love fantasy, it’s just that Hollywood didn’t understand it—and to some degree, probably still doesn’t. Certainly, The Lord of the Rings —there may never be an epic quite like that. It’s a timing thing. You had Peter Jackson, who was for the most part left alone; he was off in the middle of nowhere shooting it, and he turned out a fantastic three-picture adventure.

All of the Harry Potter movies—in my book—are fantastic. When you go back to the original Chris Columbus movies to the more adult versions that we have now, I love them—but when you started out in the movies, you started out in horror ‘cause that was the bottom rung. There was no competition, that’s where you got your foot in the door. After Scream, all that changed, because every studio had their genre department. I got started in horror, and as it turned out I was pretty good at it; so I’m more than happy to stay with it. But a passion of mine was always fantasy.

I’m glad you mentioned Scream. Did you notice a shift in your writing—or the expectations for what you were writing—before and after that movie came out?

I didn’t. And I don’t know that any writer necessarily did. Kevin [Williamson] had his own style, and it’s a great style, a fantastic style. If you go in and mimic Kevin’s style, I think you’re opening yourself up to heartache. That said, the morons running the studios, the executives, that’s exactly what they wanted for a long time.

I was involved in the Freddy vs. Jason development disaster before Scream came out. We had a script that I thought was a pretty good script. It was an event movie. It was Godzilla vs. King Kong; it had a lot of action; it had a lot of action; it had a lot of good scares. Then Scream came out. And people forget, Scream wasn’t a success. Scream was likely a failure; I think it opened at, like, $6 million—maybe less than that. I mean, it opened abysmally. The next week, it made $9 million, and people were scratching their heads, like, “Wait a minute! It made more money the second weekend?” By the third weekend, I think it was 15, 16—I don’t know what it was, but that was the Scream story. It took people by complete surprise. Nobody was out buying Mercedes, getting ready for what was gonna be this huge Scream thing; nobody knew it was coming.

So it really took Hollywood by storm. Suddenly all horror movies became self-aware. There were drafts of Freddy vs. Jason where all the kids knew about Freddy vs. Jason; they were all talking about Freddy vs. Jason. It was just a different way of doing it. I’ve seen it happen a lot. I’ve seen more executives come and go because they latch onto this stuff, and it’s just a fad.

Kevin is a great writer and he’s a great person. But that genre of film was replaced—I think the next one was The Ring, you know, that Japanese horror. For awhile, you couldn’t throw a stick without hitting some Japanese import. After that, I think it was Hostel, the torture porn, after the Asian influx. Now it’s remakes. We’ll see how long remakes last.

The most shocking change was right before Scream. ‘Cause literally, there were only a couple of places you could make horror. Dimension and New Line were the main places. And nobody else cared. In fact, when we did The Messengers at Revolution, they were really quite embarrassed by the whole horror genre; they didn’t want to be involved in that game. And now Revolution is no more. After Scream, all of that changed. Now, every studio, every producer, has a genre department. It’s part of the problem, but it’s kind of a good thing, ‘cause there are so many movies we can make now. At the same time, there are a lot of people who’ve started working in the genre that—oh, I should stop right there [Laughs].

No, no! Finish your thought. It’s totally fine.

I just feel like you should…the genre wasn’t my first choice. But I have learned to embrace and love it and respect it. There are some people who work in the business who either don’t get it or don’t respect it. You have to love this genre in order to make good movies. I really believe that. I think if you look at the best movies out there, whether it’s a horror movie or Amadeus, you can watch the movie and you can tell when the people behind the movie loved it. And you can watch a movie and you can tell that they were just cashing a check. I think we have to quit doing that, and I think we have to quit hiring people who do that. But that’s just me. No one’s asking my opinion other than you.

In terms of your perception of horror movies, you said that you grew to love them. When you began writing them, did you immerse yourself in what had come before, or how did you school yourself in horror films?

I was always a huge horror movie fan, I just never realized that’s what I would be good at writing. Just like most people of my generation, I grew up completely submerged in Star Wars, Indiana Jones, the big action movies. When I first moved out to L.A., Twister was the big movie of the summer. Love it or hate it, Twister’s a big event movie, and that’s the kind of movie I thought I would end up writing. For three or four years, I didn’t have a movie; I didn’t have anything, but I would call myself a screenwriter. I made money as a screenwriter because [Sean] Cunningham was paying me weekly—when I begged him to get paid, that was. I would make the joke that people would ask me, “Have you done anything that I’ve seen?”

And I’d say, “Have you seen Armageddon?”

And they were, like, “You wrote that?”

I never would say I wrote it, but I worked with Jonathan Hensleigh, who did write it, and I used to joke about the fact that I used to take credit for his work. I think he thought it was funny.

So, you were working for Sean Cunningham. Was this during the development of Freddy vs. Jason?

Yeah, I don’t remember how far into Freddy vs. Jason they were when I started working there, but they’d gone through several drafts. Cy[ris Voris] and Ethan [Reiff], were the guys. Cy and Ethan just did Nottingham; the spec that they sold was the Sheriff of Nottingham was the good guy and Robin Hood was the bad guy. Then Ridley Scott came on board and I think he changed that around so that Robin Hood is the good guy and Nottingham is the bad guy—we’ve never seen that before, and it’s an interesting take.

But Cy and Ethan, that’s where they’ve ended up. I think they did Bulletproof Monk. And they were great writers. They had a great draft [of Freddy vs. Jason], and that draft would’ve made an excellent movie. But Scream came out and sort of threw a monkey wrench into all horror. But I stayed there for another year or so and Sean—probably rightfully so—was fed up with the fact that Freddy vs. Jason was this ongoing development.

And he says, “Fine, I’m gonna go make another Jason movie.” So we discussed different ideas, and I take full responsibility for the whole space thing; I thought we could do it. I didn’t know that it would become what it became. And a lot of people love it, and a lot of people don’t. I thought we were gonna do Alien, that was the idea. We were gonna take this great movie, Alien; we were gonna take Tom Skerritt, and Sigourney Weaver, and John Hurt, and all these guys who were just fantastic—lift the aliens out of the movie, and drop Jason into it. But that didn’t happen.

We ended up with more of a Star Trek thing. And that’s fine. Cunningham did a lot of rewrites on set, and sort of changed the tone of the movie, to make it a little more tongue-in-cheek; and that’s fine, too. It wouldn’t have been my choice. The line, “He’s screwed” was not my line. My brain would’ve never gone there. It’s an interesting line, and it works in a certain kind of horror genre film, but wouldn’t’ve been my line. Some people love the movie, so more power to ‘em.

I’m one of them. I think I mentioned to you at the convention that I’m one of three people who loved the movie.

I’ve certainly softened to the movie over the years, and what I love about it is that the structure, the story is still the same. What bothers me is I wish it was a darker, dirtier movie. I wish you could literally take the sets from Alien and put Jason in there; I think it would’ve been a scarier movie. Not a better movie, but certainly a scarier movie. And I wish we hadn’t screwed so much with the characters. But that’s just me. Everybody’s gonna have their own opinion. I’m still gonna cash the checks when they come in; I’m not gonna send them back.

When you have a situation like that, where you start off with a vision and it gets tinkered with by a studio or whoever, are you ever able to take the nuggets of that story and put them into something else?

Yeah, I do it all the time. Messengers is a good example. The original Messengers changed drastically from my original draft. And then we ended up doing a sequel to The Messengers, which was based on my original draft. Unfortunately, [with] that movie, there were two major elements from that movie that changed in order to do the direct-to-DVD version. So those two major elements I have actually put into another [script], which it’s too early to talk about. But I’ve put them into something else that will likely see the light of day, and it will be something that came originally from Messengers. What was that, six, seven years ago?

I think it was only a couple years ago.

Well, for me, I wrote it six or seven years ago; it was a long process. I’m working predominantly with [Patrick] Lussier now, who directed My Bloody Valentine [3D]. We went in on a remake—must’ve been two or three months ago—and we have taken this concept from an older movie, an original movie, and we’ve taken basically the title and created our own world around that title. And the movie was still paying respect to the original but it was very different. And the company was one of the bigger studios—and quite honestly, they just never got it. They didn’t understand the whole genre. Halfway through the pitch, the precious female executive stopped us and said, “Now, what is this story?”

“Well, we’ve been pitching you the story for ten minutes…”

So we have now taken that and put a new title on it; it’s the exact same pitch that we had—you would never recognize it as a remake to this original thing—and we’ve re-boxed it and pitched it somewhere else. And we’re likely gonna sell it. Because we pitched it to someone who was a non-studio and they got it. We do it all the time.

So this is in motion?

The deal is done, but I think they like to make those announcements. You’ll probably see an announcement in the next month or two. There’s an element of that movie that we’ve lifted from other stuff that we’ve done. And that’s good news. It’s great when you can take an idea that got crapped on and you can use it in something else. The problem is when you write it into a script that is paid for, then they technically own it. Even though they didn’t use it, they still own it. If anybody ever catches wind, they will come sue you because they like to sue. They’ve got a whole bunch of lawyers on retainer ain’t doin’ nothin’ but drawing money, and they like to sue. You can go pitch ideas and re-use those, but if they ever buy that idea, you’re kinda screwed. But that’s an interesting question. Nobody’s ever asked that.

How did you get hooked up with Patrick Lussier?

Patrick and I met on The Messengers, what was originally called The Scarecrow. I’d done a first draft, and Patrick came in with Lou Arkoff. Patrick was the director, Lou was the producer. And we did sort of a director’s draft, which took it into a more supernatural…you didn’t happen to see Messengers 2, [did] you?

I did see Messengers 2. I have a review of it up on Chateau Grrr right now.

Y’know, you mentioned that. I was gonna go look. Did you love it or hate it?

I really liked it. I didn’t hate it, and I didn’t absolutely love it. I think it was sort of problematic towards the end because I was really looking forward to the part where Rollins goes crazy and offs his family. The idea that it was packaged as a prequel, I was expecting that. If it had not had the Messengers brand on it, that would not have bothered me at all.

Well, I can tell you the true story now; [the movie’s] already out. Can’t hurt nothin’. Not that it’s a true story, I can just tell you the behind-the-scenes stuff. What was fun about it was, the executive who found it, there’s no reason in the world he should have read it. First off. Because why would you read the first draft of a movie that’s already come out? But he did, and his idea was that this would make an interesting prequel. And I argued for awhile.

I was, like, “Why would we wanna do a prequel?” Because there were elements in it that would not work as a prequel, and I’ll tell you what those are. The original movie was exactly what you’ve seen. A lot of the dialogue is exactly the same, the dynamics between the family is exactly the same. The difference was instead of having two kids, they had one kid, a little girl. She’s probably thirteen, fourteen years old. Throughout the course of the movie, as Rollins starts—his name wasn’t Rollins back then, I believe it was Solomon—as Rollins starts going more and more crazy and wondering what’s going on with the scarecrow and people are dying, his life’s improving; all these things are happening just like in the movie that exists. Toward the end of the movie, he’d gone to Jude, he’d gone to Miranda, he’s figured out how to destroy the scarecrow. They’ve given him this book; he’s out in the barn. His daughter has come out and she’s arguing with him.

She’s, like, “Dad, just go in the house, make things right with Mom.”

He snaps at her, she doesn’t understand. The barn door opens, and it’s his wife; she’s, like, “Who are you yelling at?”

He’s, like, “I’m talking to Jessica!”

She says, “Baby, Jessica’s been dead for a year.”

And so you realize throughout the course of the movie, everywhere that we’ve seen the little girl, she’s only been interacting with him. She’s never been talking to Mom. They’ve been in the same room together, but they never corresponded, they never spoke. It was always just the two of them. And it was done in a way that was very Sixth Sense, in that when you watch it a second time you go, “Oh, yeah, shoulda got it.” So at that point, he completely snaps and it’s the end of The Shining. And that was the original movie. There was never a killer scarecrow; it was always John Rollins.

When I went in and pitched it, it was the horror version of A Beautiful Mind. And that’s what sold it. The first time that went away, it was because Todd Garner, who was the head of the studio at the time, just never liked it. So he got rid of it right off the bat. Then, when Stuart Beattie came in and re-wrote it, it didn’t have any of that; so I don’t think [Ghosthouse Pictures head Sam] Raimi and those guys ever saw that ‘til they read this draft. But then the executive who started working on it when we did Messengers 2, he wanted to do the prequel; he wanted to tell the John Rollins story.

Then, two things happened. Sam said, “I don’t have a problem in the world with the killer scarecrow.” Now, when Sam Raimi tells you he wants you to do a killer scarecrow, great idea, you go do a killer scarecrow. If I have one criticism, it would be that I wish we could’ve done this for a little bit more money. This was a $2 million budget, so you can’t do a really good killer scarecrow for that kind of money. I think we did a fantastic job with the money we had; I think Martin [Barnewitz, director] did a phenomenal job, I just wish he’d had more money to work with. I think he could’ve done an even better job.

The other thing was, we had the original downer John Rollins ending, where he kills his family, and all along I kept saying, “Geez, I don’t wanna see that. It’s just so dark.” I didn’t wanna do the prequel idea because I thought, “Nothing good will come of this.” It’s not like The Shining; at least in The Shining, y’know, they get away. The poor kid, you’re rootin’ for him the whole time and he gets away. But that’s not the case in this movie; in this movie, you know going in they’re gonna die. So the fact that we still called it a prequel was interesting.

I mean, you can still say that the seeds are sewn—I think they even said that in the movie, maybe—that, y’know, Rollins is still gonna go crazy, eventually. But, I don’t know, I’ve seen the movie twice now. I saw it right before [recording] the commentary, and to be honest with you, I loved it. I had a blast. Even though a lot of the stuff has changed, it’s still mine. I still wrote everything. That’s really staggering for a screenwriter. Yes, I know only four people are gonna see it, but it was still fun; and it’s what I wrote. Anyway, I’m jabberin’ on and on…

I think one of the things that was great and sort of disappointing about Messengers 2 was throughout the entire film, I was really enjoying it, especially Norman Reedus’ performance—it was much more character-driven than what I expected from a direct-to-video sequel with a glowing-eyed scarecrow on the cover. I was really into the psychology of it. But then the scarecrow comes to life and starts attacking people, and it kind of lost its way, I think.

Yeah, I think if we’d done the psychological version without at the end of the movie [revealing] the killer scarecrow, still the psychological version is cool. I remember at one point in the script—I think right now, Rollins finds the scarecrow in the barn—originally, it was High Plains Drifter; he just chases crows through the field and sort of collapses on the side of the road—he’s all distraught and breathing heavy—and on the horizon you see this truck materialize. It pulls up and this old guy gets out, and his truck is just loaded with this crap; he’s basically the Devil, and he says, “What you need is a scarecrow.” And he hands him the scarecrow, and it’s the same story from there. But due to budget, it’s a lot easier if you find the scarecrow in the barn; ‘cause we’re already paying for the barn.

[At this point, what sounds like a fleet of fire trucks passes by Farmer’s office]

Apparently, we’ve got fires going on somewhere, so that’s what you’re hearing. I’m six hours north of L.A. right now. Where are you?

I’m in Chicago.

Chicago! It is so cold in Chicago sometimes that when you breathe in, your snot freezes. But you probably know that.

Yep. I’ve been here all my life. I can take it or leave it sometimes. But that’s a really interesting story, about Messengers 2. I was wondering about that the whole time I was watching, how everything tied in. I did notice some thematic carry-overs between the films. I especially liked the fact that all of the crows are dead in the prequel, and then there are swarms of them in the original, like they’re getting revenge for having a scarecrow sicced on them.

For me, any horror film, any genre film has always been about the characters. I’ve always loved the husband and wife characters and the very old-fashioned sort of biblical, Bible Belt belief system that they’re using. And that was a struggle because a lot of people in L.A. don’t get that. I grew up in Kentucky. Chicago’s not that religious, is it? It’s not considered the Bible Belt, is it?

No. It’s has more northern, progressive attitudes, but we’re in the Midwest, so…

Alright, I’ve derailed us. Where were we?

I’d like to go back and talk about My Bloody Valentine. Now, you were [originally] working with Lussier on The Messengers. How did you guys come up with the idea of remaking My Bloody Valentine?

Patrick had just done some work on The Eye. That was for Lionsgate and Cruise/Wagner and that whole crew. Patrick and I had been friends since Scarecrow; we’d kept in touch over the years. I’ve called him the Ron Howard of horror movies. He’s a really nice guy, y’know, he’s not a screamer on the set. Bloody Valentine was sixteen-hour days. It was a miserable, miserable shoot. Shooting in the mine, shooting in the rain, everything about it was miserable. But the crew just adored this guy, would bend over backwards, would do anything for him, ‘cause he’s just a genuinely nice guy.

And it’s so rare to have that in Hollywood. Me? I’m evil. I’m horrible. I am a nightmare, nasty person. But the two of us together sort of compliment each other. So, over the years we’ve stayed in touch, and we’ve tried to work on a dozen different projects.

So, he was coming off The Eye, and I think the [writer’s] strike was just about to happen, and he said, “You know what? Your name came up. You should come in and do a re-write.”

I said, “Great!” And then the strike happened. I heard nothing. Lionsgate cut a deal with the Writer’s Guild, basically saying whatever you guys agree to, when this thing is over, we’re with you; we’re on your team.

And so the Guild says, “Alright, fine. You guys can keep working.”

So, oddly enough, during the strike, three of the companies that I was working with during the time cut deals with the Writer’s Guild. So I ended up working through probably the last half of the strike. And I didn’t broadcast that, ‘cause I had buddies who were not doing well. But, yeah, I stayed busy.

The draft of Valentine—the draft before me—was [about] a retired fireman and the town was a pulp mill. There wasn’t a mine, there wasn’t a miner. That was problematic. The one thing Patrick and I always discussed was, if you’re gonna do a remake, take what worked in the original, take what was iconic, and show the original respect—it did come first; it clearly had something, or we wouldn’t be remaking it. [The original] My Bloody Valentine was perfect, because it was made for no money; it was literally made for, like, $43 and a box of smokes. We threw some money at it; we got some real actors in it. Not to criticize the original at all, but we really loved and respected it.

I see a lot of remakes that it just feels like they’re cashing a check, and that irks me more than anything. But there was some blood and tears lost on this one because we fought tooth and nail to make the movie we wanted to make. And I think we did. And because of that, Lussier and I have decided that we will remain a partnership.

So are you going to work on a sequel?

No, Lionsgate doesn’t want to do a sequel. Bloody Valentine cost $16 million to make, roughly; it made $92 million worldwide. Maybe if we’d made $97 million worldwide, they’d wanna do a sequel. They think it’s too risky to take a $16 million dollar movie that only makes $92 million and make a sequel out of that. I mean, I know that Friday the 13th, the remake, they greenlit the sequel to that the weekend it was released. Those guys, those guys, they’re risk-takers. Lionsgate, they’re a little more careful than that. They’re not gonna let a little bit of money throw them off track; they’re gonna stick to their guns. At one point we heard there were some rights issues between them and Paramount—I don’t know how much is true and how much is not.

I heard that there were some concerns that Avatar was going to be coming out at the beginning of next year, so that there wouldn’t be the 3-D screens for us, which…y’know Halloween’s coming out in August. Halloween takes place in October. We came out in January. Valentine’s Day is in February. So I don’t think that’s a very good excuse. I think you come out when you come out. It’s interesting. Lionsgate has that stuff to deal with, and they will continue to deal with that. I wish them all the luck in the world. What I did adore about Lionsgate, the guys in Marketing, boy did they market our movie. Holy cow. You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a miner. They really supported this movie. That was Tim Palen and Miss Sarah [Greenberg], who—the dog in the movie is her dog. And the little person was one of Tim’s best friends. See, you’re getting all this insider information.

You were in the movie, in couple of very memorable scenes. Were you on-set during the whole production? Were you that involved?

Oh, no. I was only on-set during the stuff I was supposed to shoot. A couple days before, a couple days after. That will likely change on the movies we do in the future. It was more difficult to do that, because there are changes. All movies have little re-writes here or there because a set will be screwed up, or because the actor needs to do something differently. There’s constant re-writing during a movie.

I don’t understand the unwillingness to have a writer on-set, to have a writer there. I never understood that. If a director wants it, then they should be there. I understand some directors and writers don’t get along. Patrick and I never had that. I felt like—and this goes all the way back to Jason X—I felt like my job was to support the director a thousand percent. The director’s having to fight everybody. He’s having to fight the producers, he’s having to fight the studio, he’s having to fight people who are angry. So as a writer, I think you should be supportive of your director. If he’s a good director. Patrick’s a good director.

It’s unfortunate that there seems to be so much interference from people who aren’t directly involved in the creative process. Do you find that to be true?

It’s true. I mean it’s not vicious, it’s not vindictive. It doesn’t come from a place of evil or anything like that. I think the biggest problem is that the creative types can read a script—they can remember what it feels like to read it that first time. Now, they’ll tweak things and polish things as they go, but what was great about it never loses that aura, that glow, necessarily. What I’ve seen pretty consistently across the board when it comes to executives is that they forget. And at the eleventh hour, suddenly, they start throwing changes at the script.

It’s not anything that they’re doing to mess with you or screw you up, it’s that they read these scenes and they’re not laughing anymore. They’re like, “This is not funny! This used to be funny. It’s not working. We have to fix this!”

And I’m, like, “Well, you’ve read it forty times, so it’s not funny.”

“To get to the other side” only works the first time. When you know the chicken went over there for that reason, it’s not funny anymore. But you tell a three-year-old that joke, they’ll laugh forever. You tell a seven-year-old that joke, “You’re so lame.” The difference is creative types remember that the joke’s funny the first time.

I’d like to sidestep now into comics writing. How did you become involved with RAW Studios?

I met Tom [Jane, actor and RAW publisher] at a hotel in L.A., the Chateau Marmont. This was years and years ago. We talked about a bunch of different ideas, and I mentioned this idea about aliens attacking a Kentucky moonshing town, a bunch of rednecks. And he loved it. We started to do it as a graphic novel, a comic book series, and to own it, as opposed to just selling everything outright to a studio. That’s how that started, and I’ve written The Lycan for Tom and Tim [Bradstreet] and those guys. That’s a six-issue series, which we’ll likely come out with this next year. It’s an 1800’s werewolf story.

Is there plans to turn these series into movies? Is this sort of a back door into filmmaking?

Absolutely. I don’t know if you’ve read Alien Pig Farm [3000], but if there’s a problem with it, it’s that it reads like a screenplay. There’s four issues, so it reads like a four-act screenplay, which is great when it comes time to sell it in Hollywood. We’ve let a few people read it. The problem is, RAW Entertainment is not our day-job. I’m off writing movies and Tom’s off starring in different things. So we haven’t given the company the time that it deserves, because we’ve got some really good content.

Devil’s Commandos is a screenplay basically that I wrote for Tom to star in. It’s a team of 1940, ’42 World War II commando units sent to one of the Aleutian islands off of Alaska; which, back in the war, there were concerns [that] the Japanese would land and put up a landing strip there. They would connect between Japan and the states. Anyway, we’ve got a group that’s sent there because they’ve lost contact with the unit that’s stationed there, and when they get there, they discover that the island is swarming with monsters. So, it’s basically “Tom Jane fights monsters.”

I was gonna say, the first three-quarters of that sounded like you were taking a severe departure, making a war film. But then the monsters show up, so…

The idea, oddly enough, is that we’re making a war film. It’s a war film with monsters. It’s not a monster film with some war going on in it. We went through and we watched The Eagle has Landed, and we watched all the old war movies, ‘cause that’s what we wanted, to create this very rich, war-is-hell-type tapestry. And that’s something that we’re playing around with the idea of doing it ourselves rather than selling the idea to the studios.

I think the studios would jump at it. And the people that we’ve talked to have said the studios will likely jump at it, because we’ve sort of stumbled on one of those things that Hollywood calls “high-concept”. It’s got this really big idea in the middle of it. If we’re gonna sell it to ‘em, they’re gonna really have to make an offer we can’t refuse, ‘cause I’d rather own it ourselves.

If Tom’s gonna star in it, do you have any idea who would direct it?

We talked about how Tom might direct it. He directed Dark Country. We talked about Lussier directing it. There’s different people we’ve discussed. We talked about doing it in 3D. I think we’re very likely in the next few months going to concentrate on it and we’ve all been…[Tom’s] got Hung going on, so he’s busy with that. Lussier and I just sold a spec that we wrote and we’ve attached a star to it, so that’s coming, hopefully sooner than later. And then Lussier and I just did a re-write of I Saw What You Did, which is based on an old William Castle movie, for Dark Castle and Silver Pictures. And we had a blast doing it, and absolute blast. It was the most fun, other than the spec—which was the most fun to write—it was the most fun I’ve had writing in a really long time. Bloody Valentine was fun, but it was just different. This movie is more thriller than horror. I love horror. I always will. But I love hot fudge sundaes, and it’s kinda nice to have a chocolate milkshake every now and then, have a little something different.

In terms of writing, whether it’s for comics—for which you’ve said you stick to the screenplay method—or for a movie, what’s your process like? Is there a lot of sitting around, hammering things out? Do you do a lot of research, or is it all from the gut? How do you work?

Normally, I write the screenplay in my head, for the most part. It doesn’t have to be word-for-word, but I’ll take a week or two and play World of Warcraft; I’ll take a week or two and hang out at the ocean with my kid. I’m putting it altogether. Then, when I sit down at the computer, I can write it pretty quickly. It all kind of falls into place. It’s never a guideline that I have to stick to because I require that the characters do different things that I want them to do.

Some of the best beats I’ve ever written, I don’t know where it came from because I didn’t have it timed out. It’s just when the character got to that moment, suddenly they did something I wasn’t expecting. I know that sounds goofy—granted I’m writing it—but the idea just sort of pops into your head; I didn’t plan it out. Some of the best stuff that’s happened in a screenplay happened that way. So, that’s a good thing. That’s kinda how I write: I put it together in my head, then I sit down and pound it out. If I’ve got the story figured out in my head, I can pound it out in a week, but it may take three or four weeks to get it right in my head.

It’s gotta percolate…

It does. And there’s a lot of stuff in World of Warcraft that needs to be killed. I mean, if it wasn’t for EverQuest, Jason X would’ve never been written.

[Laughs]

I assume we’re shootin’ it straight here. If it wasn’t for Quake 2, Halo, those guys, my career would be over!

When you watch horror movies, do you take notes in your head, like, “This is not something I want to do,” or, “This is something I want to pursue?” How much do you let that influence you?

Y’know, I’m not very good at that. When I first see a movie, I forget that I work in the business. I know some people figured out that Bruce Willis was a ghost, but when that ring hit the floor, my first thought was, “You idiot! You left your ring!”

It still didn’t occur to me that he was a ghost. Look, I’m the best audience member ever; I don’t figure anything out. I’m just there for the ride and I’m the first one to “[Gasp] Really?!” I don’t see nothin’ coming. I don’t think like a screenwriter; I’m there to enjoy the ride.

And I’m glad that I’m like that. Now, there’s a group of movies that I put into different categories after I get out of them. Like, there’s movies I see, when I walk out, I’m like, “I wish they’d let me write that.” Because there’s this really great idea, but it just wasn’t quite right. Now, I’m sure people have walked out of Jason X thinking the same thing. God bless ‘em.

But then there’s movies like Amadeus. I walk out of there and I’m just in awe; I’m, like, “I can’t do that.” I could never do that. It’s not a movie I could write but boy am I glad somebody did. And I get the same sense from Wall-E or Monsters, Inc. —I see these because I have a kid—but they’re remarkable, and I don’t know that I could do that. But, boy, I’m fascinated by it and the ability that people have to do it.

At the same time there are movies that I have seen, that I’m, like, “[Sigh] Why? Why did they make this?” I don’t understand why you would make it in the first place. It seems like more and more these days there are a lot of those things. And [they] don’t even do a good job of it! Those are my least fun experiences; I assume everybody has them.

To wrap up, I’d like to go back to your roots in fantasy, and being a D&D fan. Do you write fantasy scripts or continue to write fantasy stories? Are there any ideas kicking around in your head that you might want to move forward with someday? Or are you fine hanging out in horror?

It’s tough. [Pause] I love the fact that I now know Sam Raimi. Because he’s done both; and now he’s doing World of Warcraft —I mean, what a dream; an absolute dream job. He started out in horror, and he embraced horror; he loved horror. He still loves it. He gets giddy. [Messengers 2] was a direct-to-DVD movie—we never pretended it was anything but a direct-to-DVD movie—and he was there in the room with us.

We were having a discussion. “Would you call it a ‘’fridge’ or a ‘refrigerator’?”

And I’m, like, “In the South, they call it a ‘’fridge’. Or they call it a ‘freezer’. ‘Put the meat in the freezer’.”

He’s, like, “’Freezer’? Really?”

And we’re having this discussion—it’s a goofy discussion, but we’re having it. I’m thinking, “This is awesome!” I’ve now worked with [John] Carpenter, I’ve worked with Cunningham, I’ve worked with [Wes] Craven, Raimi. I’m telling you, if you put these guys in a cage, only Raimi’s comin’ out alive. It’s the greatest cage match ever, but Raimi’s the man; he kicks all their butts. And I loved it a lot. What were we talkin’ about? I got sidetracked ‘cause I love Raimi so much.

[Laughs] Fantasy stuff.

Oh, yeah. Here’s a guy who started in horror and now he’s doing fantasy. I mean, that’s fantastic to me. It’s awesome. Maybe there’s hope for me. I would love to do it one day. I don’t think I would want to just do fantasy, but I would sure like to do it once. Did you see—who was the guy who wrote Sandman?

Neil Gaiman.

Yeah, his little fantasy movie…

Stardust?

What a great movie! What a great, fun little movie. So, yeah, I’m a big fan of fantasy. Do I write it? The closest thing I wrote was a horror/fantasy. But what I do have is I have my books on tape—I live six hours north of L.A., so I get to listen to plenty of fantasy when I drive in and out of town.