A Horror World Conversation with Lisa Morton
By Steven E. Wedel

I’d like to tell you that Lisa Morton is as nice in person as she is in e-mail and online. However, sadly, I don’t know that. I’ve heard it’s true. Heard it from people I trust. But I have yet to meet this extremely busy, very talented lady. Someday, though … someday.

Lisa was our featured author last month at Horror World. You know you didn’t get enough, though. Let’s pick the brain of the creator of “Giallo” and see if we can find what makes her like she is.

Horror World: Your Web site says that you are one of the rare native southern California girls. However, pictures I’ve seen feature dark hair and light skin. I thought native SoCal girls grew out of the sand fully tanned with blonde hair. Are you … different?

Lisa Morton: No, that’s a common misconception. In actuality, it’s only the blonde ones that grow out of the sand. The brunettes drop from the palm trees.

HW: I’m not sure where to begin with you. It seems almost easier to ask, “What have you NOT done in the genre?” You began your career with the script MEET THE HOLLOWHEADS way back in 1988. Was that really the beginning, or is there a stack of pre-HOLLOWHEADS rejections filed away somewhere?

LM: Weirdly enough I wrote no short fiction during my 20s – I was completely focused on screenwriting. I certainly had plenty of screenplay rejections; in fact, HOLLOWHEADS was the 13 th feature script I wrote (not counting teleplays and treatments). I’d had a few things optioned prior to HOLLOWHEADS, but nothing major. Oh, and by the way – I have absolutely no talent for poetry whatsoever, so there’s something in the genre I haven’t done!

HW: You must have been pretty young back in 1988. How does a young person manage to get a script produced?

LM: Granted, I was still in my 20s when I sold that script, but I’d already been writing screenplays for nearly a decade. When I was just barely out of my teens I started working in the film industry in whatever jobs I could get, and eventually one of those jobs (working as a special makeup effects sculptor) led to meeting Tom Burman, the great makeup effects wizard who directed and co-wrote HOLLOWHEADS. Tom was really how we sold that script.

HW: You were also associate producer of HOLLOWHEADS. What, exactly, did that entail? How do you feel about producing vs. writing?

LM: Basically that meant I got stuck with all the crap jobs no one else would do. No, really – I spent one afternoon scrubbing blood off the set while the rest of the crew ate lunch. I took the Associate Producer position because I wanted to learn, but I’m not sure I realized it meant I’d be attending the School of Hard Knocks! Now I really have no desire to be a producer again; I’ll just stick to cashing those writing checks. Somebody else can scrub the blood away.

HW: In 1992 you had ADVENTURES IN DINOSAUR CITY with the Disney Channel. On that one you were screenwriter, associate producer, songwriter, and miniatures coordinator. Miniatures coordinator? Really? How did you come to fill so many roles on that one?

LM: Oh God. Arrgh. Well…basically I was frequently the most competent person they could afford on that production. Actually I got the Miniatures job because I’d worked in the industry as a modelmaker, had a lot of special effects friends, and I brought them in to do the miniature effects in that film. Part of the arrangement was that I had to serve as Miniatures Coordinator. That was actually kind of fun…until the last day of miniature shooting, when we put too many explosives in one of the miniatures and kind of…um…blew a hole in the roof of the building. I think I lost part of my hearing that day.

HW: You’ve also written and co-produced numerous horror one-act plays. Tell us about some of those. How do you set out to write a one-act horror play, and is there still a market for those?

LM: I got really heavily involved in theater in the early ‘90s in part because I wanted to learn to direct (and it was great for that, by the way), and partly because I wanted some writing product on display that bore my name and that I could be genuinely proud of. I loved the idea of doing horror onstage because of the immediacy of it; I mean, in small theater your audience is sitting ten, even five feet away from the live performers, so it can be an exciting experience for an audience when done right. And there is NO market for horror plays. If you’re lucky, it won’t cost you money. I actually got out of doing theater partly because it was costing me way too much money (since I was also usually producing and/or directing the shows).

HW: We know from last month that you are accomplished in fiction. Plus you have that little Stoker Award for short fiction. And yet you have a heap of non-fiction, too. Let’s talk about that for a minute. You had THE CINEMA OF TSUI HARK, about the Hong Kong director/producer, then two volumes about the history of Halloween. What draws you to non-fiction?

LM: I’ve always read a lot of non-fiction, and my books have come about because I wanted to learn more about these areas and there were no existing books I was happy with. When I first became interested in the work of Tsui Hark, for example, there literally was not a single book on him (there’ve since been several), and even information online was sketchy.

HW: Let’s talk a bit about A Hallowe'en Anthology: Literary and Historical Writings Over the Centuries, released last year. Can you give us a teaser about what’s in it and how you went about collecting the information?

LM: After I did my first Halloween book (THE HALLOWEEN ENCYCLOPEDIA), I had this amazing wealth of material on the holiday that I hadn’t been able to completely incorporate into that book; obviously in an encyclopedia you only pull the facts and bits of information. But some of the pieces were so fascinating in their entirety (a complete history of Jack-o’-Lantern legends! Detailed descriptions of 19 th-century Halloween parties!) that I felt almost criminal keeping them only to myself. There was no previous book like it, and McFarland loved the proposal, so that kind of made it a no-brainer from that point on.

HW: Were you interested in Halloween before becoming a horror writer? Has your research into our favorite holiday inspired your fiction?

LM: I’ve always loved Halloween. It was a HUGE deal for me as a kid. I was a completely atypical little girl, because I wanted to dress as monsters or other boy-type things, and my parents got really into it, too – they’d help me make complicated costumes and masks (in first grade I had a caveman outfit actually made from a deer hide). And yes, no question that it’s inspired my fiction. Researching Halloween folklore has led me down lots of interesting byways, and a lot of them have infiltrated my prose work. I even have one story coming up in Cemetery Dance #60 (“The Devil Came to Mamie’s on Hallowe’en”) that directly incorporates Halloween and some real traditions from the South that are particularly nasty.

HW: In 2005 three horror movies based on your scripts were released. Tell us about those, and how they changed from script to screen.

LM: Those were BLOOD ANGELS (vampire babes who run a traveling rave), BLUE DEMON (genetically altered sharks) and THE GLASS TRAP (giant ants invade a glass skyscraper). BLOOD ANGELS was the first in the deal – it was a spec script that was optioned to a production company who ended up making it the first of a three-picture deal, where my writing partner and I sold them GLASS TRAP in treatment form, then they gave us the basics for BLUE DEMON and we developed it from their title and synopsis. As to how they changed from script to screen…welllll…the finished film of BLUE DEMON bears maybe a 30% resemblance to the original script, BLOOD ANGELS about 20% and GLASS TRAP about 1% (really, not even the character names are the same – the shooting draft retained nothing but the very basic concept and the title). BLUE DEMON was funny because I was given some very bizarre specifics that had to be in the script – a shark attack on a ferry, a mountain roadside chase between two semis – and none of those things are in the finished film! Of course I wish they had just asked me to rewrite the thing once those parameters changed, but c’est la vie. The check cleared the bank.

HW: You are an advocate of foreign films. We had a short blog discussion recently about how European and Asian horror films are better than what’s being made in Hollywood today. Why do you think that’s the case?

LM: I’ve had a theory for a while now about the Asian business model for film vs. the U.S. business model: In the U.S., the idea is to achieve success by essentially making the same film over and over, but in Asia (and perhaps in Europe as well), producers will gamble on a different or new type of film making more money than another variant of the last hit. I also think that perhaps horror films overseas don’t carry the same stigma there that they do here. The most recent horror hit from Hong Kong, for example, was a film called PAINTED SKIN that was directed by a filmmaker (Gordon Chan) usually known for his dramas, and it starred two of the hottest and best young actresses in the Chinese film community. It’s like Martin Scorsese making a horror movie starring Kate Winslet and Amy Adams. It just doesn’t happen here, and more’s the pity.

HW: How about your fiction? Is there a Lisa Morton novel coming sometime, or is the short story your preferred fiction form?

LM: There is a novel coming soon, but it’s only just been accepted by a wonderful British publisher and I haven’t signed the contract yet, so I don’t feel completely comfortable talking about it now. Stay tuned…

HW: A long time ago I took some writing classes taught by mystery author Carolyn Wheat. During that time I got a job at Borders. Carolyn told me an author working in a book store was like a veterinarian working at a butcher shop. As a bookstore employee yourself, do you agree with that? What are the advantages and disadvantages of being an author and working in a bookstore?

LM: That’s a strange analogy! But it might also be the difference between working at a new chain store and a used independent store. I adore my life as a bookseller, and would be very reluctant to give it up; in fact, I’ve turned down a couple of film jobs that would have required me leaving the bookstore for an extended period of time. Aside from the fact that I just love being around books and book people all day long, it’s also an instant reference library – we have 100,000 books in all subjects, some dating back to the 17 th century. A fair amount of information that appeared in THE HALLOWEEN ENCYCLOPEDIA was acquired during my regular working hours, for example. As far as disadvantages…well, it’s not an easy job! When you work for a small independent, you end up doing everything – in a typical day I might be lifting heavy boxes, listing books for sale online, ringing up in-store customers, working on the store’s accounting and answering the phone all in a mad, colliding rush for eight solid hours. Sometimes when I come home I’m so exhausted that I know I won’t be doing much writing that night! And of course it’s not exactly a highly paid position. I can truthfully say that I couldn’t survive without my writing income.

HW: You’ve won the Horror Writers Association’s Richard Laymon Award twice. I know from my time as a trustee in HWA that you are the go-to person for all kinds of tasks. Why is the HWA important to you?

LM: Some of my friends tell me I’m a classic “over-functioner”. I do have a bad habit of taking on too much of anything I get involved with. But I do like the idea of helping other writers and promoting a genre that I obviously have a lifelong love affair with; I’ve also acquired some fantastic friends as a result of HWA. The benefits have so far outweighed the negatives, so I’ve stuck with it.

HW: Who or what inspires you?

LM: A lot of things, a lot of people. Both my parents are amazing people – my dad’s a mad genius who’s been involved with the design of everything from the Mercury mission astronaut space helmets to the conductors on PC motherboards, and my mom’s kindness and grace have always astonished me. I’m often inspired by the beauty, history and discipline of Chinese culture. Writing-wise, my biggest horror influence has probably been the work of Dennis Etchison – until I read his collection THE DARK COUNTRY I really had never thought of writing horror fiction – and I’m very fortunate to call him a friend now.

HW: What can we expect to see from you in the near future? How about long term?

LM: Near future: My first anthology as an editor will be out this June (MIDNIGHT WALK), my first novella will be out not long thereafter (THE LUCID DREAMING), and the novel will follow. This fall will see the release of my next non-fiction book, a biography/filmography of the late DETOUR star Ann Savage (co-written with her manager Kent Adamson). There’s also lots of new short fiction coming in a variety of books and magazines, and several non-fiction articles (I’d love to talk about one in particular, but I think they’re waiting to unveil the contributors so I’d better not spoil the big surprise!). Long term: More novels, maybe even a young adult book. At some point I’d love to get a collection out there.

HW: Okay, here’s where I give you free reign to get on a soapbox, pimp your work, or cover whatever topic I forgot to ask about.

LM: If you’re still reading, it means you’re a serious horror-lover and you totally need to come to the Stoker Weekend in June! It’s one of the biggest things I’ve worked on for ages (it feels like I’m back producing low-budget movies again), but putting it together with John R. Little has been an absolute delight and the weekend is going to ROCK. Really, this’ll be THE horror party of the decade! Go buy tickets right now at http://www.stokers2009.com . ‘Cause with guests like Richard Matheson and his wonderful offspring R.C. and Mick Garris and John Farris and F. Paul Wilson and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and David Hartwell and Gary Braunbeck, if this thing doesn’t sell out I’m going to take it as a serious personal affront and will soon be hunting you down. Either buy a ticket or start running.

HW: Thanks so much for your time, Lisa. We really appreciate it, and now I look forward to meeting you in person even more.

LM: Likewise, Steve!

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