five with frights - team edition:- craig mcgee
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Mr. Frights is proud to present TEAM FRIGHTS member CRAIG MCGEE!
The Chainsaw Mafia.com
Horrornews.net
IMDB
MR. FRIGHTS: For writing horror, is there a place you go to in your mind to come up with that stuff?-
CRAIG MCGEE: There is, and sometimes I know exactly where it is and how to get there. But there are also a lot of nights that I really wish I had a map so I could consistently find the damn place! They say that we write what we know, but since I actually had a happy childhood full of love and encouragement (which doesn't usually make for the best horror material) the majority of my stuff has been something that I dreamt about and happened to have the presence of mind to write down, taking the happy life and turning it on its ear, or in rare occasions, something I've been through personally. From there, I ask myself a bunch of "Wouldn't it be cool if…" questions geared towards putting a horror slant on those things, pick the ones that most fit the direction I want to go, and let it flow from there. -
MR. FRIGHTS: Why do you think they never say, "When I bite into a Peppermint Patty, it makes me feel like I'm standing champion-style on top of a pile of corpses I just dispatched with my chainsaw?"
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CRAIG MCGEE: Because we've become far too politically correct through the last 15 years to EVER have that much fun in marketing. Instead, we're usually stuck with something that has a sappy feel-good ending to it or a love song from the 1970s attached to it. Right now, the world needs a hero like Mr. Frights to stand up and lead the way towards creative bloodletting and a little comic carnage now and then in our advertising. If we could get away with awesome commercials like that, we would truly be living in a perfect world!
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MR. FRIGHTS: Do you think immersing your mind in horror to write will ever have an effect on you, good or bad?
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CRAIG MCGEE: I truly believe that it will always have a great effect on me. For one, I simply love writing horror - there are so many subgenres to choose from, and in horror fiction writing, you can make up your own worlds and do with them whatever you so desire. But it can also be an awesomely therapeutic release. If you really want to get deep into the subject - it's free therapy. Think, for a moment, about the overbearing boss that rode your ass hard all day long to get a project done, then at the end of the day took it to his superiors and claimed all the credit and glory for your sweat and hard work; or the dude in the two-seater convertible sports car who cut you off during rush hour, then flipped you off while doing it; or the girl or guy that you worked two jobs for, seven days a week, to stay on top of their massive spending habits while completely devoting your life to them, who wound up cheating on you with someone else and took the house, the cars, the money, while you spent the coldest part of the winter in a fixer-upper house with no heater; or any other of thousands of sad and pitiful and maddening life scenarios to choose from that good folks have to endure on a daily basis - take your pick. You can't do anything physical to the ones who wronged you without getting into a ton of legal trouble, right? And chances are, a random jerk on the Interstate, you'll never see again as long as you live anyway. So fiction, especially horror writing where there is an endless supply of inspiration for victims for monsters and maniacs, lets you get out any of life's frustrations that may have happened to you or a loved one with no harm done to anyone in the real world. And that's basically what I call turning a frown upside down…
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MR. FRIGHTS: As a screenwriter, you have to kind of resign yourself to the fact that someone is going to come along at some point and change your stuff for better or worse…how does that make you feel?
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CRAIG MCGEE: If the cash is there, I do not care! Honestly, I'd be lying if I said it doesn't bother me. In this remake-happy world we live in right now, writers of original stories, no matter what they might tell you (yes, even me), have egos that just don't want to see the people and the worlds they created and sweat over and agonized over for many sleepless nights for weeks or months on end to get all the descriptions and words JUST perfect, tampered with or changed entirely by someone else just because they're holding the fat checkbook. But on the other side of that coin, my ego isn't so fragile that I can't take suggestions willingly and say, "Damn, that's a good idea" - especially if I know the person or persons making them genuinely care about the story - and especially if the suggestions are good and help improve the story to elevate it to the best that it can possibly be. I was recently given some very Jedi-like advice from a friend who's been inside the belly of the beast more than once who told me to just learn to pick my battles - let go of the little things. Then when their guard is down, fight for what I really want to keep. It sounds like practical common sense, sure, but it's also not nearly as easy to practice as it sounds at first. But if I didn't have extremely thick skin, I wouldn't be in this business.
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MR. FRIGHTS: Why horror?
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CRAIG MCGEE: Because I've struggled for so long to suppress my love of show tunes, and this is about as much of a 180 as I can get from that and still keep what little street cred I have left. I do love other genres as well, but horror is something that's been in my life for as long as I can remember - from watching old
Universal monsters and
Hitchcock movies with my Mom when I was barely out of diapers, to getting the surprise of a lifetime when my next door neighbor took me to see the original
HALLOWEEN when I was eight years old, to older cousins taking me to all-night Drive-In marathons with triple bills like
DAWN OF THE DEAD,
THE HILLS HAVE EYES, and
WHEN A STRANGER CALLS - it's like it's been a part of me and really helped define who I am for most of my life, and I'm just really passionate about it. It's what I love, so it's what I do…
Hit the Grab Bag Questions below to go on with the interview...
GRAB BAG QUESTIONS
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MR. FRIGHTS: Aside from your work on Mr. Frights, is there a project you're most proud of?
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CRAIG MCGEE: How could any of us be more proud of anything outside of the world of Mr. Frights? It's just not possible!! But since you asked, other than my work with Mr. Frights, right now I'm most proud of a script I just finished called
UNHOLY GROUND. That one is a throwback to my teen years and definitely has a very distinct, over the top 80s vibe to it. I promise you it's going to be a very scary, funny, and action-packed ride.
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MR. FRIGHTS: Of all modern horror icons, who's most in need of a make-over?
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CRAIG MCGEE: You mean other than Lindsay Lohan, right? Personally, I still don't think
Michael Myers was given his proper due in those series of remakes, and let's face it -
Jason Voorhees REALLY got the shaft in that one last year. Honestly, I've struggled with this question for days and cannot settle on or make up my mind about just one. So, I have to give you three personal favorites - icons of my younger days that have fallen off the radar through the years that if no one else wants the task, and if by me writing them it would keep them all out of the butchering hands of
Platinum Dunes, I'd gladly take the reigns on writing make-overs for these bad boys:
MANIAC COP - the first two in that series were phenomenal darkly comic twisted revenge movies at heart, and I think there's still many more tales left to tell with that character. Even though the original had both Tom Freakin' Atkins AND The Chin, which in my mind is a damn-near impossible combination to beat, I think that with all the scandals around the country since the original came out in 1988 that the character could most definitely make the transition very well into a new era.
DR. GIGGLES - only one movie? Really?? Larry Drake was perfection in that role, and he could easily take up the scalpel once again in a reboot, remake, or hell - let's just continue where the first one left off. Especially since CHARMED got cancelled a few years ago, I'm sure that Holly Marie Combs could definitely use the work, and that character has "franchise" written all over him.
THE BOOGENS - c'mon, you know you're on board for this one. It had everything a monster movie from 1980 needed, complete with bizarre and deadly creatures living in an old, recently reopened mine shaft underneath an old, rickety house that are reawakened to go on a rampage and kill once again…it's a long-forgotten classic that needs to be reintroduced to a new generation! -
MR. FRIGHTS: What's the scariest thing you ever wrote?
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CRAIG MCGEE: The scariest thing so far - to me, anyway - was the short film,
THE CLEANER. It is by far the most "real-world" horror topic I've ever tackled up to this point. Ask me the same question in a year though and I'll most likely have a different answer, as I just started fleshing out a new idea that beyond the shadow of any doubt will take me back to the darker side of horror.
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MR. FRIGHTS: You've connected with lots of people in the genre doing movie reviews…what's your advice on networking with others in horror?
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CRAIG MCGEE: My advice is genius in its simplicity - just go for it. I've made so many friends through the years - great, hard-working people with drive and passion and energy and a true love of all things horror, and more - all by just sending out a simple email saying hello, introducing myself and whatever site I was writing for at the time, and asking if I could review their movie or interview them. I also met awesome collaborators that very same way -
Michelle Fatale,
Dave Reda, Mr. Frights himself - all by just sending out that email. Honestly, the worst that anyone can do is to just blow you off and not answer, or tell you no…or maybe hell no, and to leave them the hell alone. But you never know what awesome new friend and/or future collaborator or wide-open door with the perfect contacts for your next project could be waiting for you right around the corner until you simply reach out and, well…go for it!
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MR. FRIGHTS: If you could be written out of existence, how would you go?
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CRAIG MCGEE: I used to say however Death wanted to take me immediately following a successful romantic tryst with both
Jennifer Love Hewitt and
Adrienne Barbeau from
THE FOG era, but now everyone wants to go that way. So, I'd have to say being swallowed whole by a
Graboid wouldn't be too bad. But if I had to pick just one, then I'd say
being slowly unraveled into nothingness one row at a time like someone pulling a loose string on a crocheted sweater would be pretty damn cool…
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MR. FRIGHTS: Is there anyone in horror that you'd love to meet?
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CRAIG MCGEE: I really wish that I could meet
Hitchcock, but that's obviously not going to happen, unfortunately. All these years later, I still have not come face to face with the two men responsible for scaring the bejeebies out of me as a little kid and being the biggest catalysts for cementing me as a lifelong horror fan -
John Carpenter, and
Stephen King. I just have a feeling that either or both would be awesome beyond words.
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MR. FRIGHTS: Favorite way of being disciplined?
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CRAIG MCGEE: I'm going to have to go with
The Rack on this one. The way my neck and hip have been acting lately, a good stretch like that is just what the Doctor (Giggles) ordered!
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MR. FRIGHTS: Best weapon in a zombie fight?
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CRAIG MCGEE: Besides my never-ending supply of one-liners, a sword - no doubt about it. They never jam, they still faithfully work underwater (albeit a little bit slower), and they never run out of bullets.
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MR. FRIGHTS: Which do you like more - horror TV shows or horror movies?
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CRAIG MCGEE: These days, it's definitely a toss-up. I used to easily say movies, hands down. But now with so much coolness on TV like
TRUE BLOOD and
DEXTER on the premium channels, and
SUPERNATURAL (that I've followed from the beginning), and
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES (that I just started watching from the beginning tonight, actually) and the brand-new, eerily creepy and promising-looking
HAPPY TOWN on regular channels, I'm really more drawn to TV nowadays than I have been in many, many years. I'd say my love for both mediums is more equal right now than it ever has been before.