And you know what? Without making the film a proverbial Q&A, they did just that. Bringing us back to 1988 and the childhood of Kristi and Katie – the lovely protagonists of the first two films – allows us to see what’s been missing from the first two films: reason. The hauntings in themselves are creepy, yes, but it’s a lot creepier when you consider the connection children have with the supernatural: they can see ghosts, for instance.

You know what that does, right? Not only do you have a creepy haunting (and it’s much creepier this time around!), you also have a creepy little girl who sees the ghost/demon/entity.

What I thought might annoy me was the camera. If you’ve seen the previous films, you know the camera is done from things you can buy commercially: one of the characters holds the camera, until they set up a rig to hold the camera. I won’t spoil the film on you by telling you about the ways in which it’s done this time (except that they use VHS!), but I have to admit, it’s a lot better than the security camera approach in PA2.

I don't know what's creepier: the reflection, or the fact this didn't happen

In terms of acting… well, I think the choice of male leads has gotten better as the franchise goes on. Micah (PA1) always seemed a bit weak, while Daniel (PA2) was more enjoyable as a lead but not quite fitting to the role. The new lead, Dennis, is different. Dennis is the one who believes, but he’s also the outsider: he’s the step-father of Kristi and Katie, and so he immediately has communication problems with them. It added a new human dimension to the films that was never there before, and the acting was much better than in the previous films. When it comes to Horror, this isn’t usually a matter of huge significance. Too many films have so-so acting because the point is to show-case the monster.

Usually, the monster isn’t invisible.

Overall, Paranormal Activity 3 was definitely an improvement on the franchise. There’s still time to see it in the cinema, and it’s not one you want to miss in that scenario: there’s nothing more enjoyable than sitting through a Horror and hearing people jump at all the wrong places. It’s even better when it’s a fully grown man screaming.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Additional Info:

Director: Ariel Schulman & Henry Joost
Age Rating: R (US), 15 (UK), 15A (Ireland)
Release Date: October 21st 2011

So what brings you to London?

Ostensibly I’m over here for the paperback release of Horns. The truth is that I come from old Maine stock and we don’t believe in vacations. You’re supposed to work from sun-up to sundown, and if you want to study your Bible by candlelight for a little while before bed that’s OK, and any sign of overt happiness is frowned upon because it usually means something’s not getting done. So I don’t really know how to take a vacation, so what I did was arrange this, but spread a thin crust of work over the surface so it seems like I’m actually here for a purpose. I did some media for Horns yesterday and I’m doing some press today and a reading tonight, and then I’m kinda goofing off for a few days with some friends I know here. I’m trying to work out how much time I’d have to spend in here before I could call someone a ‘bloke’ without getting a roll of the eyes. It’s just a great word to say. It feels good in your mouth.

The other thing is… I don’t know what it is about London, but I come here once or twice a year for about a week, and I walk around, and by the time I go home I’ve got about ten new story ideas. It’s a terrific place for me in terms of energy. Ideas aren’t everything – they’re not even the most important part of writing – but it’s still nice to have bunch of them in your back pocket.

So what is the most important part of writing?

Um, I think it’s having a certain level of cognitive dissonance between the work you put in and the result you get. You need to be able to sit there for six hours a day, and at the end of the day be able to walk away and let it go. You have to have a kind of blissful acceptance that you might spend two months writing a hundred pages and then throw the whole thing away in a single day. In the book I’m working on now – which is coming together great; I’m going to read some of it tonight at Waterstone’s – there’s this one part that’s about 180 pages long, about the bad guy. And I re-wrote it about three times and thought about it very carefully, and I think it’s a really good piece of work, and I decided about a month ago to slash the whole thing. I decided I’d written it for me. I was trying to find that bad guy’s voice and how he talks to people and why he’s the way he is, and I had to write it over and over again before I understood him. But in terms of actual story I think it’s better not to have so much of him right in your face, because it’s like seeing Jaws when he was a baby, eating fish. Less is more. It’s like, you want to be careful not to make the Hannibal Lecter mistake, where he was at his absolute most frightening in red Dragon where you only had him for about fifteen pages, and then in Silence of the Lambs he was almost as scary and just as great, and he’s still only in about 45 pages… It’s when you had a whole book about him… What, mommy didn’t love him and daddy didn’t understand and that’s why he’s bad? Suddenly he’s not frightening anymore – he’s just this loser!

Hemingway always said you have to kill your darlings. I don’t know if you always have to kill them, but I do think this has happened in every single piece of work I’ve ever done that was longer than like 20 pages, where I had this one scene I couldn’t wait to write and that I felt was the emotional heart of the book, and I would write the first draft and that scene would be in and I’d love it, and then at some point in the third or fourth draft I’d realise it’s the one scene in the book that doesn’t really matter; it’s the one scene totally holding the book back because it became something else. I don’t know if a lot of writers obsess over ‘The Concept’. I’m a firm believer that it’s important to have that nice fat hook: to have that concept that people can really get excited about. But by the time you’re finished, what you have is usually very different from what you initially imagined.

What’s your work routine?

I don’t religiously do six hours a day, but I set myself goals. With this draft – it sounds like I’m making processed meat – but I will process ten pages a day. If I get them done in two hours, great. If it takes me six hours, OK. If it takes me eight I’ll do it, but I try not to work that long because I think there tends to be a fall-off. I do work on the weekends though. Maybe not six hours, but I don’t like to let something go because then I’ll waste a day trying to get back up to speed. The other thing is, if I haven’t worked at all I feel restless and kind of out of sorts, and I’m grumpy with people, so I don’t feel centred and like myself until I’ve got my work out of the way.

Horns’ protagonist Ig is very vividly realised; is there a lot of you in him?

I think a lot of people when they hear ‘write what you know’ think that they’d better make their main character themselves, and I’ve always tried to avoid that. My main characters tend to be different from me. Judas from Heart Shaped Box was radically different from me: I was just like, what would it be like to be a heavy metal musician who’s had a thirty-year career? And Ig from Horns is also very different, although we have some similarities: there has to be something to grab on to. I come from a well-off family; my dad is a well-known guy the same as Ig’s dad; Ig’s family are musicians where mine are writers… So there’s some overlap. But Ig has a passion for books about building houses out of recycled materials, he’s big into volunteerism and he’s very devout and goes to church. I’m not very religious, and if I did have a religion I’d probably worship the same snake god that Alan Moore worships. It’s worked out pretty good for him. I think I aspire to do good, but for the most part I’m pretty happy to download movies and use my free time in the most selfish way possible. And Ig is braver. He does stuff like the courageous naked ride down the hill. I never would have done anything like that. I’d have been too worried about scraping my knees.

How far along is the movie adaptation of Horns?

Shia LaBeouf is going to play Ig in the film, and Keith Bunin who’s written a number of episodes of In Treatment is doing the script, and it’s ploughing forward so we’ll see what happens. I think Shia’s a great lead for the part. He can kind of play that kind of innocent Jimmy Stewart sweetness, but I also think it’d be really fun to see him with the shaved head and the horns walking around in a blue dress. I’ll be as involved as they want me to be, and I won’t be underfoot if they don’t want me underfoot. I’ve done my version of the story, and I’ve talked to them about ideas – I had a couple of suggestions that I thought might streamline a film. But at the end of the day I’ve done my version and the movie has to be something different. Films fail either when they treat the source material as if it doesn’t matter, or when they become too reverential to the source material. You want to find a middle path where a film can breathe and be its own deal.

I’m not sure it’s as unusual as it used to be for an actor to be attached at such an early stage of development. Shia read the book and was excited about it and thought it was a part he could play and that people haven’t seen him do. I think he wants to make that transformation. Maybe it’s even a metaphor for his whole professional outlook: he’s played so many clean-cut nice guys that he wants people to see that he can be the demon if he has to be. I think a lot of actors – especially actors who can open films – have started to do this: getting excited about about something and looking at how they can put a package together.

What happened to Locke and Key? The TV series seemed like a sure thing.

I’m not sure anything’s a sure thing. Launching a TV show is probably the hardest act in the entertainment business. In the case of Locke & Key we came up with a pilot, which Mark Romanek directed, Josh Friedman who was the showrunner on Sarah Connor did a great script, they pulled together a terrific cast, and they made something really scary and emotionally intense. BUT, Fox has three slots for new dramas, they had eight pilots, and they picked the three they wanted. But I’m not sure… I feel fairly certain that the pilot will see the light of day at some point, and I’m not certain that we’re done as a TV show. Locke & Key as a comic book has a lot of the same elements that you see in shows like Dexter and Breaking Bad and Walking Dead and Battlestar Galactica: dark, fantastic, with a grim edge… And the thing all those shows have in common was that they were on cable. So I think it’s possible that we may find someone at SyFy or AMC or TNT who’d like to give the show a shot. And if that happens I think we’d be very lucky, in that it would be a case of the show finding a more natural home than one of the big networks. It’s very difficult to imagine Walking Dead on CBS, so we’ll see. I think we have a good shot. I think there’s room for the pilot to be a theatrical film of some kind, although you’d probably have to throw a few more million dollars at it and add half an hour. But I also think it’s possible that a cable channel will throw another $5m and another half hour at it and make it a two-hour pilot. I’ll say this: we’ve had interest from some cable channels, and one cable channel has been MORE than interested… That gives me hope, but until someone actually buys twelve episodes, we don’t have a show.

And is Heart Shaped Box still happening as film? Wasn’t Neil Jordan attached to direct at one point?

That’s one of these movie stories where it’s in terminal development. Neil Jordan hasn’t been on it in a long time but I still keep seeing reported on a regular basis that he’s doing it. The book came out a while ago, and he wanted to do it, but they didn’t have a script that they liked and then there was the writer’s strike, and Neil just decided to go back to Ireland and make something different. So that’s what he did, and his attachment with the picture ceased. Some other names have been involved. If Heart Shaped Box suddenly goes into development it’ll be because an actor says they would like to play Judas Coyne. Then we might see a team come together around it. But it’s stalled at the moment. I have a short story called Twittering the Circus of the Dead, and that’s actually further along than Heart Shaped Box because there’s so much energy behind it. It has a director, and Manderlay wants to produce, and they’ve got a plan and all the pieces are flying together.

It’s interesting – I’ve now seen two sides of the business. There’s Heart Shaped Box, where there’s this spinning of wheels and this development process that continues and continues and continues. But when something does happen, it’s with such suddenness, it’s almost like everyone’s like racing behind going ‘Agh! We’ve gotta get this done!’ With Locke & Key it was amazing how all the elements collapsed together in just a few months and suddenly they were filming the pilot in Pittsburgh. It was such a remarkable difference from the way Heart Shaped Box has staggered along. So if something does happen with Heart Shaped Box it’ll happen all of a sudden!

A director named Todd Lincoln is behind Twittering the Circus of the Dead. You won’t have heard of him. He’s something of an up-and-coming it-director. He’s done a lot of short films that are kind of upsetting and weird, and he’s directed his first feature [The Apparition] which is a horror film coming out in early 2012, and this is going to be his follow-up project. He’s exciting. He’s kind of like if Wes Anderson wanted to make horror films. He’s a really cool guy!

Are you wary of films of your work, given your father’s experiences?

No, not at all! I think my dad has had nothing but good experiences! Because even the bad films are great. Horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction to a degree, the only thing that’s better than a good movie is a really bad movie. I love a great scary film, but I’ve also seen awful things that I’ve really loved. Like, what’s a good one, Howling 2! That’s such a gas. They show the shot where Sybil Danning takes her blouse off 32 times in that film. I counted. Actually it’s not a blouse, it’s like a leather bustier.

You know what’s a great, hysterical film? Children of the Corn. ‘Outlanderrrrrrr! We have your wooooooman!’ Who doesn’t love that? So yeah, you always hope you’re going to have a great film, but I’m sure if someone takes one of the books or one of the stories and makes something horrible, I’ll still probably love it.

Horns is out now in paperback from Gollancz.

Who can take a sunrise...?

Unleashed in 1992, and based on a Clive Barker short story from a decade earlier, Candyman was a murdered slave, still haunting New Orleans as an urban legend come to life. Daniel Robitaille was a more ambiguous monster than many of his contemporaries, and made an immediate horror icon of Tony Todd, the character actor who put flesh on his bones. Todd has since become a mainstay of the Final Destination and Hatchet franchises, but with Hallowe’en approaching, he’s more than happy to reminisce about the role that made his name…

How did you land the role of Candyman?

I owe a great debt to two Englishmen: [producer/original author] Clive Barker and [screenwriter/director] Bernard Rose. Bernard had seen me in [TV movie] The Ivory Hunters (1990) and insisted when they came to casting Candyman that I was the right guy for it. I was just starting out. I’d done Platoon and the Night of the Living Dead remake, but I think the studio were nervous because Bernard didn’t even want to even audition anybody else. They were like ‘Are you sure? Maybe Sidney Poitier wants to do this movie!’ But he was completely loyal. The director’s the captain of the ship. If he wants something he should get the freedom to choose. Fortunately he chose me! I wasn’t expecting any kind of longevity from it: I’m just an actor for hire. But Bernard insisted that the movie would change my life. In a lot of ways it has, but the fortunate thing was that it didn’t define my life.

Do you sympathise with him?

We didn’t want to make him just some generic bogeyman. Bernard and I wanted to make sure he was steeped in a kind of gothic American racial history, especially as the story had been transposed from Liverpool to Cabrini Green. We mutually decided that he was an artist, and from that came the idea of the painting, and once we had that, we knew it was going to be Phantom of the Opera. Once I had all that, I knew how to make him human, in spite of the fact that he’s a ghost. Having grown up in America just as the civil rights movement started, I could completely relate to him.

What did you enjoy most about playing him?

I knew he was unique. Once I read about the bees – this was before CGI of course – I knew he would live infamously or not-so-infamously in cinematic history. The idea that they were coming out of this person just said to me that he was this powerful, demented force of nature. But I loved his elegance too. We wanted him to walk with pride.

Did you ever wear the costume off the set?

No, I never wore the coat out in public, but I do get to travel a lot based on this character and spread goodwill.

Any crazy fan encounters you can tell us about?

You get all sorts. I did a lot of Star Trek so I’ve encountered some pretty antisocial Klingons. But most recently I was down in Houston, Texas and this woman came up with this enormous grin on her face and said she had something to show me. So I braced myself, and she lifted her sundress and on the inside of her right thigh was a tattoo portrait of my face. Every now and then I need a reality check! I guess it would have been worse if it was on her bum. It’s a little weird. I don’t think I believe in putting people’s faces on your body. And she wasn’t the smallest woman: I just hope it doesn’t stretch over time!

What’s your favourite Candyman moment?

I love the parking lot sequence in the first film: the first time you see the character. I think it’s very well shot: very Hitchcockian.

What do you think explains his enduring popularity?

The weird thing is that he’s only actually on screen for ten or twelve minutes, but he’s talked about every single second of the film. Less is definitely more: he grows in the audience’s imagination. I also think there’s a lot of heart and soul to the first two films. Other, subsequent horror films may have been more financially successful, but they don’t have Candyman’s depth.

Will he return?

There have been attempts to do another one after the not-so-good third one, which was completely compromised from casting on down.

The problem is that three different people own it but they can’t come to an agreement, which seems incredible to me. Whenever an idea comes up, one of them won’t sign off on it. It’s unfortunate. I’ve just had to let it go.

What’s your favourite horror movie?

I was profoundly affected by Rosemary’s Baby. I love that film. There’s not a drop of blood in it; it’s purely psychological. I love films that are purely atmospheric like that. I love the old Universal movies too. Horror’s treated like the bastard stepchild of the movie industry, but it’s actually always been the genre that saved Hollywood from total ruin.

What scares you?

I don’t like that moment you get when you’re still sleeping but it feels like it’s real life and you can’t quite wake up. That few seconds is really frightening. Intolerance bothers me. And women with tattoos!

Do you want to know the truth, though? Children’s horror, even if it is scary, won’t scar your child for life. You, the parent, the adult, are more likely to get scared and scarred. Want evidence? Okay: I get more scared by children’s horror now than I did when I was a child. It’s not that the books are getting scarier – some of them are, but most of them are just following the same patterns – but that I think too much like an adult. There’s someone in the house. This could actually happen. What would I do in this situation?

That last one? Mostly nothing. Mostly I would be powerless. The type of horror that children face in books can only be dealt with by children. All the wild fantasies that are constructed around the idea of terrorising children do a few things: they help the child become more imaginative, fear being one of our most motivating experiences; they reinforce the idea that the child isn’t helpless all the time, by making the hero a child; and they allow the reader, the child, to face up to fear early on, before the onslaught of second level education, social cliques, bullies and the nastiest of the nasty teachers in the world.

What is wrong with a child being prepared for fear? Honestly, what is wrong with that? I’m not the bravest person in the world, but I survived first days at two institutions in which I knew nobody but my brother. Do you know how terrifying it is to go to a new school and not know anyone? It’s less scary than, say, Mr Mumbles tapping on your bedroom window, but it’s a much more lasting fear, and one that can put children – and even adults going into third level education – from actually getting out of bed.

Your child is a wimp? That’s because you’re shielding him from the world. Children need to grow up. Children need to read. That’s not a subjective statement: the reading levels of children, especially those in England, unfortunately, are going down over the years. Making a child afraid to read by telling them the book is too scary for them is the exact opposite message any parent should be sending out.

If a child gets scared, you console them. Parents can’t be there to stop children becoming frightened all the time. It’s literally impossible. So why would they insist on getting involved at the basic level of books? It’s counter-intuitive to the child’s development to take away new experiences from them before they have a chance to be dealt with. Instead of fictional horror keeping a child awake at night, a parent’s words of warning will keep them from reading.

It just requires a bit of tact: you don’t let your child stay up until midnight reading or watching Cujo. Actually, you don’t let your child stay up until midnight at all (or at least not on a regular basis – New Year’s Eve seems to be the only real exception on this side of the lake). Until your child gets to secondary school, you don’t let them read adult fiction at all. After that, what they read is in the hands of their English teacher.
So, back to the big question: should children read horror? Most definitely. So long as the book is appropriate for the age group – and publishers won’t print something that’s not – it can, and should, be read. All the adventure that children need in stories is present in horror, with the added adrenaline rush to make the books that little bit more exciting.

So really, what are you waiting for? Recommendations? Three obvious places to start: the Invisible Fiends series by Barry Hutchison, Darren Shan’s children’s books and, with a wider range of mild to terrifying horror, the Goosebumps books by RL Stine.

Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. Image copyright New Line Cinema.

Robert Englund, star of nearly a hundred movies, eight of which make up one of the biggest horror franchises of all time, turns out to be a garrulous and entertaining interviewee. Far from being touchy about his horror-world typecasting niche or unwilling to discuss Elm Street, he adores his career, loves all his films equally, and is still having a blast in the film industry after more than thirty years. He’s thoroughly down-to-earth and engagingly enthusiastic about a body of work which, to be frank, has often not reached the widest of audiences. A case in point: he’s just been shooting Strippers vs. Werewolves…

Do you ever wish for bigger-budget projects?

I think for these kinds of movies a big budget is often a hindrance in some way. Well maybe not a hindrance, but there was certainly quite a backlash a while ago against ‘big’ horror movies: they became really quite unpopular, whilst little ones like this kind of just kept on doing their thing. I remember, as long ago as the early nineties, having to defend The Silence of the Lambs to Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, because they were really slamming it. And those kinds of high-profile horror-type films still tend not to do well, or at least, are perceived as not doing very well. They make their money back, but they generally don’t perform spectacularly or get well received. Hannibal and Red Dragon, for example. That Omen remake. It’s like that grunge backlash against the big, classic rock bands. Horror does better when it’s bubbling under. It’s a niche. It doesn’t like the limelight.

Do you mind being in that niche?

I kind of go through phases. Not so much anymore. I used to. I did a lot of stuff before I became known for horror. I did a lot of small films in the 70s, in all kinds of styles. I worked with all kinds of people when I was just starting out: I was incredibly lucky. I got to co-star with Susan Sarandon and Henry Fonda (The Last of the Cowboys); I worked with Bob Rafaelson in a film where I co-starred with Jeff Bridges and Sally Field (Stay Hungry); I was the narrator of Big Wednesday, the wonderful surf movie that John Milius made with Gary Busey; I did a lot of TV… The seventies was really a great time in Hollywood: a much less hierarchical time. You could live by the beach for practically nothing, and there was a real kind of ‘scene’ which has kind of gone now: Jaws and Star Wars changed everything. I’ve had Mark Hamill and Gary Busey passed out on my sofa at four in the morning. And it was a better time for experimental and independent movies.

Were you always a horror fan?

I always was. I kind of got snobbish about it when I first started out in theatre. I put it to one side and forgot about it and pretended it was behind me.  But I think it was always there really. I remember when I was a really little kid, like maybe five or six, I used to go over to my grandparents’ house with my parents, and they had this coffee table book of photosets from Life magazine. And I used to get there, and go up in the bedroom and like, take off my little jacket, and then I’d go and find this book, which had this section on like the great Hollywood monsters. And I remember it had these beautiful pictures of Elsa Lanchester in The Bride of Frankenstein, and it had this big section on Lon Chaney, the ‘man of a thousand faces’, all like really glossily illustrated, and with all these descriptions of his make-up processes; like the way he would use the membranes from eggs and drape them over his eyeball to give himself a milky eye. Stuff like that. And I was just obsessed with this book. So I think the seeds of my later career were sewn right there. I think on some level that’s what got me acting. The roots of my career are right there. I even played The Phantom of the Opera!

Tobin Bell has made his name with the Saw films, but he’s still on record as saying he doesn’t really approve of horror…

I love Tobin. I think he’s a great actor. I’ve been a fan of his since I saw him in The X-Files. He’s like me, he’s been around for years, but the truth is that without Saw nobody would know who the fuck he was. I know who he is, because I’m in the industry, and actors notice other actors like that, but to the general public… pfffff. A lot of actors have that kind of attitude, like horror is beneath them, or its distasteful or whatever. But they always turn out – because this is where the money is.

The thing is, a lot of actors fail in these roles. You can’t take them lightly or be snobbish about them. You have to really embrace them or you’ll fuck up horribly. Look at Robert de Niro in that thing with Dakota Fanning (Hide and Seek), or that terrible Frankenstein movie. He’s awful in both of those movies, and he’s Robert De Niro! If horror can defeat someone like Robert De Niro then you’ve gotta start thinking that there’s more to some of these roles and movies than just slumming it for the money. You can’t just coast.

And on the flipside of that, if you play it absolutely right, you can make a really great impression, even if the movie you’re making isn’t all that hot. What’s that thing with Jennifer Lopez? The Cell? Even Jennifer Lopez made a horror movie! But that movie belongs to Vincent D’Onofrio, because he goes after that role so hard. He’s so totally committed. He owns that film.

I’d never knock horror, because of the opportunities it’s given me. I’ve been all over the world, to Italy and Germany and the UK, and Northern Europe and Sweden, and it’s all because I’m Freddy Krueger.

Any more plans to direct?

Not right now. The last thing I directed was a movie called Killer Pad in 2008, which is a little comedy with a great bunch of kids. It had horror elements, because it’s about this kind of Faustian pact that these frat boys sign to get the pad of their dreams, but there was a lot of kind of American Pie style gross-out humour too, which I love.

I had a lot of fun doing that, but directing is kind of not my forte, I’d be the first to admit.  I’m good at casting and art direction, and script and camera stuff, but special effects and suspense… less so. I found that out on the first film I directed which was this thing called 976 Evil that I did in 1989. I had a really bad experience with that one because it was taken away in post-production and edited by this guy who came from like commercials and music videos. They cut out a lot of the exposition that I thought was really necessary, and just went for the gore, which I thought was a total mistake that weakened the movie.  Editing a movie is like making a sculpture. You kind of chip away at this big block of material, but its tough because you don’t want to discard anything right at the start, because you might need it again later. I think the studio on 976 Evil got rid of a lot of stuff early on that it turned out they needed, but they didn’t care enough to put it back in. The film really doesn’t make much sense as it is now. But the annoying thing is that it did all right! They even made some sequels, although I wasn’t involved.

Killer Pad was a lot more satisfying. I had a lot more control. Not final cut exactly, but I was very much more involved with the producing side as well as the directing – as I had been on Freddy vs. Jason – so I got to stay much more on board in post production.

Speaking of Freddy it’s an obvious question that you must get asked all the time, but what did you think of the remake?

They remake everything now. I tried to be philosophical about it. Jackie Earl Haley is a great actor. But it was disappointing that it killed a couple of other ideas. We were talking with Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell about doing another Freddy vs. Jason thing with Ash (from the Evil Dead series), and then for a while it looked like we might do a Michael Myers thing, and John Carpenter was involved. But that all fell through. What I was actually really excited about, was that we got close to doing a prequel with John McNaughton, who made an amazing sort of sub-documentary horror movie called Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer. Just extraordinary. So you can imagine what he would have brought to that kind of project. It would have been very down and dirty, and gritty. It would have been the story of Freddy and his origins. It would start with his horrible child murders, and there would be the police investigation, with the corrupt cops and the bungled investigation that nevertheless gets him arrested. Then there’d be a kind of courtroom drama element, and the story of the horrible lawyers that get him acquitted. And it would end with the Elm Street parents taking the revenge that we all know about. There was some of that in the remake, but not like we were planning. That would have been a big one.

Other than Freddy, you’re probably best known as Willie, the friendly alien in V… 

I’ll tell you, the only fan of mine that’s ever creeped me out was a V fan. I’ve met all kinds of people that really love Freddy, and that doesn’t bother me at all. I meet them at signings and conventions and they’re just great. I’ve never had a bad experience with a Freddy fan, although the guys with the huge tattoos I think are kind of odd – these beautiful, full-back Yakuza tattoos of Freddy. But I see a lot of cool stuff that I’ve never seen before. Someone recently had an original poster from the original run of Elm Street that has me in the James Bond gun barrel. That must have been some kind of bootleg – Eon would never have licensed it! And I meet Asian fans who have these enormous circus-sized posters with me devouring Patricia Arquette, and they’ve been painted over and added to with amazing artwork and colours. Just beautiful. But yeah, anyway, this V fan was a girl who turned herself into me.  She taped her breasts so that she was completely flat-chested, and she permed her hair to be like mine, and she would turn up all over the place, wherever I was appearing. She was a little alarming. I encouraged her with her writing though. I think she’s doing alright now…”

Do you enjoy conventions and signings and the publicity trail?

Absolutely. I especially enjoy doing interviews like this on the phone. It means I can wander round the house in my underwear…

Argh!

Strippers vs. Werewolves is currently in post-production.

It was just another school trip… When their ski-coach pulls up at a cafe, and everyone else gets off, new girl Bobby and rebel Smitty stay behind. They hardly know each other but that changes when through the falling snow, they see the others coming back. Something has happened to them. Something bad…

Soon only a pair of double doors stand between those on the bus and their ex-friends the Undead outside. Time to get a life. Author Kirsty McKay is a major new horror/thriller writer for ages 12+.

There, now that’s out of the way, let’s get on with the review.

Let’s face it, we’re all in love with zombies. From Night of the Living Dead to World War Z, we can’t get enough of those ugly, brain-munching monstrosities. Hell, even my own comic series, Gangrene, politely tips its hat to decades of zombie lore.

But what of this latest entry in the zombie stable? Kirsty McKay’s Undead is a young adult horror in which a group of teenagers find themselves caught up in a full-scale Z-Pocalypse. Thrown together, the teens must learn to overcome their differences if they are to have any chance of surviving and finding out who – or what – is responsible for the onslaught of the living dead.

So far, so familiar, and this is the problem with the book in general. We’ve seen it all before.

The teenagers are little more than stereotypes – the bitchy good-looking girl, the computer geek, the handsome rebel with a heart of gold, they’re all here. The protagonist, Bobby, is new to the school. Having moved from the US, she feels like an outsider, but watching your former classmates become zombies turns out to be quite the bonding experience, and soon she is more or less leading the group in their attempts to survive.

The zombie scenes are effective enough – no more, no less. There are scenes you’ll have seen in almost every living dead film ever – the blood-streaked hand at the window, the hordes of zoms shuffling along the moonlit road – but it is all handled reasonably well so that you don’t ever quite become bored.

In fact, I found myself sitting up well into the night reading the book, which is more a testament to McKay’s writing than to the concept itself. Occasionally I found some of the dialogue a bit clunky – particularly Alice, the bitchy blonde – but other than that this is a well-written story and a quick read. That said, the twist at the end of the story is actually a massive coincidence that I don’t remember being foreshadowed at any point prior to it happening, which was disappointing.

I can’t help but wonder how good the story could have been if it had a unique hook, like Charlie Higson’s The Enemy series, for example. As it is, this book almost reads like a checklist of what you’d expect in any other zombie story. Brain-eating monsters? Check. New fangled viruses? Check. Conspiracy theories? Shady corporations? ‘Heroic’ characters meeting a grisly doom? Check, check and check. Without a unique hook it’s a book that will likely only appeal to existing fans of the zombie genre, and they’re going to have seen it all before.

Yes, the protagonist is female (Bobby is short for Roberta) but that isn’t enough to make this sufficiently different from virtually every other zombie tale we’ve seen in the past. On the Romero scale, it’s nowhere near as good as Dawn of the Dead, say, but it’s no Land of the Dead, either. It’s Day of the Dead – solid enough, with some memorable scenes, but ultimately not as good as what’s come before.

On the other hand, maybe I’m just old and jaded, and this might turn out to be the perfect introduction to the genre for those who haven’t yet dipped their toes into zombie horror.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Publisher: Chicken House
Published: 1st September 2011
Buy now on Amazon.

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What do you think? Will you be visiting DEAD ISLAND when it is released in September? Leave a comment and let us know.

Killer Heroine with a Chainsaw Fights to Stop Zombie Take Over in Suda51’s Latest Masterpiece for PS3 and Xbox 360

London – August 1, 2011 – Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and KADOKAWA GAMES today announced a new partnership to bring Lollipop Chainsaw to gamers around the world in 2012 on the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment will be publishing the game outside of all Asian territories

Lollipop Chainsaw is an all-new third person action game being developed by GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE, led by celebrated gamemaker Goichi Suda (aka Suda51) and featuring the musical compositions of the renowned Akira Yamoaka. In addition to these two talented individuals, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has tapped Hollywood director/writer, James Gunn (Super, Slither, Dawn of the Dead, Tromeo and Juliet) to bring his cult humour and edgy storytelling to Lollipop Chainsaw.

“Our exciting partnership with KADOKAWA GAMES allows us to try something new by bringing a very unique game like Lollipop Chainsaw to Western markets,” said Martin Tremblay, President of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE’s games have shown tremendous success with gamers around the globe and we are delighted to expand our portfolio of Japanese-developed games.”

“We are looking forward to partnering with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment on our first entry into the HD console market,” said Yoshimi Yasuda, President of KADOWAKA GAMES. “We are also thrilled to have a team like GRASSHOPPER and talent like Suda51 creating such an interesting and distinct game for us to work with and bring to the fans.”

Lollipop Chainsaw is the ‘un-deadly’ story of sweet and killer zombie hunter Juliet Starling and her quest to uncover the root of a colossal zombie outbreak.  With her wickedly awesome chainsaw in hand, Juliet slices, dices and splits her way through hordes of the undead, but soon realizes the horde is only the opening act to a festival of zombie rock lords determined to kill the chainsaw wielding cheerleader.

For the latest information on the game, visit www.lollipopchainsaw.com or follow the team on twitter @lollichainsaw or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lollipopchainsaw.

Back in September 2010, SEGA announced that 2011 would see them publishing RISE OF NIGHTMARES, a “a spine-tingling horror experience which uses the innovative new controls of Kinect to give players the ultimate fright.” Apparently “the player will experience fear and tension as never before in this first person horror adventure”.

Now, that sounded right up my street, and the official blurb only got me more excited…

Survive one hellish night as you fight using the hands-free controls of Microsoft® Kinect.

Introducing Rise of Nightmares™, a truly mature experience for Microsoft Kinect. Survive one hellish night as you fight hand to hand against undead enemies and mad scientists using the hands-free controls of Microsoft Kinect. Using knives, chainsaws and your bare hands, rip your foes limb from limb while uncovering the location of your kidnapped wife.

Today, SEGA released some new screenshots from the game, giving an idea of the level of gore we can expect when the game is released later this year.

Bring on the bloodbath.

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For more info on the game, check out the official site at www.riseofnightmares.com

Such dedication to kneeling before Zod.

Bantam today announced it is publishing Dead Island, the official novelisation of Deep Silver’s game, written by British Fantasy Award winning author, Mark Morris. Due for simultaneous release with the video game, Dead Island offers a terrifying glimpse into the horrors thrust upon the four individuals who have unwittingly embarked upon the ultimate holiday from Hell.

Exploding onto the scene with the most successful video game trailer of all time, Dead Island is set to become one of the biggest game releases of 2011. The official announcement trailer has already gained over 10 million views and 6.2 million Twitter mentions in just 4 months, and has won a flurry of awards, including ‘Gold Lion in Film and Film Craft Category’ at this year’s Festival de Cannes.

For guests of the five-star Royal Palms Resort it was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime dream holiday; an escape to the stunning beaches of a tropical paradise unlike any other. But a mysterious zombie outbreak suddenly – and without warning – rips apart the pacific paradise island of Banoi, and four individuals with distinctive backgrounds and abilities seem to be unaffected by the zombie apocalypse.

As the zombie outbreak spreads, will they be strong enough to stand against the endless zombie hordes, to protect the remaining survivors from a horrible fate and to flee the island?

In the face of an unprecedented zombie apocalypse, they have only one thing left to do: survive.

Welcome to the holiday paradise where your dreams should come true…
but where a nightmare is about to begin…

Published by Bantam • 8th September 2011 • Paperback Original • Priced, £6.99