"Why I Love to Write"

People who know me (or at least think they know me) know that I like horror films. It’s no secret. I watch a lot of horror films and I study a lot of horror films and I support the horror genre but what many people don’t know is that I generally don’t like all that many horror films that I see. In fact, on average I like about 25% of the horror films I watch in any given year (most of which are indie productions that don’t see a wide release at the Box Office).

As a filmmaker I could have decided to study any genre of film whether it be horror or drama or comedy or noir but I chose horror because of the films I’ve seen the most in my 33 years of life George A. Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) is the one that I’ve seen more than any other and has inspired me the most as a writer (I said “writer” not “filmmaker”). It really wasn’t this film that inspired me all that much but one of that director’s later films MARTIN (1977), a pseudo-vampire film, released a year after I was born. I happened to find a copy of MARTIN at the library and it was the cover that struck me the most – vampire teeth and a razor blade with blood coming from it. That video box cover was amazing to my young eyes as it told me that this was a “different” type of vampire film. Indeed it was as this vampire film was a 180 degree turn on what I had been told vampire films were suppose to be about. It was an intriguing story on myth, religion, faith, and sexual horror unlike anything I had ever seen before (you have to remember I was in middle school when I saw the film). I devoured the film several times before having to return it to the library and then never saw it again (until the invention of DVD) because the video rental I frequented didn’t have it on their shelf (and as a middle schooler I never went to the library all that much) but what stuck with me was that box cover and the fact that the title of the film read as “George A. Romero’s MARTIN, ” which for the longest time I thought that was what the movie was called.

When I realized that George A. Romero was the writer & director of the film I immediately set out to find all the movies that this guy had done (and in the age of pre-Internet it wasn’t all that easy). It was my mother whom had seen the name before and lead me to my next Romero film as we owned a copy of it in our video library – NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968). I was floored! I had one of his films all this time and never knew it (I was young and horror films just weren’t part of my viewing pleasure at the time).

This was the film that forever changed me. It was terrifying and spooky and – I hate to say this – starred an African American. At the time the only African American on my radar was Sydney Poitier and I had seen every film he had ever done and now there was this new guy (I’d later learn his name to be Duane Jones). I don’t think the film would have stuck with me as much as it had if the character of Ben (Jones) had lived at the end. His death at the hands of ignorant (as I saw them at the time) white hillbillies was a travesty but made me realize that films (not just horror films) could be depressing and be more then just entertaining. They could tell a “real” story.

From that year on I started watching NOTLD at least once a year (if not more) so much so that I wore out our VHS copy and forced my mother to replace it as soon as possible. It was a lot harder to come by Romero’s other films SEASON OF THE WITCH (1972), THE CRAZIES (1973), DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978), and KNIGHTRIDERS (1981) not even knowing about THERE’S ALWAYS VANILLA (1971) until I was in my mid ‘20s. The amazing thing about all of Romero’s films were that he didn’t simply want to entertain but he wanted to leave audiences questioning complex ideas about people, relationships, and life, not only through the horror genre but other genres as well (KNIGHTRIDERS being another particular favorite). It was through my absorption of these films that I realized that I wanted to be a writer.

Now over the years I’ve seen some equally monumental films – CITIZIN KANE (1941), BRINGING UP BABY (1938), SCAREFACE (1932), CASABLANCA (1942), THE HAUNTING (1963), and FREAKS (1932), among many others, that helped carved my idea of what a good story was capable of and what a great story could achieve no mater what the genre.

I didn’t always want to be a writer, in fact, for the longest time I wanted to be a homicide detective (of which I live out through my constant viewing of LAW & ORDER, BONES, and THE CLOSER) but that never seemed to quash my love of writing and the movies where I could literally put my mind into whatever situation, job, or circumstance that I wanted.

As a grow up there is a point in your life where you either realize that there is something or someone that inspires you to do what you do and continue to do regardless of the consequences or how hard it is to do and that’s where NOTLD comes in. I’ve been writing since I was in forth grade introduced to the craft by Mr. Sanders, my forth grade teacher from Alaska (yes, people do live in Alaska and I was one of them for five years), and I’ve never looked back since. There have been times when I didn’t write (mostly during the later years of high school when I focused my attention on drawing & painting) but my attention always came back to NOTLD and thus my fate was forever sealed.

Whether Romero realized it at the time or not (and he’s said that he didn’t on countless occasions), NOTLD is not just a zombie movie but it is a film about race relations and how the differences between two races can sometimes blind us to our similarities. In the film you have a strong white character Mr. Cooper and a strong black character Ben who use the house that they are trapped in as their own battlefield against one another when there is a greater threat just outside their doors. When they refuse to put aside their differences in order to work together as a team their fates are sealed in total defeat, hence they both die by the end of the film. Nothing brings this home more then in the final moments of the film when Ben is mistaken by one of the white posse members as a zombie and killed. Now you have to remember that the posse is made up of like minded people who have come together to defeat the real menace which is the zombie plague whereas Ben is the lone survivor who dies because of his own stubbornness to put aside his own prejudices. Not such a simple film now is it.

Take the film as you like. The above is an interpretation that many scholars and critics have attributed to the film while others just think of it as a great zombie flick.

Now I try and write everyday whether it be part of a screenplay, rewrites, a short story, film review, blog entry, poem, etc. and on a good day I can get about 10 pages done (and on a great day 15-20 pages). Writing – it’s what I do and what I think I’m good at whether any one else thinks so or not.
I love films but if you were to ask me some of my favorite literary authors my list would be smaller with Gaston Leroux (THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA), Franz Kafka (THE METAMORPHOSIS), Albert Camus (THE STRANGER), Ira Levin (THE STEPFORD WIVES), Jhumpa Lahiri (THE NAMESAKE), William Peter Blatty (THE EXORCIST), and Clive Barker (SACREMENT), to name a few. The reason my list is small is because I read more non-fiction then fiction these days but regardless I like a good read but I love a great movie.