BECOMING AN AWARD WINNING SCREENWRITER AND HORROR AUTHOR (with Paul Grammatico)

In this After Hours Chat, I sit down with Award Winning Screenwriter and horror author, Paul Grammatico. 
 I had the pleasure of meeting Paul at the Horror Hotel International Film Festival and picked up a couple of his books, one of which I already reviewed (review of Keys of Demented Memories is below).
 In this episode we discuss his works, how he came to create his very unique brand of horror, and of course some of his thoughts on the paranormal!

Pick up his books:

Amazon:
 https://a.co/d/0bwDDvuL

Eject Press:
 https://www.ejectpress.com

see my review on Keys of Demented Memories:
 https://youtu.be/8Z8DNASO7w4?is=285XlQ1OnxQb0o1o

#horrorstories #horrorwriter #paranormalstories #supernaturalhorror

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:18

Well, hey there, and welcome to another after hours chat. Tiffany here, and I am here with another really awesome horror author and screenwriter that I also met at the Horror Hotel Film Festival. I met a lot of really great people here. I mean there, I should say. Met a lot of really great people there. And it was, and I got a chance to talk to some of them, do some really short interviews with them for the YouTube channel. And now I'm sitting down with a couple of them, or I should say actually a lot of them. This is kind of gonna be kind of like a horror hotel series here on my podcast, just because there were so many amazing people there to talk to. And I wanted to maybe have another have a chance to chat with them a little bit more and also maybe introduce some of their stuff to you all if you aren't familiar with their stuff yet. So I am here today with Paul Romatico. And I actually have, for those of you watching the video version of this podcast, have a few of his books here. So um, but before we get into all of that, I would love for Paul to uh yeah, introduce yourself and um what what kind of uh genre you typically write in and what it what exactly you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yeah, thanks for having me on, Tiffany. My name is Paul Grammatico. I am a writer and author, and I write screenplays as well. I am a producer on several films. Um and uh that's kind of what I do.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Awesome, very cool. And um at Horror Hotel, I snatched up a couple of your books here, and uh this one um caught my attention first, Keys of Demented Memories. And this is actually the first one that um at the time of this recording, um, by the time this recording goes live, I will have reviewed it. But um, but yeah, but this was like the first one that I read and will be doing a review on. So um, and then there was uh this uh West the supernatural western Six Bullets at Sundown. I'm actually really looking forward to reading this because it's a little bit different from I don't read very many westerns, so I'm actually I'm really looking forward to maybe delving into kind of a new genre for myself. And then this guy here, Insects of the Damned, which is kind of like a science experiment gone wrong. So um, I'd love for you to um, if you if you may, um elaborate a little more on uh what those books are about.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

So Keys of Demented Memories, we'll start with that one. Um, that one is more of a a gothic story about this family going to their grandmother's house who's recently deceased, and they're cleaning out the house, and what happens is they find a jar of keys and they want to know where the keys what doors the keys belong to. So there's a whole bunch of um doors in this house, and basically they they take a each take a skeleton key and see which one they can, what door opens what, and when they find the door that opens, they find stuff in their past that they would soon uh like to forget, but it comes back to them. Yeah, very so there's a lot of and there's there's a lot of eldritch stuff in it, there's a lot of um like creatures and demons and things like that. There's also monsters in the house as well, um, and we find out later, and it takes place in Louisiana, so it there's kind of a Twilight Zone feel to it as well as kind of this eerie gothic feel. So yeah, that's pretty much I won't give too much away, but that's kind of what what's happening in the house. It's not quite what they think.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Yeah, I'm actually wearing a Twilight Zone shirt now that you you when you mentioned the Twilight Zone, it's like, oh, how appropriate. I'm wearing a Twilight Zone shirt. So yeah. Yeah. So what so what about um the supernatural western uh six bullets at at sundown? What can we expect with that?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Six bullets at sundown is a cross between High Plains Drifter, if you've ever seen High Plains Drifter, and Beowulf. Okay, basically, it's a stranger that comes into town. The town's pretty messed up because this gang has destroyed the the town, and basically he's coming here to find the gang, and he's only one person, and he has one gun. And these guys have like an entire arsenal, and he thinks he's gonna get killed. And they all think in the town, like, you're they're gonna kill you, and it's like, nah, I'll figure it out. Kind of like what Beowulf does in Grendel. I read a story about Beowulf and Grendel, where they ask Beowulf where his sword is, and he goes, Ah, I left it somewhere, I don't need it. But Grendel's a demon, and he's gonna rip you apart. And you're like, I'll figure it out. It's kind of that kind of story. There's some humor in it, but there's also a lot of the darkness where you actually somebody at the in the town actually knows who this guy is. Yeah, nobody else does because he's kind of hidden his face under, like he has this beard, he hides his face under, and then she realizes who it is, and they have this relationship in their past, and this they start to reveal secrets about each other and that that type of thing, what happens in the town and everything in the past.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Yeah, well, that sounds really cool. I'm actually I'm I'm really looking forward to uh digging into that. And the thing, and it's funny because I was um in my uh chat with uh Nathan, um he was talking about how he wished there were more uh Western horror films and how there aren't really a lot of that. And I was like, you know, that that is a very interesting concept because a lot of people think of, you know, like they might think of like have a certain image in their head when they think of a Western and like what exactly it is, and you know, home on the range and all that stuff. But really, when you look at the history, and Nathan and I touched a little on this, when you look at the history of the old West, it's actually very rife for a horror film. It's really I mean, uh, it's a very kind of dark history, and there's things like ghost towns and you ghosts of cowboys. I mean, and there's like the Johnny Cash song, Ghost Writers, and you know, so right.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

I mean, the last horror, the last horror western I ever saw was something called the Pale Door.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

And that that one is very horror and very western, but I think the the the problem with westerns nowadays, yeah, is and I and I talked to a producer one time and a director, and he said, nobody wants to see dirty, dusty, nasty westerns anymore, not like they used to. And it'd be fun to do because I'm a big fan of this rock group called well, they're actually a gothic rock group called Ne Fields of the Nephilim, and I've seen them at least twice, and they come out in like the gunfighter outfits and the and the boots and everything else, and it's funny because they're from Britain, so it's really funny. It's really funny to watch those guys, but they're they're great. I mean, they're kind of a cross between the cult and like Sisters of Mercy, if you've ever heard them. They're really they're really cool, and plus um director who by the name of Richard Stanley um did who did Hardware and Dust Devil, yeah, and most and color out of space. He did their video for um Preacher Man. Oh, so oh, very cool. It's pretty, it's pretty wild stuff. Their stuff is pretty wild, and it's really it's too bad they don't tour anymore. They're pretty cool, but they that's I would love to see something like a nice gothic, dark western type of uh movie at some point.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Yeah, and it can that's the thing though, too. It can probably be done it in a way that could, I think, appeal to audiences. Now, maybe it might be a more niche thing, but I I think it probably can be done in a way to where people might think it's you know, hey, that looks kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Yeah, I mean, I think I think westerns too for in general are like a cult, have a cult feel to it. I don't there's very few westerns that I can think of at present, and of course they don't really make them anymore. Like long riders was considered long riders by um Walter Hill was considered a a a cult western. So there's a lot of there's there is definitely a niche there. I just don't know um if people are into it now or they're just more into you know other other types of genres because they kind of come and go as well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Yeah, oh absolutely. And what about now this guy right here, Insects of the Damned? Well, how'd you get the idea for that?

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Insects of the damned was kind of like the disaster, because I I grew up kind of watching disaster movies, and I and the first horror book I ever read was The Rats by James Herbert. Okay, and James Herbert's done things like Sepulchre, and he's done a lot of very kind of gnarly kind of um horror m horror books because he's yeah, he's another, he's a he's British as well. Um, and the rats really scared the hell out of me. I mean, it really was something I was very young when I read it. It was on my parents' bookshelf. Don't know why it was on my parents' bookshelf, but they had it, and I just picked it up because I thought the cover was cool, and I started reading it, and I was I was absolutely terrified of the book, and I was probably about nine or ten when I read it. Um, and then I read The Swarm, okay. Um, and that was pretty pretty uh scary as well. The book is much scarier than the movie's kind of not very good, but the yeah, the book is actually quite good. So I I thought I could uh maybe play off that where it's an experiment gone horribly wrong, and there's this what happens is there's this uh DNA that's inserted in this is GMO kind of thing, is genetically modified. Yeah, but food that this on the this um cockroach is dying, but then it starts to ingest this uh tomato sauce that's made out of these GMO tomatoes, and it springs back to life, so it becomes an undead insect, and it can infect it can take that genetic material and take it and give it to other dead insects, and they resurrect themselves. So then it becomes this small farming town that becomes beset with all these horrible bugs of every type of variety.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Yeah, oh wow wow, sounds cool. Now that might make a cool film, too.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yeah, I mean with CTI now, because a lot of a lot of the the disaster movies like slugs, they were all done with practical effects. And now with all the technology we have now, I'm sure probably be pretty easy to do now.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Yeah, yeah. Now you also uh wrote a book with um with uh Nathan D. Ludwig, who I I had on um about one or two episodes ago, and also Chad Farmer. You guys did a book together called uh Consume. And that's uh that's another one that I um was definitely looking forward to reading and reviewing. So um now Nathan did talk a little bit about consume, uh, but what was your part in it?

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Well, my part was that we've been talking about this for a year that we're all we're all friends, and yeah, we decided we're gonna create this book. So he said, Well, bring your A game, and I wasn't sure what that meant, but I thought I have this story that is really probably never gonna be for everybody. It's one of those very satirical kind of cutting about very cutting about society and the haves and the have nots on this cruise. So they're on this cruise with the celebrity chef and they're getting this food experience, yeah. And this it becomes really exotic and kind of gets out of control, where they have this one dish that the guy just his girlfriend can eat it, but he's just like, I can't do it. I have to I have to fake it. So he fakes it, yeah. And the problem is it becomes it's it everybody had gets infected because of this really oh, really exotic meal they have, and uh they be they change into these this different um hybrid. I won't say what it is, but it's it's basically this hybrid, and there's a lot of like satire, it's like a cross between oh, I would say something like not faces of death, but more like American Psycho means okay, Jonathan Swift, which his essay, his essay in um a modest proposal really influenced me on trying to do something like that. And people say, Well, where's the cannibalism? Well, the cannibalism, you'll if you as you read it, you'll figure out you'll probably figure out where the cannibalism lies.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Good old-fashioned cannibalism, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Um a lot of people said, Well, where's the cannibalism? Like, there is some in there, it's not as it's not as pronounced as I've seen most people do, but that's not really that wasn't really my intention because I've seen a lot of cannibal stories which I really, really like, but they're very they're very on the nose.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

And I felt like, well, let's just try and do something that's not so on the nose.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Yeah, let's be subtle with it and have people guess, okay, where where's it at?

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Um it's not a it's not a story for everybody either. I know some people didn't really care for it, but that's uh that's kind of the whole thing. That's kind of the whole deal.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Well, that's the thing though. I mean, you know, sometimes, you know, write something that's a little bit off the beaten path, and you know it gives people something a little bit different to, you know, pun not intended, sink their teeth into.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Right. There's just a lot of there's some there's some there's some trigger warnings in there. I'm not gonna lie, but there's there's some things in there that it's it's not to be taken seriously. I think that's the thing. It's not there's just some uh there's things about it where it's it's more of like it's not the act, it's the people committing the act.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

That are the that are the that's the pre that was what I was going for in the premise of it.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

Yeah, yeah, well it's definitely um an interesting uh premise, especially uh because Nathan told me a little bit about his part and then uh Chad's part in it. So yeah, so hey, if you if if y'all think that you know that might be something you would enjoy, like go definitely check out uh Consume and as well as um uh Paul's other books.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Um now there are there any I also have another book out too. I have I one that's sold out at at Horror Hotel called uh Starvation Lake.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Starvation Lake is like it's a survival horror book.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Uh Starvation Lake is actually a real place in northern Michigan. It's around the Gaylord, like uh an hour east of Traverse City, and it's very isolated and desolate. And I spent like half of my summers as a child up there. So there's a group of hunters and they go out hunting, and they're really just messing around. And yeah, one of them actually tries to shoot uh it's during deer hunting season, and they try and shoot a deer, and it shot out the back of somebody's window, and they accidentally kill someone, or they actually hit somebody in the head with it, and as she's dying, she's reciting this thing that doesn't sound like English to them. Oh but it's like, and then all this crazy wild stuff in the in the woods starts to close in on them, basically. Oh wow, and the the how I got that story was basically somebody had actually shot out our cottage back window. Oh and if and during the winter time, thankfully no one was there, yeah, but that's that's where the sink is. Oh so if somebody was like washing dishes, they oh no, they would have gotten plugged in the head, and we would have had no idea who did it. So, but thankfully no one was there, yeah, and we had no idea who shot who shot out our window.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Oh yeah, yeah, that's how I came up with that idea. Like, what if it was somebody who actually shot out somebody's window and and it was somebody that they didn't know who it was, and they were starting to recite this chant or something, and they had no idea what it was, and they can't they can't call anybody because they have no cell phone service that and then her phone doesn't work, so they don't so and they they don't really what to do.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Yeah, oh man, wow. Well, that definitely sounds like an interesting read as well. Now, um, what is it about the horror genre that that draws you to write as opposed to say I don't know, like romance or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Romance is so hard. I could never do that. That's really hard.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Yeah, it can be very that that that is challenging to write, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Horror to me, it's like there's in some of these books that I write, because I I'm I try not to write the same thing. Because I'll just write something that pops in my head, like now I'm writing a crime novel. Oh trying to write a crime novel. Very cool, another one's kind of this men in black, another one is like this men in black sci-fi creatures from another world kind of thing. Um, and just stuff like that. I mean, just I'll just write something that if I get because I I I just can't write one certain thing. I mean, there's some horror elements in my stuff, there's no question about that. But I really try and dial up different genres like gothic and and uh science fiction and yeah and western and that type of thing. I'd really because it'll just be something that'll pop in my head, like, hey, that's a good idea, I'll just do this.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

But horror has always been kind of a thing because it was always something as a child I would I couldn't go see R-rated movies because yeah, it wasn't that my parents were religious or anything, but my parents were rule followers. They were like, No, we're not gonna let you go see The Exorcist when you're you know, when we're not taking you. I was like, All right, so it's like really I watched some horror on TV, uh-huh, but it was always kind of like cut up or whatever. And yeah, usually I would get it from the older kids who get to go see it, so they told me to say, Tell me what this movie's about. Yeah, so that's how I would get my information, but also I would when I read like the rats and everything, and and saw that, and then I saw Hellraiser, and that just blew my mind. Like, oh my god, you can make these worlds out of out of this horror, which I had never seen before in in horror before. And I started reading Clive Barker, and I was just Blown away by these worlds he was creating. So yeah, that's how I kind of got into it.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Who would you say really influenced you to get into writing?

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Uh well, I used to I at first I wrote screenplays. And the reason I wrote screenplays was I got fired from this job in a very strange way. Oh and instead of instead of like oh gosh, creating revenge scenarios in my head, I thought I would write it down. And I wrote my I wrote my first screenplay called Garden of Delight.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

And it all and I and I just submitted it for fun. I'm like, I don't know how good this is gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

So I submitted it to the UK Film Festival, and they said you got runner up, and I said, runner up for what? You got runner up, you almost got your you almost got it made. I almost got it made. Oh and I was like, oh wow, okay. It's like okay, so really and I thought because I I was just like, Yeah, I didn't hear from them. Like, nah, not gonna, nothing's gonna happen. So they basically said, Yeah, we really like your style and what what you came up with. And I said, Okay, cool. So I started writing screenplays, and I met Nathan, and Nathan's like, submit to genre blast. He goes, You ever heard of genre blast? I'm like, No, he goes, You should come. I do this because I met him at Horror Hotel, believe it or not. Yeah, and he came out, he he had Love Potion 666 out, and I was like, Oh, who's this? Who's this guy writing this book? I want to get this book. And then he said, basically, you should come to genre blast, you should submit your screenplays, blah blah blah. And wow, so I went and we we we had a really good, I had a really good time there. It's a great, it's a great film festival if you ever get a chance to go. Uh, and it's in Winchester, Virginia. So he said, Well, you should write a book, and I'm like, Nah, I'm not gonna write it. So he said, Well, just just try it. So there was this thing called Emerge, which was for first-time writers, and it was through godless publishing. Well, it was kind of through godless and dt publishing, which is okay, Insects of the Damned is is DNT publishing. And I wrote this this novelette called uh Lies with Monsters. Okay, and uh they said we love it, we want we want to publish it, and so that's how it kind of started. That's how it started.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Yeah, oh so cool. Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean it had a not so good beginning, but it led to something, you know, really that seems to be have been kind of fruitful for you, so that's always good.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Yeah. I mean, it was like it was it was channeling just that like I mean, I remember watching uh American Nightmare and West Craven talking about uh last house on the left and saying, like what Alan Ginsburg once said was all bad karma has to go somewhere. So kind of like that's my some of that bad karma goes into my writing instead of other places.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

Oh gosh. So as far as uh film goes, uh, do you uh do you do screen writing, but do you do anything else film-related? Have you ever done any directing or producing of any uh films?

SPEAKER_01 25:37

I have produced, I'm as an executive producer on Mike Lombardo's new film, which is called Dead Format, which is gonna be a very it's it's a featured-length film. I'm also a co-producer on Shane Thompson's nice short film called First Day at School. So I'm doing that directing, uh I've tried it. I it's really tough because you don't get a whole lot of support. And and I also and also I I do some film judging too. So I okay look, I look at I look at other people's films, I'm like, yeah, that probably that film's better than I could do. And you know, so um I I have a lot of respect for people who can make films, especially if they can raise money. Yeah, I raising money is the toughest part because if you can get the support, you should definitely make a film. It's really tough to do stuff like Indiegogo or C and Spark or something like that. Yeah, it's really tough to get funding because it's you have to know a lot of people that are willing to back you, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

And uh you did win an award though at Horror Hotel, so yeah, tell a little about that.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

So F ARP was as I'm getting older, I'm getting stuff from AERP that I don't want. Because I don't want to be, I don't want to be reminded how old I am. Um so I thought, well, I'll get um I'll try and get life insurance through AERP. And I told them my medical history, and they turned me down, and I was like, if I lied, I could probably get it, but if I lied, I'd probably be committing fraud.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

So insurance fraud.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Oh so I can't really do that. So I basically was really mad at them, like, well, you know, the hell with these guys. I'm not gonna, you know. So I I thought I just do a little writing exercise. Really, it's like a it's like a five-page story, it's really short, and it's all these people on the phone talking to ARP about like how come you you've rejected me. I you know, I I gave you my my medical insurance and they hang up on they hang up on people, and you know, the the discount, like I want my discount. It's really just a comedy, it's just this silly thing that that I was doing with like scenarios about like these discounts, and they don't get the discount, and I'm like, Oh, I'm on my discount. And they hang up on don't you hang up on me, that kind of stuff. So then they they go to the ARP headquarters and they and they they protest, they they do all these older people protest the protest at the ARP place around their uh home, and yeah, basically they they go out and attack the ARP people that come out of the building and oh man, and that kind of stuff. So it's it's like they it's like old people, it's like older people revenge type of thing. I'm gonna get you.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

That sounds like that that would be so much fun to make, though. That would be such a fun film.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

It's it's and it was just like a writing extra. I'm like, uh it's just just venting, kind of like a rant, a small rant and event. And I sent it to Nathan. I go, What do you think? He goes, You should submit this. It's funny and it's short.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

And so I said, Oh, yeah, I'll just submit it. So I got second place and horror comedy, which is great, which is great.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Yeah, that's awesome. So cool. Yes. And now, paranormal horror is one of my favorite genres, and we tend to also talk about the paranormal here on the after hours uh chats. And before uh we started recording, you were saying that you do have some paranormal experiences to talk about. So yeah, do tell what what are they?

SPEAKER_01 30:02

So I used to live in Oakland, California. I still live in the East Bay, but I lived in Oakland, California, and I lived in this kind of this apartment building that was kind of like used to be prefab housing, and I found out that it was for people who are building like underpasses.

SPEAKER_03 30:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

These were like temporary housing, and they kind of fixed it up and whatever. And it's also near a funeral home. So I started getting some really weird stuff at the house or at the at the apartment I was in. So one day I was I put some like some pants in the sink and I turned the water on, I turned it off. And I get my landlord saying, You didn't turn the water off. I said, Yeah, I did. Oh, and he said, No, you didn't, because we had to come in and turn it off, and so I had to pay damages, I had to pay damages, yeah, and it was just the strangest thing because, like, and then one night I was sleeping, and I had this figure over me, like some kind of half figure, not really sure what it was, it was faceless, and it kept saying this word over and over again. Oh, Xavier, Xavier, Xavier. And every time it said the word, the temperature would drop. Oh, it would heavily drop. Oh, and so I am just I come out of it and I am freezing, I am shaking, I'm freezing. So, and it's the middle of summer, yeah. It's the middle, I mean it's like how it is now, and I was freezing, so I have no idea what that was, and I've had other weird stuff happen. Like I put a sink in one time, I put a glass bowl sink in, yeah, and it would shatter for no reason, just shatter. This was in a different place I lived in, but it was it would shatter. Then I put a stone one in, and the stone one broke.

SPEAKER_03 32:19

Oh, so I had some really weird stuff.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Wow, yes, it broke. It was a bowl, it was a bowl. I thought I'll get stone this time, and it it crashed. So it was really weird. But the the the when I lived in this apartment that was like really, really old, and I found out a lot of things about the funeral home. I actually wrote a short story called The Ghastly Affair on Croxton. It was called that was what it was, and it was like about the whole experience of of this this temperature thing that happened in this in this uh in this apartment.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah, so is there would would there maybe be any urban legends or anything like that that maybe you would like to take a crack at writing a screenplay about or maybe putting a different angle on than somebody else had?

SPEAKER_01 33:22

I don't know because they've been done so much. Yeah. I mean, like I grew up in Michigan, so there's the dog man, and that's been done so many times and in so many ways. The the problem with urban legends is they've been done so much, and even in Starvation Lake, yeah, there is a legend in Starvation Lake that they talk about, and it's called the Pear Cheney Witch. Oh and the Pear Cheney Witch was there was a diphtheria epidemic in this in this place called Pear Cheney, which is up in the northern mid of Michigan.

SPEAKER_03 34:02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Um, and they didn't know it was diphtheria.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

So they thought it was witchcraft. So they they uh targeted this older woman and her daughter, and they they they exiled them out in the out in the woods, yeah. In the dead of winter, of course. Oh my god, wow, and then the the daughter dies, and then she says, Well, if you think I'm a witch, I'm gonna curse this whole town. And so basically they they get her and they hang her.

SPEAKER_03 34:39

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

They were getting really mad there because people kept coming to the cemetery and uh she's buried, and they started, like most people do, um, they started vandalizing and and they kept treading on stuff, and people were like, No, don't come here anymore. Yeah, don't come here anymore. Yeah. Oh so yeah, there's that there's that legend. It's in it's in the books in Vision Lake because they don't know what's going on, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:12

Oh my gosh, wow, yeah. And what um what's your theory on the paranormal on what it is? Because I do ask this of a lot of my guests. Like, do you think it's something residual, uh human spirit, something more demonic, uh interdimensional? Uh, I always say I tend to think it's all of the above, depending on the situation, but what about you?

SPEAKER_01 35:45

I think I I think the the one thing about it is it could be more like the William Blake theory of of what of what the world is. There may not be a heaven and hell, there may just be good people and bad people all on this earth. We just can't see them. Yeah, whether they're and I think it's ambiguous. I don't think it's everybody's bad and everybody's good. I think just think they're they're just people, and more people have a tendency of being bad than some people are really good and some people are kind of in the middle, and some people are are bad.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

Like do you think all time is existing simultaneously, uh, and we're just living in a sliver of it, or uh, because you say like the the William Blake theory of how there's not really a heaven or hell. So uh so do you think, like I said, everybody is just kind of all living together so simultaneously, but we're just maybe in different realms, or what's your that's a that could be a possibility.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

I mean, it's it's it's hard to it's hard to know. I mean, is is there a limbo? I don't know. Could there be a heaven? Sure. Could there be hell? Sure. I mean, I think there that there can't be a heaven without a hell, right? I just feel like that's the way it is. It's the it's everything's in balance kind of thing. I think I think if if you're talking about like God and you're talking about the devil, they're I think of more of like they're like the balance of everything. It's not the devil that may be a a guy that says, yeah, but there has to be a balance between not everybody's gonna be here and not everybody's gonna be up there, that kind of thing. Or or they're just they're just here and they're maybe they're being controlled by those gods on this earth. We just don't see them, and maybe there are dimensions and levels and that type of thing. Maybe even like what Dante says about the levels of hell, yeah, they could actually be here, but it's in a different it's in a different dimension, they're in different dimensions. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's it's just it's a tricky question.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

It really is, uh, because I know people that do think, okay, yes, there is a heaven and a hell, but it's not like what you think. It's not, oh, heaven's up there in the sky and hell is somewhere down beneath us. It's very likely in another dimension that exists alongside of us, but we just don't see it because or you could or you could have like a like uh Jean-Paul Sartre, um, no exit.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

If you've ever read no exit, it's really about three people in a room with bad furniture. I mean, basically, and the light never goes out. Yeah, it's like the light stays on, yeah. The light stays on all the time. How do I sleep? You don't sleep, you're dead. So they're they're in this in the in the play no exit, there's three people, and they can't, and they're so different, and they have their stories, and they pit each other. They it's like three people that are pitting against each other, it's like a triangle kind of thing, yeah. Until one of them just kind of loses it and tries to kill the other person and goes, What are you doing? You can't kill me, I'm already dead. Yeah, and they're stuck together, and that's what hell is for Sartre's vision. It's not fire and brimstone and all this, it's other people.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

Yeah, it's other people, and maybe the person that would have driven you the most crazy while you were alive. But now you have to spend eternity with them and there's no escape, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:58

That's kind of what he was that's what he was kind of angry. I think that's what he was angling for. Because I've read it and I've seen the play done.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

Oh, okay. So yeah. Yeah. What do you think that that shadow figure that was uh hovering over you? Like, do you believe in shadow people, or do you think that was an interdimensional being, or what what what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 40:23

I have no idea.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

It was just something freaky.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

It could have been a specter, it could have been many, it could have been many things. I I honestly couldn't tell you. Maybe because I maybe it it it felt like almost like it's funny because it almost felt like the Ghostbusters thing in the librarian with the the half torso kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

Oh, that's so funny.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

It that's what it felt like. I'm like, imagine a subconscious dream of like Ghostbusters in that one scene. Because that scene had when I watched it, I was like, wow, that's that's wild.

SPEAKER_02 40:59

Oh wow, yeah. So what do you have in the works now?

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Well, I'm currently working on a crime novel, it's something called the Giallo, and the Giallo is like an i it there's a lot of it started out with Italian uh books. They giallo is Italian for yellow, okay, and it was all these crime kind of slasher, but kind of crime novels, which then they became movies like Dario Argento's Bird with a Crystal Plumage. They always got these crazy names like that, or like the blood stained butterfly, or Sergio Martino's, like uh he did um torso, okay. Um, like Death Walks on High Heels, Death Walks at Midnight. Um, and you can watch him like on you can find him streaming. So there's always like this, or like Blood and Black Lace, which is I believe Baba. It's a Baba. Um so there's always this masked killer, or he's in shadow, or you don't see the person's face, or he or she face. Um, four flies in gray velvet's another good one by Argento, which is another Giallo. Um and they kill, they they use it's usually because it's the 70s, and yeah, there's like knives and straight razors and machetes, and they just try and find ways of killing people, yeah. And then there's a police procedure. There's usually a detective or a uh two guys get together and do it, or a woman and a guy like in deep red, like Hemings and and uh in uh Daria Nicolotti get together, uh-huh, they do deep red and they try and try and solve who the killer is.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

Well, this is what this is kind of like, but now that we have like cordless power tools, have more interesting ways of killing people. So that's kind of what it is. It's kind of just the it takes place in this carnival, and he just the killer picks out stuff out of his garage.

SPEAKER_03 43:27

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

He uses that certain tool or object or however to to to wreak havoc at this carnival, and there's this detective that's trying to figure out who the killer is. So it's kind of a who done it. Who done it? Kind of like Friday the 13th is kind of like a sort of like a Giallo.

SPEAKER_02 43:47

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Where it's like you don't see the killer and you're not sure who it is, and they're trying to figure out who it is, and that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 43:55

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

So that's what I'm working on. I'm also working on this. Science fiction, kind of men in black, cosmic god, lovecraft type of um book where there's these gods come down from earth from other planets, and wow there's they have to they want to control Earth and these two uh FBI guys try and figure out what's what's happening and they kind of have an idea. Yeah there's always this there's always this uh and then there's this cult leader that that brings these cosmic gods to earth for not only for for power but for entertainment purposes for people. Yeah so there's kind of like there's like a monster truck thing because the gods have to fight each other on earth. It's it's nuts, it's kind of nuts and campy and strange and weird.

SPEAKER_02 45:02

That sounds so awesome. Yeah, so if somebody was going to be introduced to your work, uh what book would you say to start out with?

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Probably Insects of the Damned.

SPEAKER_02 45:16

Insects of the Damned.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

It's the first one.

SPEAKER_02 45:19

Oh, very cool. Very cool. Yeah, so why Insects of the Damned?

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Because I think it's a it's a book that is kind of science, it has a lot of science fiction in it. It's the experiment gone wrong. Um it's it's I find like some of the characters that I've written are pretty good, and they're in in I think it's an engaging story. It's there's some scenes that people are like, why did you do that? It's there's some unexpected stuff that I do, but again, when I first did it, I was kind of being influenced by other authors, such as James Herbert. It's kind of my reply to the rats. Okay, because the rats is is takes place in England, and there's a rat infestation, and yeah, people are getting people are getting killed by these things, and that type of thing. So um, yeah, I think that's the one. Um, if you know, there are other short reads that I've done, like Keys of the Mental Memories is pretty quick, and um Starvation Likes are pretty quick read. A lot of those other ones are very quick reads, so uh um I mean I really like Six Bullets of Sundown. I really like that a lot because it's it's like the whole Western thing, and I really like the Western supernatural. There's some gothic feel to it as well. And I'm probably gonna I'm probably gonna move on and do a sequel to it. Maybe nice, maybe actually do a trilogy at some point.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

Cool, be like the next Dark Tower series.

SPEAKER_00 47:01

So it's not it's not quite Dark Tower, but we'll we'll see about that.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

Cool. Now, is there any um horror subgenre or any genre for that matter that um that you haven't touched on, but maybe would like to explore writing in?

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Maybe like probably I wanna I want to play around with the vampire genre. Not so much, not so much the typical vampire. Um, I did write this thing called, and it was gonna I try to do an X-Files episode called Ichthyophobia, and it was about lamper eels and how lamper eels have if anybody knows what a lamper eel is, lamper eel basically latches onto a fish and sucks the guts out of it. Okay, so basically I wanted, and they were the ugliest things I'd ever seen in a body, and I and I was like, what if I play with this kind of deal? So it's kind of like it would be something like that, okay, or something like kind of like a demonic vampire thing, and you have like you have this priest that comes and we don't know what he's doing, okay, because the the guy thinks he's a drug addict and he's not a drug addict, and we find out why he shoots up and we find out, yeah. I mean, there's some pretty interesting things about um what rattlesnakes do. I'm not gonna give too much away, but there's like the rattlesnake thing, uh-huh. It's not like they suck blood, they they inject you with something. So interesting. There's just things about that genre that intrigue me, but not so much the whole because it's kind of been done before. I try not to do things that have been done before, yeah. I mean, they've done Dracula a million times, so yeah, okay, and some of them are fun, and some of them are kind of uh, you know, like uh I know one guy who I think he's Romanian Radu, his name is, and he just did a Dracula one that was kind of uh satirical, which I'm intrigued to see, and I haven't I haven't seen it, and I'm I'm intrigued by it, yeah just because it looks so different than and they make him look more like V Vlad the Impaler rather than the Dracula thing, which I think is really yeah intriguing. So I have to see that. There's another really good vampire movie I liked called Summer of Blood. Okay, and that was kind of that was kind of a com it's a comedy, yeah. But the guy who made it was just he's the guy who makes it is his name's I think he's I don't know if I'm saying his name right, Owner Cherkel, who has done a who's done a bunch of movies, yeah. Um and that was I think his first movie, and it's about this guy who's really socially awkward, okay, and then he gets infected by a vampire and he becomes this completely different person, which I think is is interesting, and it's kind of it's it's a it's kind of a comedy too. So yeah, there's a lot of things you can do with it. I just absolutely try and do other things with it. I've done zombies before. Um, I don't know, zombie is really tough because there's a lot of things about zombies that have already been done.

SPEAKER_02 51:01

Yeah, mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of like you have to look at it and be like, okay, so what is it about this genre or this particular creature or monster that hasn't been done yet, or at least hasn't been done as much yet? And how can I put my own unique twist on it?

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Yeah, that's that's I think that's the key. I think the key is here's this genre that you know you can go in a million different directions with what direction are you gonna take on it where people go, oh I never heard, I never thought of that.

SPEAKER_02 51:42

Yeah, yeah. That's real, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So really, really cool. So, where can people find you in your work and uh pick up your books?

SPEAKER_01 51:57

You can find me on Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it. I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram. You can find some of my books on ejectpress.com.

SPEAKER_03 52:09

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 52:10

You can find my stuff on Amazon. I think some of my stuff also is on Barnes and Noble. Oh, okay. Um so you can find it there. Um, you may have a tough time finding keys of Demento Memories because that's gone out of print. Because I may go back, I may go back and work on it some more. I don't know yet.

SPEAKER_02 52:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

So if you if somebody really wants it, I still have copies, so I can so pick it up while you can. DM me and I'll and I'll send you one.

SPEAKER_02 52:48

Fabulous. Yeah, so at least this copy. Um, because even if you do go back and kind of rework it a little, uh these will be rare items right here. So collector's items, love it, love it. So all right. Well, we're coming up on the hour. It's really been an awesome uh conversation, and it was great getting to sit down with you and and talk with you a little bit more about your work. And yeah, and it was awesome meeting you at Horror Hotel and definitely uh keep me posted on what you're doing and when your crime novel is out. Uh, do you uh have an idea of when uh some of your new works might be out?

SPEAKER_01 53:36

Don't know because we're I'm writing uh in the I mean I'm doing like three different things. I'm also writing a new screenplay called That Smell, which is about a blind guy who loses his dog and gets a new one, and it's not quite the same. Oh it's not quite the same as he previously. That's not so cute. I don't know where I'm going with it, but that's kind of the the the log line or the that's the log line. Um I don't know, it's kind of science fiction-y too.

SPEAKER_02 54:06

Um, cool.

SPEAKER_01 54:08

So I don't I don't know. I mean, we'll see. I've I've got a lot of irons in the fire. I'm just kind of taking my time because I want to make sure that that that those come out the way I want them to. And I'm sure I'm gonna have people like I have a guy who's gonna mentor me on it. So we're gonna we're gonna work on it together.

SPEAKER_02 54:27

Yeah, yeah, very cool. But yeah, I would definitely uh once you get a couple of new new projects out or you're working on something new, I'd love to have you back on and talk a little bit more about it. And everybody uh stay tuned for my reviews on uh these books that we discussed, as well as the uh book consume that he wrote with uh Chad Farmer and uh Nathan D. Ludwig. And but yes, thank you so much, Paul, for coming on. And it was really great talking with you today.

SPEAKER_01 55:03

Thanks, Stephanie, have for having me on. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 55:06

Yes, no problem. And be sure to uh check out Paul's uh works, uh check him out on social media, give him a follow and check his books out where wherever you prefer to buy your books at, um, as well as his um ejectpress.com. And once again, Paul, thank you so much. And then I thank everybody then that tunes in and listens. There's a new episode every Friday, unless I say otherwise, usually on holidays. Um that's kind of iffy, except for Halloween, because Halloween is going to be the anniversary um episode because I officially launched this podcast on Halloween, so might have some cool stuff in store for that one. But um, but yeah, but be sure to tune in every Friday because there are a lot of really cool guests coming up. And once again, I thank Paul, thank everybody, thank all the awesome guests I've had on so far. And remember, wherever you are, stay safe, stay fierce, but always stay spooky.