Archive: horroregon.us Interview 2011

Interview for horroregon.us website, conducted in 2011 by Jack Maraglia

 

Who the hell are you?

My name is Willy Greer, and I am a fully realized geek.

 

A fully Realized geek, eh?  How did you attain such inner peace?

It was a long, arduous journey. Geeks don’t thrive in Fresno, California–no one does, really, but especially not frail artsy types like myself. Twelve years ago, I moved to Portland, found my people, and everything began to change. Portland has an utterly amazing movie freak culture, from the second-run brewpub theaters to stores like Movie Madness. I can’t imagine being as happy anywhere else, even with Portland’s distressing lack of sunlight.

 

 

What do you do?
I co-host the podcast Horror Holocaust Radio with the amazing Jeff Dean; I compose music for horror movies; I wrote a just-released book on the genre called Shadow Play: Philosophy and Psychology of the Modern Horror Film; and I recently wrote my first screenplay–a slasher film called Second Skin.

 

Horror Holocaust Radio? Is that horror rock? Soundtracks? What’s happening there? Where can we hear it and about how often is is created?

Horror Holocaust Radio is a show Jeff and I have been doing since November of 2004; it’s mostly talk between Jeff, myself, and whatever guests will allow us to stick a micropohone in their faces. We discuss upcoming releases and horror news, do retrospectives on directors, composers, or horror subgenres that we feel deserve extra love, and sprinkle our favorite horror soundtrack music in between (we’re partial to Morricone, Carpenter and Goblin). For our first six years, we were a live, sometimes pirate, radio show, broadcasting every Friday. Now we’re a monthly podcast, which we hope to supplement with monthly fan commentaries for our favorite films. (We’ve just posted our first, for the original Friday The 13th; next up on the chopping block are Fridays 2-4 and Halloweens 1-3.) Horror Holocaust Radio can be heard and downloaded at horrorholocaustradio.com.

 

What horror films can we seek out and hear spooky atmosphere sounds by you?

My first two gigs as a composer were for Lovecraft-inspired films: Cthulhu (shot in the NW) and Pickman’s Muse. The director of Pickman, Robert Cappelletto, asked me to do something along the lines of Carpenter and Goblin, and I was more than happy to oblige him. I’d personally like to see a resurgence of that style of horror film scoring–the “Tubular Bells” template–and was happy to do my part on this film. I also scored the TV spot for Portland’s very own Fright Town, which has aired during haunting season the past two years.

 

Shadow Play…fill us in on that! Writing, research, editing, to printing. Give us the your painful travels from idea to papercuts!

Shadow Play is basically my statement regarding the function that horror fulfills for us–why it may be healthier to watch horror movies than to not. We humans are in constant conflict with ourselves, trying to evolve and attain civilization, but also trying to figure out what to do with these leftover impulses from the reptile brain, these fight-or-flight responses. Horror movies and fiction give us an outlet for these urges, and a chance to explore the darker side of the human mind without catastrophic consequences. I believe we can become better people for it–I certainly did. 

In Shadow Play, I apply Jungian philosophy to the structure of horror films, which I’m a little surprised more people aren’t doing. Horror movies are usually analyzed from a Freudian viewpoint, which is valid on many levels, but doesn’t tell the whole story. Horror movies are about more than indulging the socially inappropriate urges of the id; they are about our ongoing quest to integrate all the repressed parts of our psyches into our consciousness, to move beyond the darkness that haunts us and live healthy, authentic lives.

There’s also a small amount of autobiography, providing a chronicle of when, how and why I became a horror fan (starting at age 8), but the rest of deals with individual movies–over 80 of them, from grindhouse to arthouse. I wanted to write something that could possibly explain to “normal” people why so many of us are so obsessed with this genre, and also to inspire die hard fans to view some of their old favorites through a more modern, liberal, Jungian lens.

From first draft to final polish–including breaks I took when I got sick of it–I’d say Shadow Play took about 4 years to write. Research included reading up on Jung and spending many, many days watching horror films in my underwear. Writing it inspired me to finally watch some of the films I had previously never been in the mood to see, like Irreversible, Lucker The Necrophagus, the Guinea Pig films, and Last House On Dead End Street. (My forcing myself to watch and write about some of these movies led to some of the most inspired essays in the book–a bit of Gonzo journalism in which I watch a few festivals of uber-disturbing movies while getting drunk and writing about them stream-of-consciousness.)

After I sent out the first wave of proposals to publishers, I took a break and focused on composing for a while. But a year later, the folks at Midnight Marquee responded, asking to see the full book. And then of course it was a frantic month of editing, rewriting, spell-checking, and catching up on a few films that had been released in the interim. Midnight Marquee said yes to the book, but there was another year-and-change between then and the book’s release. Accounting for all of that, it was published maybe six years after I first began writing. A very long slog, but I’m glad. I feel like I discovered my voice and viewpoint as a result of writing it, and honestly it took the entire process to draw it out of me. 

Shadow Play is now officially available at midmar.com.

 

 

What’s on the horizon of horror that you are looking forward to, any format?

The screenplay Second Skin is the new priority. I’m impossibly excited about it. Cthulhu director Daniel Gildark is attached as director, and we’re currently looking for the right producer(s). I’m reticent to give too much away at the moment, but I guarantee you’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a slasher film, a genre I’ve been madly in love with since i was way too young to watch them, and which I still think gets a really bad and unfair rap. I want to help change that by taking the genre seriously, and I’ve put a lot of time, thought and love into this script.

There are also a couple of new book ideas fleshing themselves out in the back of my mind, and I can’t wait to work on them, but getting this movie made is the primary obsession. I think it’s the next logical step–a lot of screenwriters and filmmakers started as critics.

And I’m always on the prowl for the next scoring project. There’s no such thing as too busy.  

 

What are you currently recommending to friends that might as you for something to watch, read or listen to?

Christopher Smith is insanely consistent, and has yet to repeat himself with any of his films. He’s amazing: Triangle completely floored me; Creep is a simple, primal classic; and Black Death is a brutal and brutally honest study of religious hatred inspired by mortal fear–it’s like Night of the Living Dead with the Bubonic plague standing in for the zombies.

My favorite horror movie of last year was Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. It’s Gremlins meets The Thing, and it looks like it was shot by Dean Cundey. But my favorite movie of last year was Enter The Void. I have to love movies that buckle down and go for it with so much abandon. It’s incredibly over the top, but it’s the kind of over the top I love.

We Are What We Are was incredible–a dark and moving cannibal family drama from Mexico; Piranha 3D provided everything I wanted from a movie with a title like Piranha 3D; Adam Green’s thriller Frozen was beautifully simple and wonderfully punishing. 

I’ve also been recommending the books of Jack Ketchum to anyone who’ll listen. The man goes to such unbelievably dark, brutal places, but there’s real emotional resonance and humanity in every page. Off Season is one of the best cannibal yarns ever spun, and Peaceable Kingdom is an anthology of incredible stories–as good as King in the ’70s in my opinion.

Feature on “In ‘E’” by Aaron Mesh, Willamette Week 10-26-11

Deadly Synths

John Carpenter’s music is in the key of Terror.

MUSIC OF THE MACABRE – ILLUSTRATION: Tony Morgan

1 Comments

      

It emerges out of the night, throbbing, relentless, implacable. It cannot be reasoned with. It cannot be silenced. It is coming from inside your brain. It is the music of John Carpenter.The director composed the music for most of his horror and sci-fi movies, includingHalloween, Christine, Escape From New York and They Live. Each score is in the same insistent tempo, and in the key of E. For one night, anyway, Carpenter’s compositions are finally getting the respect afforded to minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Local musician, author and composer Willy Greer has arranged nine Carpenter soundtracks as In E, a 45-minute suite for five musicians. (The title is an homage to Terry Riley’s 1964 randomized musical piece In C.) Greer will perform it with his ensemble the Magic Pumpkin at Tonic Lounge on Friday night.Carpenter wrote music that feels like a stabbing. “It’s not necessarily a pleasant experience for everybody,” Greer says. “There are certainly people who have adverse reactions to such highly repetitive music. I guess that’s kind of what I like about it: You very rarely get a neutral reaction.”

Greer first responded to Carpenter’s motifs when, as an 8-year-old learning to play drums, he saw Halloween for the first time and forever associated Michael Myers’ menacing trudge across suburban streets with a racing keyboard. After writing his own soundtracks for chillers like 2007’s Cthulhu, Greer recognizes Carpenter’s music as achieving the escalating purity of Glass’s Einstein on the Beach—or “Rowdy” Roddy Piper’s prolonged bum fight in They Live.

“It’s a very simple idea that is milked for a good 10 minutes,” Greer says of that famed alleyway ass-kicking. “And that’s an argument you could also make about the composers of the ’70s: They might have been working within very repetitive structures, but there’s nothing minimal about the way they arrange the instrumentation and the harmonies.”

In E will be performed with very few instruments: guitar, drums and several keyboards, including at least one synth.

“We’re trying to keep it as synthy as humanly possible,” Greer said.

Excerpt from creepyla.com review of Dead Of Night

“… the Visceral Company showcases John McCormick’s flawless sound design and Willy Greer’s highly effective original music for the show. Technically, the show’s a gem.”

-Richard A. Becker, creepyla.com

Dread-Central Review of Shadow Play

“Welcome to Willy Greer’s corner of horror and cult cinema adoration. His newly published book Shadow Play offers an appealing page flipping experience for the die-hard horror fan. To a lesser extent, Shadow Play a personal memoir from adolescence into adulthood, with Greer offering up some of the turning points in his life that cemented his love for the genre.

“More significantly, Shadow Play is a review/critique compilation of new and old genre flicks Greer has taken a special interest in over the years, filtered through Greer’s assertion that being into scary movies has a complex and meaningful psychological significance. Summed up, it’s a horror review tome served up with more personal insight and rationale than your typical detached compilation of film and video reviews.

“Mr. Greer contends that being into this horror stuff is a potentially therapeutic pursuit that may even hold the key to unexpected positive influences in our world. The title of the book refers to some Carl Jung palaver about ignoring or avoiding that which you fear at your peril, for a great, malevolent shadow will emerge and dog you for your mortal existence as a result. Greer adheres to this philosophy throughout the presentation of this book and makes an entertaining case for how he rationalizes his genre fixations.

“Enough about that. Shadow Play is not just a philosophy book for horror fans. For the most part, it’s actually a damn fine little compendium of notorious and noteworthy genre films, some well known, others more obscure, spanning the ages of obscure VHS trash to modern Cineplex mass audience horror. As a reference tome, it would make a worthy, unique add-on to your cross-reference stash, those books you pull and hit the dog eared pages to find more info or perspective on a horror film of interest. My copy of Shadow Play now sits on my shelf alongside Kim Newman’s Nightmare Movies (still the ultimate in my opinion), Stephen Thrower’s Nightmare USA, Chas Balun’s The Gore Score, and L.A. Morse’s Video Trash & Treasures 1&2.

“Greer’s book might not be anywhere near as dense in terms of content as some of those books, but it’s got a cool selection and probably at least a handful of films you’ll want to see after reading it if you’re not the ultra-completist who has seen every version of every thing yet (from Greer’s critique, I am now compelled to check out this trashy ’78 flick Alien Prey, among several other new and older titles I missed or skipped for whatever reason).

“And it’s a point-of-view book, so you’ll have your own preferences coloring your reading experience. I found myself raising a confused eyebrow at some of Greer’s assertions (like his suggestion that 28 Days Later is somehow on par with the original TCM as a grueling viewing experience) and thinking “Damn straight!” at other observations of his (like Greer’s thoughtful inclusion of a significant non-horror flick like Irreversible, or his noting of Chas Balun’s odd, rather inexplicable meltdown over Nacho Cerda’s Aftermath). Basically, reading this book is a lot like discussing genre favorites and trends with a cool, articulate fellow fan over some cold ones, with all the expectedly passionate and preferential arguments in tow.

“I should mention – in this book, Greer reports something I found myself shaking my head in disbelief over. He gets into some uncomfortable personal details here and there in his reviews and critiques, one of which is him deciding watch Aftermath, Aftermath: Genesis, Guinea Pig: Flower of Flesh and Blood, and Erotic Nights of the Living Dead, one after the other in sequence, under circumstances that I can say with 100% certainty that I would never, ever venture to try myself.

“If you want to read more about fighting shadows the Willy Greer way, grab a copy at your preferred bookseller stocking specialized genre content, or hit up the source at Midnight Marquee Press or even on Facebook.”

-McCannibal

dread-central.com

Fangoria #304 Review of Shadow Play

“Any horror survey that opens with quotes from both Carl Jung and Alejandro Jodorowsky has more on its mind than just trotting out genre titles with perfunctory observations. And indeed, Willy Greer’s Shadow Play: Philosophy and Psychology of the Modern Horror Film is no light read; hell, in the preface’s first sentence, he even states that this is ‘not a Leonard Maltin-style’ book. And yet nowhere in this 200-plus-page tome is there evidence of snobbery or elitism or pretentious intellectualism. Instead, Greer paints the very literate case that horror films are not just cheap escapism, but rather have the power to evolve the psychology of mankind.

“Shadow Play is divided into eight chapters that serve as both critical reviews of a miasma of movies and, more importantly, the either conscious or unconscious philosophies and moral lessons they taught the author. In “Me and My Shadow,” he discusses his wonky, pop-culture-fueled upbringing, and how his long-suffering mother allowed him to explore monsters, movies and rock ‘n’ roll with only traces of disdain. It’s a heartfelt coming-of-age chapter that more than one of us devoted fans of dark entertainment will recognize as our own story.

“From there, we move through the grotty bowels of lowbrow horror and films that have have become staples of hardcore shock, and yet aren’t necessarily accomplished. Greer’s analysis of Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond (in “Defending a Mountain of Crap”) is bang-on, calling out the film as a more rigid of Dario Argento’s Inferno and its many gaffes and structural pitfalls, but celebrating the charming, leering mise en scene that made Fulci’s work more memorable… and let you forgive its flaws. Of course, personal reviews like this always come back to Greer’s own point of view–thateven a movie as pandering to visceral shock as this has an undercurrent, something that sates natural human curiosity and offers stimulation for both the gag reflex and the cerebellum.

“The final passage of Shadow Play is a kind of call to arms, a cry for the mainstream to accept and understand that horror films and stories are necessary, even vital to our sanity as a global culture. And as hyperbolic as this may sound, within the confines of Greer’s excellent, impassioned, intelligent–and yes, fun–book, it makes perfect sense.”

-Chris Alexander

Fangoria Magazine #304

June 2011