HORROR OF MY LIFE: RUS WORNOM

13/6/2022

THE FIRST HORROR BOOK I REMEMBER READING

All the Marilyn Ross Dark Shadows novels (well, the ones with Barnabas Collins) and then Dracula and The Exorcist, which I remember reading simultaneously.

THE FIRST HORROR FILM I REMEMBER WATCHING

It was either The Frozen Dead or Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster, in the Langley Theatre in Hampton, VA, during a spook show where a guy in a monster suit carried off a young woman in a bad, blonde wig.

THE GREATEST HORROR BOOK OF ALL TIME

For me, always and forever ‘Salem’s Lot.

THE GREATEST HORROR FILM OF ALL TIME

The Exorcist. There is still no comparison. I also believe that The Shining by Kubrick is the last truly great horror film.

THE GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME

Undoubtedly Shakespeare.

THE BEST BOOK COVER OF ALL TIME

I have fond memories of the 1976 embossed, all black paperback cover of ‘Salem’s Lot, with a single drop of red blood. The paperback cover of Jaws is a close second.

THE BEST FILM POSTER OFF ALL TIME

Exorcist, Alien, Blazing Saddles, M*A*S*H and Animal House.

THE BEST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN

Ghostflowers.

THE WORST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN

Spelljammer: The Ultimate Helm (under the pseudonym of Russ T. Howard). The final book in a D&D series that I knew absolutely nothing about. I decided to just have fun with it, wrote a couple of friends into it, and I wrote the action scenes by channeling Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard.

THE MOST UNDERRATED FILM OF ALL TIME

Two completely different films. The Sweetest Thing, a comedy that grabbed me when I caught it on TV and would not let me turn it off; and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which may still be Spielberg’s most powerful, impactful film—Ray Bradbury called it a religious film—but people tend to ignore it.

THE MOST UNDERRATED BOOK OF ALL TIME

The Elric series by Michael Moorcock. These fantasies—actually, the whole of his Eternal Champion mythos from the ‘60s and ‘70s—are far better and more imaginative than anything Tolkien ever dreamed of.

THE MOST UNDERRATED AUTHOR OF ALL TIME

There are so many little authors that almost no one has heard of, such as Davis Grubb or Charles Beaumont. But I also think James Lee Burke, for all his bestsellers, is underrated. He’s the best writer in America.

THE BOOK / FILM THAT SCARED ME THE MOST

Film: The Exorcist
Books: ‘Salem’s Lot and The Search for the Green River Killer

THE BOOK / FILM I AM WORKING ON NEXT

The Enigma Club (already written and being sent around by my agent); Shades, a horror novel.

Ghostflowers
by Rus Wornom

The weekend of July Fourth, 1971

The jukebox is playing "Everything is Beautiful"...
Old Glory flaps against the blue, Southern sky...
The aromas of burgers and hot dogs hang in the still air...
Children laugh as they play with sparklers in the park...
And the night fills with screams when a girl's body is found, her throat torn out by savage teeth...

Summer Moore is a waitress at the Dixie Dinette.
Twenty, blonde and beautiful, Summer desperately needs to break free from her mother's constant nagging and the dull monotony of life in the small mountain town of Stonebridge, Virginia. She wants out.

His buddies in 'Nam called him the Midnight Rider.
Trager's the name on his Army jacket, but a dark shadow of the unknown hangs over this Vietnam vet as he rides into town on a night-black Electra Glide, called on a quest that's tainted by blood.

Sheriff Buddy Hicks doesn't like hippies in his town...especially not long-haired hippie bikers.
As soon as the sheriff saw him, he knew the biker was trouble. Now something feels different in Stonebridge-something he doesn't understand-and he's not going to put up with radicals in his town...not some biker, and not some smart mouth like Summer Moore.

There are secrets in the woods.
Ben Castle, who summoned the biker with a note scrawled in blood...
Louise Moore, who refuses to lose control of her daughter like she lost her husband...
Summer and the biker, locked in a dance, an embrace of shadows that has lasted for centuries...
And even the mountains themselves hold secrets...

It's a rock and roll Grand Guignol.
It's a death-dance in the moonlight.
ghostflowers
It's a love story. With blood.