THE HORROR OF MY LIFE BY DAVID WATKINS

David Watkins is a horror writer based in Devon in the UK. His most recent novel is The Devil’s Inn (4* - Joe X. Young, Ginger Nuts of Horror) and you can purchase a copy here:
(UK) https://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Watkins/e/B00HVW89IU?
(USA) https://www.amazon.com/David-Watkins/e/B00HVW89IU?
 
You can contact him on Twitter via @joshfishkins or Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7880694.David_Watkins?
 

THE FIRST HORRR BOOK I REMEMBER READING 

Christine by Stephen King, but I have waxed lyrical on this site about that before!

THE FIRST HORROR FILM I REMEMBER WATCHING 

One of the Dracula films with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. I was probably around 9 or 10 so it would have been on TV. I still have a soft spot for those old horror films and I think some modern horror film makers could learn a lot from them – less is more, we don’t need so much blood and gore for effective horror.



THE GREATEST HORROR BOOK OF ALL TIME 

That’s a really tough question! There are a few contenders. Do you pick Dracula?
Frankenstein? Jekyll and Hyde? I Am Legend? The Stand?  These would all be worthy winners (although The Stand has a terrible ending). Any of Clive Barker’s early books also deserve a place on this list (Weaveworld is a personal favourite). However, anything with monsters (however allegorical) is not really scary. Things like war truly terrify me and the thoughts of my kids going to a conflict just brings me out in a cold sweat. Therefore, whilst it is not considered a horror book, I’m going to go for All Quiet On The Western Front.


THE GREATEST HORROR FILM OF ALL TIME 
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Easy – The Thing (1982). Everything about it is just spot on and I absolutely love the ending. I’ll come back to this later.

THE GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME

My opinion on this would probably change if you asked me this question next week. This is like one of those ‘greatest film’ or ‘greatest album’ questions: it’s so subjective, there can never be a right answer.
 
All the writers I mentioned earlier would be deserved winners in this category, plus people like Jo Nesbo (great crime books and he’s written some for children too), Alastair Reynolds (great ideas, endings a bit suspect), Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert (Dune alone should be enough), Joe R. Lansdale (see later), Joe Abercrombie (Lord Grimdark himself) and of course Clive Barker (Legend). Obviously these are all genre authors, and I would point anybody sniffy about genre books to these writers to help change their opinion. I’m not a big fan of literary fiction where nothing really happens or every major character is completely detestable. Will Self falls into this category for me – I’ve tried several times but I just don’t get the love.
 
Christ, I haven’t even mentioned Matheson, Wilde, Steinbeck, Dickens or Shakespeare. Aaargh. Too hard. Next.

THE BEST BOOK COVER OF ALL TIME

I don’t pay that much attention to covers really (honest). It might make me pick the book up but it’s more about how that first page reads.
 
However there are some great examples out there.
The Rising cover lets you know you’re in for a wild ride – look how it adapts the Vitruvian Man and morphs it into something grim. It doesn’t give anything away. Why is there a balloon? Why are there eyes in the sewer? It sucks you in immediately. The Books Of Blood cover is just nuts and is a great introduction for the weirdness and genius it contains.
 

THE BEST FILM POSTER OFF ALL TIME

Star Wars. It’s all there – spaceships, heroic men and women, massive shadowy picture of Darth Vader in the background and of course, the lightsaber in Luke’s hand. With the various revelations in Return Of The Jedi, I think the way Leia is at Luke’s feet is a bit suspect. Close runners up are Alien (the tagline is awesome) and The Thing.

THE BEST BOOK I HAVE WRITTEN

Choose between my children? Never! I’ll let the reader decide.

THE WORST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN

My very first, and no, I didn’t publish it. It was a high fantasy tale, complete with wizards and warriors and it was utterly, utterly shite. Is that a cop out? Yes, it is, but I’ve only published three books so far so can’t really nominate any of them.

THE MOST UNDERRATED FILM OF ALL TIME
Underrated is hard, and ‘overrated’ is an adjective that could be more easily applied to most things these days. It seems that everything is ‘the best of the year’ – even in January! If you read a computer games review site, people don’t rate a game if it scores less than 80% - what’s that all about? 80% is a great score! 50% means its average – what’s wrong with that? If you believe review scores, then just about every game released in the last few years is significantly better than average. Hmm.
 
I have read a lot of books, seen many films, listened to way too much music and some things resonate with me and some don’t.
 
Take The Last Jedi as a case in point – I didn’t much care for it personally, but my friends, who are not as invested in the Star Wars world, all thought it was great, for precisely the same reasons I thought it was a bit naff. Look at the opening scene: Poe says ‘Holding for General Hux’. It got a big laugh in the cinema, but it makes no sense whatsoever. Why do they even know what ‘holding’ means in the Star Wars universe? How does he even get through to the General of the enemy fleet? I felt they weren’t true to the world they’d created. Don’t get me started on the flying force Leia though – there may be children reading.
 
Rant over and back on topic: I’m going to go with The Thing simply because it was rated so poorly on release and yet is one of the greatest films ever made, in my humble opinion. Everything about it is completely brilliant – the special effects, the direction from John Carpenter, the entire cast, the ambiguous ending and the atmospheric music. Special mention of course to Bill – son of Burt – Lancaster who wrote the thing. Scriptwriters very rarely get any credit, but this script is fantastic.

THE MOST UNDERRATED BOOK OF ALL TIME
This is another tricky one, because what do you mean by underrated? Is it reviewed badly or sold badly or just not heard of? I have a lot of love for Robert McCammon’s work – especially They Thirst and Swan Song but I don’t think they’re so much underrated as unheard of – especially in the UK. I believe McCammon had a falling out with his publisher, but he is now beginning to become – deservedly – more popular again.
 
More people need to be aware of JR Park’s Mad Dog or Wayne Smith’s Thor for example (and a quick mention of CC Adams here as he recommended them to me).
 
There are many authors in the independent world who should be better known, who are also really supportive, knowledgeable and extremely talented (the swines!). I won’t name any because I’ll only forget someone and that would be embarrassing. Suffice to say, British horror is in a great place right now.  

THE MOST UNDERRATED AUTHOR OF ALL TIME

I’m not sure that he’s underrated, so much as criminally under-appreciated in the UK, but I would go for Joe R Lansdale. His Hap and Leonard series are great fun with two superb main characters, but I first read Lansdale’s books in the late 80s with his books The Drive-In and short story collection By Bizarre Hands.
 
His horror books are really hard to get hold of in the UK - for example, at the time of writing this, I could get a copy of The Drive In from Amazon for £538.18. That’s outrageous! Does Joe come with it, to read it to you? You can’t currently buy a physical copy of The Drive-In 3 in the UK. I just don’t understand this as he’s a great writer and his horror is every bit as good as the Hap and Leonard books.

THE BOOK / FILM THAT SCARED ME THE MOST

Around twenty years ago, this question would be easy to answer: anything by Ramsey Campbell. He wrote one book (I think it’s The Hungry Moon but not I’m not sure – sorry Ramsey!) and there’s a scene where a scarecrow turns to look at someone and it terrified me.
 
I don’t scare that easy, or so I thought, and especially in books. However, I’ve read a lot of horror in the last couple of years and Adam Neville’s No-One Gets Out Alive is really scary. I don’t want to give any spoilers here, but the way the heroine is stripped of all exits is more terrifying than the ghosts and evil in the house. A tremendous book.

THE BOOK / FILM I AM WORKING ON NEXT

I have just finished the third draft of my monsters in Exeter book: The Exeter Incident. There are monsters living under Exeter and for various reasons they come to the surface to try and take over the city. I think it’s fair to say it doesn’t end well for the fine folk of Exeter. It’s taken me far too long to write it and I suffered a major loss of confidence whilst doing so. I suspect it will have a few more drafts before its ready, but it’s with my loyal beta reading team right now. I’m hoping a small press will snap it up – anybody interested…?

THE DEVIL'S INN BY DAVID WATKINS