THE HORROR OF MY LIFE: CONOR METZ
15/9/2021
THE FIRST HORROR BOOK I REMEMBER WATCHING Well this is tricky because the first horror book I read was a series of short stories, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. I think that book freaked out every kid in my generation with its creepy tales and even creepier art. However, if you mean an actual full length novel, it would be Dracula, thanks to the 1992 movie I was too young to see at the time. THE FIRST HORROR FILM I REMEMBER WATCHING This is also tricky because lots of films have horror elements without being horror. So the first monster movie I remember watching at the age of five was Predator. Which certainly had some horror elements, but was also an action movie, same with Aliens which I watched when I was nine. However, for actual horror films? That’s harder to remember because I got really into binging various horror films in junior high. I’d rent a stack of them from our local video store with my brother since he was old enough to get them. Prior to that, it’s hard to remember any pure horror films I saw, except Pet Semetary, which gave me nightmares in fourth grade. THE GREATEST HORROR BOOK OF ALL TIME For me that’s got to be hands down ’Salem’s Lot. It’s also my favorite Stephen King book. It’s just that perfect vampire story, not only making the threat of them feel very real, but the horror of watching this peaceful small town just wither and die over the course of the book is truly shocking. Vampires have been my favorite movie monsters since Bram Stoker’s Dracula came out in 1992. I was obsessed with Keanu Reeves at the time thanks to the Bill & Ted movies, but there was no way my parents would let me see the film, so they instead bought me the book. That was my big introduction to vampires and it was an instant obsession that only grew deeper with my love for movies like The Lost Boys and Fright Night, and TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (still my favorite show of all time). It’s sad that vampires have gotten a bad rap in recent years due to stuff like Twilight, but like any monster they are always in danger of exhaustion due to overexposure (that’s now happened with zombies too). I also wanted to note, the irony is not lost on me that the actor who made me want to see Bram Stoker’s Dracula was also the worst part of it and woefully miscast. However, that movie did at least introduce me to my favorite actor of all time, Gary Oldman. THE GREATEST HORROR FILM OF ALL TIME For me, it’s got to be either The Shining or Suspiria. Those two films are just a full audio/visual assault on the senses. Too many horror films don’t do enough with the music to really scare the audience, often just opting for loud stingers to highlight scares, but the scores to The Shining and Suspiria I find truly unsettling from the opening credits to the very end. That combined with the incredible atmosphere both present with the production design and cinematography is just second to none. Of course, if we’re picking favorites, the one I always come back to the most is Fright Night, that is just my perfect horror film, aware of the genre tropes and using it to its advantage to combine humor with some truly unsettling moments. THE GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME If we’re talking horror again, it’s Stephen King, right? Like that’s not even debatable. THE BEST BOOK COVER OF ALL TIME Ooh, this is a good one. As a huge fan of old pulp novels, there are some truly wonderful covers there. My favorite artist of all time though, is hands down Frank Frazetta, and his cover to one of my favorite books, A Princess of Mars, has to be my pick for best cover of all time. If you don’t believe me, look it up. Star Wars wouldn’t have its famous poster without it. THE BEST FILM POSTER OFF ALL TIME Well this is going to be very subjective for me because, for one, my favorite poster artist is hands down Drew Struzan and he did an amazing poster to my favorite film of all time, Big Trouble in Little China. So I’m going to have to pick that one. However, I could also see myself going with The Thing. THE BEST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN Well this is kind of a messed-up question. I don’t know if I can rate my own material. I think if you ask any writer what their best work is and they’ll probably say the last thing they’ve written. So that’s what I’m going to go with. The last book I wrote, Castillo Cove, is probably my best one—it’s certainly my most ambitious—but you’ll have to judge for yourself when it’s released. THE WORST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN Wow again, c’mon give me a break here! Okay, because it was the first book I wrote, I’ll go with my unreleased novel, The Assassination on Bunraku. I thought it had a great sci-fi story to it and maybe I could turn it into a comic book someday, but wow my prose was awful at the time. I was trying to transition from screenwriting to novels and was having a hard time really diving into the heads of my characters, so a lot of it was just explaining things happening. I can only assume it was painful for my dad to read, who was thankfully the only one to look at it. Since the question said worst book/film and I did used to be a screenwriter, I’ll also throw my first script into the race, The Road Less Traveled. It was a mess, frankly cobbled together from scenes that I liked in other movies and tried to put my own spin on with pretty awful dialogue. THE MOST UNDERRATED FILM OF ALL TIME Hmm, this is an interesting question and difficult to answer. A film someone might say is underappreciated is really just only appreciated by the right crowd. Cult films come to mind. Those were never meant for wide audience appeal. The people who should like them do and word usually travels fast among those circles. Okay, you know what, I know there are fans who love this, but since it’s my third favorite film of all time, I have mention the original 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. I think that film is pretty much perfect, and somehow manages to combine the much darker comic books with aspects of the cartoon show for a great action/comedy about family. It’s amazing how much critics crapped on it at the time and most people these days will dismiss it, but any true fans of the turtles look favorably on the film as the only turtles film that is actually a really great movie and not just some silly stuff aimed at kids. Sadly, the film has gotten mostly shoved under the rug by the rights owners. I don’t know if this has to do with the turtles being own by Nickelodeon who are owned by Paramount and the original film was made by New Line who are owned by Warner Brothers, but yeah, whatever the case may be, the film has never really gotten any sort of proper release for the fans that celebrates what a great movie it is. THE MOST UNDERRATED BOOK OF ALL TIME This is probably not a good candidate, but I don’t care, I want people to know that Moonraker is the most underrated James Bond novel of all time. Here’s the reason: this book is nothing like the movie! Yes, that’s right, the silliest James Bond movie has absolutely nothing in common with the book other than the name of the villain. Moonraker however, is easily my favorite Bond book. It’s not as good as On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (that’s easily the best), but it has all the right elements to make it stand out from the other Bond stories. It’s the only book where Bond is rejected by the Bond girl for one (she’s already got a boyfriend who’s revealed at the end). It also has a unique structure keeping the first third of the book solely focused on Bond trying to best the villain, who’s cheating at baccarat, and honestly it’s a more thrilling sequence than all of Casino Royale. The rest of the book has all the usual Bond elements of a nefarious plot, a villain who isn’t what he appears, a seemingly inescapable situation, and a great car chase. If you haven’t read it and like James Bond, do yourself a favor and pick it up. THE MOST UNDERRATED AUTHOR OF ALL TIME Hard to answer because I’m sure authors can be forgotten over time. I think Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard are both geniuses and did more to influence the science fiction and fantasy genres than just about anyone else. Yet you don’t see them talked about too much anymore. I’d say, especially for horror fans, H.P. Lovecraft gets a lot more press (at least partially due to how racist he was). Yet Burroughs and Howard created some excellent and truly horrific moments in some of their stories that people don’t seem to talk enough about yet were clearly just as influential as stuff Lovecraft did. THE BOOK / FILM THAT SACRED ME THE MOST I’ve said this before it was Pet Semetary and no, I have no desire to revisit it (I did this once ten years back, but never again thanks). THE BOOK / FILM I AM WORKING ON NEXT I’m currently working on my fourth horror novel, tentatively titled Bleeding Hart. I don’t want to give anything about it away other than to say it’s based on my time in LA and features a fresh take on a classic movie monster. The Edgewood Nightmare |
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