THE HORROR OF MY LIFE: DAMASCUS MINCEMEYER

Hi, everyone! Allow me to introduce myself: I'm Damascus, and I hail from St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. When I was but a babe I was exposed to the weird worlds of horror, sci-fi and comics and I pretty much was ruined for ever wanting a real job. Now I'm a writer and artist of various strangeness who spends most of his time conjuring book cover art for horror publishers and writing far-out fiction that's appeared in numerous anthologies, including Fire: Demons, Dragons and Djinn, Earth: Giants, Golems and Gargoyles, Air: Slyphs, Spirits and Swan Maidens (all from Tyche Books), Bikers Vs The Undead, Psycho Holiday, Monsters Vs Nazis, Mr. Deadman Made Me Do It, Satan Is Your Friend, Monster Party, Wolfwinter, Hollywood Holocaust (all for Deadman's Tome, and books for which I also provided cover art), Hell's Empire (Ulthar Press), Hear Me Roar (World Weaver Press), Crash Code (Blood Bound Books), On Time (Transmundane Press), Appalachian Horror (Aphotic Realm), A Tree Lighting In Deathlehem (Grinning Skull Press), Seven Deadly Sins (TerrorTract Publishing), the Sirens Call ezine, the Gallows Hill website and the magazines Aphotic Realm and StoryHack. My first-ever collection of short horror fiction, Where The Last Light Dies, was just released October 29th on Amazon by Deadman's Tome publishing, and I'm in the final stages of finishing my debut novel. In related news, I enjoy music (including, but not limited to, metal, punk, gothic rock, industrial,   '80's   New   Wave,   and   techno),   horror  and science-fiction movies, books, comics, and I waste an absurd amount of time fiddling around on social media.

THE FIRST HORROR BOOK I REMEMBER READING:


There were two kiddie adaptation versions of Dracula and Frankenstein that were part of Random House's 'Step-Up Classic Chillers' line in the '80's that I got when I was seven. I was in second grade when I saw them in my school's scholastic reader and begged my Grandmother for them. Happily she indulged my pint-sized passion for the macabre and bought them for me. The covers had such powerful paintings on them that just lured me in, and were matched by wonderful black-and-white illustrations that triggered my imagination. I still have both books, though they are quite fragile now. An odd aside is that the adaptations were both heavily indebted to the Universal Studios versions of Dracula and Frankenstein, and I remember being vaguely disappointed when I read the actual unabridged book years later. Pre-teen me: "What do you mean ole' Frank doesn't have bolts in his neck? No way!"


THE FIRST HORROR FILM I REMEMBER WATCHING:
The Howling, at age six. My family had bought a new TV that night and were able to view stations we'd not had before. The first thing I remember seeing when it turned on was a werewolf chasing someone through the woods and I was mesmerized. The Howling, while excellent, isn't one of my favored movies, though I do appreciate it for bringing out my inner monster.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
THE GREATEST HORROR BOOK OF ALL TIME:

Novel-wise it has to be Dracula. Despite my previous admission to being disappointed at the unabridged version of the novel in comparison to the child's one I initially discovered, there's no single work that has defined horror in my mind as much as it has. The structure of the book, the depiction of the Count as a true monstrous beast in human guise, the strength of Stoker's female characters--it took stock Gothic literary concepts and brought them into what was then the modern world. There's definitely a line in the sand between pre-Dracula horror fiction (Hawthorne, Poe, Gothic fiction in general) and everything that's come later. Every vampiric character is still either a play on Count Dracula or a reaction to him, and I believe the book completely reinvented the entire horror genre and continues to exert a powerful influence.


For short stories I'll say Clive Barker's Books of Blood. It's a collection of such raw, visceral intensity that I don't think any work of short horror fiction has ever surpassed it, by any author, even by Barker himself. The extent that those tales impacted my seventeen-year-old mind cannot be understated.

THE GREATEST HORROR FILM OF ALL TIME:


It's always a toss up between the 1968 version of Night of the Living Dead and the original Dawn of the Dead (though I do adore the remakes of both). Night's ability to shock remains undiluted, and I still remember my first viewing: I was seventeen, and had bought a $5 VHS copy at a music store. I knew nothing about the film other than it had zombies in it, and I had NO idea about the ending, and it startled me so much I recall yelling at the television. Like Dracula, it's influence is so vast that a mark clearly delineates horror's pre- and post- period in relation to the movie's release.


Dawn of the Dead, on the other hand, is the perfect sequel. It expands on the world created in Night, and we get the first true glimpse at the societal breakdown only hinted at in the first movie. The characters are so well drawn as individuals that the audience truly cares about their fate, which is something more horror films need to strive for. The gore effects, too, were so outrageously plentiful that I was both shocked and giggly about the on-screen carnage. I remember the first time I watched Dawn it was as a triple-feature along with Hellraiser and the Stephen King IT miniseries, none of which I'd ever seen before, and all of which I loved afterwards. That was a fun day.

THE GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME:


William Shakespeare...oh, wait, I don't have to lie to pass the Literature Exam anymore. The real hands down answer to me is H.P. Lovecraft. The man himself was just as odd and fascinating as the fiction he produced, and I always conjure the vision of someone desperate to describe the worlds he's visualizing in his head. Until I discovered him at age sixteen I had only been exposed to Western Folklore-Judeo-Christian concepts of horror--vampires, werewolves, slashers, demons, angels, etc.--and the idea of Cosmic Horror was a notion that upturned every notion of what I thought horror was or could be capable of doing. My own writing style doesn't reflect his influence, but his voice lurks in my mind while I create, particularly in his concept that an upheaval of chaos and disorder is just waiting to tear the veneer of safe civilization apart.

THE BEST BOOK COVER OF ALL TIME:


Again, I'm going with Lovecraft. There's a wraparound cover for Del Rey's The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Tales of Horror and the Macabre that featured a beautifully rendered black-and-white painting featuring a collage of scenes from all the tales within the book that was so powerfully rendered it prompted me to buy the book when I'd never even heard of H.P. Lovecraft before. If a cover is a book's Number One selling point, that image did it's job properly.


I can say with a great grain of ego that my own horror covers for Deadman's Tome publishing rank high on my personal favorite covers list. The publisher takes an exploitive, grindhouse approach to horror, and it's always so much fun to turn lurid titles like Bikers Vs The Undead, Monsters Vs Nazis, Mr. Deadman Made Me Do It and Satan Is Your Friend into images. My personal favorite of my own cover work, though, has to be the one I painted for Where The Last Light Dies, my first story collection. It's a simple image, but one that suits the tone of the book well, I think (Or at least I hope it does!).

THE BEST FILM POSTER OFF ALL TIME:


This one is difficult because I love so many, but today I'll go with Hellraiser. The sado-masochistic shot of Pinhead scowling at the audience while holding the puzzle box is so different, so mysterious and menacing that it invokes threat very easily. The Lost Boys is a close second, however, and I also love the poster for The Evil Dead. Ask me tomorrow and you'll surely get a different answer.


THE BEST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN:
Where The Last Light Dies is my only book thus far, so I guess I'll pick that. But I've had about twenty-five stories published in the last couple of years, and of those in the book I can say that 'A Night At Satan's Palace' is probably my favorite. It's about two old guys in their seventies who stop by a Las Vegas strip club where the strippers are demons in disguise and intent on opening a portal to Hell. I like it's mix of comedy and horror, and it's the story I'd share with someone unfamiliar with me to showcase my work. I also like a story called 'Hunter's Moon' that involves a werewolf hunter attempting to save a little werewolf girl, and 'Ad Majorem Satanae Gloriam', which was originally in the alternate history/horror anthology Hell's Empire and concerns the battle for London during an invasion of Victorian Britain by the forces of Hell itself.

THE WORST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN:


There's been some sword-and-sorcery fantasy fiction I've done that was just abysmal. Every time I tried writing in that genre it never quite worked and I'm not surprised editors continually rejected my efforts. There were also some horror stories I wrote in my late teens/early twenties that were so bad I actually burned them lest they fall into the wrong hands someday. I think every writer can relate to that.

THE MOST UNDERRATED FILM OF ALL TIME:


Near Dark. It's such a compelling, action-packed film with such a unique portrayal of vampires and it's one of the few films that shows them for the bloodthirsty, unrepentantly savage beasts they really are instead of seductive, woe-begotten, fanged heartthrobs. The bar massacre scene in and of itself is so tense and unnerving the viewer is hypnotized, and Lance Henrikson and Bill Paxton just revel in their roles.


Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone is a very close second, and it's such a beautifully done, moving film that I think everyone needs to sit and watch it just once. Jennifer's Body, Waxwork, and Ravenous round out my Top 5 Underrated List. Macabre masterpieces all, and works very much deserving of more attention.


THE MOST UNDERRATED BOOK OF ALL TIME:


I'd say Clive Barker's The Damnation Game. It's his first true horror novel, and contains some harrowing sequences, yet you rarely hear of it. The Faust-in-the-gritty-'80's plot is a masterful example of classic horror structure, and the undead child killer The Razor-Eater is as monstrous as characters come. Why this hasn't been turned into a movie is beyond me.


THE MOST UNDERRATED AUTHOR OF ALL TIME:


Stephen King! No, I kid. Poppy Z. Brite's transgressive fiction really had a startling impact on me. Lost Souls, Drawing Blood, Exquisite Corpse...those are dangerous, confrontational works, and the narrative voice is so clear. Charles Grant was fairly underrated, too, mainly because he championed 'quiet horror', but his style could get under a reader's skin. His novel Symphony is one of my favorites. A current writer I would put on this list is indie author Andy Rausch. His works are so over-the-top they evoke the tall tale, with stories like 'The Day Fat Terry Brought Dead Hitler To Iowa' and 'The Gila-Man Tries Online Dating'. It's an original and distinctly different take on horror.




THE BOOK / FILM THAT SACRED ME THE MOST:
Titanic. Not joking. The scenes of the trapped, drowning third class passengers was terrifying, as were the parts in Schindler's List featuring the removal of the Jews from the ghetto. Just heartbreakingly sad and appallingly horrifying at the same time.


As much as I love horror movies, I admit they don't easily scare me. I tend to take the view that they're mostly dark escapist fantasies. What happens in the real world is infinitely more frightening than any vampire, werewolf or slasher.


That being said, H.P. Lovecraft's ability to describe the black, cosmic depths had a chilling effect on me. Not so much when I'd actually read his work, but y'know, a few days later when you have to go wash laundry in that dark, cold basement...I'd get a wee bit apprehensive.

THE BOOK / FILM I AM WORKING ON NEXT:


I'm busy with the final stages of my debut novel. It's called By Invitation Only and it's about a trio of stoner teenagers in Colorado who inadvertently become vampires and have to deal with a group of evil vampire hunters intent on killing them and destroying their entire hometown. There's a lot of comedy mixed in, and it's my deliberate attempt to upend the dire state vampire fiction has ended up in since the release of Twilight. Vampires, to me, can still be bestial beings capable of inflicting terror. No sparkles required.


For now, though, it's all about spreading the evil word about Where The Last Light Dies. There's eighteen of my short stories in that book, and they cover the entire genre spectrum from comedy-horror to tragic, psychological pieces to torture and straight-up splatter, there's something for every type of horror fan, and it's available on Amazon right now! Go take a look. You've only got your sanity to lose.

​18 solid and unrelenting stories of thrills, horror, and dread. Damascus Mincemeyer's vivid story-telling creates tales that will stay with you forever.There is a place at the end of every road, after each song has finished and all tales have been told, where the sun dims and the shadows take hold. Few who have ventured to that darkened realm return to tell what they've witnessed, but in these eighteen harrowing stories those that have recount the horror and the hope, the desire and the despair that lies WHERE THE LAST LIGHT DIES.

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