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8.
AOTW: Do you feel any competitive pressure from horror films? If so, does the increasingly graphic nature of horror in films make your job more difficult? If not, why not?
Whitley Strieber: The horror novel and the horror film are too intimately related for there to be any competition. And, like the question of whether 'gory descriptions' are good are bad, the question of the 'graphic nature' of horror films seems to me to emerge out of the false morality of life's surface. The only way to explore the dark is to go into the cave. The real truth is, when you see human beings sailing eighty stories down to explode on the pavement because they would rather die in the holy terror of a fall than the agony of a fire, how can there be any questions about what is too gory and where the line should be drawn. We left the line in the gas chambers of the Holocaust and the burial pits of the wars, and most recently in the graceful flutter of dresses in the air.
Tananarive Due: Actually, I feel the opposite of competitive pressure; if anything, I'm afraid too many readers hesitate to pick up books labeled "horror" because they have been soured by the proliferation of lifeless, blood-spewing horror movies. And too many young horror writers are overly influenced by the predictable image systems and lackluster scripts in horror movies. When enough authors and filmmakers can distinguish between what's truly scary and what they think will LOOK scary, it will be a happy day for all of us. There are a few promising filmmakers out there, like M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense), who know their craft so well that they are writing multi-textured works for the screen that are closer to what a good novelist can provide, but those are far and few between. And that's not competition, in my opinion --- the more good scares there are out there, the better it is for everyone in the field.
Kelley Armstrong: I don't see movies as competition. In fact, I see them as bolstering interest in a genre. Good horror films broaden the audience base, attracting viewers who otherwise wouldn't be caught at a "Friday the 13th" marathon. If these viewers are also readers, they may be more likely to pick up a horror novel after seeing a good horror film. Or so we can hope!
Christopher Schildt: Horror films are not a threat to the type of books I write. Movies are visual experiences enjoyed by the viewer, while books are treats for the imagination of the reader. To that extent they are really quite different. Besides, my novels have such a unique take on the subject matter that I do not feel any competition from movies.
Douglas Clegg: None whatsoever. I suspect that between The Sixth Sense, A Stir of Echoes, and The Others, that we're in fact all moving away from a graphic nature of horror in films. The slasher-serial killer stories might become less prominent if a war takes over, since I doubt many people want to see carnage on the screen when young people are dying in a battle. But good horror storytelling is fairly timeless, and it's not a long stretch from James' Turn of the Screw to The Others.
David Searcy: I feel competitive pressure from cartoons, street mimes, everything. Everything threatens. And, on the other hand, everything (as Wimpy says) is food.
Ameilia Atwater-Rhodes: I believe books require you to think and imagine; movies are good eye-candy. People who like vivid graphics will watch movies; people who like to use their own minds will read. The trick isn't to compete with the gore and brilliant eye-candy of a horror flick, but to keep people reading in general --- to compete with the story.
R.L. Stine: Most of my audience can't be admitted to R-rated films. I don’t really see them as competition for my audience. My stories, The Nightmare Room books, and TV shows are so much gentler than most movies.
Darren Shan: Not at all. For the most part, horror movies work on a different level to horror books. Movies are good for "shock moments" --- such as somebody leaping out of a bush and making the audience scream. Although writers can also do this in books, horror novels offer their creators more of a chance to go deeper, to weave an air of unease, and create a more disturbing, longer lasting experience.
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