February 14, 2025 • 49 mins
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Prepare yourself for a chilling journey into the world of horror as we welcome the masterful James Cain to the Nightmare Engine podcast. Balancing his life as a finance professional in the icy realms of New Jersey, James shares the unique challenges and amusing stories of keeping his horror writing persona separate from his day-to-day life. Listen as we laugh about the quirky reactions from colleagues and loved ones who stumble upon our dark tales, and embrace the peculiar joys that come with being a horror writer.
Revisit the spine-tingling nostalgia of horror cinema, as we reminisce about the thrill of VHS tapes and the iconic films that shaped the genre. From the slasher thrills of "Friday the 13th" to the cosmic terror of "Event Horizon," we explore how different environments enhance the horror experience. You'll even get a sneak peek into the eerie world of "Dead Children's Playground," where unsettling settings make for captivating storytelling.
Discover the art of crafting horror with realism, as we delve into the unpredictable nature of human behavior and the essence of survival in extreme situations. Through personal experiences and tales like "Mr. Wicker" and "Black Friday," we uncover the layers of human nature that drive the chaos and terror in our stories. With James by our side, we dissect the haunting soundscapes of films like "Sinister" and "Paranormal Activity," appreciating the intricate storytelling that makes horror an unforgettable experience. Don't miss this chance to explore the mysteries and nuances of the horror genre with us!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to yet another episode
of the Nightmare Engine podcast.
It is another Friday night andI think we're on episode seven.
I say this every week where Ijust I have I lose track of the
episodes, and I think it'slargely irrelevant.
I think you care about who's on, not necessarily what order
it's in, so you know.
If you see a name that that'sfamiliar to you, jump in and
please, please, jump into thepodcast.
(00:21):
You love the other episodes.
I think they're all worth it.
I think we bring in people whowho can bring insight and light
into horror, and not just from alike.
We don't talk about books andmarketing.
What we talk about is the stuffthat makes horror fun and
unique.
Our genre has largely been kindof shoved off to the side and
we love to bring it out in frontof everyone and say, hey, look,
(00:42):
this is out here for everybody.
I think a lot of people mayhave been burned by horror in
the past and that's why we'relike, hey, give our stuff
another try.
We're right down the middle, Ithink you'd like it.
So that's where we're at today.
Like I said, it's Friday, I'm inTexas and so this has been some
of the funkiest weather I'veever seen.
It's between I don't know, 10and 30 degrees on a daily.
(01:03):
Um, the warehouse is absolutelyfreezing, um, but scare mail is
still getting delivered, booksare still getting written, um,
and I've just, uh, made contactwith a studio, um, for scare
mail, and so that is the bigannouncement for this week is
that, um, I'm in contractnegotiations with a studio for
having scare mail produced assomething more.
So, um, if you have not jumpedonto ScareMail, it's really easy
(01:25):
.
Go to my website,davidvergootscom.
Scaremail, it's a year-longhorror experience.
Join thousands, tens ofthousands of readers across the
world.
We send over 50,000 letters permonth, me and my team of five.
Besides that, book-wise, I'vegot six new books, I think,
(01:45):
planned for this year andanother scare mail, and so
that's it.
That's all I'm going to share.
We're talking a little bitabout mysteries today.
I had a mystery in mind forthis next book, called Roanoke.
I thought it was a perfecttitle and a perfect subject
matter, of just the kind of youknow what makes things weird and
spooky.
So that's what I'm going to bedoing today.
(02:05):
I'm actually not by myself.
I've been rambling a little bit, but I'm here with a very
special guest, someone I knowfrom the community who writes
amazing books, whose titles areclear and obvious of what you're
going to get.
So, ladies and gentlemen, mrJames Cain, james, how are you?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Hey, I'm good man.
Thanks for having me on, Iappreciate it.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Awesome man.
Hey, where are you coming infrom?
Are you cold over there or areyou warm?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I am in New Jersey and I am absolutely freezing
right now.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
So yeah, it's snow.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Oh yeah, there's snow on the ground.
It snowed earlier this week andnow it's frozen snow, so it
makes getting out in thedriveway fun.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Awesome man Well cool .
Speaker 2 (02:48):
What's the day job like?
Day job, just finance, doingthat kind of thing?
Sorry, choked up.
Yeah, no, just boring stuff.
Trying to get my words in whereI can and my love of horror and
writing these books and gettingthem out.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, so does anybody in the finance industry.
Just as an aside, it's a verysecure industry, right?
Very boring, like you said.
Numbers very straightforward,yeah, yeah, yeah.
Calculations and Excel, Right.
Does anybody know you writehorror.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
A few people do A few people.
Um, actually it was funny.
Um.
So one guy uh I worked withbefore.
He was friends on my personalFacebook so he kind of knew uh
from that and we kind ofreconnected at my new job.
But uh, one of um uh, after Istarted a couple of years ago at
this, this one place, mycolleagues came up to me and
(03:46):
showed me his phone and he'slike is this you?
And it was my author page.
And I'm like, yeah, but don'ttell anybody that.
So yeah, it was interesting fora while because I was under an
employment agreement so I had tomake sure I kept the two worlds
very separate.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, so did they send you in for psychiatric help
.
No no no, no, no, I got, I gota little, I got a little, I got
a little worried at some of them.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
But yeah, no, so far, so good.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, and that's kind of a funny point on all this is
that they, they, at us as hardwriters and they're like ah,
there's something messed up withthem you know, yeah, exactly,
you know.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, yeah, I get.
I get more that when, um, youknow, when my mom wants to read
my books and I'm like I don'tknow, but uh, especially some of
the gorier ones, but she, uh,you know, she knows me by now,
so I don't think it's any greatsurprise.
Uh, what I lean towards, youknow yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So my mom, I love her to death, but she doesn't
understand.
Like.
So a while when I was focusedon amazon where that's where I
told everybody go my mom wouldbuy all my books because she
thought it was helping, so everytime I had a new book come out,
she'd buy it.
She hadn't she never read on anyof them, but she had a stack of
paperbacks um in her house andso nice, yeah.
So I think, yeah, I'd.
No, I like to credit my firstyear of sales, probably just to
(05:03):
straight straight, to my mom.
So thanks, mom, if you'relistening.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, yeah, my, uh, my mom insists, uh, I give her,
I give her copies of all mybooks, I give her hard covers
and she insists on paying mefull price for it.
So, like I'll, I'll give her ahard cover and she'll hand me 30
bucks, Amy mom.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
But you know it's nice of her, yeah, but it feels
good, she wants to support you,and that's that's, it does, it
does and she has.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
She has read a couple of them, so that's good.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
There you go.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Um.
So, you know, like I said, I'vekind of leading into mysteries,
but I jumped on the financeside for a second there, Cause
I'm like I've heard all thefinance industry like super
boring, like right, hey, it'slike it's very straightforward
secure it's safe.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
It's boring like it is, it is you know, and it's.
It's good because it's givingme the time I need to kind of
push into the to the writingside of things, which is where
my, uh, my true passion liesyeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
So on the topic of mysteries and I'm just kind of
opening this up a little bit, um, because I've got like I'm
starting to see there's a centerof kind of a mystery, the
center of all my stories, right,and it's just how deep that
mystery goes.
That kind of makes itinteresting.
So one of the right, one of theideas I ran with was, um, the
nutty putty cave incident I I'vementioned like three times in
(06:17):
the show because it isterrifying.
Um, I don't know if you'refamiliar with it, but basically
a bunch of spelunkers went intoa cave and this guy got trapped
upside down basically in a twofoot wide hole for like 18 hours
and died All the massive bloodpooling in his head and that
sort of thing.
And so I was like, ok, that'snot really a deep mystery, but
(06:39):
what if somebody like went backto go try to retrieve his body?
And it turned out that was notthe case of what happened down
there.
Like, that's, there's themystery, right.
And you're like, okay, so I'vegot this horrifying scenario,
you know.
And so then, like I was like,oh, okay, I need, I need a
mystery that can go anydirection.
Right, I need something thatcan go any, any which direction?
Um, and so I was like, well,rowan oak colony, right, I used
(06:59):
to live on the east coast, it'sfamous, everybody knows about
how.
Like, how, we basically justdropped the ball on it.
We're like, ah it, peopledisappeared.
Like that was it.
A whole colony disappeared, youknow.
Not not a big deal.
So, on the topic of mysteries,do you have one that I could
look up because I need anotherone that I can like go deep into
the rabbit hole of like, oh man, like how far can we go?
Speaker 2 (07:24):
yeah, I'm trying to think I'm the same way.
All my books tend around acentral mystery like who's the
killer, or you think it's onething and then there's a
revelation halfway through.
But I'm trying to think what'sa good mystery?
Roanoke was always a good one,always.
(07:44):
I've seen that a bunch of timesand that's always been one
that's really scary.
There's one that keeps coming up.
I've seen it on Facebook.
It's called something about thesmiley face killer.
It's like a series of seeminglyunrelated yeah, it's a series
like unrelated killings orseemingly unrelated, but there's
always a smiley face next to it.
I don't know if that wassomething that was just made up,
(08:04):
because obviously on socialmedia you can never be too sure.
But uh, yeah, that one, uh, youknow I was.
I.
I keep meaning to go more intothat, uh, but you know I keep
getting, you know, sidetracked,chasing squirrels and ending up
with something else yeah, well,and, and there's always a bit of
truth to these things, right?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I mean that's what makes it even more terrifying.
Is you're like, yeah, like weonly see the surface level of it
, right, that's the part that wefind interesting, but it goes
so much deeper and exactly, youknow, yeah, and I yeah, um, what
about the Blair Witch?
And and I ask about thatbecause I watched, like the
(08:43):
sequel, I think is what it was,or remake or something.
And when they went back to gofind the Blair Witch, I guess,
yeah, because he thought hissister was alive after all these
years, or something.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Right, yeah, and that was an interesting one, that
definitely it was about this, goahead yeah.
No, I'm sorry.
Yeah, no, I was just thinkingback to when that originally
came out and it's.
It's funny, like I remember Iwas in college at the time and I
(09:16):
was actually going over and Iwas visiting one of my
fraternity brothers in anotherdorm and he was saying, yo, you
hear about these kids thatdisappeared in the woods.
And I mean, this is 1999.
We don't have the internet likewe do today and everything else
, and I was like, wow, this iscool.
And I went down the rabbit holeand I tried to find out
everything I could Like.
Okay, this movie's coming out.
I honestly, I'll admit, Ithought it was real for a minute
.
So like, it's almost like youcould concoct those mysteries
(09:40):
and make them so real.
Yes, it's a lot different now,but it was definitely back then.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I mean it was definitely an experience, yeah,
and it was so cool about thatmovie and how they rolled that
whole thing out, like they madea website.
They were doing streetinterviews.
I mean it was really likeguerrilla marketing at its best,
because it brought people in.
It brought people in like therewas like it brought people in
to, to, to fuel this fire thatjust led to just just pure
(10:11):
pandemonium in this little town,right and and and it worked
great with the medium.
I mean that that whole like ohman, that whole um, what do you
call found footage, is my newestfootage.
Yeah, movie I try to find, evenif it's like totally b-roll
movie like it's just, oh yeahnot good at all.
Like, I love the found footage.
Um, have you seen, um uh, thevhs series?
(10:34):
Any of those?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
yes, I saw the first two.
I gotta really catch up on them, but I really actually really
like both of those yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So like the, the first one and the second one
were really good, um, and thenit starts to kind of get into
like um, the haunting, a hillhouse, not the honey hill.
Um, uh, hell house llc.
Kind of like we're like thethird yeah and fifth are just
kind of so ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
You're like okay, like you know yeah, I've only
seen the first one of the hellhouses, uh, which I thought was
excellent, um, but I haven'tseen any of the sequels yet.
But yeah, the the first twovhs's, they had some really like
uh, I can't remember the oneand I I forget who directed it,
but was the one where they go tothat school and like all hell
breaks loose with the demon.
Yeah, there's some in thatthing yeah, that one was crazy.
(11:20):
That might be my favoritesegment in all of the vhs's yeah
, in the Philippines.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I think it was where it was stationed, like a cult in
the Philippines, and they weretrying to summon something.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah yeah, it was crazy.
That was a crazy one.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah.
So those movies, especially inthe short format, really really
kind of fun.
And then how it linkseverything together, I think is
really what's cool too.
So if anybody hasn't seen thosevhs movies, they're really
interesting, because there are aseries of short stories that
are seemingly unconnected andthen you kind of get a big
(11:54):
reveal, for the beginning and atthe end, of how they are
connected and so it's.
It's really fun payoff, even ifit's like kind of crappy on some
of them, like the quality onthem is kind of it's kind of
awful but like um, but in theend it's it's still.
I mean it.
People in horror have a.
I think our standard is kind oflowered over the years.
You know we're like okay,what's what's next?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
you know yeah, I, I think there's some.
There's definitely some truthto I mean, when you figure,
especially those who grew up onall the stuff in the 80s, I mean
there was some stuff that'spretty bad and really doesn't
hold up at all.
It's like some stuff I'verevisited.
I'm like, oh man, this is sucha disappointment.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
But when I was a kid I loved it you know, yeah, and I
think a lot of us have probablygot a younger introduction into
horror, you know, into thegenre in general, and instead of
it scaring us, I think it kindof interested us.
I mean, were you the same way?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, definitely.
I remember my first timewatching a horror movie.
I was like I must have beenlike four years old or something
.
I was over my cousin's houseand she had Friday the 13th,
part three on, and it was, Iremember, right at the beginning
of it.
Like you know, when Jason goesand grabs his burlap sack, he
was wearing before he gets thehockey mask and it was yeah.
(13:06):
I was like, wow, this is cool.
And you know, there were somethat definitely freaked me out
and scared me, but at the sametime I was always drawn to it.
No matter how bad somethingscared me, I was always like, no
, give me more.
I must have, you know,exhausted the VHS rental section
of Foodtown, which is our localsupermarket here, and they had
a big.
(13:26):
I probably rented every videothere, probably twice.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Awesome, the nostalgia of that, of going to
the local VHS rental like ablockbuster and getting the next
horror movie on VHS.
Like that is my 90s, growing uplike oh yeah, that was I, that
was I mean, yeah, gosh, I missit so much I I find myself kind
(13:50):
of like wishing like we'd goback just a little bit and and
kind of relive some of that umabsolutely.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I mean it was uh, you know, it's just not the same,
even like 2B, which has all thethe trashy movies with the
trashy covers and whatnot.
It just it's just not the sameas holding that VHS tape in your
hand and and bringing it homewith you and you have no idea
what to expect.
You know it's like now youcould just sit back, it's not
good, you turn it off.
But back then you paid like twoor $3 for it.
(14:18):
You want to make sure you see,see, see it through to the end.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yeah, you're a lot more invested in it, right?
I mean, like, because you gotthe back cover, you got the back
cover to read and some frontpicture maybe, and that's it
like.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
that's good luck, you know exactly and I'll tell you,
my absolute favorite was whenyou used to see this video that
had the coolest cover ever andthen you pop it in and it
literally looks like it was.
It was shot on a cam recorder.
You know it was somebody shotin the backyard using ketchup
for blood and I'm like, oh myGod, this is not.
They hired a great artist, butthe movie itself is not great.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, well, the whole budget went to, went to the, to
the thumbnail.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, yeah, I love it man and I don't know, I think
horror hit differentlydifferently.
Back then, like one of my firstintroductions, to horror was
like.
I remember peeking around thecorner of like my parents while
at their house, while they were.
I was peeking on the corner ofthe couch and I didn't know at
the time but I was actuallywatching scenes from event
horizon.
That was my interaction, likeseven years old, and I'm like
(15:21):
now that I think about it, I'mlike you know it's starting to
explain a whole lot when youstart to see event horizon at
that age you know, oh right,yeah, definitely and um and, and
you know, I later revisitedspace horror.
I was like I gotta write a bookin space horror because it's you
know, it's just like the, theunderwater right that there's a
few things that I won't do, andI think those all make perfect
(15:43):
horror movies and horror booksand that's I'm not going in
space, I'm not going deeper thanmy neck in the water and I'm
not going to damn caves.
I'm just not doing those threethings, and if I can do that, I
can avoid being in most scarymovies yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
you and me are on the same page.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Those three things I will not do, not at all yeah,
the um.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
So like, let's talk about, let's talk about
environments a little bit too,because environments are, you
know, it's one of those things.
It's like, okay, it couldreally make a break like a
horror movie or a horror bookand um, and I know that that.
Um, you've got a book.
It's called dead children'splayground and yep, what's the
environment you kind of builtaround that.
(16:25):
I mean because it are we set ina school, are we set at because
the school is scary.
School is always yeah greatplace for scary yeah it's.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
so it's funny, so that's actually based on a.
There is a real dead children'splayground in huntsville,
alabama, and um, that's uh,that's why it's the first book
in my american horror series,which is going to be all
fictional stories based on realurban legends, and that one is
uh, basically there's a cemetery, uh, it's the largest cemetery
(16:55):
in huntsville called maple hillpark and it's, I think, 100
acres and there's a, a ton of,uh, there's a lot of kids buried
there that died in 1918 Spanishflu and the legend has it that
they come out at night.
There's this playground.
It's a small and talk aboutjust an unusual environment.
This is a playground.
(17:16):
It's got basically an A-frameswing with maybe five swings on
it, and then there's a slide.
You know one of the ones thathas the um, you know it's got
the rock wall, the little rockwall, and it's got different
slides and you can run aroundthe tic-tac-toe and all that and
but it's all backed up to, likethis, this huge limestone wall.
There's all limestone cavesthere and, uh, apparently, at
(17:40):
night, the legend uh has it thatafter usually between 10 and 3,
if I'm remembering correctly atthe moment, uh, you can see the
swing start moving on their ownand then, um, you can see tufts
of dirt kicking up when peopleslide down the slide and there's
no one there and any orbs andghostly chills, so um yes that
was just a, a fast, andeverybody in Huntsville knows, I
(18:02):
mean, the story and and Ihonestly didn't realize
huntsville was as big of a cityas it really is.
I think it's actually one of thebiggest cities in alabama, um,
but I kind of wrote it like withmore of a small town type of
vibe and um, it's uh, yeah, sothere's definitely, um, the the
(18:23):
playground is the center of mostof it, but there's also, like
some cool things, like I took alittle bit of creative liberty,
but there's a, a series of threecaves about a mile away.
They're called the, I thinkthey're called the three caves,
and I I kind of incorporatedthat and it was uh, just like it
was just I don't know when I,when I saw that, the name of
that, when I was looking, youknow, research and just the dead
children's playground.
(18:44):
It just evokes such an image.
You know these ghost kidsplaying on the swings and
everything.
Actually, one of my readerssent me a video of swings moving
on their own at the playground,like it was actually in broad
daylight it was.
It was kind of unsettlingseeing it, I'm not gonna lie.
Give me a little bit of a chill, oh man.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
That's what I'm talking about, like.
That's what I'm talking aboutmystery at the center of all
this like and then and then andthen atmosphere and and you know
stuff that's unusual anddisturbing, like I, it's, it's
perfect for horror.
I mean, it is just ripe andit's all.
It's all over, um, it's allaround us.
(19:22):
You know, I, I I was listeningto one of stephen king's old um
lectures and one of them was hewas talking about how he gets
his ideas, and I try to avoidthis topic because it's pretty
boring, because all of us, ourideas and how we generate them
is generally pretty similar.
We think of something as reallyscary or weird and we write
about that.
That's it like yeah, but steven, he likes to look at stuff and
(19:43):
say what is wrong with thatthing, and then he'll just start
listing off things in his headand whatever sticks and won't go
away.
That's what he goes with.
So like under the dome like wasone of his books.
I, I, I got about halfwaythrough and I was like, ah, this
isn't, this isn't the stephenking I like, and because you get
two different kings right, youget one that's like cocaine
fueled and and good, and thenthe other king, and so, and uh,
(20:06):
I was reading and and he wastalking about under the dome,
where it's like hey, there's adome coming down and it like
chops the woodchuck in half, youknow, and he says like, oh,
there's a, there's a clown,what's wrong with the clown?
He talks about the things thatare wrong with the clown comes
in and like that's that's how hegenerates his idea.
You know, like these normalthings in life, that we would
experience a cave, a playground,a cemetery, and then he just
(20:33):
starts asking what's wrong withit, you know, and that that
understanding, right Of wherewe're trying to figure it out
and we can't, we can'tcomprehend it, and now we're
just suffering it, right, sincewe can't comprehend it, we can't
understand it, we can't figureit out.
Now we just kind of deal withit, you know, like that's what
makes horror fun and unique.
(20:53):
Um and so when you're writingand and you know we talk about
the atmosphere, talk about thecharacters, what?
What do you write about realpeople too, like you're talking
about, like you're talking aboutpeople you know, right, or are
you talking?
Do you make characters up tofit the story, like, how does
that work?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I, I usually make characters up to fit the story,
but I put a lot of myself andsometimes, and people, not
necessarily, I think more uh, alot of me, a lot of a lot of my
wife and maybe some likescenarios here or there.
But, um, yeah, I, I definitelyI don't.
I don't specifically make them.
It's not like real people, butthere's definitely elements of
(21:32):
it.
There's like a lot of like likein my book, my pet werewolf,
there was a, you know, the themain character meets a girl and
you know they go on a date andthey fall in love and it
actually the date was prettymuch my wife and I's first date.
And I'll throw little things inlike that and sometimes, like,
sometimes I'll read my books tomy wife at night and she'll
(21:53):
actually, you know, I'll bereading something like oh, wow,
I didn't even realize I put thatin there, you know.
So it's sometimes it'sconscious, sometimes it's
unconscious, but yeah, I meanthere's a lot of.
You know that that reality goesand I think that what um, uh,
(22:14):
makes it more real and thatmakes the characters better.
I mean, in fact, sometimes I'llpurposely make a character do
the opposite of what I would door I know she would do or
something and it's just likebecause again it's that.
What if you know it's that?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
what if scenario?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
and it's um, it's uh.
That's where you know horror,horror can really get, get, get
into it, because everybody hasthese fears, like in Dead
Children's Playground theyoungest character, kylie, she's
just recovered from cancer andthat that the cancer she had was
(22:49):
actually something my son wasat risk for.
For the first seven eight yearsof his life.
He has a rare syndrome calledhemiphypertrophy, which
thankfully has worked out OK,but he it does make him
susceptible to kidney and livercancers, and so in that case it
was the well.
What if it didn't happen for my?
Speaker 1 (23:08):
son Thank God.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
But what if it happened to somebody else and
she actually is recovered fromcancer and she's moving in.
So it's like, it's like whatscares me and that's one of
those like sickness, especiallywhen it comes to my kids, that's
one of those things that scaresthe hell out of me.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Sure, yeah, and and horror has got a way with
affecting people and I thinkpeople are kind of adverse to to
horror because they're afraidto be affected in in in a
vulnerable sense, you know.
But at the same time I thinkhard does have a place in
(23:44):
helping people kind of deal withthe things that scare them.
You know the reason that wewatch a horror movie and we read
a horror book and we're like,oh my God, this character is so
stupid, why would they do this?
It's because it's probably whatwe would do, considering the
scenario.
You know, we, we throw cautionto the wind and do some of the
dumbest things when we'restressed and when we're afraid
(24:05):
and when we don't understand andwhen we're just trying to make
it.
You know, and, yeah, we shouldsplit up.
That sounds like a good way tocover ground, like it's not a
bad thought process.
We just know what it leads to.
You know, you never split up, um, but characters consistently do
it and and people areconsistently okay with it
(24:28):
happening because they're like,you know what in that particular
scenario, yeah, it would makesense that you would do that, or
they would think that waybecause they, they justify it to
themselves and, um, and I thinkheart is unique like that it
really just kind of draws peoplein, you know, it draws you and
me and the average person andjust says, what, if you know,
(24:50):
what would you do?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
yeah and yeah, definitely, as long as it seems
reasonable right, and that'sthat's.
That's the trick.
Uh, it's.
It's funny because, um, youknow what we deal in as, as
people, that kind of createthese stories is.
We have to.
We know that we're writingsomething that from the start is
likely implausible.
(25:11):
Uh, from everything we know ofreality and what it is like
there aren't where, like, oh,there's no such thing as ghosts,
which we could debate thatlater.
But there might be, but youknow there's no, there's no
werewolves, there's no vampires.
So we got to take thesefantastical elements and put
them in a real world and makesure that it's believable in
that real world scenario.
(25:32):
Um, and that's when you know,in that real world scenario, and
that's when you know.
And that's the same thing withthe stupid decisions.
And that's always a pet peeveof mine when people get so
worked up about charactersmaking dumb decisions in in
horror movies or horror books,because I know plenty of people
that make lots of dumb decisionswhen they're not under duress.
I mean, you put them in a lifethreatening, situationreatening
(25:52):
situation.
They're toast.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, and who's it?
Mike Tyson.
He says everybody's got a planto get punched in the face.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
It's kind of the same way when you get into one of
these horror movies or stories.
It's just a character gettingrepeatedly punched in the face
and seeing the outcome and theresult and then the story that
unfolds around them.
Because of that and I thinkthat's what makes it unique and
in its own flavor, we can followthrillers and epic fantasy
(26:31):
tales where the good guy has achance, he's got a chance to win
.
It's a slim chance and throughhis own efforts he can win and
he can fight the thing andsurvive.
But with horror all we can dois survive.
There is no fighting the thing,it is just making it out.
(26:51):
Alive is the only goal.
And exactly it's through,through what I mean, through
human nature, right through ourown, through through will or
through grit or through courage.
You know, I love horror forthat and because it brings just
real people in and says there'sno magic, there's no special
powers, unless you're StephenKing on a cocaine binge, but
(27:14):
there's nothing you can do otherthan survive with what you have
, and a lot of times you don'thave much.
You know, I wrote a story.
That was it.
I wanted to take all the scaryelements out of it, the real.
You know there's a mystery atthe center of it, but, like the
real scary thing, there was nomonster, there was no big bad.
(27:38):
There was a big bad theythought was a big bad and it
clearly wasn't the entire time.
And the big bad was them, waspeople.
And so I took six strangers andI threw them in a subway and I
had a stranger come down thestairs big, tall guy, skinny guy
in a suit, and he dragged awall of darkness behind him and
he just smiled and stood infront of the wall of darkness
and they could not leave and ittold an entire story from six
(28:01):
different perspectives aboutthis smiling man and they all
thought that he was the big badand it turned out the big bad is
not him and so I won't revealit, but that story is called Mr
Wicker and basically these sixstrangers were forced to go into
this scenario, dealing witheach other, dealing with the
(28:22):
things that they encountered andonly going through it in a
human way, and it was probablyone of the most difficult
stories I ever wrote becausethere was no monster to explain
it away.
It's an evil thing, it doesevil things.
That's why it's there.
You know there was none of that.
It was all human nature and youknow, and I find that
(28:46):
terrifying, I mean the thingsthat we do to each other and to
ourselves.
I mean it's just like I've beena cop for about a decade.
I'm still, you know, I'm, I'mstill a cop.
I just I volunteer when mydepartment needs help, but but
I'm, I'm a writer full time, buteven now I still remember the
cases right before I left, youknow, and the things that people
(29:07):
do to other people.
And it's just, man don't need amystery there sometimes are
just evil.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
You know, yeah, I mean.
Yeah, I mean my uh.
My dad was a cop for 30 years,uh, new jersey state trooper,
and you know he's got somestories.
I mean one.
He's actually involved with onevery famous case, the uh ice
man.
I don't know if you're familiarwith him.
He was a mob hitman.
They made a movie about himwith uh michael shannon a few
years ago oh really, I gottacheck that out yeah, he, he
alleged that he he was.
He was a hitman, but he's also apathological liar, so he
(29:41):
alleged to kill over a hundredpeople.
But yeah, my dad has somestories about stuff that guy did
, like, uh, he hired a chemistto make him a cyanide spray and
then killed the chemist rightafterwards.
And, yeah, and, and he eventhey have these things on HBO
called the Iceman tapes and hisinterviews with this guy and
(30:02):
he's even talking about how hetold one guy he's like all right
, I'm gonna let you pray for anhour and if God comes down and
saves you, I won't kill you.
And he left the room, let himpray for an hour, came back in
and killed the guy.
And that is dark, that is somedark stuff right there, you know
, and it's you know, it's kindof like Cold man just cold, yeah
(30:23):
, yeah, and it's funny because Ijust kind of explored that a
little bit in my last book,black Friday, and that's a story
, uh, basically this internetcelebrity named vortex, he
brings 50 strangers together,puts him in an abandoned
shopping mall and he says umfive million dollars, but you
got to be the last one leftalive to get it.
(30:43):
And all these ordinary peopleuh just start massacring each
other because oh, it also not tomention, there's snipers at
every exit and the mall's gonnablow up in two hours.
So either they fight and killor they die yeah so and they
just do some horrible things.
And my favorite chapter is theone where all chaos breaks loose
and I won't go into likespoilers or anything, but
(31:04):
basically, as people are killing, like I, I usually like to
write my stuff from like a veryfocused perspective of one
character.
I don't like using omnipotentperspective, but um, they, uh,
it kind of switches to each.
Characters are committing thisbrutal act and saying what led
them to their dire financialsituation.
Like this one has credit carddebt.
This one has medical bills.
This one owes money to the mob.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
So, and it's just like, it was just interesting to
do, because it's like you knowwhat scenarios can lead ordinary
people to do horrible thingsyeah, well, and, and, and, how
little they'll abandon andeverything that they believe in,
for something as simple asmoney.
They think that the all theirproblems will be solved, you
(31:48):
know, by, by money.
Or if I just get this one thing, or if I just discover this one
thing about myself, or whatever, and and the places they will
go to find that.
I mean, that's that's whatmakes it kind of scary about
people, too, is that if you findthat one thing that is just
driving them right, there is nostopping them at after a certain
(32:09):
point, they will do anything,and I mean anything, in a
situation where they wouldnormally, you know, they would
normally not kill somebody ornormally not, right, um, hurt
themselves and, and man, that'sso that's really cool, so that's
, that is something that I'veexplored too.
Is, is, is, can I take a wholebunch of strangers, put them
(32:31):
together and make terrible?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
things happen right.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
I mean so the horror doesn't come from necessarily,
um, you know the snipers, orthem killing each other.
It's the fact that they arestuck together.
They cannot leave and whathappens next you know right um,
I used to get when I was in thearmy.
I was in the army um about 12,12 or 13 years ago.
Um, I used to in el paso and Iwasn't really the black friday
(32:56):
type shopper, um, but what Iwould do is I would get really,
really drunk on black friday orthe night before and we'd go and
sit in walmart and people watchright there at the walmart on
the texas border with mexico,and it was amazing.
I I mean, you're talking,you're talking all walks of life
(33:19):
and everybody's killing eachother over a $5 off TV.
That was regularly priced andthey just marked it down and
said it was marked down.
I mean, it was incredible.
People stepping over each otherI've seen.
I saw people that would go andbuy the TV and then then get in
a fight with somebody and thenuse that TV as a weapon to fight
them.
I mean, like the stuff you seepeople do, if you just sit back
(33:39):
and people watch for a littlebit, especially like Vegas, if
you ever go to Vegas, vegas isthe same way, right?
You take all this debaucheryand put it in one place and see
what people do with the excuseof because Vegas, you know,
right, you know, you know theright, oh, you know you, you
never do any of these things,but because Vegas, you know,
let's go do it, you know.
And so man, exploring the humanside of things in horror is, is
(34:03):
what what I think that we canreally capitalize on.
I mean, a lot of genres have tokind of like, you know, you
know, romance is very close tothat, right, so Rome, romance is
the closest cousin to horror,is what I say.
And a lot of people like what?
No, and I'm like well, if you,if you, if you see that you
don't like.
You don't understand what I'mtalking about.
You don't see the substance ofit.
You know, um, the substance isit's all about the people.
(34:23):
There's no magic, you know.
There's no.
There's no, uh quest to go on.
There's no, uh, uh you knowcalling from this this you know,
the chosen one.
It is literally just peopledoing, people things right and
right and what they're going toencounter, and horror is so
unique for that, and so I sayhorror is a close cousin to
(34:43):
romance.
And if you just look at thepeople, look at what the people,
do you know?
I think people could relate tohorror just like they could to
romance.
Do you think so?
I mean, do you think that's a?
Probably one you're like ahyeah, I can see myself doing
that.
No.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I see what you're saying A hundred percent.
It's funny.
I used to.
I used to have.
When I first started out, I waskind of doing a blog on my
website and I and I um, but youknow what?
The very first blog post Iwrote was called why horror?
And it's because horror, likewe were talking about before,
(35:17):
it's like you know, people aredrawn to it even though it's
like, oh, you know, I don't wantto experience.
People do want to experience itbecause it's exposure therapy.
You're experiencing your fearsin a controlled environment and
I think probably the twostrongest emotions in the world
are love and probably fear, andthe romance can serve one and
horror can serve another,because these stories make you
(35:40):
feel those emotions.
So I get that like.
If so, you're an avid romancereader.
I think you're picking it upbecause you want to feel that
love in some sense, just likeyou know.
If, know, if you're picking uphorror, you know you don't want
to see people die and that maybe your worst fear, but it lets
you experience that becausethere is a little bit of an
(36:00):
adrenaline rush, there is alittle bit of a.
It does get your heart pumpingand it's it's definitely
something you want to experience, but you don't want to really
experience it, because thenyou're in trouble yeah, I mean,
it's like those, um, those droptowers.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
You know the carnivals and stuff.
Like you want to feel likeyou're dropping from the tower.
You just don't actually want tojump off the tower, you know so
exactly yeah, so yeah, I meanum, and I talked to tim wagner
about this and he said he saidhorror is fun, that's it like,
that's that's his whole shtick.
Horror's fun.
It can be fun, um, and it'sokay to like it.
(36:39):
That's the other thing is likemost people are kind of nervous
when they say like, oh you know,or their exposure to horror was
, you know, like a b-ratedslasher or something.
Or you know something, maybe onthe fringes of horror, where
it's maybe a little too cozy ora little too extreme, you know
and, um, you know.
For that reason, like I wouldnormally not like movies like
(37:00):
saw, like saw would not normallybe one that I enjoy, um, from
the surface, but when you getinto it and you get into the, I
guess the theory and themethodology behind jigsaw and
why he does it, and the, the,the mystery of it all and his
connection to all these people,it becomes such a greater story.
(37:20):
The traps the traps are justsecondary, right, you know like?
Speaker 2 (37:23):
and they're all symbol and they're.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
They're all symbolic of what was going on with the
character.
So I think that has a lot ofsubstance.
Like that's really good versuslike.
When I watched hostile I waslike I don't get this at all.
It's like a really want.
A bad wannabe saw like it's notvery good, it's just kind of a
slasher.
So I mean, if you were going tointroduce somebody to like
horror like what would be yourgo-to book movie, doesn't matter
(37:44):
like what would it be?
Speaker 2 (37:46):
you're like hey, you've been burned before by
horror.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Like what would you show them?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
trying to, I'm trying to think it is uh, for I mean,
like see, my favorite horrormovie is halloween, but I I
don't know if I'd introducesomebody to that horror with
that, because this slasher is avery specific genre and, um, you
know one.
I would actually tell them to anewer one because I know
especially a newer.
You know a lot of people don'tlike some of the older movies.
(38:12):
I'd say sinister is a good one,but ethan hawke, you seen that
one?
Speaker 1 (38:17):
yeah, and I love ethan hawke, so that's yeah,
that's.
That's sinister, is great.
Um, I I also like the idea that, like the throwback to the tape
, so it's a different medium toolet's use it.
So it's very clever.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Um, exactly, that's a great as well it hits all the
right notes and actually I thinkI think there was something
recently that said scienceactually said they hooked a
bunch of people up and byscience that was like the
scariest movie ever made,because it got people's heart
rates or pulses going.
So I don't know exactly what,but I mean just that it's got.
It's got a mystery, a greatmystery, like what happened to
(38:52):
these kids, what happened tothese families, why is it like
the way everything kind of comestogether, you know a main
character that's gettingobsessive, that's you know uh,
he's got flaws because he's he'sclearly chasing that dragon of
his first hit book, which Iguess writers can relate to too.
Um, and then he's got, you knowuh, his he hasn't told his
(39:14):
family about his financialproblems and like how dire it
really is and how much he needsit, and getting obsessed and
going down that rabbit hole andthen finding out that mystery.
And then just the atmosphereand those tapes were, and he did
a really good job of makingthem grisly without making them
gory.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Yeah, that makes sense him for yeah, yeah, I I
think the the most of the tapesand if anybody hasn't seen them
I'm not gonna really spoil ittoo much, but like the tape that
got me in in this.
So you watch a series of tapesin the movie, but the one that
got me was the lawnmower, likeabsolutely, you know, it was
just the kid running and you'relike what is going on?
And it's like 30 seconds ofthat.
And then the one second of theyear like oh, my god, you know,
(39:55):
my God, you know, and like that.
That for me is good.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Like you know, you know it gets that one too.
What I think really sells thatis the sound design, that that,
that scream, that like it's justgot this steady hum of the
lawnmower, Like you said, for 30seconds.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
And piercing scream that breaks the silence just as
yet.
So it's, it's definitely,definitely scary.
Yeah, and for and then, forwhatever reason.
The paranormal activity movieshit me hard, like those movies,
like every single one of, Idon't care how like, how bad
they got like kind of near theend, like there were a couple of
scenes that just stuck with mefor the entire thing.
You know, one of them was was,um, like the footprints in the,
um, in the, uh, the powder, andthey were like, shaped like a,
(40:40):
like a bird's footprints.
I was like, oh my god.
And then one of the other ones,um, I think it was the marked
ones.
I remember the scene where thekid was jumping, he was infected
by something and he was jumpingand landing on his back and the
thing wasn't letting him fall.
So it was like catching himlike a trampoline, like midair,
(41:00):
and I just remembered I'm like,I'm like how terrifying to know
like they thought it washilarious, right, they thought
it was funny, but I was like Isaw through with my horror eyes
and I was like, no, that thingis saving him from hurting
himself.
That is not supposed to bedoing.
That like.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And it was riding on his back, you know like it was,
he was carrying it around withhim and that to me, I mean,
that's just that type of creepystuff is yeah, you can't,
especially because that's that'syeah, that's that, that's that
believability that like thatcould happen, that paranormal
activity, that it was just amundane couple doing mundane
(41:36):
things and then stuff juststarted and it's subtle, it's
not like it's really over thetop, but you're right, that
scene with the flat, with thepowder flower, whatever it was,
and the footprints in it, I waslike and then, once word demon
came out, I'm like no way,that's, that's scary yeah, yeah,
so the, I mean those, and then,oh, I don't know, I I always
(41:58):
tend to confuse the two, but Ireally like the, um, the
insidious movies too, you know,just on the topic of, because
the insidious and sinister seemvery, not just like in the word
but like the way the layout was.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
You know, it's got kind of that, yeah, vibe to it,
um, and I I loved all of them.
Uh, there were, I think.
I think insidious would be agood one um, that is, that is.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
That is a good one.
I'd say yeah, I'd say probablythe conjuring too, and it's not
to the conjuring also.
Um you know, it's fun, it'sfunny.
There there's a lot of peoplethat kind of crap on on
blumhouse and they're like theymake, you know, safe, generic
horror.
I'm like you need that.
I want like solid horror with aplot.
Maybe I it's not going to bethe most, uh, innovative thing
(42:41):
in the world, but you know, Ijust, you just won't be
entertained.
A good solid story, a good um,you know characters that moves
it forward.
But yeah, insidious wasdefinitely um, and that's one of
those ones where the charactersactually it was unique because
the characters actually made areally smart decision Once stuff
started happening.
They moved out, like literallyin the first 20 minutes they
move out of the house and you'relike, okay, these people are
(43:02):
smart, they don't stay in thehaunted house and like, oh, wait
a minute, it's not the housethat's haunted with that that
was a very clever twist.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Well line was terrifying.
It's not, the house is haunted,it's you and you're like what
you know like that oh my gosh,what a brutal.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Brutal line like like that's how you know you're one
of the best like yeah, one ofthe best jump scares ever too oh
, when it was behind her.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, I remember,
with the music played in thebackground, that that shrill uh
tiptoe through the tulips, tinytim yep oh my gosh, okay,
speaking of okay, so we only gota few minutes left.
But speaking of tiny, ofterrifying songs, look up the
song boots uh, it's a poem.
Boots, um, okay, it's calledboots, um, just type in boots
(43:49):
poem.
It was a, uh, it was uh, it wasa.
It was a poem and I'm gonnabotch this, but it was during
the second.
It was written about thebritish, but it was during the
second.
It was written about theBritish soldiers entering Africa
during the Second Boer War.
So there's a version of itthat's played out over.
It's performed in this way, butit's actually used during Seer
school training to basicallytrain our soldiers to be
(44:12):
headstrong and basically teachesthem to survive torture.
So listen to it.
It's called Boots, boots.
It is one of the mostterrifying audio recordings I've
ever heard and it's.
It reminds me of that song,tick, tock the tulip by tiny tim
, because of the way it's laidout.
So listen to that, um, but yeah, uh, so anyways hey man.
(44:33):
Um, we're almost out of time.
Okay, it is.
It has been awesome talkingabout all kinds of horror stuff
and talking to you and so andconnecting with you all the way
across the world.
After all this time, you know,we've seen each other's names
around and now we got to sothat's great, absolutely.
So real quick with what time wehave left, let people know
where to find you, let them knowwhat book they should jump into
(44:54):
and, um, yeah, Okay, cool.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Uh, well, you can find me, uh, facebook and
Instagram and Tik TOK, Tik, tokstill around.
Well, www I mean not goingthrough the whole thing but at
James Cain writes is my Tik TOKFacebook and Instagram.
Uh, James Cain books on onthere, my website,
wwwjamescaincom.
You get signed copies from allmy books.
(45:17):
I got some cool merch on there,all my latest news.
You can sign up for my readersclub.
I do free books, serial novellas, never any charge to be part of
it.
So, yeah, jamescaincombackslash VIP, yeah, and then
you know if you're looking toget my books, if you want some
of the the less uh intense, uhgory stuff.
(45:38):
The dead children's playgroundis a great starting point.
Uh, my favorite book I'vewritten so far is my pet
werewolf.
Uh, that one's always gonnahave a special place in my heart
, although werewolves are neveras popular as I, uh, I would
like them to be.
But uh, yeah, no, I think thedead children's playground is
(45:58):
playground's.
A good, a good starting partpoint.
If you like, the um, thescarier, more quiet stuff, uh,
but if you, you know you want togo, uh, total balls of the
world war, then, uh, blackfriday is probably your best bet
.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Um, I like to you know, run the gamut between uh,
genres, subgenres, I should sayvery cool, yeah, and harlots is,
do that, you know, as long aswe, yeah, let people know what
to expect.
Hey, there's a little on thegorier side or this little on
the cozier side, but, yeah,definitely you know, a lot of
freedom there for us.
So, ladies and gentlemen, um,thank you, thank you, james,
thank you for your time, thankyou for coming on, and um, for
(46:27):
introducing yourself and uh toour listeners.
And, um, and I hope this isn'tthe last, I hope you'll you'll
join us on the show later on.
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Oh, absolutely Thanks .
Anytime man Appreciate it.
I had a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Perfect, all right.
Ladies and gentlemen, this hasbeen the episode, something of
season, something of theNightmare Engine podcast.
It's about that time.
If you're looking for me, I'measy to find DavidVergutzcom.
That.
That's the only place that Irecommend you go.
Don't go to Amazon and buy mybooks.
Yes, if you need to and you'vegot some Amazon gift cards from
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But if you're really looking tosupport me and support this,
(47:03):
this podcast, just go todavidvergutescom.
That's where you'll findScareMail, it's where you find
all 23 of my novels and that'swhere you find the best ways to
connect with me and thelisteners and the other
listeners on this show.
So, ladies and,
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to yet another episode
of the Nightmare Engine podcast.
It is another Friday night andI think we're on episode seven.
I say this every week where Ijust I have I lose track of the
episodes, and I think it'slargely irrelevant.
I think you care about who's on, not necessarily what order
it's in, so you know.
If you see a name that that'sfamiliar to you, jump in and
please, please, jump into thepodcast.
(00:21):
You love the other episodes.
I think they're all worth it.
I think we bring in people whowho can bring insight and light
into horror, and not just from alike.
We don't talk about books andmarketing.
What we talk about is the stuffthat makes horror fun and
unique.
Our genre has largely been kindof shoved off to the side and
we love to bring it out in frontof everyone and say, hey, look,
(00:42):
this is out here for everybody.
I think a lot of people mayhave been burned by horror in
the past and that's why we'relike, hey, give our stuff
another try.
We're right down the middle, Ithink you'd like it.
So that's where we're at today.
Like I said, it's Friday, I'm inTexas and so this has been some
of the funkiest weather I'veever seen.
It's between I don't know, 10and 30 degrees on a daily.
(01:03):
Um, the warehouse is absolutelyfreezing, um, but scare mail is
still getting delivered, booksare still getting written, um,
and I've just, uh, made contactwith a studio, um, for scare
mail, and so that is the bigannouncement for this week is
that, um, I'm in contractnegotiations with a studio for
having scare mail produced assomething more.
So, um, if you have not jumpedonto ScareMail, it's really easy
(01:25):
.
Go to my website,davidvergootscom.
Scaremail, it's a year-longhorror experience.
Join thousands, tens ofthousands of readers across the
world.
We send over 50,000 letters permonth, me and my team of five.
Besides that, book-wise, I'vegot six new books, I think,
(01:45):
planned for this year andanother scare mail, and so
that's it.
That's all I'm going to share.
We're talking a little bitabout mysteries today.
I had a mystery in mind forthis next book, called Roanoke.
I thought it was a perfecttitle and a perfect subject
matter, of just the kind of youknow what makes things weird and
spooky.
So that's what I'm going to bedoing today.
(02:05):
I'm actually not by myself.
I've been rambling a little bit, but I'm here with a very
special guest, someone I knowfrom the community who writes
amazing books, whose titles areclear and obvious of what you're
going to get.
So, ladies and gentlemen, mrJames Cain, james, how are you?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Hey, I'm good man.
Thanks for having me on, Iappreciate it.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Awesome man.
Hey, where are you coming infrom?
Are you cold over there or areyou warm?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I am in New Jersey and I am absolutely freezing
right now.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
So yeah, it's snow.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Oh yeah, there's snow on the ground.
It snowed earlier this week andnow it's frozen snow, so it
makes getting out in thedriveway fun.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Awesome man Well cool .
Speaker 2 (02:48):
What's the day job like?
Day job, just finance, doingthat kind of thing?
Sorry, choked up.
Yeah, no, just boring stuff.
Trying to get my words in whereI can and my love of horror and
writing these books and gettingthem out.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, so does anybody in the finance industry.
Just as an aside, it's a verysecure industry, right?
Very boring, like you said.
Numbers very straightforward,yeah, yeah, yeah.
Calculations and Excel, Right.
Does anybody know you writehorror.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
A few people do A few people.
Um, actually it was funny.
Um.
So one guy uh I worked withbefore.
He was friends on my personalFacebook so he kind of knew uh
from that and we kind ofreconnected at my new job.
But uh, one of um uh, after Istarted a couple of years ago at
this, this one place, mycolleagues came up to me and
(03:46):
showed me his phone and he'slike is this you?
And it was my author page.
And I'm like, yeah, but don'ttell anybody that.
So yeah, it was interesting fora while because I was under an
employment agreement so I had tomake sure I kept the two worlds
very separate.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, so did they send you in for psychiatric help
.
No no no, no, no, I got, I gota little, I got a little, I got
a little worried at some of them.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
But yeah, no, so far, so good.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, and that's kind of a funny point on all this is
that they, they, at us as hardwriters and they're like ah,
there's something messed up withthem you know, yeah, exactly,
you know.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, yeah, I get.
I get more that when, um, youknow, when my mom wants to read
my books and I'm like I don'tknow, but uh, especially some of
the gorier ones, but she, uh,you know, she knows me by now,
so I don't think it's any greatsurprise.
Uh, what I lean towards, youknow yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So my mom, I love her to death, but she doesn't
understand.
Like.
So a while when I was focusedon amazon where that's where I
told everybody go my mom wouldbuy all my books because she
thought it was helping, so everytime I had a new book come out,
she'd buy it.
She hadn't she never read on anyof them, but she had a stack of
paperbacks um in her house andso nice, yeah.
So I think, yeah, I'd.
No, I like to credit my firstyear of sales, probably just to
(05:03):
straight straight, to my mom.
So thanks, mom, if you'relistening.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, yeah, my, uh, my mom insists, uh, I give her,
I give her copies of all mybooks, I give her hard covers
and she insists on paying mefull price for it.
So, like I'll, I'll give her ahard cover and she'll hand me 30
bucks, Amy mom.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
But you know it's nice of her, yeah, but it feels
good, she wants to support you,and that's that's, it does, it
does and she has.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
She has read a couple of them, so that's good.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
There you go.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Um.
So, you know, like I said, I'vekind of leading into mysteries,
but I jumped on the financeside for a second there, Cause
I'm like I've heard all thefinance industry like super
boring, like right, hey, it'slike it's very straightforward
secure it's safe.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
It's boring like it is, it is you know, and it's.
It's good because it's givingme the time I need to kind of
push into the to the writingside of things, which is where
my, uh, my true passion liesyeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
So on the topic of mysteries and I'm just kind of
opening this up a little bit, um, because I've got like I'm
starting to see there's a centerof kind of a mystery, the
center of all my stories, right,and it's just how deep that
mystery goes.
That kind of makes itinteresting.
So one of the right, one of theideas I ran with was, um, the
nutty putty cave incident I I'vementioned like three times in
(06:17):
the show because it isterrifying.
Um, I don't know if you'refamiliar with it, but basically
a bunch of spelunkers went intoa cave and this guy got trapped
upside down basically in a twofoot wide hole for like 18 hours
and died All the massive bloodpooling in his head and that
sort of thing.
And so I was like, ok, that'snot really a deep mystery, but
(06:39):
what if somebody like went backto go try to retrieve his body?
And it turned out that was notthe case of what happened down
there.
Like, that's, there's themystery, right.
And you're like, okay, so I'vegot this horrifying scenario,
you know.
And so then, like I was like,oh, okay, I need, I need a
mystery that can go anydirection.
Right, I need something thatcan go any, any which direction?
Um, and so I was like, well,rowan oak colony, right, I used
(06:59):
to live on the east coast, it'sfamous, everybody knows about
how.
Like, how, we basically justdropped the ball on it.
We're like, ah it, peopledisappeared.
Like that was it.
A whole colony disappeared, youknow.
Not not a big deal.
So, on the topic of mysteries,do you have one that I could
look up because I need anotherone that I can like go deep into
the rabbit hole of like, oh man, like how far can we go?
Speaker 2 (07:24):
yeah, I'm trying to think I'm the same way.
All my books tend around acentral mystery like who's the
killer, or you think it's onething and then there's a
revelation halfway through.
But I'm trying to think what'sa good mystery?
Roanoke was always a good one,always.
(07:44):
I've seen that a bunch of timesand that's always been one
that's really scary.
There's one that keeps coming up.
I've seen it on Facebook.
It's called something about thesmiley face killer.
It's like a series of seeminglyunrelated yeah, it's a series
like unrelated killings orseemingly unrelated, but there's
always a smiley face next to it.
I don't know if that wassomething that was just made up,
(08:04):
because obviously on socialmedia you can never be too sure.
But uh, yeah, that one, uh, youknow I was.
I.
I keep meaning to go more intothat, uh, but you know I keep
getting, you know, sidetracked,chasing squirrels and ending up
with something else yeah, well,and, and there's always a bit of
truth to these things, right?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I mean that's what makes it even more terrifying.
Is you're like, yeah, like weonly see the surface level of it
, right, that's the part that wefind interesting, but it goes
so much deeper and exactly, youknow, yeah, and I yeah, um, what
about the Blair Witch?
And and I ask about thatbecause I watched, like the
(08:43):
sequel, I think is what it was,or remake or something.
And when they went back to gofind the Blair Witch, I guess,
yeah, because he thought hissister was alive after all these
years, or something.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Right, yeah, and that was an interesting one, that
definitely it was about this, goahead yeah.
No, I'm sorry.
Yeah, no, I was just thinkingback to when that originally
came out and it's.
It's funny, like I remember Iwas in college at the time and I
(09:16):
was actually going over and Iwas visiting one of my
fraternity brothers in anotherdorm and he was saying, yo, you
hear about these kids thatdisappeared in the woods.
And I mean, this is 1999.
We don't have the internet likewe do today and everything else
, and I was like, wow, this iscool.
And I went down the rabbit holeand I tried to find out
everything I could Like.
Okay, this movie's coming out.
I honestly, I'll admit, Ithought it was real for a minute
.
So like, it's almost like youcould concoct those mysteries
(09:40):
and make them so real.
Yes, it's a lot different now,but it was definitely back then.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I mean it was definitely an experience, yeah,
and it was so cool about thatmovie and how they rolled that
whole thing out, like they madea website.
They were doing streetinterviews.
I mean it was really likeguerrilla marketing at its best,
because it brought people in.
It brought people in like therewas like it brought people in
to, to, to fuel this fire thatjust led to just just pure
(10:11):
pandemonium in this little town,right and and and it worked
great with the medium.
I mean that that whole like ohman, that whole um, what do you
call found footage, is my newestfootage.
Yeah, movie I try to find, evenif it's like totally b-roll
movie like it's just, oh yeahnot good at all.
Like, I love the found footage.
Um, have you seen, um uh, thevhs series?
(10:34):
Any of those?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
yes, I saw the first two.
I gotta really catch up on them, but I really actually really
like both of those yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So like the, the first one and the second one
were really good, um, and thenit starts to kind of get into
like um, the haunting, a hillhouse, not the honey hill.
Um, uh, hell house llc.
Kind of like we're like thethird yeah and fifth are just
kind of so ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
You're like okay, like you know yeah, I've only
seen the first one of the hellhouses, uh, which I thought was
excellent, um, but I haven'tseen any of the sequels yet.
But yeah, the the first twovhs's, they had some really like
uh, I can't remember the oneand I I forget who directed it,
but was the one where they go tothat school and like all hell
breaks loose with the demon.
Yeah, there's some in thatthing yeah, that one was crazy.
(11:20):
That might be my favoritesegment in all of the vhs's yeah
, in the Philippines.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I think it was where it was stationed, like a cult in
the Philippines, and they weretrying to summon something.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah yeah, it was crazy.
That was a crazy one.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah.
So those movies, especially inthe short format, really really
kind of fun.
And then how it linkseverything together, I think is
really what's cool too.
So if anybody hasn't seen thosevhs movies, they're really
interesting, because there are aseries of short stories that
are seemingly unconnected andthen you kind of get a big
(11:54):
reveal, for the beginning and atthe end, of how they are
connected and so it's.
It's really fun payoff, even ifit's like kind of crappy on some
of them, like the quality onthem is kind of it's kind of
awful but like um, but in theend it's it's still.
I mean it.
People in horror have a.
I think our standard is kind oflowered over the years.
You know we're like okay,what's what's next?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
you know yeah, I, I think there's some.
There's definitely some truthto I mean, when you figure,
especially those who grew up onall the stuff in the 80s, I mean
there was some stuff that'spretty bad and really doesn't
hold up at all.
It's like some stuff I'verevisited.
I'm like, oh man, this is sucha disappointment.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
But when I was a kid I loved it you know, yeah, and I
think a lot of us have probablygot a younger introduction into
horror, you know, into thegenre in general, and instead of
it scaring us, I think it kindof interested us.
I mean, were you the same way?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, definitely.
I remember my first timewatching a horror movie.
I was like I must have beenlike four years old or something
.
I was over my cousin's houseand she had Friday the 13th,
part three on, and it was, Iremember, right at the beginning
of it.
Like you know, when Jason goesand grabs his burlap sack, he
was wearing before he gets thehockey mask and it was yeah.
(13:06):
I was like, wow, this is cool.
And you know, there were somethat definitely freaked me out
and scared me, but at the sametime I was always drawn to it.
No matter how bad somethingscared me, I was always like, no
, give me more.
I must have, you know,exhausted the VHS rental section
of Foodtown, which is our localsupermarket here, and they had
a big.
(13:26):
I probably rented every videothere, probably twice.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Awesome, the nostalgia of that, of going to
the local VHS rental like ablockbuster and getting the next
horror movie on VHS.
Like that is my 90s, growing uplike oh yeah, that was I, that
was I mean, yeah, gosh, I missit so much I I find myself kind
(13:50):
of like wishing like we'd goback just a little bit and and
kind of relive some of that umabsolutely.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I mean it was uh, you know, it's just not the same,
even like 2B, which has all thethe trashy movies with the
trashy covers and whatnot.
It just it's just not the sameas holding that VHS tape in your
hand and and bringing it homewith you and you have no idea
what to expect.
You know it's like now youcould just sit back, it's not
good, you turn it off.
But back then you paid like twoor $3 for it.
(14:18):
You want to make sure you see,see, see it through to the end.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yeah, you're a lot more invested in it, right?
I mean, like, because you gotthe back cover, you got the back
cover to read and some frontpicture maybe, and that's it
like.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
that's good luck, you know exactly and I'll tell you,
my absolute favorite was whenyou used to see this video that
had the coolest cover ever andthen you pop it in and it
literally looks like it was.
It was shot on a cam recorder.
You know it was somebody shotin the backyard using ketchup
for blood and I'm like, oh myGod, this is not.
They hired a great artist, butthe movie itself is not great.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, well, the whole budget went to, went to the, to
the thumbnail.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, yeah, I love it man and I don't know, I think
horror hit differentlydifferently.
Back then, like one of my firstintroductions, to horror was
like.
I remember peeking around thecorner of like my parents while
at their house, while they were.
I was peeking on the corner ofthe couch and I didn't know at
the time but I was actuallywatching scenes from event
horizon.
That was my interaction, likeseven years old, and I'm like
(15:21):
now that I think about it, I'mlike you know it's starting to
explain a whole lot when youstart to see event horizon at
that age you know, oh right,yeah, definitely and um and, and
you know, I later revisitedspace horror.
I was like I gotta write a bookin space horror because it's you
know, it's just like the, theunderwater right that there's a
few things that I won't do, andI think those all make perfect
(15:43):
horror movies and horror booksand that's I'm not going in
space, I'm not going deeper thanmy neck in the water and I'm
not going to damn caves.
I'm just not doing those threethings, and if I can do that, I
can avoid being in most scarymovies yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
you and me are on the same page.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Those three things I will not do, not at all yeah,
the um.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
So like, let's talk about, let's talk about
environments a little bit too,because environments are, you
know, it's one of those things.
It's like, okay, it couldreally make a break like a
horror movie or a horror bookand um, and I know that that.
Um, you've got a book.
It's called dead children'splayground and yep, what's the
environment you kind of builtaround that.
(16:25):
I mean because it are we set ina school, are we set at because
the school is scary.
School is always yeah greatplace for scary yeah it's.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
so it's funny, so that's actually based on a.
There is a real dead children'splayground in huntsville,
alabama, and um, that's uh,that's why it's the first book
in my american horror series,which is going to be all
fictional stories based on realurban legends, and that one is
uh, basically there's a cemetery, uh, it's the largest cemetery
(16:55):
in huntsville called maple hillpark and it's, I think, 100
acres and there's a, a ton of,uh, there's a lot of kids buried
there that died in 1918 Spanishflu and the legend has it that
they come out at night.
There's this playground.
It's a small and talk aboutjust an unusual environment.
This is a playground.
(17:16):
It's got basically an A-frameswing with maybe five swings on
it, and then there's a slide.
You know one of the ones thathas the um, you know it's got
the rock wall, the little rockwall, and it's got different
slides and you can run aroundthe tic-tac-toe and all that and
but it's all backed up to, likethis, this huge limestone wall.
There's all limestone cavesthere and, uh, apparently, at
(17:40):
night, the legend uh has it thatafter usually between 10 and 3,
if I'm remembering correctly atthe moment, uh, you can see the
swing start moving on their ownand then, um, you can see tufts
of dirt kicking up when peopleslide down the slide and there's
no one there and any orbs andghostly chills, so um yes that
was just a, a fast, andeverybody in Huntsville knows, I
(18:02):
mean, the story and and Ihonestly didn't realize
huntsville was as big of a cityas it really is.
I think it's actually one of thebiggest cities in alabama, um,
but I kind of wrote it like withmore of a small town type of
vibe and um, it's uh, yeah, sothere's definitely, um, the the
(18:23):
playground is the center of mostof it, but there's also, like
some cool things, like I took alittle bit of creative liberty,
but there's a, a series of threecaves about a mile away.
They're called the, I thinkthey're called the three caves,
and I I kind of incorporatedthat and it was uh, just like it
was just I don't know when I,when I saw that, the name of
that, when I was looking, youknow, research and just the dead
children's playground.
(18:44):
It just evokes such an image.
You know these ghost kidsplaying on the swings and
everything.
Actually, one of my readerssent me a video of swings moving
on their own at the playground,like it was actually in broad
daylight it was.
It was kind of unsettlingseeing it, I'm not gonna lie.
Give me a little bit of a chill, oh man.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
That's what I'm talking about, like.
That's what I'm talking aboutmystery at the center of all
this like and then and then andthen atmosphere and and you know
stuff that's unusual anddisturbing, like I, it's, it's
perfect for horror.
I mean, it is just ripe andit's all.
It's all over, um, it's allaround us.
(19:22):
You know, I, I I was listeningto one of stephen king's old um
lectures and one of them was hewas talking about how he gets
his ideas, and I try to avoidthis topic because it's pretty
boring, because all of us, ourideas and how we generate them
is generally pretty similar.
We think of something as reallyscary or weird and we write
about that.
That's it like yeah, but steven, he likes to look at stuff and
(19:43):
say what is wrong with thatthing, and then he'll just start
listing off things in his headand whatever sticks and won't go
away.
That's what he goes with.
So like under the dome like wasone of his books.
I, I, I got about halfwaythrough and I was like, ah, this
isn't, this isn't the stephenking I like, and because you get
two different kings right, youget one that's like cocaine
fueled and and good, and thenthe other king, and so, and uh,
(20:06):
I was reading and and he wastalking about under the dome,
where it's like hey, there's adome coming down and it like
chops the woodchuck in half, youknow, and he says like, oh,
there's a, there's a clown,what's wrong with the clown?
He talks about the things thatare wrong with the clown comes
in and like that's that's how hegenerates his idea.
You know, like these normalthings in life, that we would
experience a cave, a playground,a cemetery, and then he just
(20:33):
starts asking what's wrong withit, you know, and that that
understanding, right Of wherewe're trying to figure it out
and we can't, we can'tcomprehend it, and now we're
just suffering it, right, sincewe can't comprehend it, we can't
understand it, we can't figureit out.
Now we just kind of deal withit, you know, like that's what
makes horror fun and unique.
(20:53):
Um and so when you're writingand and you know we talk about
the atmosphere, talk about thecharacters, what?
What do you write about realpeople too, like you're talking
about, like you're talking aboutpeople you know, right, or are
you talking?
Do you make characters up tofit the story, like, how does
that work?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I, I usually make characters up to fit the story,
but I put a lot of myself andsometimes, and people, not
necessarily, I think more uh, alot of me, a lot of a lot of my
wife and maybe some likescenarios here or there.
But, um, yeah, I, I definitelyI don't.
I don't specifically make them.
It's not like real people, butthere's definitely elements of
(21:32):
it.
There's like a lot of like likein my book, my pet werewolf,
there was a, you know, the themain character meets a girl and
you know they go on a date andthey fall in love and it
actually the date was prettymuch my wife and I's first date.
And I'll throw little things inlike that and sometimes, like,
sometimes I'll read my books tomy wife at night and she'll
(21:53):
actually, you know, I'll bereading something like oh, wow,
I didn't even realize I put thatin there, you know.
So it's sometimes it'sconscious, sometimes it's
unconscious, but yeah, I meanthere's a lot of.
You know that that reality goesand I think that what um, uh,
(22:14):
makes it more real and thatmakes the characters better.
I mean, in fact, sometimes I'llpurposely make a character do
the opposite of what I would door I know she would do or
something and it's just likebecause again it's that.
What if you know it's that?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
what if scenario?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
and it's um, it's uh.
That's where you know horror,horror can really get, get, get
into it, because everybody hasthese fears, like in Dead
Children's Playground theyoungest character, kylie, she's
just recovered from cancer andthat that the cancer she had was
(22:49):
actually something my son wasat risk for.
For the first seven eight yearsof his life.
He has a rare syndrome calledhemiphypertrophy, which
thankfully has worked out OK,but he it does make him
susceptible to kidney and livercancers, and so in that case it
was the well.
What if it didn't happen for my?
Speaker 1 (23:08):
son Thank God.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
But what if it happened to somebody else and
she actually is recovered fromcancer and she's moving in.
So it's like, it's like whatscares me and that's one of
those like sickness, especiallywhen it comes to my kids, that's
one of those things that scaresthe hell out of me.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Sure, yeah, and and horror has got a way with
affecting people and I thinkpeople are kind of adverse to to
horror because they're afraidto be affected in in in a
vulnerable sense, you know.
But at the same time I thinkhard does have a place in
(23:44):
helping people kind of deal withthe things that scare them.
You know the reason that wewatch a horror movie and we read
a horror book and we're like,oh my God, this character is so
stupid, why would they do this?
It's because it's probably whatwe would do, considering the
scenario.
You know, we, we throw cautionto the wind and do some of the
dumbest things when we'restressed and when we're afraid
(24:05):
and when we don't understand andwhen we're just trying to make
it.
You know, and, yeah, we shouldsplit up.
That sounds like a good way tocover ground, like it's not a
bad thought process.
We just know what it leads to.
You know, you never split up, um, but characters consistently do
it and and people areconsistently okay with it
(24:28):
happening because they're like,you know what in that particular
scenario, yeah, it would makesense that you would do that, or
they would think that waybecause they, they justify it to
themselves and, um, and I thinkheart is unique like that it
really just kind of draws peoplein, you know, it draws you and
me and the average person andjust says, what, if you know,
(24:50):
what would you do?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
yeah and yeah, definitely, as long as it seems
reasonable right, and that'sthat's.
That's the trick.
Uh, it's.
It's funny because, um, youknow what we deal in as, as
people, that kind of createthese stories is.
We have to.
We know that we're writingsomething that from the start is
likely implausible.
(25:11):
Uh, from everything we know ofreality and what it is like
there aren't where, like, oh,there's no such thing as ghosts,
which we could debate thatlater.
But there might be, but youknow there's no, there's no
werewolves, there's no vampires.
So we got to take thesefantastical elements and put
them in a real world and makesure that it's believable in
that real world scenario.
(25:32):
Um, and that's when you know,in that real world scenario, and
that's when you know.
And that's the same thing withthe stupid decisions.
And that's always a pet peeveof mine when people get so
worked up about charactersmaking dumb decisions in in
horror movies or horror books,because I know plenty of people
that make lots of dumb decisionswhen they're not under duress.
I mean, you put them in a lifethreatening, situationreatening
(25:52):
situation.
They're toast.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, and who's it?
Mike Tyson.
He says everybody's got a planto get punched in the face.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
It's kind of the same way when you get into one of
these horror movies or stories.
It's just a character gettingrepeatedly punched in the face
and seeing the outcome and theresult and then the story that
unfolds around them.
Because of that and I thinkthat's what makes it unique and
in its own flavor, we can followthrillers and epic fantasy
(26:31):
tales where the good guy has achance, he's got a chance to win
.
It's a slim chance and throughhis own efforts he can win and
he can fight the thing andsurvive.
But with horror all we can dois survive.
There is no fighting the thing,it is just making it out.
(26:51):
Alive is the only goal.
And exactly it's through,through what I mean, through
human nature, right through ourown, through through will or
through grit or through courage.
You know, I love horror forthat and because it brings just
real people in and says there'sno magic, there's no special
powers, unless you're StephenKing on a cocaine binge, but
(27:14):
there's nothing you can do otherthan survive with what you have
, and a lot of times you don'thave much.
You know, I wrote a story.
That was it.
I wanted to take all the scaryelements out of it, the real.
You know there's a mystery atthe center of it, but, like the
real scary thing, there was nomonster, there was no big bad.
(27:38):
There was a big bad theythought was a big bad and it
clearly wasn't the entire time.
And the big bad was them, waspeople.
And so I took six strangers andI threw them in a subway and I
had a stranger come down thestairs big, tall guy, skinny guy
in a suit, and he dragged awall of darkness behind him and
he just smiled and stood infront of the wall of darkness
and they could not leave and ittold an entire story from six
(28:01):
different perspectives aboutthis smiling man and they all
thought that he was the big badand it turned out the big bad is
not him and so I won't revealit, but that story is called Mr
Wicker and basically these sixstrangers were forced to go into
this scenario, dealing witheach other, dealing with the
(28:22):
things that they encountered andonly going through it in a
human way, and it was probablyone of the most difficult
stories I ever wrote becausethere was no monster to explain
it away.
It's an evil thing, it doesevil things.
That's why it's there.
You know there was none of that.
It was all human nature and youknow, and I find that
(28:46):
terrifying, I mean the thingsthat we do to each other and to
ourselves.
I mean it's just like I've beena cop for about a decade.
I'm still, you know, I'm, I'mstill a cop.
I just I volunteer when mydepartment needs help, but but
I'm, I'm a writer full time, buteven now I still remember the
cases right before I left, youknow, and the things that people
(29:07):
do to other people.
And it's just, man don't need amystery there sometimes are
just evil.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
You know, yeah, I mean.
Yeah, I mean my uh.
My dad was a cop for 30 years,uh, new jersey state trooper,
and you know he's got somestories.
I mean one.
He's actually involved with onevery famous case, the uh ice
man.
I don't know if you're familiarwith him.
He was a mob hitman.
They made a movie about himwith uh michael shannon a few
years ago oh really, I gottacheck that out yeah, he, he
alleged that he he was.
He was a hitman, but he's also apathological liar, so he
(29:41):
alleged to kill over a hundredpeople.
But yeah, my dad has somestories about stuff that guy did
, like, uh, he hired a chemistto make him a cyanide spray and
then killed the chemist rightafterwards.
And, yeah, and, and he eventhey have these things on HBO
called the Iceman tapes and hisinterviews with this guy and
(30:02):
he's even talking about how hetold one guy he's like all right
, I'm gonna let you pray for anhour and if God comes down and
saves you, I won't kill you.
And he left the room, let himpray for an hour, came back in
and killed the guy.
And that is dark, that is somedark stuff right there, you know
, and it's you know, it's kindof like Cold man just cold, yeah
(30:23):
, yeah, and it's funny because Ijust kind of explored that a
little bit in my last book,black Friday, and that's a story
, uh, basically this internetcelebrity named vortex, he
brings 50 strangers together,puts him in an abandoned
shopping mall and he says umfive million dollars, but you
got to be the last one leftalive to get it.
(30:43):
And all these ordinary peopleuh just start massacring each
other because oh, it also not tomention, there's snipers at
every exit and the mall's gonnablow up in two hours.
So either they fight and killor they die yeah so and they
just do some horrible things.
And my favorite chapter is theone where all chaos breaks loose
and I won't go into likespoilers or anything, but
(31:04):
basically, as people are killing, like I, I usually like to
write my stuff from like a veryfocused perspective of one
character.
I don't like using omnipotentperspective, but um, they, uh,
it kind of switches to each.
Characters are committing thisbrutal act and saying what led
them to their dire financialsituation.
Like this one has credit carddebt.
This one has medical bills.
This one owes money to the mob.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
So, and it's just like, it was just interesting to
do, because it's like you knowwhat scenarios can lead ordinary
people to do horrible thingsyeah, well, and, and, and, how
little they'll abandon andeverything that they believe in,
for something as simple asmoney.
They think that the all theirproblems will be solved, you
(31:48):
know, by, by money.
Or if I just get this one thing, or if I just discover this one
thing about myself, or whatever, and and the places they will
go to find that.
I mean, that's that's whatmakes it kind of scary about
people, too, is that if you findthat one thing that is just
driving them right, there is nostopping them at after a certain
(32:09):
point, they will do anything,and I mean anything, in a
situation where they wouldnormally, you know, they would
normally not kill somebody ornormally not, right, um, hurt
themselves and, and man, that'sso that's really cool, so that's
, that is something that I'veexplored too.
Is, is, is, can I take a wholebunch of strangers, put them
(32:31):
together and make terrible?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
things happen right.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
I mean so the horror doesn't come from necessarily,
um, you know the snipers, orthem killing each other.
It's the fact that they arestuck together.
They cannot leave and whathappens next you know right um,
I used to get when I was in thearmy.
I was in the army um about 12,12 or 13 years ago.
Um, I used to in el paso and Iwasn't really the black friday
(32:56):
type shopper, um, but what Iwould do is I would get really,
really drunk on black friday orthe night before and we'd go and
sit in walmart and people watchright there at the walmart on
the texas border with mexico,and it was amazing.
I I mean, you're talking,you're talking all walks of life
(33:19):
and everybody's killing eachother over a $5 off TV.
That was regularly priced andthey just marked it down and
said it was marked down.
I mean, it was incredible.
People stepping over each otherI've seen.
I saw people that would go andbuy the TV and then then get in
a fight with somebody and thenuse that TV as a weapon to fight
them.
I mean, like the stuff you seepeople do, if you just sit back
(33:39):
and people watch for a littlebit, especially like Vegas, if
you ever go to Vegas, vegas isthe same way, right?
You take all this debaucheryand put it in one place and see
what people do with the excuseof because Vegas, you know,
right, you know, you know theright, oh, you know you, you
never do any of these things,but because Vegas, you know,
let's go do it, you know.
And so man, exploring the humanside of things in horror is, is
(34:03):
what what I think that we canreally capitalize on.
I mean, a lot of genres have tokind of like, you know, you
know, romance is very close tothat, right, so Rome, romance is
the closest cousin to horror,is what I say.
And a lot of people like what?
No, and I'm like well, if you,if you, if you see that you
don't like.
You don't understand what I'mtalking about.
You don't see the substance ofit.
You know, um, the substance isit's all about the people.
(34:23):
There's no magic, you know.
There's no.
There's no, uh quest to go on.
There's no, uh, uh you knowcalling from this this you know,
the chosen one.
It is literally just peopledoing, people things right and
right and what they're going toencounter, and horror is so
unique for that, and so I sayhorror is a close cousin to
(34:43):
romance.
And if you just look at thepeople, look at what the people,
do you know?
I think people could relate tohorror just like they could to
romance.
Do you think so?
I mean, do you think that's a?
Probably one you're like ahyeah, I can see myself doing
that.
No.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I see what you're saying A hundred percent.
It's funny.
I used to.
I used to have.
When I first started out, I waskind of doing a blog on my
website and I and I um, but youknow what?
The very first blog post Iwrote was called why horror?
And it's because horror, likewe were talking about before,
(35:17):
it's like you know, people aredrawn to it even though it's
like, oh, you know, I don't wantto experience.
People do want to experience itbecause it's exposure therapy.
You're experiencing your fearsin a controlled environment and
I think probably the twostrongest emotions in the world
are love and probably fear, andthe romance can serve one and
horror can serve another,because these stories make you
(35:40):
feel those emotions.
So I get that like.
If so, you're an avid romancereader.
I think you're picking it upbecause you want to feel that
love in some sense, just likeyou know.
If, know, if you're picking uphorror, you know you don't want
to see people die and that maybe your worst fear, but it lets
you experience that becausethere is a little bit of an
(36:00):
adrenaline rush, there is alittle bit of a.
It does get your heart pumpingand it's it's definitely
something you want to experience, but you don't want to really
experience it, because thenyou're in trouble yeah, I mean,
it's like those, um, those droptowers.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
You know the carnivals and stuff.
Like you want to feel likeyou're dropping from the tower.
You just don't actually want tojump off the tower, you know so
exactly yeah, so yeah, I meanum, and I talked to tim wagner
about this and he said he saidhorror is fun, that's it like,
that's that's his whole shtick.
Horror's fun.
It can be fun, um, and it'sokay to like it.
(36:39):
That's the other thing is likemost people are kind of nervous
when they say like, oh you know,or their exposure to horror was
, you know, like a b-ratedslasher or something.
Or you know something, maybe onthe fringes of horror, where
it's maybe a little too cozy ora little too extreme, you know
and, um, you know.
For that reason, like I wouldnormally not like movies like
(37:00):
saw, like saw would not normallybe one that I enjoy, um, from
the surface, but when you getinto it and you get into the, I
guess the theory and themethodology behind jigsaw and
why he does it, and the, the,the mystery of it all and his
connection to all these people,it becomes such a greater story.
(37:20):
The traps the traps are justsecondary, right, you know like?
Speaker 2 (37:23):
and they're all symbol and they're.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
They're all symbolic of what was going on with the
character.
So I think that has a lot ofsubstance.
Like that's really good versuslike.
When I watched hostile I waslike I don't get this at all.
It's like a really want.
A bad wannabe saw like it's notvery good, it's just kind of a
slasher.
So I mean, if you were going tointroduce somebody to like
horror like what would be yourgo-to book movie, doesn't matter
(37:44):
like what would it be?
Speaker 2 (37:46):
you're like hey, you've been burned before by
horror.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Like what would you show them?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
trying to, I'm trying to think it is uh, for I mean,
like see, my favorite horrormovie is halloween, but I I
don't know if I'd introducesomebody to that horror with
that, because this slasher is avery specific genre and, um, you
know one.
I would actually tell them to anewer one because I know
especially a newer.
You know a lot of people don'tlike some of the older movies.
(38:12):
I'd say sinister is a good one,but ethan hawke, you seen that
one?
Speaker 1 (38:17):
yeah, and I love ethan hawke, so that's yeah,
that's.
That's sinister, is great.
Um, I I also like the idea that, like the throwback to the tape
, so it's a different medium toolet's use it.
So it's very clever.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Um, exactly, that's a great as well it hits all the
right notes and actually I thinkI think there was something
recently that said scienceactually said they hooked a
bunch of people up and byscience that was like the
scariest movie ever made,because it got people's heart
rates or pulses going.
So I don't know exactly what,but I mean just that it's got.
It's got a mystery, a greatmystery, like what happened to
(38:52):
these kids, what happened tothese families, why is it like
the way everything kind of comestogether, you know a main
character that's gettingobsessive, that's you know uh,
he's got flaws because he's he'sclearly chasing that dragon of
his first hit book, which Iguess writers can relate to too.
Um, and then he's got, you knowuh, his he hasn't told his
(39:14):
family about his financialproblems and like how dire it
really is and how much he needsit, and getting obsessed and
going down that rabbit hole andthen finding out that mystery.
And then just the atmosphereand those tapes were, and he did
a really good job of makingthem grisly without making them
gory.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Yeah, that makes sense him for yeah, yeah, I I
think the the most of the tapesand if anybody hasn't seen them
I'm not gonna really spoil ittoo much, but like the tape that
got me in in this.
So you watch a series of tapesin the movie, but the one that
got me was the lawnmower, likeabsolutely, you know, it was
just the kid running and you'relike what is going on?
And it's like 30 seconds ofthat.
And then the one second of theyear like oh, my god, you know,
(39:55):
my God, you know, and like that.
That for me is good.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Like you know, you know it gets that one too.
What I think really sells thatis the sound design, that that,
that scream, that like it's justgot this steady hum of the
lawnmower, Like you said, for 30seconds.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
And piercing scream that breaks the silence just as
yet.
So it's, it's definitely,definitely scary.
Yeah, and for and then, forwhatever reason.
The paranormal activity movieshit me hard, like those movies,
like every single one of, Idon't care how like, how bad
they got like kind of near theend, like there were a couple of
scenes that just stuck with mefor the entire thing.
You know, one of them was was,um, like the footprints in the,
um, in the, uh, the powder, andthey were like, shaped like a,
(40:40):
like a bird's footprints.
I was like, oh my god.
And then one of the other ones,um, I think it was the marked
ones.
I remember the scene where thekid was jumping, he was infected
by something and he was jumpingand landing on his back and the
thing wasn't letting him fall.
So it was like catching himlike a trampoline, like midair,
(41:00):
and I just remembered I'm like,I'm like how terrifying to know
like they thought it washilarious, right, they thought
it was funny, but I was like Isaw through with my horror eyes
and I was like, no, that thingis saving him from hurting
himself.
That is not supposed to bedoing.
That like.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And it was riding on his back, you know like it was,
he was carrying it around withhim and that to me, I mean,
that's just that type of creepystuff is yeah, you can't,
especially because that's that'syeah, that's that, that's that
believability that like thatcould happen, that paranormal
activity, that it was just amundane couple doing mundane
(41:36):
things and then stuff juststarted and it's subtle, it's
not like it's really over thetop, but you're right, that
scene with the flat, with thepowder flower, whatever it was,
and the footprints in it, I waslike and then, once word demon
came out, I'm like no way,that's, that's scary yeah, yeah,
so the, I mean those, and then,oh, I don't know, I I always
(41:58):
tend to confuse the two, but Ireally like the, um, the
insidious movies too, you know,just on the topic of, because
the insidious and sinister seemvery, not just like in the word
but like the way the layout was.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
You know, it's got kind of that, yeah, vibe to it,
um, and I I loved all of them.
Uh, there were, I think.
I think insidious would be agood one um, that is, that is.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
That is a good one.
I'd say yeah, I'd say probablythe conjuring too, and it's not
to the conjuring also.
Um you know, it's fun, it'sfunny.
There there's a lot of peoplethat kind of crap on on
blumhouse and they're like theymake, you know, safe, generic
horror.
I'm like you need that.
I want like solid horror with aplot.
Maybe I it's not going to bethe most, uh, innovative thing
(42:41):
in the world, but you know, Ijust, you just won't be
entertained.
A good solid story, a good um,you know characters that moves
it forward.
But yeah, insidious wasdefinitely um, and that's one of
those ones where the charactersactually it was unique because
the characters actually made areally smart decision Once stuff
started happening.
They moved out, like literallyin the first 20 minutes they
move out of the house and you'relike, okay, these people are
(43:02):
smart, they don't stay in thehaunted house and like, oh, wait
a minute, it's not the housethat's haunted with that that
was a very clever twist.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Well line was terrifying.
It's not, the house is haunted,it's you and you're like what
you know like that oh my gosh,what a brutal.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Brutal line like like that's how you know you're one
of the best like yeah, one ofthe best jump scares ever too oh
, when it was behind her.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, I remember,
with the music played in thebackground, that that shrill uh
tiptoe through the tulips, tinytim yep oh my gosh, okay,
speaking of okay, so we only gota few minutes left.
But speaking of tiny, ofterrifying songs, look up the
song boots uh, it's a poem.
Boots, um, okay, it's calledboots, um, just type in boots
(43:49):
poem.
It was a, uh, it was uh, it wasa.
It was a poem and I'm gonnabotch this, but it was during
the second.
It was written about thebritish, but it was during the
second.
It was written about theBritish soldiers entering Africa
during the Second Boer War.
So there's a version of itthat's played out over.
It's performed in this way, butit's actually used during Seer
school training to basicallytrain our soldiers to be
(44:12):
headstrong and basically teachesthem to survive torture.
So listen to it.
It's called Boots, boots.
It is one of the mostterrifying audio recordings I've
ever heard and it's.
It reminds me of that song,tick, tock the tulip by tiny tim
, because of the way it's laidout.
So listen to that, um, but yeah, uh, so anyways hey man.
(44:33):
Um, we're almost out of time.
Okay, it is.
It has been awesome talkingabout all kinds of horror stuff
and talking to you and so andconnecting with you all the way
across the world.
After all this time, you know,we've seen each other's names
around and now we got to sothat's great, absolutely.
So real quick with what time wehave left, let people know
where to find you, let them knowwhat book they should jump into
(44:54):
and, um, yeah, Okay, cool.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Uh, well, you can find me, uh, facebook and
Instagram and Tik TOK, Tik, tokstill around.
Well, www I mean not goingthrough the whole thing but at
James Cain writes is my Tik TOKFacebook and Instagram.
Uh, James Cain books on onthere, my website,
wwwjamescaincom.
You get signed copies from allmy books.
(45:17):
I got some cool merch on there,all my latest news.
You can sign up for my readersclub.
I do free books, serial novellas, never any charge to be part of
it.
So, yeah, jamescaincombackslash VIP, yeah, and then
you know if you're looking toget my books, if you want some
of the the less uh intense, uhgory stuff.
(45:38):
The dead children's playgroundis a great starting point.
Uh, my favorite book I'vewritten so far is my pet
werewolf.
Uh, that one's always gonnahave a special place in my heart
, although werewolves are neveras popular as I, uh, I would
like them to be.
But uh, yeah, no, I think thedead children's playground is
(45:58):
playground's.
A good, a good starting partpoint.
If you like, the um, thescarier, more quiet stuff, uh,
but if you, you know you want togo, uh, total balls of the
world war, then, uh, blackfriday is probably your best bet
.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Um, I like to you know, run the gamut between uh,
genres, subgenres, I should sayvery cool, yeah, and harlots is,
do that, you know, as long aswe, yeah, let people know what
to expect.
Hey, there's a little on thegorier side or this little on
the cozier side, but, yeah,definitely you know, a lot of
freedom there for us.
So, ladies and gentlemen, um,thank you, thank you, james,
thank you for your time, thankyou for coming on, and um, for
(46:27):
introducing yourself and uh toour listeners.
And, um, and I hope this isn'tthe last, I hope you'll you'll
join us on the show later on.
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Oh, absolutely Thanks .
Anytime man Appreciate it.
I had a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Perfect, all right.
Ladies and gentlemen, this hasbeen the episode, something of
season, something of theNightmare Engine podcast.
It's about that time.
If you're looking for me, I'measy to find DavidVergutzcom.
That.
That's the only place that Irecommend you go.
Don't go to Amazon and buy mybooks.
Yes, if you need to and you'vegot some Amazon gift cards from
grandma, fine.
But if you're really looking tosupport me and support this,
(47:03):
this podcast, just go todavidvergutescom.
That's where you'll findScareMail, it's where you find
all 23 of my novels and that'swhere you find the best ways to
connect with me and thelisteners and the other
listeners on this show.
So, ladies and,
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