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October 31, 2023 46 mins

This week on the blog, a podcast interview with screenwriter and author Neal Marshall Stevens about his new book on horror, “A Sense of Dread (Getting Under The Skin of Horror Screenwriting).”

LINKS

A Free Film Book for You:  https://dl.bookfunnel.com/cq23xyyt12

Another Free Film Book:  https://dl.bookfunnel.com/x3jn3emga6

Fast, Cheap Film Website: https://www.fastcheapfilm.com/

Neal’s book at Michael Wiese Productions: https://mwp.com/product-author/neal-marshall-stevens/

Neal on IMDB:  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0139605/

Brian Forrest’s Blog:  https://toothpickings.medium.com/

Eli Marks Website:  https://www.elimarksmysteries.com/

Albert’s Bridge Books Website:  https://www.albertsbridgebooks.com/

YouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/c/BehindthePageTheEliMarksPodcast

Neal Stevens Transcript

 

JOHN:  Neal, you have a really long and storied history in the horror cinema. Can you remember the very first horror movie that had an impact on you?

 

NEAL: Well, actually, looking back, the first movie that scared the hell out of me wasn't a horror movie. It was actually a Disney movie called Johnny Tremaine. It was a kid's movie. And there was a scene in that movie, Johnny Tremaine was a kid during the Revolutionary War who knew Paul Revere, who, as you may remember, was a silversmith. And there's a scene in that movie, the British are coming and Paul Revere has got this urn of molten silver.

It gets knocked onto a table. Johnny Tremaine trips and puts his hand face up into the molten silver and fries his hand. And I'm sure I know I, every kid in the audience goes like (sound effect.)

 

But that's actually not the scariest part of the movie. Later on, surgeons are unwrapping his burnt hand, and they look down and they react in horror.

His fingers have healed together, stuck together. We don't see it and they say, “Oh, we're going to have to cut his fingers apart,” which also happens off screen. And again, in our imagination, imagining no anesthesia back then, it's a revolutionary war. So, poor Johnny Tremaine has to have his healed together fingers cut apart.

 

The memory of what that must be like has lasted. I must have been like five or six when I saw it. My parents dragged me to see Johnny Tremaine, it's a happy Disney movie. I'm 67 years old, so it's been over a half a century since I saw this

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