by Jason Lees, MoreHorror.com

Every once in a while you get lucky and are reminded why our genre is so great.  If I sat around obsessing over every frame of TRANSFORMERS I doubt I'd be able to contact Michael Bay and talk about why he chose to explore Bumblebee's inner strife, even if I was to send flowers to him first. 

And if I did, who'd really care?  In our genre, it's pretty damned amazing that you can watch a film and with just a few polite keystrokes get in touch with the people who made it and discover that they're just as much film lovers as the rest of us.  What follows is a pretty brief but very informative interview that writer/director Eric Shapiro was kind enough to indulge me with. 

His new short film MAIL ORDER (Review) is starting to make the rounds, and it's a damn sharp take on a Jack Ketchum story you can find in the PEACEABLE KINGDOM anthology.  So enough stalling, here's what Mr. Shapiro had to say when I cornered him.

MoreHorror:  As a filmmaker, do you remember the first movie you fell in love with?  Was there a film that made you want to make movies?

Eric Shapiro:  The first movie that made me understand that film could be an art form and not just a means of entertainment was "Goodfellas." I got it on pay-per-view when I was around 12, and I couldn't believe all the freeze-frames and dolly shots and how perfectly timed the music was with the action. It was a huge eye-opener, and after I saw it, I wanted to see more films that took chances and did things differently. I was already making silly camcorder movies with my friends before I saw it, but seeing it made me want to bring my game up.  

MH:  Do you see writing and directing as two separate avenues of storytelling, or just two different aspects of the same art form?  Besides the obvious format, what do you see as the main difference between screenwriting and prose?  Do you have a preference?

ES:  I definitely see them as two avenues of storytelling. The story and characters are the most important aspect (I say "aspect," singular, because story and character are really two sides of one coin) of each medium to me. The main difference between screenwriting and prose is that prose has to be fully furnished; it's a final product in and of itself. Screenplays are there to evoke another thing. I prefer screenwriting because it calls for less words and therefore offers maximum propulsion and conciseness.  

  MH:  After your previous feature films, what made you decide to take on a short as your next project?

ES:  I'd only done one feature, "Rule of Three," and found myself stuck trying to finance a second one for about two years. It got to the point where I was tired of being a money chaser and just wanted to be a filmmaker again. So I decided to self-finance a short without obsessing about the commercial aspect. "Rule of Three" had such a demanding shooting schedule that I didn't get to move the camera much or leave a hard visual stamp, so I also thought a short would be a good way to work on evolving.  

 MH:  As a writer capable of coming up with original material, what made you choose the Jack Ketchum tale to adapt?

ES:  I'm extremely picky about what stories I choose to tell, whether they come from my own imagination or collaboration or adaptation. Ketchum's a powerhouse. He goes way farther than I'm naturally inclined to, and I wanted to strap myself aboard that kind of ride. It can also be a relief to take piece of material that gives you an emotional response and just adapt and interpret it, as opposed to trying to wrench emotion out of yourself. Sometimes you just get restless with your own voice, and want ways to surprise yourself. 

 MH:  What was your first introduction to Jack Ketchum?

ES:  In 2005, I had an apocalyptic novella called "It's Only Temporary" published by Permuted Press. The publisher, Jacob Kier, told me I'd probably appreciate Ketchum's work because my own has a certain tightness. I wasn't much into horror, and had tried to shop "IOT" to literary presses before it got accepted in the horror world. So I was skeptical about who this Ketchum guy was. Then I read "The Girl Next Door" and got woken up. That book probably has the strongest, cleanest through-line of suspense of any I've ever read. I started reading his other work and became a fan, then was able to get his direct attention by showing him some good notices "Rule of Three" had received from people like John Skipp, Tony Timpone, and Andrew van den Houten.

MH:  When adapting someone else’s work, where do you start?  Do you base your script on your initial read, or do you analyze the piece repeatedly?

ES:  I read "Mail Order" several times and memorized its beats before I wrote the first draft. When I write, it has to be as spontaneous and free as possible, so I didn't want the story next to me or anywhere near me. So I did my best to internalize its content before processing it out of my own brain, then I checked it out again to see how I'd done. 

  MH:  You stick very close to Ketchum’s text, with only a few deviations.  The addition of the Howard character avoiding technology was new.  What inspired that?  Was it something you saw in the short that Ketchum didn’t elaborate on or something you felt answered certain questions?

ES:  (SPOILER ALERT) It grew out of needing to update the story to 2011. The original story is a VHS/analogue story; I had the natural need to place it in a DVD/streaming/digital world. Intuitively, I felt that Howard would still have a certain attachment to his old school VHS snuff tapes, and from that instinct came a whole subtext of him not being up with the times. So when he meets his fate, there's an evolutionary component that's not in the story. Survival of the fittest.

MH:  When you watch MAIL ORDER now, is it what you envisioned when you first read the story or is it now its own entity?  Has enough time passed since completing the film to be able to say how you feel about it?

ES:  It's its own entity, though I thought the original narrative was excellent and didn't want to mess with it. Beyond the story itself, spontaneity is really important to me, and I only like knowing what I'll get in the broadest of terms. I need to feel like I'm capturing a live-wire current of emotion, and that supersedes the need to know precisely when one shot will cut into the next, or exactly what colors we'll use for the lighting scheme in a given scene. It has to be organic. So even though I knew I thought the story was exciting and therefore needed an excited aesthetic, I was open to seeing exactly how that would be. I love the film. It has a strange, heavy combination of crispness and darkness. It's not a dank, depressive darkness; it's a like a hyper-alert disturbed state.  

MH:  Since completing the film, what kind of response has it received?  Where will we see it next?

ES:  It's starting to get picked up by festivals and generate reviews. It's going to be at Might & Fright on October 30 at 1:30PM (mightandfrightfilmfestival.com/). My favorite review was when one crew member showed it to some friends and one of the women who was there got up and left his apartment without saying goodbye! It's crazy that that could occur since the movie's not really graphic; everything is implied. But somehow it accumulates this oppressive darkness, and of course the source material is it's main supply line. As for distribution, I can't say too much at the moment, but we're exploring a couple of options and working on getting it widely seen. 

  MH:  With any project you write and direct, what is your favorite part of the process?  Do you see a definitive point where it shifts from being just you as the writer to being a group collaboration?  Is there a point where the writer in you has to call it a day and let the director take over or do you rewrite all the way to the finish line?

ES:  I'm really only "creative" in the purest sense of the word in pre-production. Once I have the script, cast, shot list, locations, and costumes -- and once I've discussed the actors' characters with them -- I become more of a tuner than a controller. The movie's essentially completed by the time we roll; it's just a matter of carrying it out in physical form. And once the script is written and I'm happy with it, I don't look back. No rewrites; the script becomes my partner. If I let myself doubt it, I won't be able to take one step.

MH:  Your short story EXPULSION is included in Peter Giglo’s “HELP! WANTED:  Tales of On the Job Terror.”  How did you come to be a part of that anthology?



ES:  Pete Giglio is the writing partner of Scott Bradley, who edited a terrific book called "The Book of Lists: Horror," which contains a piece I wrote. The Bradley connection was significant, because it was the first time I had work published by a major publisher and available in bookstores everywhere, etc. So I'll always be grateful to Scott for that; he helped put an end to bastards questioning my legitimacy. Scott put me on Pete's radar, and Pete's also been very supportive of my work. When Pete asked me to submit something to "Help! Wanted," it was a natural yes.

 MH:  What’s next on your plate?  More adaptations or originals?

ES:  My wife Rhoda Jordan and I developed an original screenplay called "Girl Zero," which just got optioned by Big Screen Entertainment Group, the company that distributed "Rule of Three." It's a gonzo apocalyptic story; I don't want to say too much, but it's an exciting angle for that genre. Rhoda and I are slated to co-direct it, and waiting for the schedule to come together.