TIH 501: Grady Hendrix on How to Sell a Haunted House, Puppets, and Japanese Horror

Michael David Wilson 0:28

Welcome to This Is Horror, a podcast for readers, writers and creators. I'm Michael David Wilson. In every episode alongside my co host, Bob Pastorella. We chat with the world's best writers about writing, life lessons, creativity, and much more. Today's guest is Grady Hendrix who we are welcoming back to the show, for the first time in almost four and a half years. Now Grady is the author of a multitude of amazing books, including my best friend's exorcism and the final support group. This year he released how to sell a haunted house, which is one of the things we most wanted to talk to Grady about on this occasion. So we get into that. We of course, talk about what kind of things have happened in the past four years. We talk a little bit about gay horror amongst a multitude of other things. But before we get to the conversation, so I have a quick advert break.

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Michael David Wilson 2:37

Okay with that said, here it is it is Grady Hendrix on This Is Horror. Grady Welcome back to This Is Horror.

Grady Hendrix 2:51

Yeah, thanks for having me. It's always it's always nice to be in horror.

Michael David Wilson 2:55

Yeah. Yeah, it's been a while it's been longer than I thought. I've been concerned. I check the calendar. The last time we were speaking with you was around the end of 2018.

Grady Hendrix 3:10

Oh, yeah, a few things have changed. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, it's been a while.

Michael David Wilson 3:17

What have been some of the biggest changes for you both personally and professionally in that time?

Grady Hendrix 3:25

Let's see. 2018 was we sold our souls I think, which is my heavy metal horror book, which is my favorite of my books. But what I didn't know at the time is it really bombed. And so if I hadn't had another book on contract, that probably would have been the end of my career, but I had southern book club after that, which was my last book on my contract with cork. And, and that one did really well. And you know, that came out in 2020, I think. Because final girls, I think was 21. And then how to sell one house was 23. So yeah, so that came out. And because because my publisher decided to hold steady to an April 2020 release date, or maybe a march 2020 release date. Everyone else moved their books because of the pandemic and with reduced competition. It hit the New York Times bestseller list, which was great. And so that was sort of a case of, I think, being in the right place at the right time. Vampires have always been linked with pandemics. So I don't know maybe there was something there. So that was really nice. And I changed publishers. I went from Cork to Berkeley, which has been great. And I don't think I don't think I had an agent in 2018 or any of that stuff. So I think I got those later. We're in the year maybe 2019. Because southern Book Club was on agented. So yeah, so a lot changed professionally. Personally, I don't know, man, I feel the same. Little, a little a little probably suffering from a little traumatic response to, to that, that pandemic, but glad I wrote it out in New York, rather than fleeing the city, but uh, yeah, what did you open up to? It's been a minute.

Michael David Wilson 5:26

Oh, what have we been up to? I used to just prepared to give you a load of follow on questions. And then you reversed it. You reversed it to us. I mean, goodness, actually, since 20, the end of 2018. Oh, that has been good and has been bad in my life, as is the roller coaster in general. Sure. I mean, if I start, let's start with the less good because then we can end on a high. So I mean, that the worst thing was me separating from my eggs, and then changing the dynamic in which I see my daughter. So I didn't see her for nearly two years. And that was a very difficult time, indeed. But I'm, you know, delighted to say that I as of the start of this year, and seeing her again, and restoring that relationship. So now that How old is she? She is going to be five in well, at the end of next month. So yeah, it was a big change, because I was the main parent for the first two years of her life. And then you'd who I was pretty much not in her life at all for two years, and now I'm back in her life. i Yeah, that was not Yeah. Yeah. That was not my choice. I always wanted to be in her life. But um, you know, they things are so much better now. And so much brighter than they were even at the end of last year. So that that's the kind of worse thing or the most testing thing that has happened in my life. Probably relieved to hear that, because if I said, that's not the worst, what is he gonna go into next, but in terms of, you know, really good things. I mean, I've put out a couple of books since then The Girl in the Video, which has had some exciting things happen with it, which I can't talk about at the moment, but they're really exciting. And I hailed Oh, man. Yeah, congratulation. And then me and Bob put out another novel called, They're Watching and we are currently writing a screenplay for it. So maybe some great can happen with that. But there's been like a lot of writing a lot of podcasting. I, I moved back to Japan. So I think yeah, when we spoke in 2018, I would have been in the UK. But now I'm back in Japan again. Things are exciting. We this year 500 episodes and 10 years of This Is Horror Podcast. So yeah, intense. Lots going on. Bob, what have you been doing for the last four years?

Bob Pastorella 8:32

Oh, man, it's summarized in summarize is writing a book with Michael. Your They're Watching. Working on learning how to write a screenplay, which it's a different kind of writing. And, and I wrote a wrote a novel, it's out at intermission right now. So really can't talk any more about it. It's a vampire novel. I have another vampire novel. I have like the first one. It's like fun and happy and gory and crazy. And this one's the new one that I'm going to be working on is going to be gloomy and depressing. And

Grady Hendrix 9:13

the vampire coin.

Bob Pastorella 9:14

Exactly, exactly. So and, and then I'm taking that the first novel that's out on sub, I'm actually doing a screenplay on it. So I'm going to try to do the double barrel. You know, hey, I've got both things, which would make it happen, you know? Yeah. So,

Grady Hendrix 9:32

yeah, it's funny, you know, Melissa singer, who is an editor at Tor from, gosh, I think like 86 until a year or so ago. So she sort of wrote out that horror paperback boom, she said that, you know, horror comes in cycles, but vampire books, she's like, those always sell. She's like, they just do what they do. She's like, they're, they're an evergreen.

Bob Pastorella 9:56

Yeah, that's, you know, it's like, even with Horror horror coming back and everything like that I think things cycle we went through the zombie period we went, you know, now we're kind of like into, you know, coming off the end of ghost and going into witches and colds and things like that. And it's like in but you know, within the last last year and then within the next two years, really possibly three years. There are like over 50 vampire films that are going to be out. Yeah. And some of them are actually from you know, basically we got we have a tentpole, vampire vampire film about to hit. So we're in film, and so right. No, and then I think that, you know, coming up maybe later this year, early next year, we have the last board to the Demeter coming up. Yeah, of course, you know, we have all these other little, little things. So, yeah, they tend to cycle but we're kind of we're seeing vampires and things like that. And if you can tie it in with coltan witches and stuff like that off Fuck, man. It's gonna be fun.

Grady Hendrix 10:58

Yeah, well, you know, vampires have always had this real connection to plagues and pandemics, you know that that's and that's always been a thing. Whether it was you know, Anne Rice and aids in the 80s. Or it was sort of like the fear of the British fear of drugs and hypodermic drug use in the early 60s, late 50s with hammer. And then in the 30s, you had this massive fear of venereal disease, which 1931 is Bela Lugosi Dracula follows very beat for BT, and before that, it was a tuberculosis, you know, in the 19th century, which was, you know, people who had tuberculosis were actually some of them were actually disinterred, and staked posthumously for fear that they would come back as a vampire. So, it's always been so I wonder if that vampire boom, has anything to do with the recent pandemic?

Bob Pastorella 11:49

No, I'm sure it has. I mean, things, we noticed these cycles, and we don't ever notice them to where it kind of No, you know, it's like, yeah, so you can't predict it. You just kind of kind of roll with it. And once you realize it, though, if you're trying to cash in on it, good luck, because I mean, you got it, you have to just like, you gotta have everything together. Everything has to be in order. But with vampires, it's like, you can kind of kind of wait because there'll be a glut of stuff. And then it's like, oh, we don't even want to touch vampire stuff. And then it's like, oh, wait, hey, this one's pretty good, though. This is a little different. So you know, you just got to play it. But you know, I'm gonna I don't never really try to follow trends. I write the stories that I want to write, you know, and that's our right what I want to read. So there you go.

Grady Hendrix 12:33

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, listen, like you said, by the time you follow the trend, it's dead. Although, Michael, what are you doing in Japan? Do you teach her?

Michael David Wilson 12:43

Yeah, yeah. So I'm teaching in Japan. So I mean, actually, like, it's just a really good job for me to be able to facilitate writing and podcasting, like the main motivation for to this job was like, What is literally I looked at the different teaching options. And I was like, what is the one who have the maximum amount of holiday and free time? That is the one that I'm going to take. So I mean, I've lived in Japan a few times now. First time was in 2014. And I just came to Japan initially, because I don't I want to try living somewhere completely different with a different culture to, you know, the UK and the West. And so I know Japan was one that I was curious about, just went out to kind of check it out for a year and then fell in love with the country and I had just any time that I was away, I had I guess what you could like into a wanderlust just drawing me back, I felt that I had to be there. And it was weird and is weird, because I never feel like that for the UK. Of course, there are elements and aspects that right, you know, I'm fond of, but it was almost like I had a kind of sickness in my heart. And like, I felt regret not being there. So I mean, this time, you know, I'm back in Japan. And I mean, I'm so serious about it, that I've literally moved over all my kind of financial accounts and my taxes. This is when I permanently, you know, would like to be so, I mean, I have I've had a few years where I have written and, and podcasted full time. The interesting thing though, doing that was I realized that actually, yeah, you can get pretty lonely. I know I was okay with my own company until I just jumped into it full time and then just, I mean, I don't need to do a lot of tea. Shingo have a lot of contact with other people, but I need I need some. And it was almost like, I guess, like I started to calcify or the like, I became less good at socializing and became more anxious because I'm just not doing it. And, yeah, so I think the sweet spot for me is at least teaching, you know, one or two days a week. So I've got that socialization, but I've also got, you know, time to concentrate on on the writing and the podcasting and the editing and the things that I'm really passionate about, with, which, you know, it isn't to say that I don't enjoy teaching, I do, but it's like, I like teaching. I love writing, that's the best way to put it really?

Grady Hendrix 15:52

Yeah, well, it's funny, I actually have had Japan on the mind recently, I, I just did this thing for criterion about a quality dawn. And, you know, talking about, you know, Misaki, Kobayashi is moving and, and so it was really, really interesting to sort of like, it's a movie I'd seen before a couple of times, and it really was this time, taking the time to really drill down on it, you know, to have to like, talk about it to other people, was really fascinating how many, how many layers it is, and also what a huge impact Lafcadio Hearn had on it. And it was really, it was really interesting, because I think that, even though I feel like his influence as a Westerner living in Japan, took those stories in a slightly different, less Japanese direction. I wonder if it's one of the if it's not one of the reasons why the movies are so powerful, you know?

Michael David Wilson 16:55

Hmm. Yeah. And yeah, and I think that's something to be said, for kind of mixing the Western and the eastern influences. And I think I think it really can create, like, a unique kind of melting pot. And just, yeah, I think anytime where we dip into different cultures and merge them together, you can then create something unique and Nishan. I mean, that's kind of where the best writing and the best filmmaking and the best art can be found.

Grady Hendrix 17:28

Yeah, it's also I just recently read this great essay by William Carroll, then was about sort of J har, because I feel like J horror is something that's kind of, you know, everyone kind of rolls their eyes now. Right? It's dead wet girls with long black hair. And there were so many knock offs of the ring and all that, then he got very, I think people sort of like that again. I mean, what was it? Was it was it? Oh, God, it was a it was Juwan versus the ring. It was? What's her name versus Sadako? You know, we've gotten to the point. Yeah. But Carol's essay was really interesting, because it was looking at the roots of je haar and sort of that this was kind of there was a lot of theory behind it, which was that given video and sort of emerging like portable video technology, not portable, but like it was around, but like it was so prevalent, and it was so you know, digital photography was suddenly the thing in the 90s, that there was this refreshed urge to make this look real. And you needed to shoot in boring settings, and the ghosts needed to do normal things. And everything had to be had to look like something that could be plausible. And the background had to be as anonymous as possible, as suburban as possible. If you were urban, you shouldn't be able to tell the city, you know, it shouldn't be distinctive, it should just be a boring setting where this unusual, disruptive sighting happens, which I thought was really interesting, because you see that kind of like, I don't know that that horror, suffocation of banal stuff right now with like, skin and rink and, you know, sat back rooms, that YouTube thing that's, you know, just this eye, and so I was like, you know, I was really off Jr. For a while, but now I'm kind of like, Oh, I'm back. Okay. Going into it, knowing that there was this sort of theoretical framework behind it to make things look real. And in today's world, if it looks real, it looks like a strip mall, you know, is really an, I don't know, it gives me kind of a new hunger to re approach it.

Michael David Wilson 19:43

Yeah, yeah. And I think I mean, of course, when people are kind of rolling their eyes at Da Hora and thinking about, you know, that the girl with the lung black hair, I mean, obviously, thinking about that, because that certainly was In kinda the 90s on the note is the the most popular of J Hora I suppose tropes and archetypes but obviously if one is to, you know say that is J hora, they're missing out on an awful lot of other films and other kinds of stories I mean, you anything to Kashi me k does is at the very least J Hora tan gentle and I mean audition is, you know, I mean it's definitely Japanese horror so I suppose it depends what what are we defining as je Hora if we've got a limited definition anyway.

Grady Hendrix 20:44

Well you have seen right because you look at some of the K stones like audition or Su, and those are horror movies. I mean, there's ya know, horror movies. I'm not sure there's a Western parallel I can think of for those who accept maybe like, a more coked up David Lynch, right. Then you look at me K, consciously doing J har. Which would be like one missed call, right, which they're seeing, I don't know, I feel like J har became less Japanese horror films and more of a very specific set of tropes linked to like, digital technology, like phones and cameras and video and there's something you know, it's like, you look at Pulse, which I think Kiyoshi cortisol was pulse, which I think is, you know, maybe one of the greatest horror movies in the last 50 years. And it's all about the internet, you know, early dial up internet. So there seems to be something with Jr. There's definitely linked to technology the same way in the West found footage is definitely linked with technology, you know?

Michael David Wilson 21:53

Yeah. Yeah.

Bob Pastorella 21:55

A lot of that stuff tapped into urban weird, too. And that's, you know, yeah, that's kind of, you know, the archive 81. And things. I think that, you know, a lot of that with the technology tie in, we're so technologically in sync with each other. It's part of society now. You know, everyone has a phone, everyone has a tablet. And so it makes this stuff relatable. In the 90s it was kind of like a novelty, because it's like, oh, wow, you actually have a computer. Oh, wow. You know, and so now we go back and we see these, these films, you know, and it's kind of like, well, these people were really kind of, you know, they felt like they were pioneers, you know, in the digital landscape. But yeah, same time we're tapping in or whatever we're does is it taps into stuff in the past and ties in into the present with technology and has been an urban setting. So yeah, I'm going back to the films and looking at that go out to all fucking urban weird, you know?

Grady Hendrix 22:54

Yeah. Well, it's interesting, because, you know, so I ran a film festival, an Asian Film Festival in about 2000 to 2016 or so. And a lot of stuff changed in that period. And our original purpose was access. It was so hard to see these movies, you know, and when we will end up realizing is, by the time I saw the festival is still going on, I kind of stepped out around 2016 But we were fighting with Netflix for premieres we were and we realized that the issue was no longer access the issue was curation. There was access to so much with streaming video and that no, you know if you've got it's the Netflix thing, right that click, click. What are we going to watch tonight? Click Click. It's there's so much content, that knowing someone whose taste you understand his recommended acts meant something. And I feel like you've seen the found footage genre do that a little bit like with the ring and 90 999 I think this tape exists, this tape will kill you don't look at this tape. By the time you get to it. Bob is at archive 8981. What archive is it? Archive 8181. By the time you get to that, it's like I have a massive amount of footage that I'm going to look at and edit. And in there I have to piece together this story. Like you know what I mean? It wasn't just like one videotape. It's the one it will kill you. It's now all this video has to be rain gold has to be curated. And that's actually interesting. I hadn't thought about that before, but I feel like yeah, Jay or sorry. found footage horror is kind of reflecting that trend, you know?

Bob Pastorella 24:45

Oh, there's no doubt.

Grady Hendrix 24:46

But it's weird. I mean, at the height of radio. Were there horror movies, about radio like in the 30s and 40s and into the early 50s? I'm not aware of I mean, I know there's that weird one. I think Nancy Reagan was in one that, like the voice of God was speaking to people over the radio. But I'm not aware of anything with the weird. I mean, I guess there was like, you know, what were those inner sanctum and those radio horror shows? I don't know how many of the well, I guess there was sorry, wrong number about early telephone technology, landline telephones. I guess so. But it seems less prevalent. Oh, yeah. Anyway, sorry. I didn't mean to take us on a giant digression. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 25:35

no, no. I mean, it's so good. And I mean, you know, by now, this is what This Is Horror is about, we will start on one topic, and pretty soon we veered off into another one. And that's, you know, the way that I like

Grady Hendrix 25:48

it goes back to the back to the path, the lit path through the woods.

Michael David Wilson 25:54

Okay. Okay. Well, since since you have directly asked me to do so, let's jump in then to your latest novel, how to sell a haunted house. And so I understand actually, that this was a little bit difficult to get right initially, because if I've done my research correctly, and sometimes I haven't, you actually had to kind of write four or so books or four versions of it before. Yeah, yeah. To the final one.

Grady Hendrix 26:29

The The problem is, that's not unusual. The longer I do this, the harder I get, you think I'd be getting better at it. I have a really hard time landing the plane these days, I'm writing my novel for next year right now. And I really need to turn it in in May. And like I am, I am at sea man, I still don't feel like I have a firm grip on it and with with how to sell a haunted house, that was definitely true. I felt like I had a firm grip on it. And it wasn't. And so I took another stab at it. And that what I knew was kind of a Hail Mary, like, let me just throw everything at the wall. I pray my editor will accept one of these. It didn't happen. I did a third version that I was really convinced, okay, I'm a clever guy. This one is the version. And my editor was still like, it's just not working. And so the fourth one, which was sort of the stripped down bare bones version, that's the version that wound up sort of being the first one in a series of like, you know, edits and things like that, that people are reading. But yeah, I was really convinced that these earlier were two of the three, two out of the three earlier versions were the right book, but I've been there before with my best friend's exorcism. I had a version I thought was great. My wife told me it was a dumpster fire. I rewrote she was right. I rewrote it. And I thought I had a better version. I got so angry when it didn't work. My editor and I got a huge fight over it a couple of times. And then I came to a third verse, and it was also the stripped down version that really work. So you know, it takes me a while to get out of my own way.

Michael David Wilson 28:15

Yeah, so I'm wondering with those initial versions, I mean, what, if any elements were in those versions that have still survived to the final version? I mean, did. Did we have pumpkin?

Grady Hendrix 28:32

Yeah. Oh, yeah. The books were virtually the same up until the final third. There were there were minor adjustments, but they were really the same up until the final third. And sort of like what's behind Popkin what's really changed a couple of times. And the only thing that came out of those drafts is that still is in the book is the puppet monster at the end where the puppets become a monster, like I don't want to spoil it for anyone. But that's the only thing that really stuck and that came in the third verse and because the first version revolved around a puppet called the second version revolved around a bunch of inbred wieners living in upstate South Carolina, and the third verse and revolved around abandoned Marionette theme park, and or an abandoned little roadside attraction theme park with a Marionette Theater at its center. And that was the one where the puppet Gollum and I have to say, after pitching this around a bunch in LA, it is a puppet. Geo L E. M, not a geo LL, um, I was I was pitching this and we were using the director and either the phrase puppet Gollum quite freely. And then after the third pitch, we got notes about Gollum As in by precious and we were like, Ah, I see the problem here. Yeah. Yeah. Like these people are imagining these puppets have banded together to form everyone's favorite all digital Andy Serkis creation. You

Michael David Wilson 30:17

know? Yeah, that is quite the code.

Grady Hendrix 30:22

That's really the only thing that Yeah, yeah, that's the only thing that really came back. But yeah, that was the one thing otherwise it was just like that. I got to the I got to the last third of the book. And if people have read that they know almost exactly where that happens. And it was just a heavy, boom, amputation, amputation, amputation. Throw that throw that live in the trash?

Michael David Wilson 30:47

Yeah. Well, I mean, at least at least you had two thirds of it, more or less right from the start. But I mean,

Grady Hendrix 30:56

I mean, in the nice thing is I just kept rewriting those first two thirds to get the last part. So it was nice to take the time to polish it up. But yeah.

Michael David Wilson 31:05

I mean, how how dispiriting in the moment, and it just shows as well. And I mean, we've had similar conversations, we've pulled to Tremblay, that it, it kind of doesn't matter how successful you are, or how many books you write, or what bestseller lists that you hate, you know, you can still run into these problems. And I feel that realization, I mean, it's simultaneously depressing, but also uplifting because it means if you know, me, as a writer, or somebody else listening, as a writer runs into these problems, it's like, you're not alone. This is part of the path.

Grady Hendrix 31:45

Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, like, I'm not a big Bruce Lee fan. But he does have that very, very famous quote, it's not how hard you can hit, it's how hard you can get hit, and get back up. I think Rocky also coined that a little better stole that. But and, you know, it's, it's kind of like, you have these moments. And you know, it's funny, I look back through my diaries, and I'm like, Oh, my God, I can't believe how upset I was. And it is upsetting. You know, you've worked really hard on something you've really spent the hours and the time. And someone's just saying no. And they're saying, I don't know what to do, but it's not right. And, you know, you really have a choice. You can quit her you can try again, someone, someone a long time ago said to me, you know, you're going to eat a lot of shit in this business. And you have to decide what your cutoff point is. At what point do you say I don't want to eat any more shit. And for me, I was like, I have no cut off. I have an infinite appetite for shit. You know, I always say I've never gotten a bad note. I've gotten crazy notes. I was doing a thing. And I guess I don't know. I won't say the show. But it was an anthology show with a lot of big prestige people on it. And in a general meeting, that you sort of taken LA where you just yell Hey, nice to meet you get a water bottle. I had I dropped this and they were like, Oh, what's that? And they talked about it a little bit now. hope you really liked that. And, and it was something I kind of had in my back pocket that I've worked on for fun. And so then I had another meeting where they're like, Okay, really pitch this to us. And, and basically what it was was it was a modern version of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell Tale Heart. And it was about a sitcom actor who was hugely famous for the role he played on a sitcom is a dad. And, you know, wealthy famous everyone knows his face. His catchphrases is big as Homer Simpson if Homer Simpson was a real actor, and the sitcoms ended after you know, 12 year run are ridiculous long time. And he wants to be a serious actor and he sunk everything he has into his one man, Edgar Allen show, I grew Allan Poe show. And the big highlight is him doing the tell tale heart. And you know, he's going to open it and he's done it around. He's going to open it New York. And but what no one knows is on the sitcom, he had a problem, because he really liked to drug women and sexually assault them. And his stage manager goes down and the replacement stage manager is someone he recognized as someone who did that too many years ago. And she pretends it's all good. And he's like, is she gaslighting? What's going on here? And they're like, Oh, we love it. So I pitched them. They kicked me upstairs. The next producers I pitched it to them. They're like, okay, we're bringing in the show runner. We love this show runner comes in someone from the network was a network platform. They come in there they're like, Okay, we love this. We have one note before we go to a green light. And I'm like, what? And they're like, so we never have one note, we always have lots of notes. Can he not be an actor? And could it not be about a play? Oh, my God, what? And I was like it was in the meeting. I was like, yes. What a good note. That is, I really appreciate your insight. I think it'd be better. And they're like, and we need you to pitch it for there was a brand name on the show that we need you to pitch it for him Monday, and this was like a Thursday. And I was like, Yes, I will do that. I'm really looking forward to this experience. I was like, What do I do? And then I realized, like, oh, you can just move that to a celebrity chef, who's a TV chef who wants to open a real life, you know, Michelin starred Fancy Pants recipe and like, you can do the exact same thing. And, you know, it was even better. My wife's a chef like that. And so I was like, Oh, my God. So it actually got better. And so it was like, but it was like, it was a note that really kicked out the legs. And for like, 24 hours, I was wandering in the wilderness, like calling out for Mama, I didn't know, you know, I was just like, I bring the water buzzards are circling. But the note wound up being the right note, you know. And then, of course, the guy who was behind the show was like, he read the like, three page pitch document before I actually pitched it. And personally, like, this is exactly the kind of episode I do not want on this show ever. I don't know why you brought this, to me, this is ridiculous. And they were like, Smell you later did. And it was all over after like, six weeks of build up, which is fine. That's what happens. But like, but like, the point is that I just live by this philosophy, there's no bad, there are no bad notes, like, You got to get to the note behind that note, you've got to keep digging. And if they don't like it, your goal is to make them like it. So you've got to get on their wavelength. And that will maybe make you better. You know what I mean? Like, it's that thing people talk about, it's like limitations can sometimes be your friend. Like, those are the limitations. So embrace them or quit, you can always quit like, there are plenty of jobs that are better and more fun and better, you know, often better pain and more stable and more sane. And you can have a life and a family. You know what I mean? Like, there's better things to do with your time, like, so it's up to you really. And that's not like a it's up to you. But like it really is up to you. And so yeah,

Michael David Wilson 37:42

yeah. And I mean, it, it's a little bit off topic, I suppose from the point that you were making, but goodness, that sharing that you pitched I'm so intrigued, like, you know, I want to see that. But I, I can also see how, you know, for certain people, or perhaps for the community in general lately, it might even hit a little bit too close to home. And it's like, Whoa, are we really going to? Are we going to put that out? Because that? Yeah, that is gonna ruffle some breeze

Grady Hendrix 38:15

for me. It's funny, I think what they saw it as is I was hopping on a trend. Like, you know, he too, was happening at the time and all that stuff. And I was like, I wasn't and for me, I didn't feel like I was hopping on a trend so much as this was a throwback, because this is a you know, a character not knowing what's real and what's not, is a trope and horror, going back to the Yellow Wallpaper, if not before, you know. And so to me, that's what the reference was just in modern trapping, but I get it, they saw it as something, you know, the book I'm working on right now was in part, it's sort of a, it's set in a home for unwed mothers in 1970. And I had actually, many years ago pitched it as a project to someone else. And they acted as if I was trying to jump on a trend. Which was interesting, because that had never crossed my mind. I've always wanted to write about a home for unwed mothers because what I didn't know until later in my life is that two of my relatives were both sent, you know, sent away as the term was when they were teenagers and never talked about it until well past the time they were in their 60s or 70s. And it really is a cultural blind spot. I felt like and, and hearing about their experiences and then reading about other people's experiences. You're like, how, how do we do this for so long? I think it was okay, even though it was okay. I mean, a lot of these women couldn't have stayed in their community and had these kids out of wedlock and But so it was just such a complicated weird thing that I wanted to write about it for years. So for someone to sort of feel like, it was trendy, I was very like I say, Sir, I smack you with my glove. Yeah, how dare ya.

Michael David Wilson 40:16

Do you think? Is there any way that this story might see the light of day in some form? You know, wherever in a different media story? Yeah, the one art one. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Grady Hendrix 40:32

Yeah, I want to you know, it's funny, I know, there's a lot of writers who will pitch something as a screenplay, and then, you know, turn it into a book or have a book and turn it into screenplay, I find them so different to work. And it's really hard to see one as the other. You know, I've, I've done in, I'm doing the movie adaptation of horror store, which is my first horror novel, which is about a haunted IKEA. And man, that was a rough, I always like, I'd like to have words with this writer who they have a lot of issues. You know, screenplays are so I mean, you guys know this. There's so completely external. If you can't show someone actively doing it, it doesn't exist. Yeah. Whereas books are by their nature, almost completely internal. You're always inside of someone's point of view. And their thoughts and their emotions and their reactions. Internally makeup, such a part of the story. So I've always had a hard time making that jump from one to the other.

Michael David Wilson 41:37

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, going back to the current book, or maybe it's going forward, who knows? At this point, time is becoming just a concept. But you know, have you ever a circle? Yeah. Have you ever experienced a haunted house? No.

Grady Hendrix 42:02

I get scared as hell when it's dark. And there's no one else home. But no, I mean, a house that was that felt like there was another consciousness there that was disembodied. That's never happened to me. I mean, I feel like, you know, I've had the experience of seeing a ghost once or twice. And, you know, I know exactly what it was, in retrospect. You know, the physical sort of anomalies that led to that experience. But within the moment, I mean, I really felt like I was seeing those. And that was my reaction. I felt I feel very lucky. Because it is a very, you know, it's a very reality breaking experience. Nora Sidgwick, who was the one of the first researchers for the Society for Psychical Research. In the UK in the 19 century, she did this census of hallucinations, where I think she wound up with 17,000 people writing in about their haunting experience, and she kind of narrowed it down to like 370. And now we're down to a further 25. But one of the things she said about it was, she felt like no one had consciously tried to defraud the society, because their experiences were all too boring to be fabricated. And with a real haunting, it really is pretty boring. I mean, you see someone walk across the room, you hear someone who's dead, say your name, you see your dead grandmother, stand sitting in a chair like these are not this is not the conjuring part six, you know, these are very, but the experience of them is very world breaking. It's, you know, reality, what you existed in his reality for 3035 40 years, however long is suddenly broken in a way you've never experienced. So it's a profound experience for the person, this person experiencing it, but I think it's like a dream, right? Yeah. For you. You've been through something, describing it to someone else. They're like, check on their watch and learn. Are you done yet? Yeah. I don't know if you guys lived in a haunted house.

Michael David Wilson 44:13

No, no, I don't think so. I don't think I've lived in a in a haunted house. I I'm not even sure what what would that mean? What would that be? I have my my, my beliefs in that area are are skeptical. I mean, I I don't know if I said this to you in the previous time that we spoke, but I've had one very unusual experience. Did I tell you about what

Grady Hendrix 44:44

I do remember this? Yeah. About the planes, right. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 44:49

yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that that is the one experience that I've had. And you know, I've tried to come up with explanations about it. But yeah, I Apart from that I haven't had anything that you would say is like supernatural. I mean, it's interesting, because pretty much everyone else in my family have had that kind of thing. But I guess like, they're, I mean, they they believe in it more than I do. It's funny, how if we seem to believe in things, we can almost manifest them to become reality. And I mean, right? Does that mean they are reality? I mean, it's certainly part of the person experiencing it as part of their reality. So I'm not sure now we're kind of jumping into a almost philosophical area of what is true for is reality, which is perhaps,

Grady Hendrix 45:44

for God's sake, let's avoid philosophy. Bob, what about you ever lived in a haunted house?

Bob Pastorella 45:49

No. I'm a skeptic as well. I've had, you know, I've had things that have happened to me that at the time, you know, scared the shit out of me. But, you know, and like, you were talking about Grady in retrospect, and you know, it's like, you know, it's like, oh, that's what that was. I'm nearsighted. So and without contact lenses, or glasses, my vision is very bad. And so I do suffer from pareidolia. Anyway, and, but it's not really a suffered thing. It's just, you know, I have a propensity to make faces out of shapes that aren't fake. Oh, got it. Got it. Yeah. So but when you'd combine that with not having proper vision, or having corrective lenses in there, you know, you could wake up and realize that, you know, pillow is not a severed head that's in your bed with you. It's actually just your blanket and your pillow just made that face row, but you're still going to try to reach out and touch it, to make sure that you don't get any blood on your fingers. Yeah, you know, you

Grady Hendrix 46:56

get that experience in the moment of oh, scared. Yeah, exactly.

Bob Pastorella 47:02

You know, and I do have an probably, since I mentioned it, I'll probably have an episode of it. But I do have nightmares with sleep paralysis. You know. And so, of course, of course, the new project, I'm working on deals with that. So I've got a lot of, usually they get triggered by mentioning it or thinking about it. So yeah, but I use it as research. Yeah.

Grady Hendrix 47:28

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. No, I get those. I get that sleep paralysis too. And it's, it's really awful. Like, it's really in the moment. It's really terrifying. To feel like you're just sort of flailing away and something's there and you can't stop the experience or make it go away. It's really, really awful.

Bob Pastorella 47:49

Yeah, and for me, it's like, the worst part about it is, is I can't open my eyes. That's the whole thing. It's like a you get to like this half vision. And I think that's where people would would say that they see like, the shadow people and stuff like that. Because anything that moves, it looks like it's obviously gonna be a shadow because your eyes are half open. And that's to me, it's like the hardest part is just trying to pull out of it. It's just like, oh, yeah, and you know, and what?

Grady Hendrix 48:14

Sickle effort? Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's interesting. Have I just read this article in the Columbia historical review. But it was about the belief that or the theory that a lot of witch hysteria might have been informed by sleep paralysis and sleep disorders. That you know, that some of the testimony of people who felt like they'd been visited by a spirit in the night or a black dog or whatever, Satan, really jive with some subjective experiences of people suffering from sleep paralysis. And the writer really looked into sort of like, you know, 16th and 17th century sleep or so different, like people had two sleeps in the night and their sleep hygiene was garbage. So they spent a lot of time in that sort of like space that half waking space. And, you know, this idea that you're supposed to get eight hours asleep, you know, a lot of people, monks, especially, and nuns, they got four hours of sleep, maybe five, every night. And so it was it was really interesting. There's, you know, you can't do a lot of it, because it's so far in the past, and the historical record you've got is the one you've got, but it was a really interesting take on it. And, and I would I really feel like you know, if I had no context for sleep paralysis, I would be having a podcast with you guys saying, oh, every now and then I totally get visited by an evil spirit at night, like every six to eight months and it's really terrible. I dislike it I meet them. It's like,

Michael David Wilson 49:55

exactly, yeah. And I

Grady Hendrix 49:57

and I'm looking for a witch to to murder or go away?

Michael David Wilson 50:02

Right? Yeah. Do you find like kinda the less sleep that you've had that the more likely it is for you to have some sort of sleep paralysis? Episode? Is there a case?

Grady Hendrix 50:17

So randomly, you know, it's so random. It, I think it more has to do with stress. I, I'm a big zombie guy, like, that's my genre. Like, you know, I think everyone has a genre they fix on too early. That's the That's your go to comfort genre. And so mine, you know, Stephen Graham Jones, his is slashers. You know, mine is zombies. And so when I'm super stressed out, I have a zombie dream. And it usually picks up from the ending of the previous one. And sometimes it's really incredible, because it'll be years between them, and it'll cleanly pick up, I'll have forgotten about it. And I'll have the dream. Oh, oh, we're back there. And it'll just cleanly pick up right from the end. And it's a way I know that I'm stressed out even even if I don't feel so I'm okay, I'm great. And then I go to sleep and have this terrifying. I mean, they really are a sweaty, awful nightmare. And I'm like, Oh, I'm more stressed out than I must think because I'm having that zombie dream again.

Michael David Wilson 51:20

Yeah. Do you think in the future, you would like to tackle like a kind of zombie book. And I mean, I imagine if

Grady Hendrix 51:29

you're in a, you're in a sore spot, now. I, you know, I avoided it. Because I was like, I love zombie stuff too much, I would just fanboy too much over it. Like, you know, it would be terrible. And then I was talking to someone. And they mentioned this brief nugget of an idea. And I took it and I ran with it. And I was like, Oh my God, that's the zombie book I want to write. But because that nugget of an idea came up in a professional context. I can't I can't use their idea. You know what I mean? It's even though what I extrapolated out to his way divorced, I would never be comfortable with that. And so God, I want to do it so badly. And I just, I've talked to them and you know, I just like there's there's no way to make it work comfortably. So I just, I gotta I gotta live. If this person dies in a terrible accident, and their company headquarters, like their offices burn into mysterious fire, so any record of our conversation is gone. If I write a zombie novel, everyone will know that there has been some some suspicious deaths and are sitting somewhere in Southern California.

Michael David Wilson 52:45

I mean, let's come down for a second because there is the possibility that you might come up with another zombie idea. We don't need to

Grady Hendrix 52:56

think so. This one was good. This one was so good. It's it's funny. Like I've got a Bigfoot book I want to write that I will write eventually. And every now and then someone will write a Bigfoot book. And I'm like, Oh, God, Oh, God. Oh, god. Is it going to be my Bigfoot book? And then it's totally different. I'm like, Yeah, of course. Mine. So I gotta I gotta really, it's gonna take me a while to get there. I got three books before it, but I want to get to that big football

Michael David Wilson 53:19

badly. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that one of the most exciting things about you know, when reading a Grady Hendrix book in the same with a Stephen Graham Jones is often both of you will, will take a trope or a sub genre or something that, you know, on the surface has been done to death, and then you will completely invert it. It's like, right, how are we going to make a completely different haunted house book? Or how are we going to make a different slasher book and so I mean, that's one reason I'd be so intrigued to see what your zombie concept is, because I know, I know that it won't be like any other and I mean, probably the, I mean, natural causes eventually, so hang on in there.

Grady Hendrix 54:10

Well, it's interesting, you know, it's easy, younger than me. Oh, no, I'm just saying like, you know, there's only so many things, right? There's only so many monsters there's only but it's sort of trying to figure out what made them scary in the first place. What made them upsetting where the fun is for me. And that's, that's what I'm really struggling with the book I'm writing right now, because I'm not sure I figured that out yet. But I feel like at this point, I've got to do a I've done a first draft. I gotta get a revision done. Even if it's terrible because I gotta give it to another set of eyes to be like, dude, point me point. Which direction do you think I should start walking to get out of the his woods, like, which way is the open land? Because I'm just like lost in this. And I feel like I've lost what, what, what was the original impulse here, so, and it took me a while I always like to have a title early on. Because I find a title. And it's like, kind of like my compass that they used to steer by. And I just figured out the title like, two weeks ago, and I've been working on this book for 10 months, eight months. So it's like, it's really slowly coming together. Like I said, I wish I was getting better at this. I seem to be getting worse. The final product may be fine. But like the process to get there is is is more painful every time.

Michael David Wilson 55:49

Yeah, yeah, I feel that. And I think as well, we've experienced, sometimes we can, you know, become more aware of errors and more aware of, you know, what, what is kind of steering off track, and I have a tendency and annoying tendency to, in my brain want to compare my first draft with the final draft of another project. And then I'm annoyed because it's like, well, this isn't as good. And it's like, well, of course, it isn't as good as the first draft, you know, you haven't properly. Like, I need to have that first draft and even really the second draft, the proper shape, and to be able to mold it into something. Yeah.

Grady Hendrix 56:35

100%. And, you know, and it's funny. It's interesting, because you also want to challenge yourself with each thing, you right, you want to do something new, you want to push yourself, and that's not always comfortable. And, you know, it's, it's interesting, I look at some writers who I feel like and I mean, I'm talking about people, like I grew up reading, like Clive Cussler, he was very comfortable delivering virtually the same book with minor changes every time. And I loved that there was a period of my life where I like, I was just consuming and healing Clive Cussler. And then you look at someone like Stephen King, who I feel like, really tries to do something different every time. You know, I don't think Stephen King could have written revival or Duma key or the Kennedy assassination book whose title 22, whatever, 64 or 63. I don't think he could have written those in the first decade of his career. Especially revival, which I actually I know, some people are mixed on but I love but that's an old man's book. I mean, that's a book written by someone who's watched a lot of friends die, and is worried about their own death in interesting ways. So I feel like you always want to push yourself, but the pushing doesn't feel good. Yeah.

Michael David Wilson 58:06

Yeah, that's right. Well, I know we're coming up to the time that we have to give it today. But yeah,

Grady Hendrix 58:14

let's let's give it five more minutes. Let's let's let's do lightning round or like, yeah, cut. Let's cut. Let's get to the marrow here. Well,

Michael David Wilson 58:23

I mean,

Grady Hendrix 58:25

I'll get shorter. I like the monologue.

Michael David Wilson 58:27

I don't know if we do if either of us do that kind of flash round as it were. But let's talk a little bit about puppet. So I mean, what was your first experience with puppets? What was your first interaction? And then how did that develop?

Grady Hendrix 58:47

So I think everyone you know, we all say, oh, puppets are scary. Dolls are scary, but we grew up with them. I mean, surrounded by them. I mean, I had, like, you know, a marionette we bought on the street on some trip we did when I was six, hanging on the back of my door. Most of my teenage years, you know, you get puppets to play with when you're a kid like Muppets. You're watching Muppets when the time and Sesame Street. Puppets are everywhere. And you know, dolls, and your grandma has dolls, and she collects dolls and you your parents have some dolls they got on trips. I mean, they're just everywhere. So it's almost like everyone says do ik, but then you're like, oh, wait, what's that over there? What's that over there? What's that over there? You know, it's funny when people have done the zoo IQ thing with talking about how scary dolls are. When I've been talking to them about this book. I'm like, how many Funko is do you have? Do you have a baby Yoda doll? Does your dog have little doll toys? Do you have kids? Do they have dolls like you're surrounded by dolls? The first experience that I think really ties in the book is I was actually in a radical puppet collective for a few For a little bit, a few months, it wasn't like maybe a year max when I was in university. And the stuff about the radical public collective in the book very closely mirrors that except for like the massive self destructive tendencies and that are sent into home invasions. But beyond that, it's very close to it. And it was great. I loved it man, making and wearing those big giant puppets that sort of fit your whole body or take your whole body to manipulate. It's a race, it's the closest thing you'll ever experience to possession, it completely erases you. And the puppet wears you and tells you how it wants to move, and how it wants to interact and the choices it wants to make it simple last, so that was really the first thing and that was, you know, that was the early 90s When I was like, probably 2019 or 20. Yeah, when I was doing that stuff. And that's the first thing that really informed is right there in the book.

Michael David Wilson 1:00:57

Yeah. Do you think that, you know, a puppet can make us braver it can make us say things that we wouldn't dare say without Yeah.

Grady Hendrix 1:01:07

100%. And actually, it's funny when I was doing Book Two, or someone was telling me that their best friend dated a really hardcore puppeteer. And they were like, and they didn't last but they were like, they use that puppet. Like they had a puppet. They used a lot for their shows. And they're like, and they would use that puppet to say stuff that they would never say to me. Without the puppet. Yeah, but like, like mean stuff about our relationship, like really raw stuff. Like, ya know, 100% it's not you it's the puppet. I mean, that's possession states. That's classical, Haitian voodoo, right, getting possessed getting written by the low, you know, you're you're not you, you are now the embodiment of this god on earth.

Michael David Wilson 1:01:53

Yeah. Or puppet. Yeah. I mean, would you say then, like, Do you have a fondness for puppets? Is there any trepidation? Is there any fear? It's that it sounds like you have a complicated relationship with puppets.

Grady Hendrix 1:02:10

A little bit complicated, but also No, I love it. I'm a big theater guy. And so puppets are like, so great theatrically. So, no puppet stone. They don't particularly scare me. Like, I get why they're scary. And, you know, and a lot of that book was about if we just take the safety off this. It could get intense in an unpleasant way. But no, I mean, you know, I'm not scared of IKEA. I'm not scared of heavy metal, but there are scary aspects to those things. If you just tweak the the dials, right?

Michael David Wilson 1:02:45

Yeah, yeah, that's it. And I mean, something that I believe you were, if not scared of then cautious about and one of the inspirations for pumpkin was a, I believe, a soft toy that your wife has had since she was two years old. So let's hear about that.

Grady Hendrix 1:03:07

Yes, Nokia Snoke. Yeah, it was very much Popkin. My wife. He's one of the you know, we all get those stuffed animals, those comfort objects as blankies those lamb ease, whatever they are. They pop up when you're 231. And you stick with them for a long time. And Snoke eo is my wife's, no one's quite sure where he came from. He just sort of appeared when she was about two. And he's a stuffed dude. He's not a not a puppet. So I took some liberties. But the first time I met snow Kayo he was He's terrifying, frankly. And you're looking at this guy who's like, really looks like a deranged clown who's going to slit your throat and you're asleep. And he's being held by someone you love who clearly loves him. And you're like, have I just entered a really bad Texas Chainsaw situation? Where like, I didn't know how crazy the crazy went. And now it's too late. And I am surrounded and outnumbered. But I've grown to really love the dude, he's still with us. And like he's a he's a really good guy. He has a completely different perspective on the world. But he very much is was the basis for pumpkin. And he's enjoying his 15 minutes.

Michael David Wilson 1:04:22

Yeah, where is Nokia? Now?

Grady Hendrix 1:04:26

They don't want him to get upset. Yeah, yeah. Right in the other room. Yeah, no, he's here. He hangs out of me. Because the other thing is, you know, I've always had a problem with those Toy Story movies. Because I feel like they let that Andy kid off too easy. It's like, here your toy here are these things that watched out for you as a kid. They provided you comfort, they provide you all this stuff. And now you're just going to what? They go in a box. They go in the garbage. They go in the attic, what happens next? And the toys are always like, Oh, whatever. We're good. And I'm like I don't know like, I feel like that obligation is a two way street. So Snoke do is Snoke is never going in the garbage. He's going to hang up. It's forever like giving them to another kid seems really like, like, I don't know, unsavory, like, just weird. Also, any other kid would probably like lose their minds a second they looked into his eyes. Right built up a resistance. So yeah, he's with us forever and I assume one of us will die before the other and he'll he'll wind up in one of our coffins.

Michael David Wilson 1:05:33

Yeah. Yeah, maybe you must be you. Yeah, right. Maybe you are Stephen Graham Jones can redeem Toy Story. Maybe you can write like, I don't know. Toy stories. Seven doll revenge. Oh, boy is taken very kindly. Exactly. Last year. refix. And, yeah,

Grady Hendrix 1:05:55

we're back, Andy. Yeah, got rid of us. Yeah. We were back from that circus. We've learned some new tricks.

Michael David Wilson 1:06:06

I would love to see Toy Story go full horror. But you know that the only reluctance is just like, you know, if children accidentally see it, because they're intrigued. I feel just for not traumatizing generations of really young children. I mean, I've got soft since becoming a dad is the problem.

Grady Hendrix 1:06:28

Yeah. Yeah. Kids are traumatized by the time they're five by one thing or the other. Doesn't matter. Okay, it's not this. It's that.

Michael David Wilson 1:06:38

Yeah. Okay, we're gonna traumatize them anyway. Well, we are out of time. But I mean, we yeah, we've spoken a little bit about how to sell a haunted house, you've given some people some ideas of the themes. Could you just give us for those kind of still on the edge? What is your kind of one minute pitch of how to sell a haunted house?

Grady Hendrix 1:07:03

No, it's my new book just came out in January of this year, so only like three months ago. And it's about a pair of adult siblings who hate each other a brother and a sister can't stand each other. And they have to sort of work together when their parents die in a car accident. And they need to clean out their childhood home and put it on the market. And the home is of course haunted right there in the title. But it's haunted by puppets and dolls, which is inexcusable on my part. And, and that's the book. I mean, that is 100%. That's all you need to know. At that point. You're like, nope, and out of there because puppets and dolls or you're like I'm all in? Hopefully not because of puppets and dolls.

Michael David Wilson 1:07:46

All right, well, where can our listeners connect with you?

Grady Hendrix 1:07:51

The easiest way to find me or avoid me is Grady hendrix.com. Go there for more of me or stay away from there if you don't want to hear my voice again.

Michael David Wilson 1:08:00

Yeah. Do you have any final thoughts for our listeners?

Grady Hendrix 1:08:04

No, no, I feel like we've really dived in and swum these waters. I would just say, you know, if people are worried about puppets, don't be there are amazing. And I highly encourage people who haven't done any puppetry to do it. Because it really is. It might take a little while to get there but man it is a out of body experience.

Michael David Wilson 1:08:34

Thank you so much for listening to Grady Hendrix on This Is Horror. Join us again next time when we will be chatting with Suzanne young. But if you would like to get that ahead of the crowd, if you would like to get every episode ahead of the crowd, then become a patron@patreon.com forward slash This Is Horror. Now another good reason to support us on Patreon is because of our bonus podcast story on Boxty horror podcast on the craft of writing. And Bob and I will be recording a special story on Bob's episode later this week on something in the diet. So if you support us at the minimum $3 Tier or above, you will get to listen to that one fairly soon. Indeed. You will also get to submit questions to each and every guest. We have a lot of great guests coming up soon including IG ang and Tim Waggoner to name but too. So head to patreon.com forward slash This Is Horror. See what we have to offer. And if it's a good fit for you, I would love to see you Dan. Okay, before I wrap up, it is time for an advert break.

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Michael David Wilson 1:10:52

Now I often like to end the episode with a quote. But today it's more of a message from the heart because I couldn't quite find a quote to match what it was I wanted to say. So he goes, today is a perfect day to be better, or whatever has happened in the past. You can make the decision right now to do better from this day forward, to apologize fast, to be kind to others to own your shit and admit to your wrongdoings so decide to be better today. And then make the same decision tomorrow. And the day after that. That's how you do it. One day at a time you become better. Just keep getting better, doing better, being better. I'll see you in the next episode with Suzanne Young. But until then, take care yourselves be good to one another. Read horror. Keep on writing and have a great, great day.