Scott Bradley

Interview by Justin Nyberg for Adventures Underground.

S.A. Bradley’s Hellbent For Horror podcast was described by director Guillermo Del Toro as “Well researched, articulate and entirely absorbing.” And, it’s easy to see why! Bradley has loved being scared by over 1,600 horror films. He’s turned his passion into purpose, sharing his expansive knowledge on dozens of podcasts and in anthologies like Medium Chill and EvilSpeak magazine. Prior to becoming a champion of horror, Bradley served in the U.S. Air Force and was a firefighter. His first book, Screaming for Pleasure: How Horror Makes You Happy and Healthy, is a thrilling ride through the horror genre and its intense effect on every generation. He shows how you can be enriched by horror. Follow Bradley on his website HellbentforHorror.com.

 

Justin Nyberg: Do you see a pattern relating to the first horror movie experience people have?  For example: if someone says Scream was their first horror movie do you have any expectations regarding what their tastes are? Or if someone grew up on 70’s movies vs someone who grew up on 80’s movies. Is there any predictability in taste or opinion based on those starts?

Scott Bradley: If there’s any pattern that I can really point to, it’s that most people see that life-changing horror movie when they are really young and it’s a movie that they shouldn’t have been watching at that age in the first place!

So, with that said, horror fans tend to have a special fondness for the movies that came out around the time they were 12 to 16. So, if they grew up in the 80s on Friday the 13^th,  they probably have a fondness for movies with that aesthetic and that attitude. There is a distinct difference in style and point of view between movies made in the 70s, the 80s, and the 90s, and onward because horror feeds on our collective anxieties and takes on the social flavor of the times. So, sure, if I know what movie really rocked their world when they were kids, I have a good idea of what kind of movie is a safe bet to recommend.

But this is where avid horror fans are so much fun. They may have a favorite type of horror film, but for the most part, they want to experiment. Horror fans want to be surprised. Most horror fans watch countless movies of all different styles hoping to catch that high of being genuinely surprised. Casual horror movie viewers can have a predictable taste. Avid horror fans can be predictably unpredictable in their tastes.

JN:  Chapter two is all about the bonding experience of the theater. How do you think COVID and the fall of movie theaters is going to change horror culture?

Scott Bradley: That’s a very interesting question because I think that the theater experience and the movie-going experience have always been in constant change, because how we communicate and interact is in constant change. They are interconnected.

Personally, I think the emotional bonding that can happen in a theater full of strangers is very important because that was how I was introduced to movies and how I fell in love with the power of cinema. But it’s what you know, right? The power of the image and the experience is subjective to the viewer and it adapts to the technology used to show it. I can say that a kid watching a movie on their phone isn’t getting the same experience that I had, but I can’t honestly say that they aren’t getting a deeply emotional experience that is satisfying to them.

What I will say is that horror culture will not only adapt to any changes, but it will also be integral to the success of whatever comes after the theaters die off. No matter how COVID alters human interaction, the horror movie and the horror culture will be at the forefront of the next big thing, because horror is relatively inexpensive, the stories are universal, and there’s a built-in audience to buy tickets.

Home video and VCRs and basic cable changed the theater going experience in the 80s, and a large portion of the movies that were available for rent were horror movies. Most of the teenage audiences saw those classic horror films with a group of friends on a TV in their homes, not in theaters with strangers. The same can be said for streaming services. When Netflix and Amazon first started out, a large portion of the available films were low-budget horror films. Horror culture will adapt because deep down, we need it. It’s not a social need, it’s a human need.

JN: Speaking of COVID, how do you think COVID is going to be represented in future movies? I’ve been curious whether they will outright go hard on virus horror or if it will end up being veiled somehow in isolation horror (ie. The horror of being stuck alone). And which way do you hope it will go?

Scott Bradley: I think the honest answer is both, some will be in-your-face, and others will be commenting on COVID allegorically or metaphorically. I mean, horror by its very nature can’t help itself, it’s made to comment on whatever our anxieties are, that’s it’s function. There will be storytellers that will use whichever style suits them. There have been in-your-face virus horror movies and more subtle ones for decades now, because our worry about this kind of thing has been out there for a while. Zombie apocalypse, any kind of apocalypse, these are about sickness. We just finally rolled Snake Eyes and ended up with a real pandemic.

There are a few horror novels that came out in the last year that dealt with a pandemic in both a literal and allegorical manner and, quite frankly, I couldn’t finish them. I’m not sure that I want to go as far as to say that it’s “too soon”, like people say about comedy and a real-life tragedy, but I will say it’s too soon for poorly written and unimaginative stories about the pandemic. If you’re going to tell a story about COVID, it better be damn good story. It better be memorable.

You asked which way I would hope the horror stories would go, veiled in isolation or hard on virus horror, and I will say that I prefer the veiled in isolation style, only because I think it takes the focus off the virus as what’s frightening and places it on what we do to ourselves and what we fear will be left of us and our day-to-day lives. To me, that’s the more profound fear that we are facing right now. But again, it better be a damn good story. It better be memorable.

JN: You speak to a unique experience growing up. Being part of a religious group who predicted a very imminent end of the world. How do you think growing up believing the world would end within the next year color your love for and understanding of horror?

Scott Bradley: Yeah, growing up in a fundamentalist Christian cult that believes the world is going to end with in a year kind of fulfills my horror movie credentials, right? Everything in that religion was about God’s wrath and how much temptation and sin there was in the world. Satan was real, demons were real, and they wanted nothing more than to possess you and harm you. We read from the Bible daily and several of the passages and stories are more disturbing than a Clive Barker novel. Halloween was my favorite holiday because it was the one time out of the year that all of my classmates believed the same way I did, that monsters and demons walked the earth.

Horror movies were therapeutic to me, because the world I was being brought up in was terrifying. And everything that was happening, from being in a doomsday cult to being ridiculed daily by my classmates, to being caught up in my parents’ ugly divorce, was out of my control. Horror movies could terrify me, but they couldn’t hurt me. And in a very real way I was always in control. It was my choice to turn off the scary movie when it got to be too much, or to watch all the way through and claim a little victory.

Horror also helped break down some walls that were put up by the religious beliefs of my mom and dad. Horror movies helped me deal with the inevitable cognitive dissonance that happened when the end of the world didn’t occur at the end of the year. I realized that temptation and sin were not an immediate death sentence or a fast pass to demonic possession. But mostly horror let me know that I wasn’t alone in my darkest thoughts. I could watch a movie, or I could read a book and suddenly feel the emotions that I thought I had to stuff deep down inside of me because thinking those things was wrong. If I was reading a book or watching a movie and I suddenly felt they were telling my story or they were inside of my head, that meant it wasn’t just me thinking these twisted thoughts. It meant that there was at least one other person who saw the world the way I did and maybe felt the way I did. And that was very life-affirming.

JN: I consider myself a horror movie fan but like any fandom I worry about having enough knowledge to have a good conversation about horror. Do you have any advice for someone who loves horror but is worried about breaching the subject with people as knowledgeable as yourself? Are there any don’ts?  Should I not tell people I loved MTV’s Scream series?

Scott Bradley: I have a group of very knowledgeable friends that I met at horror conventions over the years. I unofficially dubbed us “The Algonquin Round Table of Horror” and several of them can put me to shame with their encyclopedic knowledge of horror films. What makes this group great is that they don’t have an elitist take on this. We are all there for the sheer joy of exchanging stories and recommendations and our love for the genre. One of the things we all have in common is that we remember what it was like to see that first movie and get caught up in it and we really respond to seeing that excitement in someone else. We all started out knowing very little and I tend to make friends with the people who want to be ambassadors for the movies they love. Those folks want to share the wealth. There are “gatekeepers” out there, who are people with intermediate level knowledge but expert-level insecurity, and they are the ones who try to intimidate and lord over people who are casual fans or curious folks wanting to know more.

Here’s a “pro-tip”: if you want the start a conversation about horror with a “horror junkie”, go to a horror convention and hit the vendor’s room. There are all types of vendors, so look for small independent film distributor tables. Titles like Synapse: Severin, Troma, Arrow Video, and many others will be selling their wares, but the indie guys tend to have their tables manned by obsessive horror fans. If they’re not too busy, you’ll find that these are the passionate folks who will take the time to talk movies with you. All of the people that I ended up meeting that have become friends I found through vendors because I told them, “what I really want to do is talk movies with people. You know anybody who does that?” You’d be surprised how often people are waiting to hear a request like that.

On the Scream TV series… Some will champion that with you, and some will make well-meaning jokes. Part of the great fun is that we agree to disagree and is always something new to learn! 

JN:  I think what I love so much about your book is your ability to be so aware about everything that’s happening in the book or movie you’re digesting and at the same time be aware of how it makes you feel. I aspire to be able to understand my experiences with the richness you do. Do you think that level of attention to detail is something that can be learned? And if so, how?

Scott Bradley: Sure! I think most universities and even some community colleges have some kind of film theory classes. And horror is finally getting a little bit of respect in those classes and gets brought to the table. I grew up in a time when people really believed that movies could help change culture and society. I was alive during the Golden Age of 70s films when The Godfather, Taxi Driver, and The Exorcist were in the movie theaters and people read what the critics said.

For what it’s worth, people really were a bit more film literate because mainstream films were a mixture of entertainment and art and the language of cinema was everywhere. Even if it was silliness like Gene Shalit on Good Morning America or regional movie critic reviews in daily newspapers, regular folks like my dad were still getting exposure to how movies could affect you emotionally and intellectually. The turning point for me was when The Exorcist was considered an “important film” and I was hearing a horror movie being discussed as if it were art at the level of something like The Godfather. I just assumed that horror movies deserved the same artistic critical review and appreciation that other films garnered. So, I did experience and review horror films that way. I have no idea I would be in such a tiny minority for decades nor did I think doing so was revolutionary.

I’m sure there’s something in your life that you adore so much that you are aware of every detail surrounding it and you could speak encyclopedias of information about, and that passion is all that’s really required to suddenly find yourself experiencing horror films at that rich level. Every feeling and emotion you experience while you are engaged in art is worthy of discussion.

JN: If 2020 has personally taught me anything it would be that not all news sources are equal, honest or actually knowledgeable. If I wanted to dip further into the horror world do you have any news sources you could suggest? 

Scott Bradley: I would say that one of the more “fair and balanced” news sources for horror movies is Dread Central. Editor-in-chief Josh Millican writes great reviews and solid previews of works that are in progress, but he also doesn’t shy away from controversy and real-life horrors. Dread Central has been at the forefront of news-breaking issues from sexual harassment scandals to criminal activities that plagued the horror community. That means Dread Central makes a firm distinction between indulging our dark demons through entertainment and the need for accountability in the real world and our horror culture. I would say the same for iHorror.com. Editor Waylon Jordan writes great and deep critical reviews of films and current film trends but has also shown a spotlight on homophobia and misogyny that still runs rampant in our subculture, specifically at horror conventions.

JN: I’ve recently learned a lot about moral panics and how they are a reflection of our societal fears, and now I’ve learned from you that horror movies do the same thing. It seems like we have a lot of passive ways of dealing with our societal fears. Why do you think we’re unable to confront those fears on a more conscious and open level?

Scott Bradley: I think that’s the essence of storytelling. I think we've been doing that passive reflection of our real societal fears from the beginning. Bible parables, Aesop’s fables, Grimm’s fairy tales, have all used metaphors and monsters to talk about our moral fabric. I think we do that because a lot of these societal issues are universal. If you make your story about King Nebuchadnezzar and how much the problem he was, the problem is over when King Nebuchadnezzar dies. Our problems are bigger than the specifics and I think the reflection of those things through storytelling and allegory makes some of these problems easier to digest. That distance and detachment that allegory has from the real event allows everyone an opportunity to look at the issue, whereas an exposé can smell like burning tire fires and you alienate a significant percentage of your audience. Honey instead of vinegar. Storytelling might be heavily influenced by the news, but it isn’t the news. I think assuming it is can be hazardous.

JN: Do you think foreign horror reflects the societal fears of each individual society it's representing or do you think that foreign horror uses US horror as its framework?

Scott Bradley: I think some foreign horror films use US horror as a framework in hopes of being able to crack the US market, and I think that US film language does permeate into other cultures, which is where you get Italian Spaghetti Westerns in the 70s. And I think some foreign horror films reflect the societal fears of the culture in which they are created. But, I think most horror tends to be less about cultural borders and more about universal human issues. What it means and what it is like to be human. Horror is universal and you don’t really need to know anything about another culture to understand the nature of what is happening on the screen. Sure, there are isolated moments in horror films where something that is specific to a culture may not translate, but the overall theme is universal. I think the biggest foreign horror movie successes are with films that focus on the universality of the things that scare us or give us anxiety. The thing that I love about horror is that it is there for everybody and there is a style out there for every distinct taste and interest.

With that said, the emotional grittiness and dramatic tension and levels of violence there are from culture to culture. Many foreign markets are more permissive to transgressive elements in horror films and that’s why it is such a treat to delve into horror films from different cultures. There are different styles that have different kinetic energy than US films have and they can be jaw-droppingly beautiful and brutal.

JN: Speaking of foreign horror, do you have any suggestions where to start there? Any recommendations for someone trying to reach past what’s here in the states? On a personal note one of my all time favorites is High Tension. I love the pace and tone of that movie so much.

Scott Bradley: High Tension is part of the New French Extremity cinema that started in the 2000s and they are stunning mixture films. They are heavy on style and graphic violence and I would recommend Inside, In My Skin, Trouble Every Day, and my favorite New French Extremity, Martyrs. That one splits audiences right down the middle. If you like dread infused ghost stories, watch South Korean horror of the last 20 or 30 years. Movies like A Tale of Two Sisters and The Eye are beautiful to look at and truly frightening because the timing is different than what we are used to in Western films. The work of Bong Joon Ho, who just won Best Picture for his film Parasite, is a great place to look for unique genre-bending horror films. Asian cinema in general got me through the drought of the 90s where supernatural horror movies were few and far in between. If you’re looking for something really nasty, you can look up Hong Kong Category Three horror films. CAT III films are the “video nasties” of Asia, but they really ARE extreme cinema. Try out The Untold Story. If you can make it through that one, you can make it through some others. I also recommend Chilean horror films (yes, there are a few of them!), Spanish and Mexican horror films, Japanese horror films, and the Italian Giallo films of the 70s. Foreign horror is a rich and fertile soil.

JN:  This is a lot like an earlier question but I don’t think I’m good at watching movies. When I hear you talk about the camera angles or subtext and the ability of cinema to affect us by tapping into social fears - I feel like you can see more than I can. How do you learn to pick up on all these little “hidden” things? I want to experience more of the movies I love but don’t know how.

Scott Bradley: I encourage folks to go “old school” and get some classic films on Blu-ray or DVD and listen to the audio commentaries. Those commentaries are many film schools, and the good ones have the directors telling you why they shot things the way they did, how they shot them and why they wanted to make those movies in the first place. They can reveal the underlying themes and what the allegory is all about, as well as giving some funny stories about what it’s like to make a horror movie under some really strenuous conditions. I recommend special edition versions of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alien, The Exorcist, and just about any audio commentary by director John Carpenter. He really does give a mini film school when he does them. But I would say that even the real B-movie audio commentaries can get you reading film differently. The movies might not be too serious, but the people who make them sacrificed at least a year of their lives to do them and their obsessions can make for an educational audio commentary.

JN: I have to say that I’m very impressed with your depth of knowledge. I can tell how you tell the history of horror specifically in music that you’re a research monster. As an aspiring research monster do you have any organizational advice when it comes to topics as deep as the ones you speak to in your book?

Scott Bradley:  Give yourself permission to get lost in the research. Sometimes, the topic gets revealed in the weeds of research for something else. This style came from childhood when my father bought me a set of encyclopedias. I was a voracious reader and a kid who got into a lot of trouble if he got bored so my dad gave me those when I was grounded for a week to my room. I started looking up all the dirty words I could think of and then I look to the corner of the page and some other fact would catch my interest. Reading an encyclopedia is kind of like eating a bag of potato chips. Reading reference material let me find out just how much I was in love with the topic. I find that once a topic captivates me and I start falling in love with it the organization part of it works itself out. But, I’m a sloppy desk kind of guy. Once I pick a topic then obsession brings me a sense of order. 

JN:  In your book you describe a lot of different type of horror and you describe one that’s a new term to me. Identity horror. Could you explain identity horror a little more? Identity is so important and people create so many ripple effects while trying to curate or maintain an identity that I wonder how that genre crosses against the social fears. I bet there’s a lot there.

Scott Bradley:  Identity horror is a wide range of horror and science fiction films that all have a common denominator, and that is the fear of losing one’s identity. That can be a descent into madness or possession or having your existence erased. Identity horror often asks us, “what is it that makes you uniquely you? Are you a collection of your memories, are you a collection of beliefs, or are you a soul?” How much of those things can be taken away before you are no longer you? The greatest example of this is Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where you no longer exist but something that looks exactly like you continues on without any human emotion. Another great one is Get Out, where the central horror is that your identity still exists in your body but it is submerged by an invading identity living through the body.

Another great one is John Carpenter's The Thing, where an alien being imitates life forms that comes across to devour other lifeforms. Roman Polanski’s Apartment Trilogy, which includes Rosemary's Baby, Repulsion, and The Tenant deal with madness, paranoia, and loss of identity. In The Tenant, the main character says, “if you cut off my leg, I say that is my leg. If you cut off my arm, I say that is my arm. If you cut off my head, what would I say... Me and my head, or me and my body? What right has my head to call itself me?” That is the essence of identity horror.

JN: Are there any movies that really capture the fear of fire and brimstone you grew up with? I rarely get to ask an ex-cult (please let me know if that’s an offensive term) member which cult movies hit the truest.

Scott Bradley: I don’t know if there are any specifically cult-related films that really hit it home, although Martha Marcy May Marlene comes pretty close to capturing the helplessness that is built into a closed isolationist community that scrutinizes every move and uses a persecution complex to keep everyone motivated and then keeps you hooked by declaring it an act of love.

Most of the movies that hit on the fire and brimstone terror deal more with religious psychosis and misplaced faith. Movies like The Rapture and Take Shelter where belief could easily be psychosis and the acts of faith harm innocent loved ones. Those are the ones that scare me. Probably the most visceral experience I had was watching the Bill Paxton film, Frailty. The religious fervor of the father was very close to the teetering hysteria of my mother when we believed the world was going to end in 1975. And the response of the older son in that film mirrored my response, which is a state of disbelief that turns into shock and then depression, and then turns into defiance. When I left the theater I was literally trembling. And in the lobby I looked across the room and saw another man barely holding it together. We saw each other and we immediately ran towards each other and started identifying. We both had been in cults and we both talked through what we felt. That was a very unique experience.

JN:  If you could pick a horror novel and a metal album to turn into a never before done movie what would your choices be?

Scott Bradley: Boy, that’s a hard one! Most of the really strong novels, especially classic novels, have been made into films already. Maybe the best one of recent years that mixes horror and heavy metal is We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix. There’s heavy metal in the supernatural and a good dose of humor that makes for a really good novel that I could see translating to the screen easily. The hard part is finding something that translates to the screen. I love the work of Algernon Blackwood and Lovecraft but they are notoriously vague about the monsters or the spirits in the work. I would also say that I would love to make a film adaptation of Paul Tremblay’s The Cabin at The End of The World. That’s a book that hits on that cult religious horror that we discussed earlier. Very strong and very controversial book.

If I were to make a metal album into a movie? I would say Melissa by Mercyful Fate. There is already a supernatural story going on in that album and at one time it was one of the more “evil” albums out there. There are lots of black metal albums that would foot the bill, and Slayer’s South of Heaven feels like a horror movie even if Reign in Blood is their masterpiece.

JN: In the book, your section on metal and horror was robust and smart and it really changed how I viewed that relationship. I mean, I knew there was a relationship but the way you articulate it was eye opening and now I need to know more, haha!

What are your thoughts on horrorcore rap? As a rap fan I’m curious about that relationship even more now, since rap is a newer music form and horrorcore is even newer...

Scott Bradley:  Wow, that’s a really interesting question and that’s the first time I’ve ever been asked that. Horrorcore rap is from a long line of “death music”, a tradition that goes all the way back to medieval times with the murder ballad. Old blues songs were murder ballads and in the 50s and 60s, even in the 70s, there was a tradition of “dead teenager songs”. There were songs like “Last Kiss”, about a fatal car crash. Bands like Cannibal Corpse were the death metal side of the coin. To me, horrorcore rap goes all the way back to the Geto Boys and the Insane Clown Posse, and Three-6 Mafia. Those early albums were notorious and scary to listen to because you were positive they were based on real murder. Is the song “Stan” by Eminem horrorcore rap? I’d be interested to hear what you believe falls under the title of horrorcore rap. I find all kinds of underground music that deals in trying to terrify the listener intriguing and I’d like to learn more about this.

JN:  Are you a musician yourself?

Scott Bradley:  No! I played bass for a short period of time and I loved it except I didn’t have much talent for it. I am obsessed with music and appreciating it and exploring it, but I’m not obsessed with learning how to play it.

JN:  What is your opinion on bizarro horror from authors like Carlton Mellick III? We currently have a few of his books floating around at work for the horror readers and we’re almost unable to describe the experience. I’d love to hear what you think.

Scott Bradley:  I’m not deeply steeped in the sub-genre, but I really enjoyed the works by David Wong, like John Dies in The End and What the Hell Did I Just Read? I also like Danger Slater’s Impossible James and He Digs A Hole. Like I said I’m not very well read in this spot, but what I read reminds me of Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty, where the surreal and the absurd clash with reality and that creates anxiety in the audience. There is a connection between humor and horror, and it is fragile and easy to get wrong. But there is something very appealing and attractive to work that makes you laugh at dreadful circumstances because of how those circumstances are framed.

JN:  The mystery plays of medieval Europe sound like an precursur to using horror movies to influence the population. Do you think we are in a place now as a society and with our ability to create to use horror intentionally for good?

Scott Bradley:  I think horror is intentionally used for good often. “If you go down in the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise, if you go down the woods today, you’d better go in disguise.” The cautionary tale is good use of a scary story. Some will say that The Exorcist is, in the end, a story of the power of God showing itself in the modern world. I think the dark side of our hearts and imaginations is often used to strengthen our humanity and the best parts of our souls. I personally think that horror allows us to have a safe and healthy handshake with our shadow selves, that part of us that none of us want to admit exists. Horror lets us face some of our anxieties from a safe distance, it gives us a sense of play in a world that can be pretty grim for adults, and it can give us a brief sense of control in the midst of the chaos of life in the 21^st Century. I think horror is a force of good and no matter how many slings and arrows are thrown at it horror will be there for you when you desperately need it. Shadows can’t exist without the presence of a bright light.