Today it gives the Speculative Fiction Showcase great pleasure to interview Craig Stewart, author of Follow Him and Worship Me.
Your novel Follow Him, published by Hellbound Books, had its debut in October last year. It’s safe to say it’s a horror novel. What drew you to horror as a genre in the first place?
In my experience, horror is for the outsider; it’s an angry, anarchistic genre. When I was a kid, I wasn’t terribly angry, but I was gay. Still am. And growing up gay in a small town in the 90s, there’s just no way that you’re not going to feel like the outsider. So, while perusing the video rental stores, I stumbled upon this section near the back filled with people with knives for fingers and pins in their heads, and I thought, well, this is where I belong. These films did more than scare me (though, they really did), they expressed something in me that needed out, exorcised demons, if you will, and let me face them.
Your biography says you learnt to count from the words: “One, two Freddy’s coming for you.”! That’s – unexpected. Were your parents horror fans, or was it a coincidence?
My parents hate horror, haha! I had to watch this stuff secretly, hidden away in the basement, which really only made everything more frightening.
That comment from my bio is a little facetious. I didn’t literally learn how to count from A Nightmare On Elm Street – I probably learned that from some poorly illustrated book about a kid trying to share apples. What I did learn from Wes Craven’s masterpiece, was a way of dealing with the horrors of life, and of understanding them. It profoundly influenced me. I first saw the film at a very young age, so, Freddy made his mark. But, how Nancy defeated Freddy is what I really attached to. She didn’t run, she learned everything she could about him, thereby taking away his power, and then she turned her back on him. That’s powerful stuff. We’re all afraid of the unknown, so, what happens when the unknown becomes known? Well, then, whatever nightmare we were afraid of becomes just another dream.
Horror and childhood seem to be deeply associated. Sometimes children are the pathetic victims of horror, sometimes the terrifying perpetrators – see films like Poltergeist, Stephen King’s It and A Nightmare on Elm Street, to name a few. What’s that about?
I think horror as a genre serves many roles in a society. The most important being an exploration of the forbidden. When a new idea is being introduced to a society, usually there are these rings it needs to pass through. The first ring is horror, because new ideas emerge from the unknown. The next ring is usually comedy, as people start to poke fun from a distance, becoming acclimatized to it. The final ring is drama, where the idea is honestly explored. For example, queerness in cinema didn’t start with Brokeback Mountain, it first journeyed through The Bates Motel, and even before that, Bride of Frankenstein (in a more coded way). So, if you want to know what ideas a society is struggling with, look to horror.
(at the risk of sounding too much like a thesis paper) Furthermore, horror deals with many troubling and universal ideas that challenge us all; the biggest one being that we are meat bags, capable of being spilled. For kids, the horror genre is usually the first real exploration of this idea. And so, they are often represented in peril, threatened by the bogeyman. Of course, there’s the sub-genre of evil kid movies, which, unless a demon is involved, usually turns out to be more psychological horror, which, ironically, kids rarely enjoy as much as adults do.
Plus, deep down, everyone is creeped out by kids, right?
Follow Him concerns a religious cult that establishes itself in the town of Dreury. Is small-town Canada, like the same milieu in America, a particularly good setting for horror and the weird? (See King again and David Lynch)
I think they’re similar, but not exactly the same. Small town Canada feels… quieter? More subdued, maybe. Open fields; hollow wind; not a friendly face for kilometres. I think the creepiness of a Canadian small town has a lot more to do with isolation, whereas American small towns in horror stories often have terrible secrets, hidden histories, that sort of thing.
The cult is called The Shared Heart and the protagonist, Jacob, joins because he is emotionally broken. His fiancee tries to rescue him and finds they are both in mortal peril. Would you say there is psychological horror as well as the supernatural?
Absolutely! This novel certainly has a great deal of both. Actually, I’d argue that all supernatural horror that’s any good is psychological. For example, no one is actually afraid of zombies coming out of the graves, but, everyone is afraid of what they represent: our inevitable death that shambles closer every day. Same can be said for werewolves (sexual repression), demons (mental illness), and clowns (just clowns… they don’t need to represent anything other than pure terror).
In what way does this story tap into our deepest fears about cults and indeed religion?
I view all established religious institutions as big cults. There’s no difference in my mind between an obscure sect who meets out in the desert every full moon and the Vatican, other than one happened to come to power and one didn’t. They have a way of creating a hive mind. I think, right now, we’re living in a time, certainly politically, that’s ruled by cult-thinking. It’s a terrifying thing to see. There’s something disturbingly dehumanizing about cults. With Follow Him, I wanted to exploit this frightening trend, while also questioning… what if the cult were right?
You wrote your own hymn for the cult known as The Shared Heart – can you tell us about that and how important music is to your writing?
I love music. It’s my main source of inspiration. It’s also the easiest way to evade someone’s rational brain and go right for their heart – which cults need to do in order to brainwash. That’s why music plays a huge part in all religions. In terms of my own writing, I often compose a couple of tracks of music to emphasize certain themes or characters. It’s kind of like scoring a movie, only, a book. I wrote a couple of inspirational tracks for Follow Him, including one that’s the main tune for the hymn sung by The Shared Heart. If you’re interested, you can find it here.
Oh yes, I’ve abandoned that notion wholeheartedly, haha! It’s funny because horror has always had a tough relationship with religion. Like you said, sometimes it’s a force of good, like in The Exorcist (though, I would argue that in that film/book, god fails, and it’s Father Karras’ love for the child that forces the devil out), and sometimes it’s a force of evil, like in The Wicker Man.
I grew up attending church every Sunday. I was confirmed into the faith and all that. In fact, the small country church in Worship Me is based off the actual church I attended as a child. I lost my faith while reckoning with my sexual orientation. Then, I hated faith for a while after my sister died. Now, I view faith and religion as this ancient, antiquated monster that doesn’t really know how to function in the new world. Like all good monsters, it’s both powerful and pitiful. That’s really what my first book is about.
In what way does Follow Him continue the story of Worship Me?
I think of Follow Him less as a sequel to Worship Me, and more like a sister novel. Both of them are their own stories. Worship Me is about religion, Follow Him, although centred around a cult, is about love. That being said, there is a very important character in Follow Him that connects the two books and brings both stories to an end. Or, maybe just opens the door to a third book. Things are bubbling.
Horror seems on the surface like a very moral genre, ending with the big bad defeated and the protagonists saved. But it can also have a nihilistic ending. What does this say about changing tastes?
A lot has been written regarding the morality of horror tales. I don’t know if it’s a changing tastes sort of thing, or, if there’s always been nihilistic horror and morally driven horror, and critics from certain eras just chose to focus on either one or the other. For example, while papers were being written about the morality of slasher films, at the same time, Dan O’Bannon was ending Return of the Living Dead (spoiler alert) by dropping a big bomb on everyone, and Carrie was burning her school down.
What is your view of recent horror films like Midsommar, which combines beauty, folklore and body horror?
I was a huge fan of Hereditary (it was heredi-scary!). And I had big hopes for Midsommar. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in that film, and, you’re right, I like how the horror is almost surreally beautiful, but, for me, I’m a huge fan of The Wicker Man (the Cage version… kidding), and Midsommar just didn’t feel as fresh as Hereditary was. Maybe I was just in a bad mood and need to rewatch it.
As a filmmaker yourself, do you have plans to make longer movies?
Yes, I’d love to. The problem is one that all independent filmmakers face… cash. Movies take a lot of it. Books, however, well, that’s just me and a typing machine, so, pretty cheap. At least I have a couple of books to base screenplays off of. Now, if I could just remember where I left that 30 million dollars... Jokes aside, I do plan on building a story that’s more contained within a modest budget. That’s the next project!
What books do you read, within and outside the genre?
I’m almost finished Scott Hawkins’ Library At Mount Char, which has been a fun read. Not very horrific, though, it has its moments. I like to read independent authors as well. Keep a nice mixed bag. Also, I love a good memoir. I read Words Without Music by Philip Glass. It was a delight. Amazing artist.
Have you got any recommendations?
If you’re interested in Canadian queer horror, I highly recommend Michael Rowe’s October. It’s just a great, classy creep-out with a wonderfully gut-wrenching finale. It’s a story that anyone who has ever felt like an outsider will be able to deeply relate to… and that might be the most terrifying thing about it.
What are you working on now?
I’m suffocating myself with a couple of projects. I’m doing the final draft of this horror/comedy novel based in the 80s about a woman who dreamed of being a princess, but found out she’s actually a monster. I’m really enjoying how this one is coming together. Lots of splattery fun! Beyond that, I have plans to focus a bit more on film-making again. A few scripts ideas are floating around. And I have at least one more novel in there too, I know. That one will be a very personal book, so, I don’t want to rush it.
To keep up with all my projects, please feel free to checkout my social feeds, or find me here on my website.
About Craig Stewart:
Craig Stewart is a Canadian author and filmmaker who learned how to count from the rhyme, “One, two Freddy’s coming for you.” He’s a creator and connoisseur of everything horror; never afraid to delve into the dark. His first novel, Worship Me, received the New Apple Literary Award of Excellence for horror in 2018. He has also written and directed several short films that have enjoyed screenings across North America. He currently wanders dark hallways in Toronto, Canada.
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