snatched out of film school,
which I didn't finish, and by that time Roger Corman was sort of king of the B movies. So, I really started writing and directing movies for Roger, which was really my first professional break with films like "Carnosaur" and
"Body Chemistry", which were really just the last days of that whole kind of filmmaking. That whole kind of old style B movie got swept away.So, with that, I really stepped into wanting to be a filmmaker, and I began to watch documentaries, and really fell into writing particularly in a funny way out of necessity, because Roger grabbed me as a Director. And the deal with Roger was that he would hand you a script, and most times it would just be horrible. So, in some sense, it was re-writing those scripts, and at the same time I had started to write plays with a now very well known actor named Tim Robbins who had a theater group which we still have called "The Actor's Gang", which was also influenced by the crazy Grand Guignol kind of genre stuff that I love. So, I fell into writing plays, and re-writing my Corman movies, which over time caused me to do more and more normal writing, especially within the genre. And really, before "Salem", I didn't want to get into television. It wasn't the best medium for horror, but I wouldn't argue now that it really is better now on television than it is on the big screen.
Rob: I would definitely agree with
that. It definitely feels like there is a "Renaissance" when it comes to horror on television. What was your favorite horror movie? What was the one thing that really ignited your love for the genre?
Adam: Well, again, in a sense I am really part of a generation who is reminded how contingent and haphazard some of these things are. People grew up in a moment, well again, you have to remember and put yourself in a frame of mind where there were once three to four TV channels, and a handful of fuzzy UHF channels. And most of them didn't show movies because Hollywood film and television were not that cohesive and owned by the same people back then. It was not like today where it was all this giant mega corporation, so you didn't get to see any movies on television, and maybe thirty or forty classics mainly from Universal were suddenly sold to television. I was viewing a lot of these films that we really, now take for granted, the original "Frankenstein", "Dracula", that whole cycle of classic horror movies. So then there was no doubt that we would have shows come about like
"Creature Feature", and there
would be this explosion of monster culture, and then comics like "Creepy" and "Eerie". But, at the same time, and I can understand it better now, the modern horror movie was being built all around
me. Certainly the one that had the
most impact was "The Exorcist", which I am sure I was too young to watch. The first weekend it was out, I was like eleven years old, and at that age that movie was branded and seared into my brain. I think it's still, I don't know, maybe it's not as scary for kids today, but at the time, loving your horror meant loving your classic horror films, even contemporary films like Hammer Films. But to finally see something like "The Exorcist", it felt so real, it was no doubt that the "Exorcist" was the one.
Rob: You know, it's funny that you mention "The Exorcist", because now I am thirty seven years old, but when I was a kid, I remember the trailer scared the crap out of me! (Laughs) And, you know, now you feel like "Beetlejuice", I mean, honestly I watch it now and there are some things that make me laugh, I don't know. (Laughs again)