Hurrah for horror

The recent awards dinner for the Horror Writers Assn. was less goth and more black-tie than you might expect. About 150 attendees met at the Burbank Hilton on June 25 to honor their members over a steak and fish dinner. There wasn’t a hemlock brew in sight.

Among the winners taking home a miniature of Poe’s house of Usher were Clive Barker for his epic for young readers, “Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War”; Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth for the screenplay of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”; and fantasy and science fiction writer Michael Moorcock, who received a lifetime achievement award.

Accepting on behalf of the ailing Moorcock, Harlan Ellison, himself a legend in the field, stole the moment. Ellison spoke of Moorcock’s unique storytelling vision and, in one of many amusing asides, railed on the American Film Institute’s ranking of the top 100 movie quotes, which had just aired on CBS. “I couldn’t stand it, had to turn it off,” said Ellison, who’s done his share of TV and film work. The way they presented it, he said, you’d think there were no writers involved. You’d think this language just sprang from the actors’ mouths like Athena from the forehead of Zeus. (His exact language was, shall we say, a little more robust.)

Though much of the conversation was horror-related -- a discussion of whether “The Exorcist” was the last really scary film; toastmaster David Morrell’s lament that few remember Thomas Tryon, who penned “Harvest Home” -- the conference preceding the banquet was also about business strategies, like how to land a valuable paperback contract. “Readers are more likely to risk $7 than $25 on a writer they’ve never read,” said novelist Deborah LeBlanc.

The label “horror writer” is worn a little heavily by some, who point out that the genre includes many things -- psychological thrillers, poetry, science fiction, fantasy -- besides slasher stories. When talking to Hollywood executives, Steve Niles has found that images help overcome stereotypes. He credits the comics format in selling the screen rights to his “30 Days of Night”: “If you tell them, ‘It’s a story about vampires running around an Alaskan town,’ they might think of a bunch of Bela Lugosis getting their capes wet in the snow. But comics are like storyboards. They see exactly what you have in mind.” *