Since the girls’ father has been away, though, strange things have been
happening in the family’s little exhibit—and in the waxworks studio that shares
their dilapidated Victorian mansion on the outskirts of London. Now, the twins’
dreams of a fun, romantic summer season are turning into a nightmare, and the
monsters are running...
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Interview with the author:
What inspired Dr. Cushing?
Dr. Cushing’s Chamber of Horrors was inspired by the classic Universal and Hammer horror
films from the 1930s to the early’70s. About the time that Universal was
talking about doing a shared universe of monster movies (the failed Dark
Universe project), many friends and I were talking online about the fact
that though DU seemed a good idea, they were really unlikely to make it
in a way that would satisfy Monster Kids. Looking at that, I decided there
really weren’t many books out there written to appeal to fans of those old
films. So, I decided to write one myself. Dr. Cushing’s Chamber of Horrors
is the result.
As to Dr. Cushing himself… With the
name Leigh Cushing, he’s obviously inspired by Hammer stars Christopher Lee and
Peter Cushing. And the name of the book is inspired by the film Dr. Terror’sHouse of Horrors, an antholgy film from Amicus (1965), staring Peter
Cushing.
What was the most fun to write and why?
The whole thing was fun to write. I
approached it as individual stories that then wove together, and that made the
writing a unique experience—and very challenging (and a longer book than I
usually write). But I guess that the most fun writing was the story’s climax,
which is probably true for most books, because you’ve spent a lot of time and
energy getting the story to the point where all the threads and characters come
together in the final conflict. And in this case, that happens to be a huge
monster battle. Huge monster battles are
always fun to write.
What started you writing about monsters?
I have loved monsters literally as
long as I can remember, probably starting with dinosaurs, but quickly moving
into any other strange and possibly terrifying creatures. In fourth grade, I
wrote a story about a race of half-fish half-lizards that lived under the sea
and worshiped their own weird god/idol. Looking back, it was a very Lovecraftian
idea, though it was many years later that I actually read my first Lovecraft
story. That story got a gold star—or maybe even a gold seal—from the teacher. I
guess maybe that started all this, though there may have been something
earlier, too.
What’s your favorite horror movie and why?
That’s a hard thing to answer,
because some of it depends on how you define “horror.” If it’s as simple as
having a “monster,” then it’s 1933’s King Kong, with it’s amazing
animation by Willis “Obie” O’Brien and his team. If you need more monsters than
that, it’d be The 7th Voyage of Sinbad,
with Ray Harryhausen’s cyclops, dragon, skeleton, etc. But a lot of people—including
me—consider those more fantasy adventure films than actual horror films.
So, on the classic horror track, it’s
Creature from the Black Lagoon. I
always identified with the creature, because he’s a great looking monster, loves
to swim, and has trouble breathing in the air. I love to swim, too, and have
bad lungs, so breathing is often trickier than I’d like. As to whether I’m a great-looking
monster…I’ll leave that up to others to decide.
You could argue, though, that the creature is really a science-fiction
film that happens to have a monster. That brings me to The Wolf Man
(1941, Universal) starring Lon Chaney, Jr. It’s as perfect a classic supernatural
monster film as you can ask for, and its sequels became the first Monster Rally
films (movies where there’s more than one monster, usually pitted against each
other). The writing is brilliant, too, and invented much of the werewolf
mythology that we take for granted today. Besides, what teenager hasn’t felt like
a werewolf at least a couple of times in his or her life!
This has a Vincent Price movie flavor… what’s the movie
connection on this?
With a character named Vincent Duprix,
it’s probably pretty obvious that I’m a bit of a fan of Vincent Price and his many
horror movies as well. (Duprix is French for “price.”) Since I decided to have
a wax museum as well as a Chamber of Horrors, having a character as tribute to
Price seemed natural—he starred in House of Wax (1953), after all. His
wife, Victoria, is named after the (dead) wife of The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971),
another Price role.
So, if you like any of Vincent Price’s
horror movies, chances are you’ll like this book, too.
You have how many movies in your collection?
How many would
you say you’ve watched? You’ve been collecting how long?
I started collecting films as soon as
DVRs were cheap enough to own. Of course, all those old tapes are out of date
and useless to me, now. Most everything I collected then has been replaced in
my collection with DVDs or Blu-Rays. I estimate that I have over 5000 movies in
my collection; I haven’t gotten around to cataloging them all yet.
I have not watched every movie
I own, but I also don’t own every movie I’ve ever seen, so it’s certainly
possible that I’ve seen over 5000 movies in my lifetime, counting re-watches,
because who doesn’t re-watch favorite films? Four years ago, I started keeping
track of how many films I was watching every year, and I was pretty surprised
at the numbers.
In 2017, I watched 567 films. Holy
cats, that was a LOT. We had a lot of
family stuff going on in 2018 and 2019, so the numbers fell off in those years—475
films and 393 films and seasons, respectively. (I added full seasons of TV
shows and movie-style TV shows to my count in 2019.) This year, 2020, because
of being shut at home with the pandemic and my friend Derek at Monster Kid
Radio doing movie streams twice a week, my movie/show watching has skyrocketed
again. I may have broken my 2017 record by the time you read this… And I’ve
still got November and December to go!
What do you like to write the most and why?
If you look across my career, back to
my days working on Dungeons & Dragons, to my work on CHILL,
to the comic books I’ve written, to my Dragonlance novels, and even the
teen detective books I ghost-wrote (one of which had a giant ape in it), it’s
pretty clear that what I love to write is MONSTERS.
Sure, my Tournament of Death books
are epic fantasy in scope, but they’re also filled with monsters! And with
things like White Zombie, Manos the Hands of Fate, and the current Frost
Harrow series and, of course, Dr. Cushing’s Chamber of Horrors, it’s
pretty clear that monsters are where it’s at for me.Of course, all those monsters would
be pretty boring without some human characters to interact with. So, I try to
make the heroes of my stories interesting and involving as well, whether they’re
battling giant monsters in Daikaiju Attack or supernatural menaces in Frost
Harrow and Dr. Cushing If you
don’t have people for the readers to like and identify with in your stories, I’m
pretty sure nobody will read the tales. And a bit of romance or sex never
hurts, either.
What’s your tip to writing scary?
It’s all about the characters. If the
readers don’t care about your characters, they can’t get scared for them—and it’s
character identification that makes a story scary for a reader. So you have to
try to get your readers to identify, even with characters you’re just
introducing, so that you can kill them off.
The original Night Stalker TV show used to be really good at that. They’d sketch in an expendable
character in Kolchak’s reporting voice-over only to have the monster murder
them in some gruesome manner before the end of the scene. I probalby do that
more in Frost Harrow than Dr. Cushing, though Cushing has
its share of hapless victims as well.
Hopefully, once you’ve had the
monsters dispatch some characters like that, readers will become worried about
your main characters as well. Keeping up the suspense, and making readers worry
about characters they like, is a huge key to writing scary.
It helps too if you can build a
creepy atmosphere for what’s going on. Anything that adds to the suspense is
fair game. Obviously you want to go for honest scares, and not cheap tricks,
though certainly a “cat scare” can work as well in a book as in a movie.
********
Excerpt of Dr. Cushing's Chamber of Horrors:A Tarot Reading from Chapter 1
The sign in front of the building read “Dr. Cushing’s Chamber of
Horrors,” but it more accurately could have read “Daughters Cushing &
Father’s Chamber of Horrors” since the twins ran the exhibition most of the
time, while their sole parent was traveling, seeking the latest attractions for
his macabre museum.
The chamber was a walk-down storefront in the basement of an
aging Victorian manse on the outskirts of London, at 1951 Fisher St., next to
the wooded end of Olde Kennington Park. It shared the building with the Duprix
Waxworks, run by Vincent and Victoria Duprix, the landlords who lived in the
grand quarters on the second floor. The Cushings rented the basement for their
attraction, and the third floor—with its eccentric nooks and crannies and
gabled ceilings—for their residence.
The waxworks occupied most of the mansion’s first floor, though
the building was strangely shaped, so that the waxworks and the Chamber of
Horrors abutted each other in the middle, with only a short flight of stairs, a
pair of frosted glass doors, and, (when those doors were open for ventilation),
a red velvet rope separating the two attractions. Most of the time, customers
did not pass from one exhibit to the other, though, with a little work on the
part of the Cushings and Duprixes, that would have been possible.
But, Victoria—Madame Duprix—spent most of her time running the
waxworks or taking tea with her friends, while Vincent labored endlessly in his
second-floor studio loft, which vaulted up into the space that otherwise would
have been occupied by the third story. (He was a sculptor—and quite a good
one.) The house also contained servant’s quarters with a separate entrance in
the back of the building, near the seldom-used kitchens.
Perhaps the Duprixes had once employed domestics, but Topaz and
Opal had never seen any staff since they and their father had moved in. And if
there had been any servants there recently, the twins would have noticed some
indication. The girls—often alone for the last ten years—had plenty of time to
look around and discover all of the old house’s secrets.
But the secrets of other human beings and the world outside…!
Those remained largely a mystery to both girls. Though lately, there had been a
boy or two…
“All right,” Topaz said to her sister, “if you’re so good at
absent readings… What do the cards say?”
Opal flipped up the first card on the right. “The distant past…
I’d rather skip this and just look for the future…” she said.
“But that’s not the way it works,” Topaz agreed. “Assuming you
can get it to work at all.”
Opal stuck out her tongue at her twin.
The picture on the pasteboard showed a woman in an elaborate
robe wearing a crown topped by an orb.
“The High Priestess,” Topaz noted.
“Our father’s past, surrounded by mysteries and hidden
influences,” Opal read.
“Which only makes sense, since he’s been collecting occult
artifacts all of our lives.”
“And before we were born as well,” Opal noted. She flipped the
second card; it showed a trio of swords piercing a stylized heart. “Three of
Swords, inverted.”
“Father’s more recent past,” Topaz said. “The loss of something
dear to you—I mean, to Father. I’m guessing that would be Mother.”
Opal grinned at her sister. “Who said you weren’t any good at
this?”
Topaz tried, unsuccessfully, to fight down a blush. Her sister
was so good at nettling her! But then, Opal undoubtedly felt the same way about
Topaz.
Opal turned the next card—the one in the center of the reading.
“The present…”
Topaz nodded. “The key card.”
The illustration showed the face of a bright moon beaming down
upon two animals, a dog on the left and a wolf upon the right. The beasts were
flanked by two solid-looking watch towers.
“The Moon,” Opal intoned, “a time of loved ones in peril and
tricky choices. Choose your companions well, or they may betray you.”
******
About the Author:
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Stephen D. Sullivan has over 60 published titles to his name and helped
create more comics and games than he can either list or remember.
A Scribe award-winner for “Best Novel Adaptation, 2016” with his book Manos: The Hands of Fate,
Sullivan lives with his wife in a small town in Wisconsin. Contact him via Twitter, Facebook, Patreon, or his
website: www.stephendsullivan.com
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