ick Garris began his career with a bang—Steven Spielberg was the first person to hire him as a professional writer, for Amazing Stories (he also worked as a director and story editor for the series). When Stephen King wrote his first screenplay, Sleepwalkers, he hired Garris to direct the motion picture.
Garris started writing short fiction at the age of 12. In the '70s, he was a singer-songwriter in a theatrical progressive rock band. He has worked for such TV series as Freddy's Nightmares, Tales From the Crypt, She-Wolf of London and The Others. In the year 2000, his short-story collection A Life in the Cinema was published by Gauntlet Press.
His movie credits include *batteries not included (writer), Critters 2: The Main Course (writer and director), The Fly II (writer), Psycho IV: The Beginning (director), Hocus Pocus (co-executive producer and writer), Ghosts (writer), Host (writer, producer and director) and Coming Soon (writer and producer).
Mick Garris is the director of the acclaimed miniseries The Stand and The Shining (both adapted for television from screenplays written by Stephen King) and Quicksilver Highway (based on the stories "Chattery Teeth" by Stephen King and "The Body Politic" by Clive Barker). He is also the writer and director of the TV movie Riding the Bullet, which was based on a King short story.
He is working on his sixth Stephen King project, a miniseries based on Desperation—where he is currently in post-production. He is on preproduction for Masters of Horror. In between all of that, Mick was the guest of honor at the World Horror Convention in New York City April 7-13.
You are going to be a guest of honor at the World Horror Convention in New York City. How do you feel about this—are you excited?
Garris: I am very flattered and humbled. I have been a lifelong horror fan, and very, very lucky to have worked with so many of my heroes in the genre. To be singled out as a guest of honor is incredibly gratifying.
Was Desperation originally be scheduled to be shown during the sweeps this coming May? Why has the miniseries been pushed back? Do you know when they are talking about running it?
Garris: There has been a bit of a misunderstanding about this from the beginning. Our delivery date for Desperation was always early June of 2005. The sweeps periods, where the ratings are measured to set the networks' advertising rates, are in May, November and February. We thought it might be possible that ABC would want to speed up delivery so that it might be able to run in May of this year, but that was before they spent their marketing budget on Lost and Desperate Housewives.
The worst thing that could happen to Desperation now would be to run this May, as they would have no money budgeted for the advertising of the film. Though the network rarely broadcasts their big movies in November, it's possible that they might with Desperation, in order to help with the fall schedule. Otherwise, it will run in February of 2006, or the following May.
The Stand and The Shining both ran in May sweeps.
Is it true that Nightmares & Dreamscapes is being developed into a miniseries? What is going to be your involvement?
Garris: It's not a miniseries but a proposed actual series at TNT. It would be an hourlong anthology of King stories. I am merely a hired hand. I wrote a script based on King's "Home Delivery," which first appeared in the Skipp and Spector anthology Book of the Dead. If the show gets picked up, and all are pretty sure that it will, I will direct this episode.
Psycho IV: The Beginning is really an underrated film that you did. There is a point where radio talk-show host CCH Pounder asks Anthony Perkins to identify himself and he says, "You can just call me Ed." Was this playing into the whole Ed Gein murders, which were the inspiration behind the original Psycho, Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Ed Gein films?
Garris: Very perceptive, and thanks for the compliment. I'm very fond of Psycho IV and wonder why it never got released on DVD, except as part of a four-disc Psycho box set in England. Joe Stefano, who wrote the original Psycho screenplay, based on the Bloch novel, also wrote the Psycho IV script, and that was his little tribute.
What was it like having Clive Barker, Tobe Hooper and Stephen King on the set all at the same time in Sleepwalkers?
Garris: Well, what would you imagine? It was candy-store time for me. That was the first time I officially met King in person, but had known and worked with Clive before, and Tobe and I had been friends for quite a while. It was great fun, especially since they were not only all in the same scene, they were in the same long Steadicam shot.
It was almost disastrous, though. That morning, a couple hours before they were to arrive to do their scene, I was having my morning granola on the set, bit down on something, and a molar broke in half! I had to rush off for an emergency temporary crown, but was back in time to shoot the scene.
I didn't even notice the pain, though, once we got things underway. They all had a great time, and though King and Barker had communicated before, they had never met before that day. It was a lot of fun, but King was only there for about two hours before he had to split.
I've had all of them on camera numerous times since.
Stephen King considers you his "best friend in the business." You've done a number of his films. Why do you think you two work so well together?
Garris: Again, it's very, very flattering, but we really do get along and trust one another. He's a very kind and generous and fun-loving man. I think a lot of it has to do with similar upbringing; we both came from broken homes, brought ourselves up on [Richard] Matheson and [Ray] Bradbury and Twilight Zone and Universal monsters and all of those cultural touchstones.
But we were brought up in very meager financial circumstances, and seem to have similar senses of humor. We both have a heavy rock 'n' roll background, as well. And then, there's that intangible essence of friendship that you just can't quantify.
Why did you decide to set Riding the Bullet in 1969?
Garris: A lot of reasons. Mostly, though, it's because it's the story of a life-and-death choice, and I felt that 1969 represents a social time of life-and-death choice. It's also because it was a time that represented more concern with humanity than with possessions, a time when there was a true attempt to make the world a more human and humane place to live. It was a sort of love letter to things in our souls that seem to be slipping away, if they've not crashed to the floor already.
The Stand is often considered one of the best adaptations of a Stephen King book. Why do you think this miniseries was so well received by critics and the public alike?
Garris: Who knows? Perhaps because all of us involved were so committed to making it as good as it can be. Again, I'm a huge fan, it's my favorite King book, and as a fan, it was as important to me as it was to the King community that we did it justice. Fortunately, King wrote the screenplay as well, which was a good place to start, and it attracted a cast of formidable actors.
It happened to hit its audience in a very personal place, it seems. And its success—the most successful miniseries ever, I'm told—is as amazing as it is gratifying.
Was Hocus Pocus originally written as a Disney movie?
Garris: Originally [it was] an idea by the producer, David Kirshner, who also created the Chucky movies. We first pitched it to Steven Spielberg and Amblin, as I was working for him on Amazing Stories at the time. It was a very elaborate pitch, with witch-broom and trick-or-treat props, but they passed.
I wrote the first drafts for Disney seven years before they made it as a motion picture, and there were over a half-dozen other writers on it after me. But they ended up going back to something very close to what I had done in the early drafts, hence the credits awarded by the Writers Guild.
You wrote the short story collection A Life in the Cinema, published by Gauntlet Publication. What was people's reaction when you came out with the book?
Garris: Rather remarkable, really. Though it was not much reviewed in the mainstream press, it got a great review in Publishers Weekly, as well in other publications and Web sites. All of the reviews were remarkably strong, which surprised the hell out of me. It kind of goes for the throat in a way that makes me laugh. I guess it made others laugh, too.
What was the inspiration for the story A Life in the Cinema?
Garris: You can't work in the film industry without meeting unsavory, ego-driven, money-over-art maniacs who will do anything to advance a career for all the wrong reasons. I've been lucky that they have proven to be the minority in my life, but I've stumbled over them more than once.
It's all about karma, in a way, I guess, a concept I don't really believe in, but one I wish were fully in play. In a way, it's similar to the theme of Magic Christian, though we have a fluid-sucking mutant baby rather than a pool of urine and s--t as the wall between rich and poor.
Now that, and its sequel story, "Starf-cker," have been revised somewhat as the first two chapters of my first novel, Development Hell, which Cemetery Dance will be publishing.
You are friends with "Scream Queen" Linnea Quigley. What is she like?
Garris: Very sweet. I met her when I was casting for what would have been my first film—a romantic comedy, by the way ... where would that career have gone?—and she and my wife, Cynthia, became good friends. You'd like her.
I've heard you're a big fan of monster movies. What are some of your favorite creature features over the years?
Garris: I wouldn't say I'm more enamored of monster movies than horror films in general, but some of my favorites are, of course, the Universal guys, Cronenberg's The Fly, the first Alien ... you know, the usual suspects.
What can you tell us about your latest project, Masters of Horror?
Garris: Masters of Horror is an anthology of 13 one-hour horror films that will be directed by the greats in the genre (and me). They will be as dissimilar as possible, and we begin shooting at the end of April. I was able to get filmmakers, both friends and strangers, who have made some of the best horror films of the last several decades doing episodes.
They are completely director-driven; many of the directors are writing their own scripts, some are written by others. Most are original, though we are adapting stories by Richard Matheson, Clive Barker, H.P. Lovecraft and others.
Our directors include George Romero, Tobe Hooper, Dario Argento, John Carpenter, Don Coscarelli, Joe Dante, John Landis, Stuart Gordon and others.
There will probably be a deal with a pay-cable channel for U.S. broadcast, but it is fully financed by a DVD company and will ultimately end up on disc.
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Also in this issue:
The cast and crew of Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith
