In Brian McAuley’s new novel Curse of the Reaper, an aging horror movie star named Howard Browning struggles with his fading influence in the culture. Once a household name as the killer in a series of 1980s slasher movies, Howard now lives out his former glory with die-hard fans at horror movie conventions. The story takes place in the early Aughts, the heyday of horror remakes, and when Howard gets word that a reboot is underway, he’s elated. When he learns that his iconic role has been recast, Howard spirals, the line between him and the killer he embodied starting to blur.
The novel is part psychological thriller, part character study and part good old-fashioned splatterfest. Below, McAuley discusses moving from film to fiction, horror fandom, and how his own experiences in Hollywood influenced the book.
So this is a book about horror movies that started as a horror movie itself, right?
Yeah, I initially wrote it as a feature screenplay. I started working on it back in 2011 as my thesis script in Columbia’s MFA program. One of the jumping-off points back then was that Nightmare on Elm Street was remade in 2010, and Robert Englund was not returning as the iconic Freddy Krueger. And by all accounts, he was incredibly gracious about it. But my storytelling brain just kind of tapped into that and was like, “well, what if somebody wasn’t so gracious about another actor coming in and taking over this role that you had given your entire life, that was such a big part of your identity?”
That gave the impetus for the screenplay, which started being read by studio executives and getting enthusiastic responses. But at that time, they didn’t quite know what to do with these sort of character-driven horror movies. Now they call it “elevated” horror, a term I strongly dislike, but that’s another conversation. Anyway, I kind of shelved it for years and kept working as a screenwriter, but the story just kept haunting me. I finally realized that adapting it into a novel would allow me to lean even deeper into that character-driven psychological horror.
Is the character of Howard based on Robert Englund specifically?
Robert Englund was a jumping-off point, but Howard’s character is even more inspired by Norma Desmond, the somewhat delusional faded star in Sunset Boulevard. And the idea of Howard as a method actor who has really created a space within his psyche for this character over the course of eight films, how it’s become part of his identity. A lot of the novel is Howard grappling with The Reaper’s desires. And there are different ways to read that, like, is it a supernatural force? Or is it just an unacknowledged side of his personality that he needs to project onto this other character?
I think of his experience with the false front that can happen in Hollywood, too. People making promises and showering praise on you when you’re doing well and earning them money. And Howard’s experience is, once he’s no longer like the cash cow for the studio, nobody really wants him anymore. I was never a cash cow for anybody, but I definitely encountered really successful people in Hollywood who were on the other side of that fame and success. And it’s kind of scary how quickly people can kind of just become invisible.
Tell me a bit about that slasher character that Howard plays.
With the Reaper, I knew I wanted to lean into the story of the sympathetic character behind the monster. So it was fun to create this character of Lester Jensen and to create that dichotomy of, like, who he was before he was killed and then after the fact, when he becomes The Reaper. Lester never spoke, but the Reaper is very verbal, very quippy.
He was a farmhand, so he uses a lot of tools from the farming trade, but his iconic weapon is a rusty chain because that’s what was used to kill him. He was dragged by the chain, so his face is kind of just shredded flesh hanging and dripping onto his farmer’s overalls. But that notion of him embracing the thing that killed him – his vengeful weapon – also offered up to me the metaphor of Howard being kind of chained to this character for his entire life.
What gave you the idea to incorporate actual screenplay excerpts into the book?
The way that I structured the novel, I realized that I had these natural points to break it up into eight parts and that’s how many Reaper films there were in the mythology. Gratefully my editor was super open to the idea, so I was able to do these excerpts of each Reaper script. My love for the slasher genre connects to how the mythology just keeps building and getting more and more convoluted over time. The writers always have to come up with some fresh way to explain why the slasher is coming back from the dead and incorporating different elements, you know, whether it’s like a telekinetic teenager or a new location like Manhattan. And it was really fun to actually have a chance to create an entire slasher franchise and to give a taste of that whole breadth through the novel with those screenplay excerpts.
And the community of Reaper fans plays a big role in the book as well.
Yeah, definitely. I’ve been to my fair share of conventions, being a horror fan myself, and there’s a bright side to fandom, and there’s a dark side to it. And to me, there’s an inherent conflict there that is infused into the novel. The fans are a character unto themselves. And they are part of what Howard feels this debt to. Fandom is a really powerful force, especially in the horror community, and it can get very toxic. On the flip side, it can be very loving and warm. So that was something I really wanted to explore
When I was a younger fan, I used to be super judgmental and be like, fuck remakes and blah, blah, blah. But I think, especially now, having worked in Hollywood, I feel a bit more of an understanding of how hard it is to make a movie in that system, let alone a good one. And therefore, I’m just grateful for every horror film we get. Like the new Texas Chainsaw – I thought it was wonderful. I had so much fun with it, and I know some horror fans thought it was sacrilegious. Which is definitely something I play with in the book – that notion that people think these are sacred texts that you can’t change anything about. But it’s wild when you look at those franchises. It’s like literally every film changes something about the mythology. That’s part of what keeps them fresh and fun!
Now that you have come this far in converting the story into a novel, how would you feel about seeing Curse of the Reaper adapted back into a movie?
Oh, I would kill for that, and I think the Reaper would, too. So please buy his book. Please…
Curse of the Reaper is now available. Get your copy right here and check out this exclusive excerpt below.
