Fiction Nation - Smart Reviews for Modern Readers - Hosted by Kim Alexander

Penny Dreadful

I'm Kim Alexander and this is Fiction Nation. Instead of talking about a book this week, I'll be talking with my friend Erik Myers about his screenplay, Penny Dreadful.

I've tried my hand at writing a novel, and I've certainly talked with lots of writers in the course of putting this show together every week, so I have a pretty good idea of what it takes to get from Chapter One to The End, even if I've never made it all the way there myself — yet. But to me, movies are magical entities that just suddenly appear in front of me in the darkened theater — or more frequently as I've gotten older and crankier, they appear on my TV in my living room. Where do the words come from? How do you write a screenplay, and what makes a person decide they want to write one?

My first conversation with Erik Myers turned into a very long one, as we compared the kinds of horror movies we liked. We talked about evil and how I liked my evil seductive and enticing, and he pretty much went for the George Romero brain eating variety. He kept asking me, "Where's the scary?" I still think the idea of the innocent soul being attracted and drawn to evil is pretty dire, although it's hard to argue with a zombie apocalypse in terms of hiding under the seat.

Erik is both lucky and hard-working enough to see the little film that plays in his head actually get translated onto the screen. I read the Penny Dreadful screenplay and got a little Tarantino, a little Hong Kong grindhouse, a dash of slasher, and a lot of wrangling over the transitory nature of good and evil, and how we as the audience decide who gets to be whom. Oh, and a whole lot of blood.

As far as I'm concerned, the most exciting part is that Erik has generously offered me a small role in his movie. Naturally I wanted to know if I got beheaded, disemboweled, thrown in front of a train, or injected with monkey adrenal glands, but no; he assures me my character doesn't get horribly murdered at all. (Frankly I was a tiny bit disappointed.) Look for me in the role of a TV reporter in the film Penny Dreadful, written and directed by Erik Myers.

Hear my interview with Erik Myers on Fiction Nation, on Take Five, XM 155 on Saturday October 20th at 6pm and Sunday October 21st at 10:00am, and on Monday October 22nd at 3:00am. You can also hear Fiction Nation on Sonic Theater, XM 163 on Thursday October 25th at 3:00 pm. All times EDT.

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