Chris Coplan interviewing Steve Thueson, Adventures In Poor Taste:
“AIPT: This is one of the most effective horror-comedy mashups I’ve seen in quite some time. Is there a secret to the balance, or a formula involved?
ST: Thank you so much! Everything I make I just want to be funny. I think for this book I wanted to try and make the comedy and the horror work on their own terms as much as possible. So the comedy is mainly character driven and more about how these friends relate to each other and how they’d respond to a given situation. I didn’t want the humor to deflate or poke holes in any of the horror. Like I didn’t want Alison to turn to the reader and say, “so that happened.” Likewise I wanted the stakes to feel real, and for it to genuinely be a horror comic. It’s a fine line between horror comedy and horror parody, and hopefully this is more in line with An American Werewolf In London than Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday The 13th.
AIPT: How can violence and death be funny or deeply entertaining? I think here, it’s the shine and exaggeration of the blood shed.
ST: Yeah, I mean, it’s all tone, right? Like slashers are super violent, but when you’re watching them with an audience everyone’s hootin’ and hollerin’ during the kills. I think ’cause everything around those kills is trying to be fun and entertain the audience, and the kills themselves fit that same fun tone. And, yeah, like you say, with this book I think the exaggeration helps keep it fun. I wanted the blood to be bright red like a ’70s giallo and be over the top spraying everywhere. Like, if we very somberly watched an accurate depiction of somebody getting their throat slit and blood drained, it would be tough for me to swing back to the dick jokes.”
Read the full interview on Adventures In Poor Taste’s website here!
