In the world of rock, there is only one King. Elvis. In the world of modern horror, the crown belongs to Stephen. A king by name, but also by contribution. Surely by volume of output. Certainly by sales. Definitely through a diversity of media. Novels. Novellas. Short stories. Internet serials. Screenplays. Movies. Television.

But most importantly, by craft. Like Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe before him, Stephen King has conjured stories that instantly and eternally imprint themselves in the minds and collective consciousness of their readers. King’s stories have become metaphors for their generation. Fables that yes, do embed themselves in current pop culture, but are oh, so much more. They are folklore. They are legends. They are forever.

The Guinness Book of World Records cites King as having the most number of motion picture adaptations of any living author. Of those, there is one who holds the record of having adapted more than anybody else.

That man is Mick Garris.

Mick is the true “Zelig” of horror. A rock musician whose band once opened for the Kinks. A journalist who interviewed Janis Joplin. A filmmaker whose career began making documentaries for Joe Dante, David Cronenberg, John Carpenter and many, many more, forging a brotherhood that would bond into the “Masters of Horror” gatherings which Mick so graciously organizes and presides over. Known in this often callous industry for being a “nice guy” (a moniker he’s heard so often, he tongue-in-cheekly named his production company “Nice Guy Productions”), Mick truly lives up to the compliment. Like King, Mick is man with a poetic soul. An artist who sees life through eyes of fantastical imagination. Sometimes dark. Sometimes light. But always heart felt.

You have one Stephen King movie coming out on the 15 th, and in four weeks you’ll be in Arizona shooting another for ABC set to air next May. You’re definitely riding the Stephen King bullet these days!

I know. It’s overwhelming.

Before we get to BULLET, tell me what to expect from DESPERATION.

DESPERATION is a real ‘balls to the wall’ horror story. The greatest horror stories always make you confront life and death. DESPERATION is like THE STAND in its themes in that it’s this grand battle between good and evil. A supernatural evil and a supernatural good as well. King is a believer. I don’t happen to be, but I’m a storyteller, and I like the idea of ‘what if”, and making that real. So it’s a spiritual quest represented by the purity of a twelve year old boy.

How balls to the wall can you really get with network TV?

Well, I’ll tell you, the last hour of THE SHINING would have gotten an R rating. And with THE STAND, the first thing Broadcast Standards told us was no open eyes on corpses. Well, in the opening titles of THE STAND, I move right in on the wide, dead eyes of a woman staring straight into the camera!

Does your approach to making a movie for TV differ from the big screen?

Most people see theatrical movies on DVD or on cable on their televisions. Feature films aren’t shot any differently because of that, so I really don’t know why anybody would approach it differently. Now, obviously, the restrictions imposed on you by the world of television are, A: budget. B: schedule. C: censorship. D: commercial breaks, you know, having to tell stories between Pampers commercials. All those things are soul destroying, creativity destroying impediments to telling your story in the best way possible. I much prefer film.

Speaking of film, perfect segueway… You just made what I consider your finest. And I know I’m not alone in my opinion. I just saw a quote by Tobe Hooper praising RIDING THE BULLET as “scary, haunting and surprisingly emotional”. I couldn’t have said it better. Yet why do you think it is so surprising for people to find emotion in a horror film?

I think most people going to Stephen King movies are used to going to horror movies. And not many of the movies really want to do what the books do. They want to scare you, but they don’t necessarily care as much about the human beings involved. Certainly, there are plenty examples of King movies that aren’t that. But in most cases, like SHAWSHANK or GREEN MILE, they hide his name in the credits because they feel that there is a tendency for people to think, “Stephen King. Extreme Horror”. And the horror in RIDING THE BULLET is a little more personal in nature. A little more emotionally based. It came from a story that had some personal resonance to King, and it became a story that had a lot of personal resonance to me.

So perhaps people don’t anticipate or don’t want to find emotion in horror films?

Yeah, if you’re cynical, you’re probably not gonna like this movie (laughs). There’s certainly bloodletting in the movie, but not nearly as much from what you might expect from something that has Stephen King’s name on it. That said, it was a young, “bloodletting” crowd at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal that saw it, and there couldn’t have been a better reaction.

Mick, as you know, I’ve seen RIDING THE BULLET three times now. I love it. It moved me and it frightened me. For my money, it’s the only film that truly captures both sides of the Stephen King coin. The King of SALEM’S LOT and the King of STAND BY ME. Is that something you specifically set out to do?

It’s exactly what I set out to do! What I wanted most was to marry those two sides of Stephen King that we’re all familiar with. Ironically, that was also the biggest roadblock to getting the movie made. People wanted one or the other. And frankly, they didn’t want the “other”. They just wanted a horror film. This was in the wake of the CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake and HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES. More ‘pedal to the metal’ horror movies were finally back in vogue. But at the same time, I felt that movies like SIXTH SENSE, STIR OF ECHOES and BLAIR WITCH PROJECT were laying the groundwork for opening up the genre to more personal, more emotional, more character oriented horror movies that weren’t all about bloodletting. Not that I’m against that. I mean, I certainly had no qualms with “death by corn cob” and plenty of grotesqueries in SLEEPWALKERS. I’m not shy about that, or prudish about any of that. But in the case of this story, it was more about an internal horror. A horror that follows you home. That maybe you even keep with you long after the credits roll.

I think the genre has room for both. It has room for pedal to the metal horror…

Like 2001 MANIACS…

Thanks for the plug, Mick. And, yes, there’s room for more character driven terrors. Certainly the more successful King adaptations are character driven.

Well, they’re about human beings, which is the first thing people forget when making a Stephen King movie. They think its all about the monster in the closet. When, really, it’s about the people who own the house the monster lives in. They lose sight. It’s not about the jack-in-the-box or the cat that jumps out and scares you. If you can connect on a more personal level in a horror film, it’s much more potent if you care about the people and have insight into the people who are experiencing the horrors.

I really dug the way you accomplished that in BULLET, having Jonathan Jackson’s character, Alan, literally talking to himself. Confronting his feelings…

What I tried to do was take a literary device and make it cinematic. There’s a huge difference between films and novels. Novels are interior. Films are exterior.

King says that himself in ON WRITING. He says “Novels are about what people think. Screenplays are about what people do.”

Perfect. So what I wanted to do was try and take a literary device and make it cinematic. When you read the story, so much is going on inside Alan’s head, to be able to have an internal dialogue externally on film was really fun.

So what, for you, are the most successful King movies? And what are the least?

I won’t say the least successful, because I know how hard it is to make a movie at all. It’s just as hard to make a shitty movie as it is to make a great one. And in a lot of cases, even harder. But the Rob Reiner King films, STAND BY ME and MISERY, are fantastic. I really like DOLORES CLAIBORNE. That’s a very underrated film. I think THE DEAD ZONE is absolutely one of the best. I think CARRIE is great and scary in a very personal way. The intensity of the people. The mother is very frightening. That crucifix so creepy. And Kubrick’s THE SHINING, I think, is a great Kubrick movie. It may not be the King book, but it’s a great Kubrick film. I came around to that. I had read the book first and loved the book first, so I didn’t appreciate the film until later on. Of course, Tobe Hooper’s SALEM’S LOT. That scene with the kid outside the window, and the backwards photography… To this day, it’s so haunting and frightening. When I heard it was being made for TV, I was like, “How dare Stephen King sell his book to television!” And here I’ve made much of my career doing King for television!

Very true. You’ve adapted more King than any other filmmaker I can think of. So what defines a Stephen King story?

Horror set in your own neighborhood. Its stuff you identify with. For example, Clive Barker creates incredibly imaginative worlds and takes you there to scare you and open you to new dimensions and thought. Whereas King sets horror in your hometown. He makes it completely identifiable. The people are identifiable. The fears are fears we all have. You know, a dog going rabid in CUJO. Vampires in a small town in SALEM’S LOT...

A prom gone to Hell in CARRIE…

Exactly. CARRIE is probably the best example. We’ve all been the outsider in our High School. I know I have. I assume you were. There’s no question King was an outsider. And even if you’re not, I think most people feel that way in adolescence.

Adolescence. The ultimate horror movie!

It is. You’re going through every kind of change. You’re going form being coddled to being on your own in college. It’s an awkward time. I mean, all the worst things you could possibly imagine happen to you and some of the best. Some of my favorite memories actually are from college. Finally being able to be an individual and not have it discouraged. High School is all about discouraging individuality. College is establishing individuality. Regardless, we all identify with these things. And King sets his stories in a world that is very much our own. His characters eat at McDonalds. They have trouble at work, they bring home their problems, try and deal with the everyday, and then it goes one step beyond.

King also has such a wonderful nose for nostalgia. As do you in BULLET, which I feel flawlessly and poignantly captures the late 60’s.

The short story was not set in 1969, but it dealt with issues… Well, it’s kind of a love letter to a time when people mattered than possessions. Where people were actually reaching out with thoughts that transcended the media and the greed of the merchandising that’s going on today. So, the life and death choice that the story is about, felt like a life and death choice that was being faced by the world at large in a time that is maybe best represented by 1969.

America almost becomes a character in the film, riding the bullet right alongside Alan in a time where there was war and political dissent. Sadly, very similar to what America faces today.

Yeah. I had first written the script four or five years ago, and it took three years to get a deal made and another year to make it, so what’s going on now was not paramount in my mind when I wrote the script. So it’s very strange to be facing all these things now that Alan and his peers were facing at that time. You know, a war going on that nobody believed in except the warriors.

BULLET bluntly deals with death. As the poster says, by way of Bram Stoker, “Death Travels Fast”. What I got from the film, which perhaps is an underlying theme in every great horror movie, is that in facing death, we come to know life.

Or, to put it another way, “Embrace what you have when you have it and it will always be yours”. Particularly in the case of family and loved ones. And yeah, its about a kid who thinks the idea of death is romantic and cool. It’s about isolation. It’s about guilt. And the door that opens up between life and death. When you’re really confronted with mortality, it’s not nearly so cute and amusing. And rarely does someone at twenty one confront the issue of mortality. So I thought it was an interesting way to approach it. And it really is. You know, when you’re confronted with the reality of it, that’s not a choice you want to make for yourself. As George Staub, played by David Arquette, says, “C’mon. It’s easy. You find this stuff so romantic. What’s the big deal? Why not you?”

Which can be said to you or I or anybody who delves into the theme of death and mayhem in their art, then runs from it in reality.

Some of the healthiest people I know are the people who create dark fantasy material, whether its film or books. David Cronenberg. Clive Barker. Stephen King. Tobe Hooper… These are some of the sweetest guys on the planet. And I think it’s because they get it out creatively, which allows us the glee. Take TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2. That film is hilarious and exhilarating and scary and fun and just insane. But brilliant. I mean, its proclamation is, “You think the body’s a temple? Hell, no. The body’s meat.” And it’s gruesome. However, the last thing I want to see is somebody’s face removed in reality. But it’s also about breaking the rules. Horror is not supposed to be polite. RIDING THE BULLET may not be as in-your-face as other horror movies, but the whole idea of horror is to break the rules and go beyond what’s respectable and acceptable.

BULLET may not be as impolite in terms of visceral thrills, though it has more than its fair share. However, emotionally, I don’t think you get more impolite than having a young character be forced with the decision to choose between his own death and the death of his mother. I defy anybody to see the film and not go home and ask that question of them self.

It was interesting. I’ve seen several people write things on the internet after seeing BULLET. I read at least three people who said, “This is a horror movie to take your mother to” (laughs).

King often has characters that show up from another realm to guide the protagonists. Whether it’s Victor Pascow in PET SEMETARY or George Staub in BULLET. Who and what exactly is George Staub?

I like it being open to interpretation. He’s not the Devil. But he may be his messenger. And he may just be that specter of guilt, that monkey on Alan’s back. He forces Alan to make a choice. Who am I gonna kill? You? Or your loving mother? And it’s complicated, too, because she’s not just loving mother. She whacked him in the head when he was twelve. He’s found her passed out drunk on the floor. She’s a flawed human being. There’s laughs and good times with her. But not always. You know, the people who bankrolled the movie wanted more of a relationship with the mom. Either make her evil or more good. Yeah, I mean there’s obviously more good than bad about her. But when you look through the filter of nostalgia, that’s going to be the case. There is a connection to family that we take for granted. In my case, I lost a brother twelve years ago…

Craig. And BULLET is dedicated to him, right?

Yeah. To my mother and father and Craig. My father and Craig passed away. My mother’s still with us. And that deepens you. When you’re hit with mortality, especially the end of a life of someone who’s close to you, it can’t help but open you up. Alan’s line in the movie is, “It unlocked my heart.” And, you know, it does make you a deeper, wiser, stronger person. Hopefully. Unless it destroys you. And I’ve seen that happen to people as well.

Why do you think George gives Alan that extra gift of time with his loved ones?

I think he is being shown the value of life at a time when he is at his lowest, because he’s just attempted to take his own life in the beginning of the movie. And here’s a window out of that dark room of incarceration. That self imposed cell of solitary confinement. He’s built up a wall around him and he doesn’t know why, and we discover with him that his father had committed suicide when he was six years old. And that has haunted him. It’s kept him from getting close to people. He’s got a mother who’s raising him by herself, and so she’s not around a lot of the time. King and I both were raised by our mothers from an early age.

Me too. In ’73, when I was nine, my grandfather was killed by an 18 year old drunk driver. A few months later, my father split. Talk about a one two punch.

Going back to what I said earlier, “Embrace what you have when you have it and it will always be yours.” Alan gets the chance to get close to someone he loves. I had that too. My parents split up when I was twelve. And it was not a good relationship with my father after he left the house. I was one of four kids, and I had no relationship with my father whatsoever. And then my younger brother, Craig, became ill. Terminally ill. And my father came to the hospital several times a week and just sat with him. And my dad came back and realized, “I’ve got four kids. One of them is dying. And I can have a life with them. Or not.” And so, at a very advanced age for a grown child, my father and I, from that point on, had a relationship. And we became really close and friendly and happy. Later, I was able to see him through a very long and lingering death. Talk about unlocking your heart. That’s not just a line from the script. That’s a line from my life.

You had your own visit from George Staub, huh?

That’s for sure.

When you first read King’s e-novel, did it immediately strike a nerve? Did you say to yourself, “A ha. This is one I really want to make”?

Exactly. I read the story, which a lot of people see as just a simple little SOPHIE’S CHOICE ghost story, which indeed it is. And it’s a really good one. At the time, there were a lot of things that had gone on in my life and my wife Cynthia’s life that were difficult, that had to do with that touching of mortality. And so, I immediately thought when I read it, “I would love to make this a movie, and I would love to take it beyond.” I almost immediately started imagining who Alan could have been, ‘cuz the first half hour of the movie is not in the short story.

Like you said at your introduction at the premiere, you “built a world around it.”

It’s very faithful to the story. Even a lot of the dialogue is word for word. But, yeah, to be able to build a world that came from my experiences and things that I imagined at the time, and to build it in the context of an era that had a tremendous impact on my coming of age, that was a great opportunity that King offered to me. And it’s the first project that I started from scratch. I read the story. I solicited King for permission to adapt it. I wrote it on spec. I found the financing. It’s also the first time I took “Film by” credit. And that’s both credit and blame.

Well, for any one who knows you well, the film is obviously a very personal labor of love. It’s as much a Stephen King film as it is a Mick Garris film. Maybe even more so. Especially the use of music as metaphor and symbol, which I know is incredibly important to you.

Thanks. I’m blushing (laughs). Yeah, in BULLET, The Beatles do become a literal symbol. I mean, The Beatles were my coming of age. I was a child when they came out. And I grew up through them and I was just bordering on adulthood in 1970 when they broke up. I think they’re a very potent symbol, and even today, I get very emotional when I listen to a song by The Beatles or John Lennon. In the script, “Instant Karma” was always going to be the end title song. It was actually written to end with John Lennon’s voice singing “Instant Karma” saying “We all shine on.” So we had to get Yoko’s permission. And we sent it to her on a DVD. And she said yes. She must have liked the film, liked what it had to say, and she said yes. Unfortunately, we couldn’t afford the terms that her people put together.

Still, how cool to know Yoko Ono saw and appreciated your film?

No kidding!

So what does ‘riding the bullet’ mean to you?

Riding the bullet is stepping gout of your front door and committing to life. The bullet is life. Now, the suicide of Alan’s father, pulling the trigger and blowing his brains out, that’s riding the bullet in another way. Taking that ride with George Staub is also riding the bullet. And the ultimate literal bullet is the rollercoaster that Alan actually does ride. Which wasn’t in the original script, by the way. That whole climatic chase at night through Thrill Village was added at the last minute. People talked about there not being enough action, you’re in the car so much, and they were right. And I just thought, “How can I address this in an organic way?” Now I can’t imagine that scene not in it.

You say ‘riding the bullet’ is stepping outside your house and experiencing life. Isn’t it also being willing to face death in order to live that life?

Yeah, I think that’s a good way to put it. You know, the thing about a rollercoaster is the same thing about a horror movie. It’s thrilling but it’s safe. You can go on and scream and be terrified, and then you can get off and be safe and happy. So, yeah, it’s like you said. It’s confronting death to embrace life. That’s that ride. And it’s a big ride. It loops and loops.

And you can face it and you can survive. But it also means that if you avoid the pain, you may never experience the pleasure.

It’s just like relationships. So many people are afraid to extend themselves to relationships because of getting their heart broken. “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”. Right? But that’s really true. And I know I’ve been that way, and almost everybody I know has put up walls around them because they don’t want to get hurt. Well… It’s worth the hurt. What you can experience can be so wonderful, it is worth the hurt. It just takes certain people and experiences to discover that. At least for me…