Special guest blogger Bret McCormick is a writer (and former film maker) living in Bedford, Texas. A collection of horror stories he curated, entitled Schlock! Horror!, will be released by Hellbound Books in June of 2018.
Bret McCormick
By Bret McCormick
I want to thank Hugh Gallagher for inviting me to write a piece for this blog. I’ve just read his piece on the trials and tribulations of magazine distribution and Tim Ritter’s insightful article on the changing face of movie-viewing in the last several decades. I can relate. I never published a magazine, but my dealings with film distributors echoed Hugh’s experiences. My evolution as a voracious consumer of all things horror paralleled Tim’s.
From 1984 to 1996 I wrote, produced and/or directed a lot of direct-to-video features. Two of my titles that may still be recognizable to today’s fans are: The Abomination and Repligator. I still get a lot of FB friend requests from folks who like these two movies.
I want to thank Hugh Gallagher for inviting me to write a piece for this blog. I’ve just read his piece on the trials and tribulations of magazine distribution and Tim Ritter’s insightful article on the changing face of movie-viewing in the last several decades. I can relate. I never published a magazine, but my dealings with film distributors echoed Hugh’s experiences. My evolution as a voracious consumer of all things horror paralleled Tim’s.
From 1984 to 1996 I wrote, produced and/or directed a lot of direct-to-video features. Two of my titles that may still be recognizable to today’s fans are: The Abomination and Repligator. I still get a lot of FB friend requests from folks who like these two movies.
I haven’t made a movie in over 20 years and I have no desire to ever go through that process again. In 1996 I had a distributor file bankruptcy a month before he was contractually obligated to pay me. He’d just built a very expensive home in an exclusive neighborhood in Dallas, so I couldn’t help but feel he’d stolen my money and the money owed other film makers to feather his nest, then filed bankruptcy knowing there would be little we could do about it. I reasoned there were easier ways to make a living.
Life went on and I floated along with it, trying my hand at various pursuits along the way. Was I bitter? Initially, sure I was. But, that faded. My creative urges continued and writing became my preferred outlet to satisfy those urges. In 2009 a friend told me about a website called duotrope.com. Basically, you plug in the specifics of what you’ve written and the site gives you a list of venues that publish the sort of thing you’ve written. It was a free start-up at the time. Now they charge $50 per year. I sold the first piece I submitted via duotrope, so I was encouraged.
In 2014 I decided to get serious about writing and developed a daily writing discipline. I’d be lying if I said I’d written something every day since then, but most days I write in the neighborhood of 3,000 words. I always have several novels in process and I write and sell a lot of short stories.
I co-edited two horror anthologies for Eakin Press with my fellow Texan, author E.R. Bills. E.R. is a serious writer of mostly nonfiction; horrific accounts of racial violence perpetrated in the early 20th century. I met him at the North Texas Book Festival and it was just a few days before he pitched me the idea of doing a collection of horror tales set in Texas, written by Texas authors. We were fortunate to get a submission from Joe Lansdale. The collection got a lot of attention in the press and reception was good enough that we did a volume 2 the following year. (As of this writing, I am no longer involved in the Road Kill series, but E.R. is compiling volume 3.)
At my 58th birthday party, a backyard cook-out affair, E.R. overheard Glen Coburn (of Bloodsuckers from Outer Space fame) and I reminiscing about our days as cinematic schlockmeisters. “This needs to be a book!” he insisted. I was very cool to the idea. I’d never done any long form non-fiction before and was not at all convinced it was a good idea.
He persisted. And a year and a half later, in April 2018, Texas Schlock: B-Movie Sci-Fi and Horror from the Lone Star State was released at the Dallas Fan Expo and in May at the Texas Frightmare Weekend. The book sold well at both venues and we’ve had a number of very positive reviews to date. So, thanks E.R. for the nudge.
Jeffrey Combs in Time Tracers.
In the process of putting the book together, I needed to get viewable copies of Time Tracers and Bio-tech Warrior, so they could be watched and written about. It had been over twenty years since I’d seen either film. Because of his hilarious book, Whacked!: Skewed Views of Horror Movies that Simply Refuse to Die, I asked Glen Coburn to write the reviews of the movies covered in the Bret McCormick chapter of Texas Schlock.
There were no screeners available, so I pulled the masters out of storage and had them digitized. Since I’d gone to all that trouble, when it was suggested that I do a limited-edition DVD release of these two movies, I said, “Why not?”
There were no screeners available, so I pulled the masters out of storage and had them digitized. Since I’d gone to all that trouble, when it was suggested that I do a limited-edition DVD release of these two movies, I said, “Why not?”
I’ve used the DVDs primarily as giveaways to entice people to buy the book. The strategy seems to have worked pretty well. I noticed recently that an original VHS of my movie The Abomination recently sold for $300. If that’s the case, then I suppose these limited-edition DVDs may actually be worth some serious money in 30 or 40 years. (That’s a joke. I say, that’s a joke son.)
Alamo Draft House expressed interest in doing a combination screening and book promotion. Another writing friend suggested that I speak to a Dallas-based PR person to form a plan to increase attendance. When I met with the lady she asked what my end game was. Was I trying to build a video distribution company? Did I want to resuscitate my film making career?
I explained that I had these memories that a certain group of people seemed interested in hearing about. I still owned the rights to s few movies, so the re-releases were just a part of monetizing those memories.
“It’s a bit like going through your garage after many years and realizing you need to get rid of some of that junk,” I said. “But, there’s no sense in just throwing it away. You can think of it as a sort of cinematic garage sale.”
She got a laugh out of that.
Thank you, Hugh, for the kind assessment you made of Texas Schlock! Good luck with your new and improved website! Reconnecting has brought back a lot of fun memories from the days when I first discovered Draculina. I’ll be watching for the odd and interesting bits that pop up on the blog.
Alamo Draft House expressed interest in doing a combination screening and book promotion. Another writing friend suggested that I speak to a Dallas-based PR person to form a plan to increase attendance. When I met with the lady she asked what my end game was. Was I trying to build a video distribution company? Did I want to resuscitate my film making career?
I explained that I had these memories that a certain group of people seemed interested in hearing about. I still owned the rights to s few movies, so the re-releases were just a part of monetizing those memories.
“It’s a bit like going through your garage after many years and realizing you need to get rid of some of that junk,” I said. “But, there’s no sense in just throwing it away. You can think of it as a sort of cinematic garage sale.”
She got a laugh out of that.
Thank you, Hugh, for the kind assessment you made of Texas Schlock! Good luck with your new and improved website! Reconnecting has brought back a lot of fun memories from the days when I first discovered Draculina. I’ll be watching for the odd and interesting bits that pop up on the blog.
Doing mock up work on The Abomination.