Screenwriter and filmmaker Mick Garris has been a mainstay in the horror genre since the early 80s having directed 'Critters 2: The Main Course' as well as his television work on 'Amazing Stories' and 'Freddy's Nightmares'. He would stay very active behind the camera into the 90s with 'Psycho IV: The Beginning' and he also famously wrote the first draft for a little Halloween film called 'Hocus Pocus'. By the mid 2000s Mick had garnered enough respect in the genre that he was able to amass an incredible line-up of writers and filmmakers for a show of his own creation entitled 'Masters of Horror'.
On top of being a writer, director and producer, Mick has also worked in broadcasting since the 70s and up until December of 2023 (with a one-off special Bonus Episode in March 2024) had been running his own hugely successful podcast called 'Post Mortem with Mick Garris' which ran for 7 years. It's still one of our favourite podcasts out there with insightful interviews with icons horror like Tom Savini, Clive Barker, William Friedkin and Tom Holland (the Fright Night one not young Spidey) as well as some of horror's modern day masters like Mike Flanagan, Andre Øvredal, Ti West and the team of Cargill & Derrickson. He has always championed the genre and particularly the people who work within it.
But he is perhaps best known and most famous for his mini-series and feature film adaptations of some of Stephen King's most revered works. This month marks the 20th Anniversary of his third King adaptation, the short story 'Riding the Bullet' and we were lucky enough to ask Mick some questions about the film and his connection with Sai King.
FC: Prior to 'Riding the Bullet', you had already adapted Stephen King before with 'The Stand' and 'The Shining', probably two of his best novels. What is it about King’s writing in general that you are drawn to?
MICK: King’s writing is very personal, very universal. What’s made him one of the biggest authors in history is his voice, his humanity, his ability to share the commonality of the human experience, to be fearless in expressing fears, to make the fears seem utterly grounded in a real world we all share. First and foremost, his stories are very much about characters we identify with, confronted with what could very possibly happen in real life.
FC: Am I correct in saying you wrote the script on spec? What was it about this particular story that captivated you and compelled you to adapt it for the screen?
MICK: Yes, I wrote the script on spec. I had gone through a couple of very personal losses: my mother and father and two brothers, and my heart was an open wound. To the casual reader, it might seem just like a simple ghost story, but to me, it resonated on a very deep level. The relationship, often rocky, between parent and offspring is a complicated one, and I hoped to look deeply into it. As the short story was only 30 pages long, it also gave me a lot of leeway and flexibility in expanding to feature length in a way the I was feeling deep inside.
FC: After working on so many King projects, can you sit back and relax while reading King now, or are you always visualising it as a movie?
MICK: I never read King with the intent to adapt; that comes later. I am, like the rest of us, his Constant Reader. The experience of reading King is an exquisite one.
FC: What would you say you learned from your previous King adaptations that helped you with 'Riding the Bullet'?
MICK: I learned that King is a very generous writer, both with his readers and with his adaptors. I knew that humanity is at the ground level from which all of his stories are built. That the characters are the most important elements. And to not be afraid of being creatively naked, to wear one’s emotions on one’s sleeve. To be a good artist—painter, filmmaker, songwriter, whatever—is to be emotionally fearless, to not worry about being embarrassed to get really personal.
FC: If you could pick another Stephen King novel, novella or short story to adapt for the screen which one would you choose and why?
MICK: Well, most of them have been done! And am I really going to be that greedy? I would love to have done 'Gerald's Game', but it was safe in the hands of the very talented Mike Flanagan.
FC: How do you creatively approach writing/shooting a movie that's mostly based in one location?
MICK: It’s really about making the story move at a pace that is a step ahead of the viewer, to not let them notice that they’ve been in a moving car for half the movie! It’s the characters, the drama, the propulsive story being told that takes precedence. It’s using the tools of cinema to engage the audience. If a play can be told on a single stage, then so can a movie, and with camera angles, editing, music, performance, camera movement, and all the other things we have in the toolbox, we have even more to work with.
FC: There's some belter songs in 'Riding the Bullet'. Is song choice something you have in your head while you're writing and how important is it to you to get the song choice correct in terms of setting up an atmosphere?
MICK: I actually wrote the songs into the screenplay when I was constructing it. And there were only two songs we weren’t able to get that I’d written in, and one was ending the movie with John Lennon’s 'Instant Karma'. Yoko Ono had to approve any Lennon song for a movie, and she screened and liked and approved us… but we couldn’t afford what they were asking. So we replaced it with The Youngbloods’ 'Get Together'. This was about representing an era through its music—which is the touchstone of nostalgia for most of us—and setting the stage of 1969, and how music at that time connected us all.
FC: What made you want to change the setting from being contemporary to set in the late 60's?
MICK: King’s story represents a life and death choice—a Sophie’s Choice with no happy answers. And I felt that the planet faced that kind of choice at the end of the optimistic sixties. And whether it turned out well or ill, choices had to be made. So I wanted to make that personal choice on a broader scale. Who knew twenty years ago that the planetary choices would have gotten so scary in the current climate?
FC: What did you find to be the most challenging aspect when directing the film?
MICK: Keeping the movie going when it was constricted to two guys talking in a car was definitely a challenge. I’d done the same thing in 'Quicksilver Highway', which was much more of a suspense thriller sequence. Also, I wanted to try to make the internal thoughts of a literary character external for a cinematic one. Hence, having Jonathan Jackson’s conversations with himself visually explicit. To actually see his musings taking place, rather than the cheap and easy way out with narration. Plus, the film was made on a very low budget.
FC: When writing the script did you have the casting in mind for any of the characters or was that something that emerged much later in the pre-production process?
MICK: I never have casting in mind when I write; it can only lead to frustration. I want to write the characters in the best way I know how, and then do the casting. If you have an actor in mind for a certain role, almost always they are not available, or too expensive, of not interested. King’s character have rich and full lives already, and I think any actor would prefer to come at it from the inside out, find what they find in common and do the work.
FC: In the past you've said this has been one of your most personal works to date. All of these years later is that still the case and how do you think time has treated the film from your perspective?
MICK: It’s still my most personal film, as it dealt with the loss of loved ones close to me. In that respect, it has only deepened, as since then I’ve lost a sister and other close friends. The film was my least successful in terms of profits out of everything I’ve done, but people seem to like it when they discover it. It is hugely gratifying to hear from people who have suffered loss and found the movie to be of comfort… which is weird for a horror movie! But with King’s name in the title, I think there was more of an expectation of a more go-for-the-throat exercise in horror than it is. When people have at least an idea what to expect, it gets a much better reaction.
FC: One of my favourite parts of the film is the epilogue when we see how things have gone several years later and you can feel the catharsis in the writing. Was this the case for you and can you speak to the healing power of film from the point of view of a creator and a viewer?
MICK: It was definitely cathartic. Some of the dialogue is verbatim from King’s story, but some of it was my invention. The idea of the Beatles representing something beautiful that was lost still seems to carry some power. And the ability to use this film as a way to say goodbye to people I loved still seems potent.
FC: Thank you so much Mick. You've been so generous with your time and we're sending you best wishes for the future and congratulations again on the 20th Anniversary of 'Riding the Bullet'
MICK: Cheers Gavin. All the best
Be sure to find Mick Garris on social media to stay up to date with all his projects and definitely seek out the Post Mortem podcast if you haven't already done so. We promise you won't be disappointed.
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