Few love horror like Todd Farmer. Translating his love for telling ghost stories as a child to a career in screenplays, he’s taken his pen to some of the most iconic villains in cinematic history – Michael Myers (Halloween), The Miner (My Bloody Valentine) and Jason (Jason X) have all received the Farmer treatment. Before he arrives at the Gold Coast Film Festival to conduct a two day screenwriting masterclass, Danielle Muir spoke to him about what it’s like to scare people for a living.
TOM: How did you get into the screenwriting business?
Todd: I used to tell scary stories around campfires and decided I wanted to do it for a living, and then
moved out to Hollywood.
TOM: Were the other children scared by your stories?
Todd: My stories were pretty scary.
TOM: Is that how you knew that you might be able to create a good scary story for others?
Todd: Back when I got started, there was only a couple of places that made scary movies because back then, most of the studios considered horror movies as something you’d look down your nose at. And then when Scream came out, that changed everything, and suddenly everybody was making horror movies.
TOM: What draws you to tell horror stories in particular?
Todd: Well I watched Halloween, Friday the 13th, I also watched Alien, Aliens and Jaws – those were movies that were scary to me. But it was easy to scare me. Even to watch Mad Max, the first movie, there were elements that were terrifying to me, so I was always easily scared. So that’s how I knew that’s what I would end up doing rather than coming out and writing action movies or something. I knew I would start out in horror because that’s what you did – back in the day there were only a few places that did it, horror movies were very inexpensive, A-list writers and directors weren’t involved, and so it was easy to break into. So that’s how I started. Once it took off and everybody was doing it I already had my foot in the door so I just ended up continuing to do it.
TOM: You mentioned earlier some of the classic horror villains and films like Jason that you’ve written about – do you feel any trepidation when you write about a character that has already been portrayed in so many instalments and are considered classics? Almost like real underground myths?
Todd: For the most part those kind of characters don’t freak me out so much as the more realistic characters that represent the downfall of human nature. People who have the husband who wakes up in the middle of the night and goes ‘you know what? I’m going to kill my family.’ That, for me, is horrific. And when it’s based on reality, that’s what scares me. We have Jason and Michael whom electricity brings them back to life – that to me is just more fun. That can be scary, which is a good thing because I like to scare people, but for me personally it’s when you walk into a grocery store and some guy walks in with a gun. That’s terrifying.
TOM: Do you feel nervous when you have to write for a character like that who’s already so popular and established, and has such a big fan base?
Todd: Um, I didn’t in the beginning, a little bit more nervous now. In the beginning, because I came into it green and I thought you know what, I can do this. I can do this where everybody else failed. But after Jason X, there were a lot of people who loved it, and a lot of people who hated it. Because of the hate, I realised oh, you know what? You have to be careful with that stuff because some people are going to hate regard less of what you do, some people are going to hate it. You have to go into it with a lot of respect. (Patrick) Lussier and I, we did My Bloody Valentine together. When we did Halloween, although the movie never got made but we did the script, we were a lot more conscious of the fact that people could hate it. So we went into it being a lot more careful. There was no guarantee that people still wouldn’t hate it – they might have. You certainly go into it being a little more timid in the decisions that you make.
TOM: You mentioned Lussier, a director that you often collaborate with on your projects – what is it about you and Lussier that makes you so creatively compatible?
Todd: He came into the business as an editor. And so he looks at things completely differently that I do. And he also has the director’s vision and I don’t have that. He brings to the writing table something completely different. And then when it comes time to actually make the movie, he goes and directs it. I’m behind the scenes putting out fires here and putting out fires there. It was a really good partnership and will continue to be a good partnership because we complement each other but at the same time we tend to agree and take care of the same vision. He does things that I can’t do and I do things that he can’t do, and when that’s merged together we make a better product. He just got the next Terminator movie, so it’s great that we have this partnership yet we work with other people and it’s just this big family.
TOM: So you don’t see yourself as directing or taking any role other than writing in the future?
Todd: I see myself writing and producing. I don’t want to direct because I work with Patrick and I want him to be my director. But I want to be the producer behind the scenes to make sure that I’m doing everything in my power to make sure that his job goes smoothly. That’s what I like doing. At the same time I love writing.
TOM: When you write for characters such as Jason and The Miner, is it important for you to breathe a new life in them or to focus on the characteristics that audiences already know from what they’ve seen in previous instalments?
Todd: I personally think it has to be a little of both – I think you have to pay respect to and you have to be aware of what made the franchise a franchise, but at the same time I think you have to break out of it. I mean certainly having Jason, and retelling My Bloody Valentine – those are things I think you have to do. I don’t think you can just retell the same story over and over again because the audience will get bored. I think you have to be respectful but at the same time you have to bring something new to the table.
TOM: Who are some of your favourite horror writers, or screenplay writers in general?
Todd: I read a Tarantino script back in the day and that’s the thing that brought me to Hollywood. I don’t have favourites necessarily because each movie is so vastly different and unique, but there are movies that influenced me to become what I am. Alien, Aliens, Halloween, Jaws, Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back, I mean those movies made me what I am but if you look at several of those movies, you can debate that two of them may not be horror movies. But they’re scary. Jaws is a scary movie! You’re on the edge of your seat. You could make the argument that that’s horror. Alien is a sci-fi movie but you can make the argument that it’s horror. And of course Halloween is horror. So there’s no coincidence I do what I do and what I write. These movies I watch, they didn’t go away after a week or two, they stuck with me. Certainly John Carpenter, James Cameron and Steven Spielberg are massive influences in my life.
TOM: You’re working on a new adaptation of the 1987 film Hellraiser – what can you tell us about that?
Todd: Right before Drive Angry we did a draft of Halloween. When we came back after shooting Drive Angry we thought we would do Halloween and then Weinstein said hey, let’s work on Hellraiser. So Patrick (Lussier) and I did three different versions of Hellraiser. One gigantic, epic version and then two others. And then we decided to put that on hold and work on Halloween again so it’s an interesting relationship that we have with the Weinstein’s, we sort of bounce around with whatever they need. We’ve done a tremendous amount of work on Hellraiser and I would love to see it happen. It wasn’t a remake of Clive Barkers original, but it was a story that took place in Clive Barker’s world.
TOM: Thankyou for your time today and we look forward to seeing you come to the Gold Coast Film Festival for the screenwriting masterclass.
Todd: Thankyou.
Todd Farmer will be running a two day intensive masterclass on screenwriting at the Gold Coast Film Festival on April 22nd-23rd. To purchase tickets go to gcfilmfestival.com
