Photo: The bastard son of Popeye Doyle and Carl Kolchak (but we don't know which one is responsible).



EDITOR'S NOTE: When I assigned Richard Hipson to conduct a quick interview with Phil Nutman in conjunction with the limited theatrical release of JACK KETCHIUM'S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, on which Phil co-wrote the screenplay and served as associate producer, I had no idea that the end result would be an epic four-part interview which would lead to Phil conducting an exciting series of filmmaker interviews for Fear Zone as well. Here then---freshly primped by the subject---is Part One of The Nutman Chronicles, for the second time anywhere.



Self-proclaimed bastard child of Popeye Doyle and Carl Kolchack, Philip Nutman may be best known to some as the author of the acclaimed zombie novel Wet Work, to others for his film journalism, and to others for his work in the comics field. 2007 is the year that Phil's film career took off; he co-scripted and associate-produced JACK KETCHUM'S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, based on that author's novel, and is currently writing a big budget adaptation, which he will also direct, of THE CROSSINGS, Ketchum's dark western novella. His career spans the globe and so many facets of dark culture entertainment, making one question his sanity and wonder about his ability to clone himself.

At the ripe 'ol age of 18, Phil became FANGORIA'S first British correspondent and wrote feature articles covering the horror scene from his native stomping grounds in London, England where fate steered him into the oncoming path of Clive Barker, whom Phil introduced to American audiences and cites as being a major teacher and influence on his own work. For the full scoop on Phil's bio, check out his website: www.philipnutman.com.

Novelist, screenwriter, comic book scribe and sometime editor, and now producer-director, Phil seems to have done more in the last 25 years than many people do in a lifetime. But, as he says, "that was just the warm-up; now I'm ready for the real work." In addition to all of the above, he somehow finds the time to publish and edit the online pop culture review ( Up Against the Wall ). Asked how he does it, he says: "I don't sleep a lot, and besides, this isn't work, it's play."

Phil requested we do this interview raw and to the bone; no censoring, nor punches pulled. I told him this is Fear Zone and we wouldn't want it any other way. We hope you come back for more as our discussion ranges from his behind the scenes work on JACK KETCHUM'S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, his approach to spirituality, writing and THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, along with his extensive comic and novel work, and more industry wisdom than you can shake a severed limb at.

Phil, even if someone has never heard of you before, all they have to do is visit your extensive online biography to discover you're a writer who has got his fingers in more pics than the long table at an Olympic pie-eating contest. Do you ever worry that with so many focuses, your energies and the quality of your work will be overstretched as you move from one writing sector to the next and that you might be cheating some of your bosses because there is only so much Phil to go around?

As Andy Rigrod, my entertainment attorney, says, "get your fill of Phil." I am seemingly blessed that I can wear many hats and as opposed to the old clich? jack of all trades, master of none - I seem to have managed to straddle a number of different creative disciplines. This, however, has caused confusion with my faithful readers because people think "Phil hasn't published a novel in 'x' number of years. Phil hasn't published a short story; what is he doing?" My readership is like mathematical sets. Some of them overlap and some of them are separate. I've got fans who love my comic book work, but to make it even more confusing, some of them only love a certain title and aren't interested in other stories. I wrote a trilogy of comic books based on John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN, and if there's one thing I've discovered, it's HALLOWEEN fans are very specific. They love HALLOWEEN, but aren't necessarily horror movie fans overall (?!) However, I discovered they don't read other horror comics; they don't read horror novels. They have very specific taste in the horror movies that they watch.

So this is where it gets very, very confusing because I have certain audiences in different areas and so people who've been waiting for example, a sequel to Wet Work, which is now back in print, thanks to David Hinchberger at the Overlook Connection - the trade paperback edition came out in September - wonder why I haven't written another novel (the fact is, I have). So I've got zombie fans who absolutely adore Wet Work. I've got HALLOWEEN fans who loved the comic books I did. I still get fan mail from kids, teenagers who were children 13 years ago when I had one of the most fun weeks of my life and got to write the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, the Archie Adventures' comic version for younger readers. It gave me an incredible experience because I had an excuse to go back to be seven years old in my head.

I feel very, very fortunate I've been given the opportunity to work in a whole bunch of different people's sand pits. But this has caused confusion among readers because as I said, certain people read certain things, and they go "oh, I didn't know you did that -- you did comic books?"

"Well, it must be a refreshing thing for you , and an encouraging thing for you, that no matter which direction you want to put your creative forces into, you know you're always going to have a ready market available because you've already tapped into a variety of markets, and I would think that would be a lot easier and more encouraging than someone who's thinking, 'I don't know how to go about and connect with this certain market because I want to do this sorta project.' You've got that, so that must be encouraging I'd imagine."'

I feel blessed. I do feel that genuinely. That speaks to my spiritual side which is something we can come back to later.

How do you keep your head straight and the bosses happy with such an immense and diversified workload?

A certain amount of discipline and also learning to be fluid and very flexible. And for the record, I don't have "bosses" - I have editors I work WITH, and people I collaborate WITH. I haven't had a real "boss" since I quit my job with BBC-TV in Britain 20 years ago. Okay, so I spent a year in the early '90s working at Tundra (Publishing), Kevin "Ninja Turtles" Eastman's comic book company that he set up with the millions he made off those characters. I was director of marketing and promotions, but I was my own boss and had my own ship to sail in. Unfortunately, they gave me a leaky boat, but I got out before the ship sank. That was the last time I had anything resembling a "real" job. I don't have "bosses" - just because someone cuts me a check doesn't mean they own me, and that's what the word "boss" means to me. So yes, the answer is a combination of discipline when needed, and a lot of fluidity.

(And then, as varied as his talent is, so too is his attention to even the most unassuming circumstances as I learn with this brief digression from topic)

As we're talking, there's a spider climbing upwards and backwards weaving a web above my cat, Bone, who's named after the Jeff Smith comic book character and I'm watching this spider go up and down and I'm thinking you know what? This is kind of a good metaphor for my life {laughs} - up and down to the next strand.

Telling stories in different mediums is exciting for me as each media poses its own challenges. But you have to write for yourself, first and foremost. I write stories that no one else has told me. Writing is both a very lonely and selfish act. You just hope and pray that once a story is finished it will resonate with readers and entertain them - and maybe get them to see the world in a different way.

One area that I would really love to work in which I've never had the opportunity to try is I would really love to write a great play - as a teenager, when I wasn't sneaking in underage to watch grindhouse movies, I would go to the theater and had the rich, rewarding experience of watching great actors perform great works. My wife, Anya Martin, wrote a wonderful play, which is part of the reason I fell in love with her nearly 20 years ago when I read some of her stories and I read this incredible piece of theater called "Passage to the Dreamtime," which I intend to direct one day. Anya is an incredible writer. I actually think she's a better writer than I am. She's also a terrifically talented journalist, which is what she does for a living. I'm hoping within the next year I'll be able to get her out of doing journalism and back to writing fiction because she's so talented - more original than most blinkered editors can see. And yes, obviously I'm being biased because she's my wife, but objectively I know good writing when I see it. But I digress - as usual.

As for keeping my head "straight," that's a topic of some conjecture. As someone once said to me, "the word 'sane' and the name 'Philip Nutman' don't belong in the same sentence." Which is probably true [laughs].

I assume you must turn down as much, if not more material than you're accustomed to do, eh?

Right now I'm pretty much booked solid for the next two years between screenplays, producing duties, making my feature film directorial d?but, my short story collection, a new novel, trying again to sell my orphaned coming-of-age novel, Full Throttle , and setting up my new (film) production company. At this point in my life, I've had to make the hard decision - and it's always hard when you're self employed and people come to you offering money - to learn to say "no." I've had to turn down two projects in the last 48 hours. And that was tough, because they were paying gigs - and with the WGA (Writers) strike looming, that hurt. But I've got to be a selfish pig. My thoughts have to come first and damn the money. It's the whole notion of Joseph Campbell, who wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell and that book gave George Lucas the inspiration for STAR WARS and many other movies - you can definitely see the influence in George Miller's MAD MAX trilogy; Campbell said "follow your bliss and the money will follow." I wish the money was "here" right now because I could with a bit more in my bank account (laughs). I need to have a new roof put on our house within the next few months - ah, the joys of home ownership! I'm sure if you talk to any writer they're always going to say some thing, but yeah, it's tough. It's hard to say "no," but I do feel very lucky right now. I think I'm writing better than I've ever done before, both prose and screenplay. Creatively life is good. In fact, it's never been better.

One job a lot of us Ketchum fans are sure glad you didn't turn down was the screenplay that Dan Farrands who, if I'm correct, essentially turned you onto scripting TGND with him. That novel is about as raw and edgy and controversial as good fiction comes. What was your approach towards adapting it to a screenplay that made it work so well?

Dan and I did a lot of soul-searching for a couple of weeks before we actually embarked on writing the script, because it's a tough book. I didn't really want to go back to Ruth Chandler's house in New Jersey. What happened was this: It started with a phone call like most things in this business do. Dan called me up one night out of the blue and said "have you read this book, Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door " I said, "yes." He said, "is it any good? I've been hearing it is." I said "yes," and he said, "do you think it would make a great movie?" I laughed and just fell apart at the other end of the phone, and Dan's like, "What's wrong with you? Why are you laughing? I hear this thing is really intense!" I said, "Dan you have no fucking idea. You need to read it before we continue this conversation."

So I got the manuscript from Dave (Hinchberger) at Overlook Connection Press, who was the guy who's responsible for bringing the book back to print, and I had him send the manuscript. Dan read it and 48 hours later said "Oh my God, this thing is so visual. I see the movie. It's really intense and I think this would make a great film!" And I laughed and said "look, number one - Jack Ketchum is a pseudonym in case you didn't know. Dallas Mayr, the real writer known as Jack Ketchum to the rest of the world, happens to be one of my best friends." I'd also read the book three times at the point Dan became interested in the property because I was asked to do an afterward for the special limited edition that Overlook Connection Press put out (which) Stephen King wrote this incredible introduction to, and myself; Christopher Golden, who is another dear old friend and was the one who encouraged Dave to publish the book; Edward Lee; and Lucy Taylor wrote afterwards. I wrote a piece called "Living With The Girl Next Door," which can be found archived at my Website.

When I was asked to do this, it made me have to go back to read the book again - not once, but twice. I think The Girl Next Door is one of the finest novels of the latter half of the 20th century. It's an incredible novel. Dallas Mayr is a writer's writer. There's a reason why Stephen King acclaims him so greatly and, I am happy to say I was directly responsible for hooking the two of them up, but that's a whole other story.

Anyway, after Dan read the novel and said to me "this is so visual -- I can see the movie," I replied "yes, I can too, and it's not one I want to watch!" [laughs] Anyway, I said, "Dan, if we've got to do this then we've got to do this [and] we only do this for two reasons: One: We've got to do the material justice and be authentic to the material. Two: we've got to be completely, ruthlessly honest about the subtext of the book, which is about the powerlessness of children, about adult responsibility, or rather, in this case, the lack of - certainly as far as David's parents are concerned. If we're going to do this (then) we're going to do this right. It took us six months to bring the script to life, and as Dallas has admitted in a number of interviews, the only reason he gave us the opportunity to adapt the book was because, quite frankly, he didn't think we could do it. However, he did, having known me several years at this point, feel that if anybody's going to fuck up my book, it might as well be Phil.

When I called him [Ketchum] after we sent him the script, it was probably the most nerve-wrecking phone call I've ever had in my life. He said "Phil, I'm speechless." Me being an optimistic pessimist I immediately thought, "oh my God, I've just gone and pissed off one of my best friends." And there was like a 30-second silence and he finally said "I never would have believed anybody could have ever adapt this book." It's a very personal book for him. It's basically Dallas saying goodbye to his childhood in New Jersey. He'd been haunted by the Sylvia Likens case for over 10 years and had never figured out how to translate the story, the true story, that took place in Indiana in 1965. [He felt] "I don't know anything about Indiana, I've never been to Indiana. I can't write about Indiana." It was only after his dear mother passed away and he was cleaning out the family house so that he could finally say goodbye to his childhood home, that all of the sudden it slam-danced into his head and he was like, "Yeah, I can set this in 1958 in New Jersey." So this is a very, very personal, very heartfelt book, which, despite the very dark subject matter, has a hell of a lot of heart and soul in it.

What was the biggest challenge, Rick, was the fact that there was so much great material in that novel. Dan and I agonized endlessly over what do we leave out? There were certain sections in the book which just don't work cinematically, yet there was this wealth of material. But when you tell a story in prose you tell. When you're making a movie, you've got to show because film is a visual medium. We took lines out of the book that were very interior lines that were very much tell, not show, and we tried to come up with ways to make them visual. Like I said, we worked our asses off for six months to turn this into a workable screenplay - and God bless Dallas, we blew him away. He said to us, "If anybody ever wants to buy the rights to this book, I'm going to insist they have to buy your screenplay. Nobody can do a better script than this." And to be completely arrogant, I agree with him. We wrote a great screenplay - and I stress WE because it took two sharp minds to adapt that book.

Obviously it worked because your script became a part of the deal Dallas insisted upon when selling the option to Moderncine who took the material and made very few changes as they translated it to screen. While I haven't read the script, I've seen the screener several times. What changes did you see that deviated from your original script?

One scene Dan and I were deeply disappointed that they weren't able to do is the scene in the book - I love it; it's almost like a paragraph in the book if I remember correctly - where David and Donnie and Willy Jr. and a bunch of the kids from the neighborhood are in a movie theatre and they're watching I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF and it brings up the question, "Oh we've got our own game now." We fought long and hard to see if they could do that, we came up with suggestions how they could shoot it without renting a movie theatre and to even make our own homage to I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF without having to get the rights from AIP, or whoever owns the AIP library at this point, but it just wasn't feasible due to the fact that we had a budget shortfall a month before we started shooting and we were dancing on a razor blade, running around trying to find additional financing.

But Greg (Wilson, the director) came up with the idea of the boys washing cars, and David overhears "we have our own game." It works, although Dan and I were very unhappy about losing the scene in the cinema because it's so primal - the boys in the dark watching Michael Landon turning into a monster; it foreshadows in a wonderfully visual way what they are going to turn into: monsters. But it's a moot point. It's a small thing. Film's a collaborative medium and you have to be flexible. Considering the fact that (producers) Andrew (van Den Houten) and Bill Miller only asked us for about four or five minor changes, we were very fortunate.

Of course, the one big bug there and bugaboo in most of the great reviews, incredible reviews that we're getting is that people complain about the end of the movie.

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Stay Tuned for Part Two, as well as Phil's interviews with some of the top names creating filmed horror today!