Hallopalooza Day 4: Confessions of a Scream Queen by Lucienne Diver

I love Halloween—always have. In school, I was the geeky girl who dressed up every year, even when it wasn't cool. No store-bought costumes for me. I'd make my own, my sister's. It was part of the fun.

I met my husband working as an actor at a haunted house. My die-hard Roman Catholic family was tremendously relieved when we didn't get married there—though we did make them wear garb at our medieval wedding.

As a child, I frequently had trouble sleeping, exacerbated by the books I'd read—"True Tales" of this and that: hauntings, living death, unsolved mysteries. You name it. And the movies available on late, late night television: all of the Christopher Lee Dracula films, Locusts Eat Manhattan (okay, I may be misremembering this one), the Godzilla movies. It was a smorgasbord of schlocky and not-so-schlocky horror and science fiction films that scared the bejeebers out of me at the time, causing even more insomnia.

Horror of Dracula, starring Christopher Lee:


I've never lost my taste for dressing up or schlocky horror films. Bring on the cheesy—Halloweentown, Cheerleader Camp, Swamp Thing, whatever. I'm there. In fact, the cornier, the better. As I've gotten older, my empathy has developed to the point that really good horror is upsetting rather than entertaining. I know how horrific reality can be. I want no-holds-barred, schlocky, my-friends-would-be-embarrassed-to-know-me horror.

I'll take my dark fantasy in my books with some leavening humor. There I can take the point of view of a kick-ass hero or heroine who can handle anything that goes bump in the night. I can sit back and watch them kick butt, wincing with the blows and betrayals, but enjoying the heck out of watching them give as good as they get. Rachel Caine's Joanne Baldwin from the Weather Wardens series is fantastic about that, as is Marjorie M. Liu's Maxine Kiss from THE IRON HUNT and Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan from DEAD WITCH WALKING, etc. I could go on all day.

My favorite novels are those where good can look evil in the eye without flinching. Where evil is intelligent enough that good uses brains as much as brawn to defeat it. And where I feel that we're winning the battle, or at least have a chance at it.

In short, in my fiction, I want it all. On the screen, I'm perfectly happy to bring on the popcorn.