Eric Red chats to Kendall Reviews

Coffee is ready…

KR: Could you tell me a little about yourself please?

I’m a Los Angeles-based film director and screenwriter and novelist. I started in the motion picture business thirty years ago and have been writing novels for six years now.

KR: What do you like to do when not writing?

I love spending time with my wife and dogs and seeing friends. Otherwise I’m reading or watching movies.

KR: What is your favourite childhood book?

The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit. I also loved the Dr. Suess books.

KR: What are you reading now?

Just finished Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, and Without Fail by Lee Child, my favorite contemporary author, and am starting Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama.

KR: What is your favourite album, and does music play any role in your writing?

Hard to pick a favorite album but The Beatles are my favorite musicians. I have all their records on a playlist on iTunes I listen to constantly. When I’m writing, I listen to a lot of movie scores, especially by Jerry Goldsmith and Elmer Bernstein. Maybe it’s my movie background but film music inspires me when I write and gets me into the zone.

KR: Who were the authors that inspired you to write?

As a young author, in no order, Richard Price, Jim Harrison, John Irving and William Goldman. Given my books and films, those are probably not the authors people would expect, but these were the writers whose books spoke to me on a very deep level and made me want to be a writer.

KR: Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer to just see where an idea takes you?

I’m methodical. Because of my screenwriting background I’m a structure wonk rigorous about working out the story beats—for me character flows from story, not the other way around. First I come up with a three- or four-sentence summary of a novel because all books must begin with a great idea in my opinion. Then I write a one-page synopsis, after which I write a ten-page outline with a beginning, middle and end. Once I have that, I’m ready to start the book. And during this time I’m making pages and pages of notes, because ideas start coming to me constantly for a novel I’m hot on.

KR: What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?

The short answer is all the research necessary, but that depends on the book and the subject matter. My third novel IT WAITS BELOW was a science fiction thriller involving a submersible sub that dove to the bottom of the ocean, so I spent months interviewing one of the top pilots of those kind of subs and oceanographic scientists to get all the details right. On the other hand, my first novel DON’T STAND SO CLOSE was a high school coming-of-age thriller and most of the research involved remembering my own high school experiences.

To read the rest of the interview, go to http://bit.ly/2IxLMBT

Eric Red is one of our favorite writers around here. How could we not love the work of the scribe who gave us such cool films as THE HITCHER, NEAR DARK, BLUE STEEL, BODY PARTS, BAD MOON, and 100 FEET (which featured Arrow in the Head founder John Fallon)? Back in 2015, Red wrote a novel titled WHITE KNUCKLE (you can read Jake Dee’s review of the novel at THIS LINK), and now we are excited to hear that he’s teaming up with Horror Equity Fund, Inc. to write and direct a film based on the novel.

Described as a “terrifying road thriller in the tradition of THE HITCHER”, WHITE KNUCKLE is

a gripping story of female empowerment about a woman who survives an attack by a serial killer, and then takes it upon herself to stop him from hurting anyone else.

For a more detailed synopsis, we can turn to the book’s description:

There’s a killer on the road… He’s a big rig truck driver who goes by the CB handle White Knuckle, and he’s Jack the Ripper on eighteen wheels. For thirty years he has murdered hundreds of women in unimaginable ways, imprisoning them in a secret compartment in his truck, abducting them in one state and dumping their dead bodies across the country. Dedicated FBI agent Sharon Ormsby is on a mission to hunt down and stop White Knuckle. She goes undercover as a truck driver with a helpful long hauler named Rudy in a cross-country pursuit that will ultimately bring her face-to-face with White Knuckle in a pedal-to-the-metal, high-octane climax on a highway to Hell.

Horror Equity Fund’s CEO Marlon Schulman, CCO Brian Herskowitz, and EVP Tony Timpone will be executive producing WHITE KNUCKLE. An entertainment company focused solely on the horror and thriller genres, Horror Equity Fund aims to “bring content creators, fans, and investors together and give them access to the tools that help them see their passions into profits”. The company is currently raising funds through a soon-to-close Regulation CF investment funding campaign.

Timpone promises that WHITE KNUCKLE will “keep people off the highways like JAWS kept ‘em out of the water”.

Read the full article at: http://bit.ly/2DYaTPL

For Immediate Release:

Visionary writer/director Eric Red is teaming with Horror Equity Fund for the new horror movie, WHITE KNUCKLE. Eric has crafted a script and will helm the movie based on his novel of the same name. Horror fans know Eric as the writer of genre favorites, Near Dark (1987) and The Hitcher (1986). He is also the writer / director of Body Parts (1991) and Bad Moon (1996).

WHITE KNUCKLE tells a gripping story of female empowerment about a woman who survives an attack by a serial killer, and then takes it upon herself to stop him from hurting anyone else.

Marlon Schulman CEO, Brian Herskowitz CCO, and Tony Timpone EVP of Horror Equity Fund have signed on as Executive Producers and plan on taking this project to the next level of horror entertainment.

Eric Red says, “I’m very excited to be joining forces with Marlon Schulman, Brian Herskowitz and Tony Timpone at Horror Equity Fund for my new film, WHITE KNUCKLE. It’s a great team to be working with making a terrifying road thriller in the tradition of THE HITCHER.”

Tony Timpone says, “Very happy that the first project that I brought into Horror Equity Fund to be fast-tracked is Eric Red’s super-kinetic WHITE KNUCKLE. Eric’s previous work in the genre, THE HITCHER, NEAR DARK and BODY PARTS, were unique and terrifying. WHITE KNUCKLE will keep people off the highways like JAWS kept ’em out of the water. And HEF supporters can be part of the ride!”

To read the full article on horrornews.net go to: http://horrornews.net/129123/creator-near-dark-hitcher-partners-horror-equity-fund-new-horror-movie-white-knuckle/

“White Knuckle’ by Eric Red is well worth reading:

What do you do when a trucker starts playing games with you on the freeway? He’s trying to damage your car and make you stop. This woman attempts to get away and thinks she has when he drives on by. Unfortunately, he just went up and turned around and came back. Now he’s getting out of his truck. She’s locked her doors, but that doesn’t slow him down…

Mr. Red writes an interesting story about a man who has gone insane. He thinks the highways belong to him. He can pick his victims and torture them without remorse or guilt. No one can find him; or so he thinks.

With thanks to Tattered Cover Bookstore.

For more information go to: http://bit.ly/2xRIbYP

“Rookie FBI Special Agent Sharon Ormsby works as an analyst for the Bureau when she discovers evidence of a prolific interstate truck driver serial killer who has been on the road for forty years and killed over five hundred victims. His CB handle is White Knuckle and he is Jack The Ripper on eighteen wheels. Sharon is assigned to go undercover as a truck driver trainee with a helpful long hauler named Rudy to hunt White Knuckle down. With two million big rigs on the U.S. highway system, tracking down the killer is as impossible as finding a needle in a haystack. She wrestles with her own inexperience and doubts, under pressure to prove herself as an FBI agent. When the young agent gets on the serial killer’s trail, the chase escalates into a deadly game of cat and mouse in a cross-country pursuit that ultimately brings SA Sharon Ormsby face-to-face with White Knuckle in a pedal-to-the-metal, high-octane climax on a highway to Hell.”

Available on Amazon at http://amzn.to/2jBV1bv

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