While my sci-fi horror novel VEIL exists in its own world, I exist in this one. This means that the books I read and the movies and shows I watch are bound to permeate my imagination and find their way into my stories (usually in subtle ways). And though many of my favorite novels and short stories also leaked into the world of VEIL, I’ve decided to focus on the book’s cinematic influences today. And before any of you start to object, I understand that some don’t consider these films horror, and that’s OK. I’m not here to quibble about genre classifications. For me, all six of these movies have at least some of the characteristics of a good horror story.
So without further preamble, here are six sci-fi horror films/shows that became part of VEIL’s DNA!
Bird Box (dir. Susanne Bier)
While Sandra Bullock’s blindfolding has become the source of countless memes, the logic behind it is solid: If you don’t look at the film’s antagonists, you’ll remain safe—or at least as safe as one can be in the nightmarish world of Bird Box.
In VEIL, the problem isn’t seeing too much; it’s seeing nothing at all. The creatures wreaking havoc in my novel have achieved perfect invisibility, and no one can predict when and where they’ll strike. The only defense humans can devise is tethering: binding yourself to your loved one via a thick extension cord in the desperate hope that if one of you is seized, the other will be able to tug-of-war you back to safety before you disappear. Blindfolding and tethering are different concepts, obviously, but they’re both safety measures in an unsafe world. (By the way, if you haven’t read Josh Malerman’s novel, you’ve got to change that.)
A Quiet Place (dir. John Krasinski)
Like many authors, I write to music, and no score was more pivotal (Are you proud of me for avoiding “instrumental”?) than Marco Beltrami’s music for A Quiet Place. The first track, “It Hears You,” was the first song I’d hear each day when reentering the world of VEIL. No other song captures the lurking, crawling dread enkindled by my invisible creatures as effectively as that track. The film’s influence doesn’t stop there, however.
Like Bullock’s character in Bird Box, John Krasinski and Emily Blunt channel all their wits and resources toward protecting the ones they care about, and if you read VEIL, you’ll see how central a role that kind of love plays in my story. Of course, the main inspiration for my protagonist’s love of his family came straight from my soul, but I’m sure movies like these also insinuated their way into my imagination as I created the novel.
War Of The Worlds (2005) (dir. Steven Spielberg)
Okay, I know most would consider this purely a sci-fi film, but the first alien-attack scene was straight-up awe-inspiring, and for my money, plenty horrific. Like a transformation scene in a werewolf movie, a large-scale attack scene in an alien-invasion film is a beat I long for and expect. In War of the Worlds, Steven Spielberg makes his alien invaders absolutely ruthless and outrageously powerful, and I’m sure when I wrote my large-scale attack scenes (yes, plural), my subconscious mind was channeling the moment in which Tom Cruise was sprinting like hell through a panicked city to avoid being disintegrated by the tripod death rays.
Annihilation (dir. Alex Garland)
Here’s another case where a movie’s score informed my writing. Songs like the title track and “The Alien” were my frequent companions as I put fingertips to keyboard and lived in the world of VEIL. I also loved the sense of dread Alex Garland created, as well as the grim determination of Natalie Portman and her companions. Some of this flavor probably insinuated itself into the final two acts of my book, in which my surviving characters (VEIL has a pretty high body count) undergo a highly dangerous brain surgery in order to see the alien invaders and to do battle with them. As you might also imagine, the survivors in VEIL dwindle and the body count rises as the novel hurtles toward its balls-to-the-wall conclusion.
Predator (dir. John McTiernan)
Total honesty: I didn’t think of Predator a single time when I was writing VEIL, but after the reviews started to roll in and I saw more than one mention of the 1987 Schwarzenegger sci-fi/horror/action/adventure flick, I figuratively slapped my forehead and thought, “Of course! That movie had to have influenced my novel.” After all, I saw it when I was an impressionable adolescent, and I remember loving it at the time. I need to revisit the film soon, but for now, we’ll file it in the “Probably Influenced VEIL” category.
Aliens (dir. James Cameron)]
And now we come to it, a movie that I’m certain influenced VEIL in several fundamental ways. In fact, Aliens so deeply imprinted itself on me as a kid that I can see its influence in a host of my books (notably the Children of the Dark series). James Cameron’s film was just so ferocious and relentless, not unlike the xenomorphs themselves. Aliens taught me that villains can be cruel, sadistic, and well-nigh unstoppable, but they must also be motivated. This element is what makes Sigourney Weaver’s confrontations with the Queen Alien so terrifying: both characters are motivated by more than hatred—they’re motivated by love.
Though it might sound cheesy, I don’t believe there’s a more powerful force in the universe than love. We protect those we care about. We fight for them. And like Ellen Ripley when she descends into the Queen’s lair for Newt, my protagonist John Calhoun will do anything—anything—to get his loved ones back. The primal power of Ripley’s love is what makes Aliens so riveting, and I hope readers feel some of that same power in the fierce determination of my protagonist.
And there you have it, friends. Six films that in some way influenced my sci-fi horror novel. If you haven’t grabbed it yet, I hope you do. VEIL is available now wherever books are sold.
Categorized: Editorials
