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Stephen Romano: author/screenwriter

		www.shockfestival.net Male 28 years old Austin, Texas United States Last Login: 11/12/2009

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Contacting Stephen Romano: author/screenwriter

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www.myspace.com/doctortheatre

Stephen Romano: author/screenwriter's Interests

General	I am a professional screenwriter/author and also an illustrator/designer. I wrote the very first episode of the Emmy-award winning series MASTERS OF HORROR for Showtime, which was called and INCIDENT ON AND OFF A MOUNTAIN ROAD and directed by Don Coscarelli. He directed THE BEASTMASTER! (Not cool enough for ya? He also directed PHANTASM and BUBBA HO-TEP, too!) My books include THE RIOT ACT, ZOMBIE, THE BEYOND . . . and my NEW book SHOCK FESTIVAL, an illustrated novel which features hundreds of swell movie posters for Grindhouse style flicks that don't really exist! My work is "genre" . . . but I have a mission, and in that mission is a message, very often about the rage and craziness that surrounds us, and about children, who must be protected from evil. But that doesn't mean we can't pack a bullwhip, a revolver and kill vampires! My new TV show currently in development is about some interesting ladies who work for Satan and kill child molesters! Fun for the whole darn family! Meanwhile, I have this strange new side career as an illustrator because of the art skill set I was required to learn for my last book. I do a lot of real indie posters and DVD covers now. Craaazy. Take a look at some of the spiffy stuff I designed and painted for SHOCK FESTIVAL. None of these are real films. I made it all up! Neat, huh? How about this one, which I created with an assist from the amazing Martin "Dangerboy" Houlden: Or this one, which features three of my best bros as crazy assasin types (get to know me long enough and eventually YOU TOO will end up in one of my posters!: I also create movie posters and DVD covers for REAL FILMS, such as this one: Betcha can't eat just one! This is ME: That's me holding a dead baby from my Showtime movie! I have the final prop made by KNB Effects in my trophy case at home now! Anyone wanna buy it?
Music	(Is this thing on?) Music I like includes (in no particular order) MOTLEY CRUE, SUDDENLY, TAMMY!, PINK FLOYD, JAMEROQUAI (is that how you spell? Whatever--BLACK DEVIL CAR, Babyee!!!),VELVET REVOLVER, AREOSMITH (just recently caught a live show, and the legend is true---they are among the five or six BEST live acts in the world, and they're all SIXTY!), TEARS FOR FEARS, STEREOLAB, TOM WAITS, PRINCE, THE ARCADE FIRE, THE BLACK KEYS, THE DICKIES, THE CRAMPS, THE WHO, THE BEATLES, QUEEN, THE POLICE, THE MISFITS, PAULA ABDUL, SADE, PAT METHENY, COCTEAU TWINS, THOMSON TWINS (any kind of twins, really---even the Doublemint twins!), BOB CREWE, SKUNK ANANSIE, CHRIS STONE, JAMES HORNER (the realy early stuff mostly), TROY YOUNG CAMPBELL, TONI PRICE, TRISH MURPHY, SAY HELLO TO YOUR MOTHER, SUDDENLY, TAMMY! (did I mention these gusy already? Okay, I'll mention them again, because they fucking ROCK and BREAK YOUR HEART at the same time! A brother-sister-with-badass-motherfucker-on-bass act, teary, soulful AMAZING piano pop that also kicks Mobey Dick butt all over the joint), AL GREENE, ETTA JAMES, WILSON PICKETT, OTIS REDDING, NIRVANNA, GUNS N' ROSES, ALL EIGHTIES GLAM METAL BECAUSE YOU SUCK AND THE EIGHTIES ROCK, BO DIDDLY, JASON AND THE SCORCHERS, STEVIE WONDER, THE KINKS, BOB DYLAN, ELTON JOHN, DURAN DURAN, HEAVEN SEVENTEEN, BLACKILICIOUS, EARLY BLACK-EYED PEAS, MODEST MOUSE, FRANK MOTHERFUCKING ZAPPA, DAVID BOWIE, BLUES TRAVELLER, JOHN COLTRANE, WOLFGANG AMEDEUS MOZART, HARRY NIELSON, LEON RUSSELL, FREDDY KING, THE FLAMETRICK SUBS, JOHNNY CASH (did I say him already?), PATSY CLINE, 247-SPYZ, CURTIS MAYFIELD, NEW YORK DOLLS, HANOI ROCKS, FASTER PUSSYCAT, CARL STALLING, ROB ZOMBIE, PEARL JAM, THE METERS, THE METRICS, THE MONSTERS, IGGY AND THE STOOGES, ELASTICA, JIMMIE DURANT AND THE SICK MOTHERFUCKERS, RICHARD CHEESE, DOCTOR ROCKIT AND THE SISTERS OF MERCY, HERSCHEL BERRY AND THE NATIVES, THE DISHES, EXTRA, EXTRA, SMOKIN' FITZ, THE SMITHS, DIAMOND DAVE ROTH AND THE VAN HALENS, JOHN SKIPP AND CRAIG SPACTOR, PHIL SPECTOR, ALAN PARSONS PROJECTS, THE FUNKADELICS, THE DELFONICS, HAMILTION, JOE FRANK AND REYNOLDS, THE SILLY BULLSHITTERS, THE HUDSONS, L7, PIL, NIN, DOA, BFD, JFK, VCR, DEATH METAL, GOTH METAL, METAL METAL, HAIR SPRAY MUSIC, NEO-FUNK, OLD SCHOOL FUNK, FUNKY FUCKING FUNK FUNK, THE BLUES, THE GRAYS, THE REDS, THE PURPLES . . . there's a great deal more, but you probably already get the crazy-insane across-the-board point . . . and if YOU happen to have an album on sale anywhere, tell me and I WILL BUY TWO COPIES!!!
Movies	STEALTH is, quite simply, the Greatest Film Of All Time. No really. I mean it. I also like the following feature film endeavors (also in no particular order): DOG DAY AFTERNOON, UNCOMMON VALOR, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, COHEN AND TATE, FOR ALL MANKIND, KENNY AND COMPANY, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, SUPERMAN (the old, really good one!), EDDIE AND THE CRUISERS (errr . . . just kidding . . . sort of . . . oh fuck me, I grew up in the goddamn eighties, okay!?), THE BEASTMASTER, THE STUNT MAN, A CHANGE OF HABIT (the one with Elvis as a doctor and Mary Tyler Moore as an uncercover nun--IT ROCKS!!!), JACKASS, DAWN OF THE DEAD (the old, really good one!), ALIEN, PIRAHNA, SCANNERS, PHANTASM, HALLOWEEN, THE FOG, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, HEAVY METAL, STAR WARS, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, THE RETURN OF THE JEDI, SLEEPING BEAUTY, PINK FLAMINGOS, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, SUPERMAN, THE HOWLING, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (minus the incredibly crappy ending!), WIZARDS, CLASH OF THE TITANS, FORBIDDEN PLANET, FORBIDDEN WORLD, FORBIDDEN ZONE, GALAXY OF TERROR, STARCRASH (SEE this movie at all cost!), BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, ALIENS, MAD MAX, THE ROAD WARRIOR, DC CAB, DOCTOR DETROIT, ANIMAL HOUSE, CADDYSHACK, BLAZING SADDLES, THE PRINCESS BRIDE, APOLCALYPSE NOW, SLEEPER, THX1138, RESERVIOR DOGS, NEAR DARK, THE TERMINATOR, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, ANY MOVIE WITH GODZILLA IN IT, CASABLANCA, CITIZEN KANE, ED WOOD, MARS ATTACKS, MILLER'S CROSSING, NAKED LUNCH, BARTON FINK, ZOMBIE, THE GATES OF HELL, TAXI DRIVER, THE LAST TENPTATION OF CHRIST, THE BEYOND, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, AMEDEUS, JACOB'S LADDER, UP THE ACADEMY, KNIGHTRIDERS (Ed Harris in his second-finest performance behind:) THE ABYSS, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, MARATHON MAN, EL MARIACHI, ROADRACERS, A BOY AND HIS DOG, VIDEODROME, PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, TIME BANDITS and BRAZIL, SCARFACE, THE KILLER, CLOCKWORK ORANGE, DOCTOR STRANGELOVE, AKIRA, HARD-BOILED (greatest post-modern shootout movie ever made by human biengs!), THE WILD BUNCH (second-greatest post-modern shootout movie ever made by human biengs!) and, of course . . . BARBARELLA! Now . . . if what you want are more recent inspirations, lets go with ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, SESSION 9, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS, LA CONFIDENTIAL, THE DUKES OF HAZZARD (no, no, I was just seeing if you were really paying attention, folks!), CASSHERN, MILLION DOLLAR BABY, U-TURN, DREAMS, FIGHT CLUB, UNBREAKABLE (M. Night's only good movie--did anyone go see LADY IN THE WATER? All three of us went blind with boredom!), BUBBA HO-TEP, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (did I say that already--okay, I'll say it again because that movie just did me the fuck IN, man!), A SCANNER DARKLY, THE DESCENT (best monster-in-a-cave movie EVER!), KISS KISS BANG BANG, V FOR VENDETTA (the one example ever filmed of a movie far superior to its comic book origins) . . . and, of course, THE IRON GIANT! Now . . . if what you're looking for is real CRAP, I have a refined tatse for that, too. In fact, sometimes I find I enjoy really bad movies far more than the good ones. I think it was all those nights I stayed up as a child, watching MOVIE MACARBRE with Elvira . . . and certainly my addiction to MYSTERY SCIENCE THATRE 3000 never helped the situtation. When I'm really slumming, I like to watch stuff like RAMBO III (the STAR WARS of bad action movies), SHOWGIRLS (the CITIZEN KANE of bad everything movies), MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, STARCRASH (again here because it trandscends sheer badness and goes straight into the halls of legendry . . . . ) Then there's PURPLE RAIN, TUFF TURF, THE PUNISHER, MANOS THE HANDS OF FATE, ACES: IRON EAGLE III, and a movie I made about a million years ago called THE INCREDIBLE MIDNIGHT MOVIE MASSACRE. That one was the worst of all!!!! Bsides, STEALTH, of course.
Television	MASTERS OF HORROR is the greatest TV show of all time!!! REALLY!!!
Books	Anything YOU wrote is my favorite book of all time, 'specially if it's got nasty sex scenes in it! And if you wanna really impress me, here's your reading list: 1. THE FAN MAN by William Kotzwinkle. The Kotz is this century’s greatest living writer. He is a magician and a master. One of my great ambitions in life is to spend just a few minutes in a room with this guy so I can hear what his fucking VOICE sounds like! The Fan Man is his masterwork, and my favorite book of all time. It's about believing in dreams and keeping the faith, even when it seems as if the absurd is pressing in from all sides, and the demons are ripping everything from your grasp. Horse Badordies is a hero for all time---not a role model, but a savior shining a multicolored candle in the dark. And in a world of apartment-raiding rapists, crooked cops and perverts who defecate openly on the subway, our savior comes disguised as a drugged-out, half-mad relic of the 1960's, who mission in life is to get teenage girls into a church to sing The Love Choir music in tune with a hundred hand held electric fans! Sound goofy? It is. It is also one of the best books you'll ever read. I give you my full-on, double-bonded word or your money fucking BACK, Jack. ALSO . . . read any damn thing you can find with the name William Kotzwinkle on the cover. He is the MAN, man. Other favorites are JACK IN THE BOX, THE HOT JAZZ TRIO, THE EXILE, NIGHTBOOK, THE BEAR WENT OVER THE MOUNTAIN and ELEPHANT BANGS TRAIN. New Line Cinema made JACK into a terrible movie called BOOK OF LOVE. Ironically, The Kotz’s most mainstream fame comes from the fact that he wrote the novelization of E.T. THE EXTRATERESTRIAL . . . and recently because he wrote a series of children's books about a FARTING DOG!!! Now THAT'S some kind og hero, man!!! On a horror note, is fine screenplay for A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART 4 was butchered into the Renny Harlin film of the same title . . . which, also ironically, was the most successful of all seven Freddy films to date at the box office. I personally saw it four time in the theatre way back in 1988 when it first came out . . . just because, Jack! 2. FREEZER BURN by Joe R. Lansdale. Joe is my second-favorite living writer, and I actually know him and his lovely family quite well . . . so that's ONE DOWN at least! Freezer Burn is a smartly-written fable about a guy who bungles a robbery in East Texas, and ends up bitten by so many mosquitoes in his escape from the cops that his only hope is to blend in at a local freak show carnival, where he befriends a Dog Faced boy and gets it on with a hideous mutant’s beautiful wife . . . and then it gets weird! Read this. It's not what you think. Ever. 3. TRANSMETROPOLITAN by Warren Ellis and Darrick Robertson. This one will melt your soul through your shoes! Try to imagine what would happen if Hunter S. Thomson were transported into a bizarre alternate-reality future where the politicians are just as crooked and the game is rigged in ways you can't possibly imagine or see coming. It's a series of ten graphic novels collecting a popular comic series, which each trace the life and times of Spider Jerusalem as he battles for truth, justice and better drugs at any cost! Quite simply, one of the greatest comics ever written and illustrated. 4. FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS by HST Do I even need to speak the words about this bad son of a bitch? I didn't think so. 5. ON WRITING by Stephen King This is the best book I have ever read about how to be a writer. It helped my craft tenfold and made great things happen for in my life when I believed in what the guy was telling me. It's no bullshit, from-the-hip instruction from a man who has told many great stories of his own, including . . . 6. THE RUNNING MAN By Richard Bachman King did this nasty little sci-fi number back in "the day" under a pen name . . . and never mind that GODAWFUL movie they mutated the thing into. THAT FILM HAS ALMOST NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THIS BOOK, which is brilliant, insightful, TEXTBOOK science-fiction with balls to spare and amazing foresight. Written in the early eighties, this is the first work of fiction to predict the rise of reality television! Expect a better, more faithful try at this in movie form soon. Its time has come. 7. LOGAN'S RUN By Bill Nolan and George Clayton Johnson Here's another great book with reaching vision and great action scenes that was sodomised by Hollywood. In the future, if you're over 21, you're dead. 'nuff said. 8. THE DIRT by Motley Crue. This book will want to make you become a rock star. Guaranteed. It is funny, terrifying, insightful, touching, vomitous and towers above all other tomes I've ever read on the biz. 9. FOX IN SOX by Doctor Seuss If you can read this book aloud in three minutes, I will give you one hundred tangerines. 10. SURVIVOR by Chuck Palahniuk. Forget about CHOKE and FIGHT CLUB---this one is Chuck’s best by far: Ambitious, bizarre, exciting and filled with all the swell Chuck-isms you know and love from his other work. Also required reading on his list: INVISIBLE MONSTERS, HAUNTED, and A WALK THROUGH PORTLAND, OREGON. 11. BORN BAD by Andrew Vachss. Andrew is a true warrior for the new millennium: a fighter against the evil epidemic of child rape/abuse who disguises his teachings as brilliant psychological crime fiction. BB is a great primer to his work: then read the first seven books in the BURKE series, starting with FLOOD. This shit will knock you on you ass and make you want to get involved. I wrote a reference to Andrew’s crusade into my last movie script! (Don’t buy Thai, ask me why!) 12. THE BLACK DAHLIA. By James Elroy. A movie has been made of this and one of my best friends was Scarlet Johansen’s hairdresser on it . . . but that has nothing to do with this unflinching, monstrous tome, which captures every shade of the dark side in such staggering, damn-near paralyzing detail that you’ll need a shower and a barnacle-scraper to extricate yourself from the grunge weeks after reading it! LA CONFIDENTIAL is another great Elroy made into a FANTASTIC movie---but READ HIS BOOKS! EVERY DAMN ONE OF THEM! 13. BRIEF CONVERSATIONS WITH HIDEOUS MEN by David Foster Wallace. I threw this across the room when I first started reading it . . . but I picked it up again recently and it’s actually pretty good, once you get past some of the stiff posturing. Check this guy out. He paints vivid scenes with words and understands the deep alienation and alones of man. Insightful and brilliant in places. 14. THE CLEANUP by John Skipp and Craig Spector. Scathing rock and roll horror meets a celestial superhero origin story in the best book written by this immensely talented “splatter punk” tag-team. I really like this book a lot because it’s written for nerds in a style everyone else can deeply identify with. Also see THE SCREAM, THE LIGHT AT THE END, and THE BRIDGE . . . and my personal favorite (though not actually a novel, so much as a cleverly-designed book of short stories)DEADLINES . . . but the faint of heart need not apply! 15. THE ABYSS by Orson Scott Card. Yeah, this is a novel based on James Cameron’s movie . . . but it’s the best novel adapted from a film ever, and a fine read all on its own! 16. THE MYTH ADVENTURES BOOKS by Robert Aspirin. We all need some guilty pleasures and here are mine, in the ridiculous and even inane MYTH series, which is straight up wizard-and-warriors fantasy stuff, only done in a comedic style . . . but though I generally despise this genre, I like the silly, sentimental tone of the Myth books a LOT. When I’m feeling a little blue, I like to pick up one of these, or thumb through an issue or two of the comic series version. Aspirin’s dumbass-because-why-the-hell not storytelling and familiar characters always make me smile. A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN by Tom Piccirilli A master I've just recently discovered and even become friends with while promoting my own work, Tom's writing boggles the mind and engaes the heart. He writes with the measured eloquence of a young Clive Barker, the street-saavy of a learned beat poet, and effortlessly knocks my ass on the floor with each new page I turn! READ THIS GUY. NOW.
Heroes	My hero is Spider Jerusalem. Everyone else is a pussy. Including me.
Groups:	Love Buck-it, gory ass fucked up horror films and the peeps that love them, DeadandUndead, Phantasm View All Stephen Romano: author/screenwriter's Groups

Stephen Romano: author/screenwriter's Details

Status:	Single
Orientation:	Straight
Hometown:	Muleshit, PA
Zodiac Sign:	Scorpio
Occupation:	screenwriter/author (No, really!)

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Stephen Romano: author/screenwriter's Blurbs

About me:
NOW AVAILABLE FROM IDW PUBLISHING and RAW ENTERTAINMENT! MY AWESOME NEW BOOK WHICH HAS JUST BEEN VOTED "BEST FICTION BOOK OF 2008" by RUE MORGUE MAGAZINE!

It's finally here, and available at AMAZON.COM at the amazingly LOW PRICE of just 26 bucks and some change! It's a very cool "illustrated novel," which is presented in the style of psychotronic film journalism, depicting a fictional B-movie universe, illustrated with hundreds of swell posters, like the ones you see in this ad right here:

And, yes that's THOMAS JANE! He plays the role of Elliot Swann, just one of many bizarre characters you will find in SHOCK FESTIVAL, which is getting rave reviews. But allow the critics to explain:

"Take a drop of Joe R. Lansdale's blood. Then a slice from David J. Schow's scalp. Scrape some phlegm off Tarantino's tongue. Inject some of Robert Rodriguez's sperm. Pour in some Karo syrup. Mix it in a blender. Pour. These are just some of the ingredients of Stephen Romano's unique work . . . If the buzz surrounding his new book, SHOCK FESTIVAL, is any indication, Stephen Romano's work will not only turn heads, it's going to make heads roll . . . "
---CHUCKPALAHNIUK.NET

“A stone groove and as badass a tome as you're likely to come across this year or the next. If you love grindhouse, sleaze cinema, or B-movies in general, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy.”
---FILM THREAT.COM

BOOK OF THE MONTH! “One of the greatest homage to B-cinema ever undertaken . . . Shock Festival is a breathtakingly thorough overview of over 100 movies and a slew of filmmaker and actors who never existed -- but which you'll believe actually did by the time you finish reading. The breadth and variety of personalities and events rival many a “serious” novel. ”
---FANGORIA

BEST FICTION BOOK OF 2008! "While the term "mockumentary practically wrote itself, it's going to take a clever writer to describe Stephen Romano's fictional alternate history of exploitation films . . . (Romano) has created a vivid universe filled with films you'd love to see and personalities you'd line up at a convention to meet, lavishly illustrated with a plethora of eye-popping posters, lobby cards, on-set still and ad mats for such fictional films as THE UNDERTAKER AND HIS WIFE and STARFIRE BEYOND THE GALAXY . . . Fans swept up in the recent wave of grindhouse nostalgia NEED to buy this book!"
--RUE MORGUE MAGAZINE

“Stephen Romano is the Robert Rodriguez of horror! Whether he's writing short stories, novels, comics, screenplays, or designing movie posters, it seems there's nothing this cat can't do. Not only do I give (SHOCK FESTIVAL) my highest recommendation, I'm even calling it my favorite book of 2008.”
--COMICS 101.COM

“Hilarious, crude, incisive, exploitative . . . Romano’s pseudo-journalistic Endeavour (is) a genuine revelation, an event that’s rarely, if ever, been done before . . . the merging of fact and fiction into something too outrageous to be the truth, and too disarmingly ghastly/gorgeous to be anything but.”
--THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE

“Spectacularly over-the top and gloriously fictional . . . the posters are eye-poppingly accurate riffs on the genre; the profiles of the principals, though fictional, are arresting and reflect the interview-driven reporting of cinema studies. It’s a sure conversation starter, and an inspiration to revisit some of those real guilty pleasures of the grindhouse past.”
---BUTLER UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

HOT DAMN, HUH!!!? Get you copy now! They're selling fast!!!

Here is one of my favorite images from SHOCK FESTIVAL:

And here's one of the cool lobby cards. Umm . . . no actual sharks were riddled with bullets in the making of this book, FYI!

STEPHEN ROMANO IS THE NEW KLOWN PRINCE OF HORROR!!!!
And once you read The Riot Act, you will never be the same!!!

But don't take our word for it, just look at what THEY are all saying:

“These stories are controlled rawness, designed insanity, and they are dangerously on target . . . truth is, this may be the best new short story collection I’ve read in years. Stephen Romano isn’t fucking around. He means to get under your skin, bump around inside there, and with these stories he manages just that. I promise you, THE RIOT ACT is one of the most intense and unique horror story collections you will ever read.”

JOE R. LANSDALE from his introduction
Best-selling author of THE TWO BEAR MAMBO and THE DRIVE-IN

"His voice is polished, clean, powerful, and more than all that, CONFIDENT. This is a guy with a vision, a real narrative style, a dark and mesmerizing worldview. It's as if Joe Lansdale, Dave Schow, John Skipp, and Norm Partridge all had a long, wild weekend in Vegas replete with moonshine, .45s, snakeskin boots, twleve kilos of uncut Colombian coke, Five Thai hookers, and the dug-up corpse of Jim Thompson, spent three days out of their minds, and woke up the following morning to find little baby Steve Romano in the middle of the hotel room gurgling, "Daddy! Daddy!" And yes, that really IS the only way to explain how solid his fiction is. Brutal, full-on street-cred, sharp, insightful, human, authentic, bloody, savage, asskicking, but smooth and altogether pure. Seriously, you've got to check him out."

TOM PICCIRILLI
Bram Stoker Award-winning author of A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN, THE DEAD LETTERS, HEADSTONE CITY and NOVEMBER MOURNS

"This is the hard stuff, folks: the heavy metal you listened to in your car as cops with bulldog faces cruised by while you hid your joint and beer bottle between your legs; the hot chick you fantasized about before you knew she had a thing for razors and then that only made it better; the tough guys you wished you were as you watched them whaling on some kid you thanked your lucky stars you weren't; that slightly bloodstained gun in the dumpster you knew you shouldn't touch...This is the horror of lives derailed, past, present and future. This is horror in its purest form and to see it in all its grisly, gory fucked-up beauty, we can either look at the news, out the window, down into the shadows of the alley, or into the pages of The Riot Act. Both scare me equally. When I picked this book up, I had a feeling it wouldn't be my kind of thing. I was right. It wasn't. But it is now. Stephen Romano is Jackson Pollack and The Riot Act is a canvas dripping with blood red energy. Herein lies a hyper-kinetic ricochet inside the Technicolor skull of a true pioneer of urban nightmare."

--KEALAN PATRICK BURKE
Bram Stoker Award-winning author of CURRENCY OF SOULS.

“Stephen Romano is a literary gunslinger who shoots from the hip: he aims for the heart or the balls--usually both, since he’s not interested in taking prisoners. This is one storyteller you do not want to mess with.”

PHILIP NUTMAN
Award-winning author of WETWORK

AND THE CRITICS LIKE IT, TOO!!!!

"ROMANO has created a selection of tales that – even though separate – are linked together by characters and places. He has moulded a dark world that spans decades with the skill of a master professional. (His) writing is a force to be reckoned with. It has the delivery of a high powered, fully automatic weapon in the hands of an expert marksman. He creates scenes and images that assault your eyeballs, and burn through the retinas before boring in to your brain and exploding your skull with the ease of a hollow point round. I dare you to take the risk and venture in to a world that is controlled by THE RIOT ACT."

GARRY CHARLES, Hadesgate.co.uk

"Romano rips out your heart, turns it inside out, then makes you swallow it whole. He has a bloodshot eye for horror that doesn't blink in the presence of pure evil."

S.D.HINTZ, Author

There! I’m sexy and cannot be stopped!!!! Buy my shit, own the sunrise, rule the world, never say die, don’t grow up. And all that.

Friday, July 15th, 2006

TOTALLY NEW INFO DEPARTMENT: New pictures, new friends, first update in months . . . and my new book THE RIOT ACT comes out this month and you'll be able to purchase a brand spanking new copy right here on MYSPACE (for what it's worth), and at the new ACRADRETRO website, which should be up soon. Got the first test pressings back today and they look swellsville, daddyo. Here's what the cover looks like:

JOE R. LANSDALE, best-selling novelist and award-winning sumbitch extrodinaire, has indeed penned the gushing indroduction, which is flattering as hell to say the least. You'll find all manner of darkness in this bizarre bastard, from heartwreching true life confessions (LOVE LETTER TO AUNTIE FAYE) to over-the-top psycho-sexual monster science fiction (RATBOY AND DOGBREATH) . . . and other whacked-out gems such as ELLIE MAYHEM RULES THE KINGDOM, FOUR DEAD GUYS IN ZLIKER PAK and my favorite, ROCK 'N' ROLL SUICIDE WITH ROBOTS. It's a few hundred pages of the best work I've ever done . . . so get in line now! And BUY MY MOVIE, too! That's the MASTERS OF HORROR thing. We won a fucking EMMY!!!! See photo gallery below . . .

Sunday, September 1.

Okay, kids, it's OFFICIAL:

The Showtime original anthology series MASTERS OF HORROR bows its ugly mug at ten o' clock in the PM on FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28th. "Just in time for HALLOWEEN," as the trailer ads all say. It's 13 original one-hour films, each directed by a famous horror guy, such as JOHN CARPENTER, TOBE HOOPER, DARIO ARGENTO and DON COSCARELLI! That's just naming a few, kids. The premiere episode is called INCIDENT ON AND OFF A MOUNTAIN ROAD, and it's the one I WROTE! Above is a picture of little old me, getting along well with a bunch of fake dead people created for the infamous "BASEMENT SEQUENCE!" (Moo-hoo-hah-hah!!!) Below is a nifty guided tour of images that track some of the production, with a few amusing stories about what we went through to make this damn thing! I worked and/or consulted with the director every step of the way, from casting, through principal photography in Canada, all the way to final editing. I was flattered and blown away that I got to have so much input into things, and Im sure Ill never have another experience like that again (. . . well, maybe on another Don Coscarelli movie!) Not to mention that our script was the only one in the entire MASTER OF HORROR series that stood on a SINGLE DRAFT. What that means is that from the time we submitted the thing to the people producing the series, to the start of photography, NOT ONE CHANGE was requested by any of the suits in charge! Do you have any idea how rare that is, people? Well, Ill simply say this: IT NEVER HAPPENS IN HOLLYWOOD!!!! Only guys like James fucking Cameron get away with shit like that! The changes we eventually were forced to make were a result of the chaotic and rushed shooting schedule and a great many Murphys Law things that kicked us in the nuts as we went along . . . but thats the name of the game in filmmaking. The shoot was a real tough one, but I learned a lot. And I wasnt the ONLY ONE who was blown away by my hands-on participation in things. All the producers were shocked and befuddled at how much Don trusted my creative instincts and everyone was constantly whispering behind our backs when we were re-writing the script on set as we went. Some of this led to a bit of political friction, which I wont go into here . . . but that's ALSO the name of the game in filmmaking, folks. I hope they invent a new game soon. It disgusts and amazes me that I can't imagine myself doing anything else for a living!

This is MOONFACE. He's a scary seven-foot-tall albino serial killer with silver capped teeth. He's played in our film by the coolest dude in the world, namely JOHN DE SANTIS, who was also LURCH in THE NEW ADVENTURES OF THE ADDAMS FAMILY. He was also the big lead demon in THIRTEEN GHOSTS. (Or was he a GHOST in that? I can never get these things right!) Anyway, John was really swell to work with and he's scary as hell in the movie!

THIS is our fearless director DON COSCARELLI. He's my pal. And he directed PHANTASM, THE BEASTMASTER and BUBBA HO-TEP . . . so he's way up in the cool book, too! Don and I wrote the screenplay together, and he was nice enough to let me make up almost all of the dialogue! Cooler still, the script is based on a GREAT short story by one of my favorite living authors, the amazing JOE R. LANSDALE! Do you know what that fucking MEANS, people? It means I got to work with TWO of my all-time favorite creative artists on my very first big-deal Hollywood movie----AWESOME!!!! We made INCIDENT in just TEN DAYS, and it wasn't easy. (Actually, it was eleven days, because we ended up with a lot to do at the end of the shoot, and we whined and begged the execs in charge to give us more time to get the movie right. It would still be unfinished to this moment had they not given us that extra day.) I LOVE this picture of Don. He looks like a real badass. Don't fuck with him.

Here's HOWARD BERGER in the makeup trailer, doing John up with his swell face for the film. Along with his partner in KNB Effects, Greg Nicotero, Howard is one of the most in-demand special makeup effects artists working today, having done every damn movie you can think of, including PULP FICTION, LAND OF THE DEAD, SIN CITY and the upcoming film version of THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. Here he is assisted by the incredible MICHAEL FIELDS, an up-and-coming hotshot at the KNB effects company, who was really great to hang with on the set and watch at work. Every single morning, John Desantis had to sit through two hours of what you're seeing here, which is having a LOT of rubber glued to his mug . . . and then he had to go through another half hour getting his shoulders and arms airbrushed white to complete the albino effect. I almost never saw him out of makeup. He also wore red contacts, which were applied by a really hot lens technician from Germany, who's name I can't remember to save my life. (Her name doesn't show up in the credits either for some insane reason or another.) But shit, she was hot . . . and she had a nifty exotic accent, too. Never got a picture of her. DAMN!!!!

Here's another couple of hotties I got to work with on the film. On the left is Bree Turner, a fine actress and a swell human being. She made her movie debut in that first DEUCE BIGALOW flick as the "Aquarium Girl." (The character had a name in the film, but I can't remember what it was.) In our story, she's the fearless heroine who battles Moonface to the death, and she gave a GREAT performance! On the left is the LOVELY miss DANA HAMEL, who did everyone's "straight" makeup on the film, including some of John's. She's an award-winner, you know, and made Bree look really icky in these basement scenes. Since we were shooting all over the script on any given day, Dana really had to think on her feet and keep plenty of Polaroid continuity snapshots handy to determine whether or she would make Bree look like she'd been slapped around, run through the woods, banged on the head until bloody, or just plain cute. (The cute stuff only happens in the first five minutes, before all the mayhem starts---most of the time, everybody in this film looks like they've been brutally savaged in some bizarre gardening accident.) She was one of the people on the crew I was most impressed with, and she was nice to me. Plus she's a snappy dresser! So is Bree.

Another hot chick. Jesus, Stephen. No, really, shes beautiful AND TALENTED! This here is SARAH GRAHM, who was Howard Bergers other key makeup artist on the film. She was in charge of a couple of the deep stabbing effects that will really gross you out. Sarah never talked to me much, but she really enjoyed her job, and I was impressed by one particularly nasty bit of gore she came up with---so shes in the cool book, defacto, hands-down!

Okay, one more chick before we move on, okay? This is our amazing set decorator, looking all silly for the camera, getting the nasty basement set ready for shooting. You can see here some of the detail on the set, which was really expensive and very elaborately tricked-out with incredibly realistic and BLOODY corpses, most of which you will NOT see in the film because the rushed schedule (and other problems) did not allow for shooting many close-ups. Thats a shame, because some of this stuff is truly disturbing and would have been great to include on film! Our Set Dec babe was really cool to me, and she let me keep many props from the film, most of which I gave away when I got back to America to my friends. (I kept the nastiest, way-coolest trophy for myself, of course . . . but I cant tell you what it is. YET! Moo-hoo-hah-hah . . .)

Ahhhhh . . . . my old friend ANGUS SCRIMM. Don and I wrote a part into the film especially for this incredible guy, who is also the star of the PHANTASM pictures as The Tall Man. Angus (real name Rory Guy) just loved the character, and stayed religiously on-script during his performance, speaking nearly every word of the dialogue exactly as I wrote it for him! I kind of hoped he would run with it a little more, but he insisted that the character was perfect. He plays a crazy old guy who Moonface keeps around in his basement as a sort of mascot. Angus loved the finished film and he even called me a genius recently in print. Man, is that a TRIP or what? I GREW UP watching this guys movies!

This is the creepy cabin that was built in six sections just for us and placed on top of a mountain! No, really, they actually DID THAT! And they had these gigantic helium baloons that floated over the whole mountain, casting giant rays of artificial moonlight over the entire location. We had cranes, lightning rigs, and about a million crew guys busting theier assses to get these shots. This photo was taken during lunch, just before the sun went down and they started on this location. Since the actual shots in the scene take place in the dead of night, you can't even tell we're on a real mountain most of the time . . . but we were, dammit!

This is the first day of shooting. The cast and crew has already shot THREE major dramatic sequences with Bree Turner and her co-star ETHAN EMBRY (an amazing character actor who gives what I believe to be the performance of his entire career as a really haunting and scary survivalist) . . . and were all cold, tired and we want to go home. You see, on most films, you get a whole day---sometimes even a FEW DAYS---to film an emotionally-draining and logistically sticky scene like the THREE Bree and Ethan just did. We had TEN DAYS for our whole damm movie! So we managed to get those crucial sequences in the can before lunch (they came out great!), and now were in the woods behind the main location set, shooting a confrontation with Moonface! In the end, we will get FIVE key dialogue and action bits completely wrapped in ONE DAY of shooting. This was the only day, by the way, where things went almost exactly on schedule. Every other day was an uphill climb against rapidly-escalating odds. Thats me on the right, mugging it up in the freezing Vancouver summer. My buddy Justin on the left, who came up with me from Austin to watch the shoot.

For EVEN MORE about the making of MASTERS OF HORROR, and a few more swell photographs, check out my gallery, and the most recent BLOGS, which will be forthcoming as I have time to spew. ENJOY, fuckers . . . and watch my MOVIE in October!!!!