I’d read The Girl Next Door in preparation for the film adaptation, and it was the first novel Id read by Jack Ketchum. It was by far, the most gut brutal story I had ever read, and I’ve read quite a few. It was hard to return to, and absolutely engrossing at the same time. What made its adaptation so questionable when it was in production was the sole question – was Moderncine going to be able to reflect what made the book so powerful, without being edited into oblivion or black marked as tasteless – with all the underage rape and all. Director Greg Wilson and executive producer Andrew van den Houten nailed it by the time all was said and done, portraying The Girl Next Door as an excellently made, art-like film, done with taste and professionalism – more importantly, all the while keeping the audience emotionally in touch with the stomach wrenching horror at hand.

With this in mind, I entered Vince & Eddie’s on West 68th street, a simple but elegant little place nestled just off Central Park West. I was a few minutes early, so the bartender hooked me up with my first of three Stella Artios. Jack arrived right on time. We sat down and got right to talking about the upcoming film…

JM: Do you see Offspring living up to the expectations that readers have for its facets of extreme violence? There are some seriously bloody, flooring moments of violence in this story that your fans are looking forward to seeing on the big screen. Can we expect the same sort of unfiltered treatment to this story, as they did with The Girl Next Door?

Ketchum: Yes, I think so. Andrew is meticulous when it comes to detail, as you can see with how he produced The Girl Next Door – which is why I agreed to him doing this adaptation. I knew he would give it the focus it deserved and reflect that to the screen to fans the way I would like to see it be told. You can see pieces in the trailer, literally, how they reenacted the kitchen scene, the house invasion. Its definitely got the blood and gore you would expect.

JM: When the trailer was released, the commenting began – the only griping I’ve heard thus far is regarding the appearance of the tribe – the cannibals – that they look a little costumed. Do they appear in the movie how you portrayed them in the novel?

Ketchum: (laughs) Well in the book, they didn’t really have much for clothes. A lot of it was out there and Andrew (the director) - having the attention for detail and clarity that he does – he’d originally planned for the kids to be naked. When it went by the boards though, they said no way, so of course, some raggedy shit had to be thrown over their privates. They’re survivors of a disbanded clan of years and years ago, and they don’t have access to the nearest Kohls, so they pretty much dressed in rags and leaves and sticks. That doesn’t make sense?

JM: Makes sense to me. How close do you work with filmmakers on adaptations of your books?

Ketchum: It depends. With Offspring I actually wrote the screenplay as well, so I had a direct influence in so many ways. I’m pretty lucky – so far I’m four for four with my films. I’ve really enjoyed how all four of them have turned out.

JM: I saw you in the Offspring trailer. “Cause of death?” “They ripped her heart out, George,” you say over the heartless corpse. I’ve seen you in just about every one of the movies - obviously you like doing the cameos. Should we keep looking for you – is this something you plan on continuing to do?

Ketchum: Oh yes. Id love to keep doing the cameo thing, you know, Hitchcock style. I used to act a bit, a long time ago, so it feels good to get behind the camera. I was able to play the coroner in Offspring, so I was able to see the work they did on the set, where a few of the characters are ripped apart in their home – and I have to say, I don’t think anyone will be disappointed in the gore side of it – it was bad in there. (laughs) So, yeah - so far I’ve played a coroner, two bartenders, and a carnie.

JM: You were The Girl Next Door? I didn’t see you.

Ketchum: Yeah I was running one of the rides. Real short glimpse. In fact I may have even been cut from the final print by the time it was all done, so… (laughs) but yeah.

JM: The actors really nailed their characters in The Girl Next Door. Blanche Baker as Ruth – my God. She made some woman sitting next to me, cry, at the premiere in New York. She was sobbing, “Oh Lord, please leave that dear child alone…” (laughs) She looked like such a bitch, with those wrinkles and sunken in face. She was fantastic.

Ketchum: Oh yeah, Blanche is one hell of an actress. The wrinkles and sunken appearance were all augmented of course, to make her look as nasty as she was. In real life, Blanche is one of the nicest, sweetest people you could ever meet. The really funny, ironic thing is – you know the girl who played Meg…

JM: Blythe Auffarth...

Ketchum: Right. She looks so sweet and innocent. We’re at a shoot – it’s the part at the carnival, during the day, when Meg comes up to David at the hot dog stand and tells him she hasn’t eaten in days – we’re all there and it’s a public park they’re trying to shoot at – so there’s people running around everywhere. Most of them respected the fact that we were trying to make a film, but some of them weren’t. “We don’t have to be quiet – this is a public place!” so Blythe is like, as sweet as she is, “Please, its just for a couple of minutes…” These people just didn’t care. So they try again, and again, and the kids are running all over the place, jumping in the pool. Finally Blythe just screams out, “We’re trying to get this scene done!!! Will you please, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!”

JM: She looks so innocent. That’s funny.

Ketchum: Oh it was great! You should have seen the look on those kids faces!

JM: Now that woman who did all that shit – the one Ruth was based on – she’s still alive, right?

Ketchum: No, she’s dead. She did some time, but that bitch died a free woman. There’s some great stuff on Wikipedia if you want to learn more about the true story behind it. Just look up Sylvia Likens.

JM: That’s fucking unreal she died free. What a bitch. (drinks) Back to Offspring - I have never read a sequel without reading the original, but Andrew van den Houten made it pretty clear to me that this was a stand alone story – that you really don’t need to know much about the first story, Off Season – in order to enjoy it or get the most out of it. Now, this being a sequel, things have already taken place – especially to one of the main characters, Peters, the old sheriff that drove them out before – he is in Offspring. Are there flashbacks to the important elements of the previous story, or –

Ketchum: We didn’t touch on Off Season at all, we left it alone. Somebody else has the film rights to Off Season, and they’ve done absolutely nothing with it, which is a fucking shame. But Offspring stands perfectly on its own – there was really no need for flashbacks or anything the like. It’s a totally different time, different set of people. There are a few references to the time before, for story sake – continuity - but that’s it. Nobody watching Offspring will be left in the dark by not knowing what happened in Off Season.

JM: What brought you back to this story, some 20 years later?

Ketchum: Why did I write Offspring? There was more to the story I wanted to tell. That, and I wanted to get Off Season back in print. As the years went on, the books of mine that came out would have these covers that read things like, “From the author of Off Season…” It’d say that a lot, and all the while, Off Season was out of print, and damned if you could find a copy. So part of me also figured, hell, this’d be a great way to bring the first story back out to print. It didn’t work though. Now you can get both of them, but – the other reason I wrote Offspring was I wanted to say something about the people, these two nuclear families. Three if you count the cannibals.

JM: The story being about cannibals - raiding houses, dismembering families, wearing the flesh, carting off limbs… Can we expect to see all of this or is it going to be implied?

Ketchum: If you read the book, you know what happens to Amy and David in their home. The family at the beginning of the story, in the kitchen. Its all pretty verbatim. Lot of stumps and bloody red stuff everywhere when I was on the set. Its definitely gory.

JM: Any changes made to the screenplay – story wise? Does it play out just like in the novel, or is there something different?

Ketchum: All of it translates itself directly from the novel, except for one small part at the ending. At the start of things it was all going by the book but I ended up pitching the idea to Houten – what if (edit) lives on at the end, instead of dying. Its not really a big difference, it just leaves things open for a “what if” – Offspring took place 20 yrs later because some had lived on – and now the same thing.

JM: Now – in the book, there’s this “thing” or person named COW. Cow seeds the clan, he’s always ready quickly, and these are young girls. Long story short, something sick was going on. Was someone humpin animals in that cave? Someone’s reaching around and under and slipping it in…

Ketchum: COW is in the film, and yes, COW gets milked.

JM: What the hell is the Cow? Who is he?

Ketchum: (laughs) The Cow’s a sex slave, basically, and probably a bit retarded from the get-go – but definitely out of his gourd now. He’s used for procreation and amusement.

JM: (laughs) It’s funny. Cow, the Woman, First and Second Stolen, Rabbit, Eartheater – sickos in their own right, because they’re cannibals. But, they’re innocent in the sense that they’re just trying to survive – eat. Its all they know. Steven, one of the characters in the story fighting to survive. He may be civilized, but he’s scum. He stabs his own in the back. I liked that hidden, reflective vein in the story. How you’d expect black to be black and white to be white, but its not.

Ketchum: Yeah, Steven’s a prick. The guy who plays him in the film does a great job. You remember the backpack part, with the hitchhiker.

JM: Right – Ill let you out, just throw out your pack.

Ketchum: (laughs) He’s not a nice guy.

JM: You did another story that I once read, called Weed Species, released by Cemetery Dance publishing, not more than a few years ago.

Ketchum: You read that? (smirks)

JM: That was about the most vile shit I’ve ever read in my life. People in that were absolute scum as well.

Ketchum: Oh yeah.

JM: Was that based on anything true, like some of your other stuff is?

Ketchum: Yes – the couple at the beginning – the girl who rapes her little sister with her boyfriend – they were based on a real life couple. They actually did a TV movie based on their killing spree called the Ken and Barbie Murders. It was so censored and watered down it was ridiculous.

JM: Was there ever anything that you had on the tip of your fingers that was just so vile and appalling that you just couldn’t put it in – or said to yourself – no I cant write that, that just goes too far?

Ketchum: I think Weed Species is about the worst of anything that I’ve written. That one was bad. You know, I’ve always felt its not so much the blood and the gore that’s scary, as much as its what we as normal everyday people manage to do to one another. You can read history books, sometimes even just read the news, and some of the scariest things you can go through, people are doing to each other down the street, just a few houses down from yours – to their children, to their old parents, to the little guy in a group of friends... You don’t have to look far.

JM: Anything else of yours getting adapted into films?

Ketchum: There are a number of novels that could be adapted: Hide & Seek, Cover, She Wakes, Stranglehold, Ladies Night. There are scripts floating around for Right to Life and Joyride, and Chris Siverston (The Lost) has an option on my script for Old Flames. Lucky McGee has options on a screenplay I just recently wrote, called The Passenger.

JM: Can you tell us about The Passenger?

Ketchum: The Passenger is a story about a woman stranded on the rode looking for a ride, who coincidentally gets picked up by an old friend. Problem is, she is fucking nuts. Up the road a ways, a trio of rapist murderers are hitchhiking after getting into an accident during their escape. So in no time, what you have is our main character sitting in a car with a lunatic driver and three murderous rapists in the back seat. She's going to have one hell of a bad day.

JM: Last question I suppose... On a lot of your books, Stephen King praises your work with quotes, endorsing you as “the scariest guy in America,” etcetera. Have you come to know him at all by writing yourself into a horror career?

Ketchum: Funny you should ask that – we just in Sarasota, Florida together not too long ago and while we were there, we caught My Bloody Valentine in 3D at a noon matinee. Place was empty except for us and a crippled guy up front. Steve is good people and a good friend.

JM: You guys like the movie?

Ketchum: You know, it was a lot better than we expected. The 3D was great. We had a good time. By this time we’d finished our third round, and it was time to part ways. Jack was to be on his way out of town the following day – to an overseas trip to the Paris Book Fair – where he was to be a guest of honor. We walked out of Vince & Eddie’s on West 68th street with a golden buzz and listened to the horns of a distant trumpet player as we walked past the corner fruit and around into Central Park for a smoke and a slightly more golden glow. Thanks go out to Mr. Ketchum for meeting us at his local watering hole. He, his friends and the staff were all as warm and friendly as could be. Ill have a full review of Offspring the novel, and the film, in the weeks to come.

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