Dan Wells DragonCon Panel: "I Am Not A Serial Killer"

Dan Wells, author of the mystery-horror novel I Am Not A Serial Killer that was recently adapted into an independent film, was allowed to spend over a week on the film set, a rare honor in the film business.

At the 2016 DragonCon screening of the movie (you can see my the spoiler-free review of the movie here), Wells said most of the time writers of the source material aren't included much. He cited the case of one writer who was only allowed on-set one day and not allowed to talk to anybody. However, the director of IANASK was a friend of his. So Wells got to be on-set ten days and talk to the cast members about their characters. Speaking as someone who'd love to see his books adapted into movies (Battle for the Wastelands could easily be a cross between Gettysburg and Lord of the Rings), this would be a high honor indeed.

Furthermore, the film's low budget--$1.2 million--gave them a lot more creative freedom than a big-budget film with a lot of studio money people involved did. Executive Meddling is a common problem in the film business, especially if there are concerns the filmmakers' vision might alienate audiences. With costs so low, it's easier to make a profit and thus more risks can be taken.


During a Q&A session after the movie, I asked Wells about why the movie looked so old-fashioned. He said it was shot on FujiFilm that's no longer made. The director of photography had two movies' worth of this film stored in a refrigerator in his garage. They wanted an "old, gritty-looking" feel to the movie and this they got. I read elsewhere the film was shot on 16mm film. I'm not familiar with how movies shot on different media look (although I did notice when I last saw Dog Soldiers that it looked in part like it was shot in the 1970s and apparently older Dr. Who episodes were shot at least in part on video), so I guess that's why movies shot in particular time periods look the way they do.

I also asked why the killer didn't attack John when John came across him killing another character and Wells said it was clearer in the book that the killer was too weak to do both.

Wells also said he wrote the book he wanted to write and the book served as a test for finding "his people." Wells paraphrased how they'd react below:

"I thought this was a crime novel. Holy cow, this is a monster. This is so cool!"

The audience also learned that half of the I Am Not a Serial Killer extras also worked on the television series Fargo. Given that both stories take place in the cold Upper Midwest, this is a pretty good choice.

Before the film, Wells' Writing Excuses cohort Brandon Sanderson (yes, the one who finished the Wheel of Time series when Robert Jordon died) interviewed Wells. They spoke about their long friendship and the easygoing competition they have with each other. That got the audience a tale of the origin story for IANASK--Wells worked for a scrapbooking company and read serial-killer biographies to ward off the excess of kitsch. When Sanderson gave him a ride home, he regaled him with the MacDonald Triad, which informed the first line of the first draft.

"There are three traits common to serial killers. I have all of them."

Wells also said that he wanted his adaptation to be different from the book. After all, he's written the book already and knows what's going to happen. For example, John's love interest (as much as he can love) Brooke in the novel is blonde, but the actress is brunette. Although he was skeptical at first, after seeing her performance it was hard for Wells to see Brooke as blonde afterward. And although he and the director had some "friction" over how the movie had a different ending than the book, Wells did say it looked good on film and overall, it was fun to see others' interpretation of his ideas.

Finally, we also learned the first version of the script had a lot of voice-over, reflecting how the novel was told in first-person POV. However, this ended up cut out--people will assume the protagonist is safe. Furthermore, Wells said that actor Max Records, who plays Cleaver, conveys all the V.O. stuff through his facial expressions anyway.

Movie Review: I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER (2016)

The evening of the first day of DragonCon 2016, I had the opportunity to see a screening of mystery-horror film I Am Not A Serial Killer, with Dan Wells, author of the novel on which it was based, answering questions before and after the show. The panel discussion will be its in own blog post; now it's time for the review...

The Plot

Teenage John Wayne Cleaver (Max Records) works in a funeral home, has a fascination with serial killers, and has recently been diagnosed as a clinical sociopath. To prevent himself from harming others, he lives by a strict series of rules. However, a serial killer has begun stalking his small Midwestern town and Cleaver may have to break his rules to defeat him...especially since the killer isn't human.

The Good

*The film has some extremely creepy and suspenseful scenes. Even though I knew the general outlines of what was going to happen, there are many scenes where you fear just what Cleaver or his seemingly-benign elderly neighbor Mr. Crowley (Christopher Lloyd) are going to do.

*The film has a lot of really good dialogue, including Cleaver's Crowning Moment of Awesome from the book where he terrifies the oafish high school bully at a Halloween dance. Records delivers the lines with what another review I read describes as aggressive cheerfulness in a sequence that drew laughter, applause, or a combination thereof from the audience. Cleaver's reaction to catching his mother at dinner with his therapist Dr. Neblin (Karl Geary) is pretty funny too, as is Neblin's reaction to his comments. The confrontation between Cleaver and the killer in a chapel just before the film rolls to its violent conclusion is also well-done.

*Geary and Lloyd deliver the best performances in the film. Neblin is extremely witty and obviously cares very much for Cleaver, while Lloyd lets the occasional flash of creepiness or rage shine through Crowley's kindly old neighbor persona, setting up something much worse to come.

*There are lots of interesting character moments. Although Brooke (Lucy Lawton) plays a smaller role than I remember her playing in the book, the friendliness and kindness that marked her character are still made clear in a couple scenes. Crowley displays some interesting depths--in one scene he quotes William Blake's poem "The Tiger" to reveal what in hindsight is self-loathing.

*The filmmakers do a good job showing rather than telling Crowley's love for his wife, which is an extremely important motivator for his character.

*I noticed the film looked kind of old-fashioned in terms of the coloration, how things appeared on the screen, etc. It turns out it was shot entirely on 16mm film, film that is no longer made but the filmmakers kept cooled in their garage for years. Wells said they were going for an "old, gritty-looking" feel and in that they succeeded.

*The violence in the film is sudden and brutal rather than stylized. This is much more like real-life violence than movie violence.

*Per my comment above, the scene where the killer's true identity--and true nature--is revealed is very well-done. John's reaction is also done well.

The Bad

*The movie was rather slow-moving. That was my single biggest problem with the movie. I remember checking my watch multiple times, which is my main indicator of whether a film is entertaining or not.

*It's not clear why Cleaver decides to interfere with the killer's activities at all, although when he does decide to, the movie does make it clear why he chooses to challenge Crowley personally. It's been many years since I've read the book, but the book jacket suggests he's doing to protect his family and the town--he's fighting "a menace to everything and everyone he would love, if only he could." Although he doesn't have an emotional connection with anybody, he knows he should and is acting accordingly. Yes, Cleaver is a psychopath, but instead of thinking nothing is wrong with him, he knows he's damaged and wants to be better.

*Records delivers some of Cleaver's snarky dialogue really well, but I never got a creepy incipient psycho-killer vibe from him. In the book there's a scene where he discusses with Dr. Neblin trapping and torturing prairie dogs in a way that comes off like he's discussing playing with Legos. That illustrates just how warped he is, but didn't make it into the movie. He does watch Brooke and her family through a window early on, but the creepiness in that scene was too subtle. I expected someone far more intense and overtly unsettling. The closest we get to that early on is a scene where he has to restrain himself from attacking a trio of bullies, but that could have easily been him trying to avoid escalating a situation into a fight he can't win, not checking murderous tendencies.

*At one point Cleaver catches the killer in the act, but the killer frightens him away rather than immediately attack him as well. Wells said during the panel that in the novel it was explicitly stated he was too weak to kill Cleaver and finish what he was doing with the corpse at the same time and the film let the reader draw that conclusion. However, I didn't get that, which is why I had to ask in the first place.

*The final confrontation between Cleaver and the killer is rather underwhelming.

The Verdict

A rather minimalist film, but still creepy and suspenseful. 8.5 out of 10.

Book Review: Dan Wells' "Mr. Monster" (Spoilers)

Awhile back, I reviewed Dan Wells' book I Am Not A Serial Killer, which I learned about on the Writing Excuses podcast.

Now I've gotten around to reading Mr. Monster, the second book in the trilogy.  Here comes my review...

The Good

It's a pretty quick read.  It couldn't have taken me more than two hours to finish--a couple of chapters at the beginning, then most of the book while on the elliptical at the L.A. Fitness, and maybe half an hour tops to finish it after working out.  My main problem with the first book was that it was slow-moving, and that's not an issue here.

Wells foreshadows that protagonist John Wayne Cleaver's sister Lauren's boyfriend Curt is bad news when he constantly belittles her, ostensibly in a joking fashion, at a family dinner.  When Lauren shows up crying saying he'd hit her, that's no surprise.

Bully Rob Anders physically attacking Cleaver, whom he is convinced is a killer, builds well on an earlier incident in Mr. Monster in which he claims Cleaver wants to kill him but is afraid of getting caught and the confrontation at the school dance in I Am Not a Serial Killer which Cleaver messes with his mind.  I haven't read I Don't Want To Kill You, the third book in the trilogy, but Anders could make himself very problematic.

The revelation that the FBI agent Forman is another demon came as kind of a shock, but not a bad one.  His emotion-sensing/feeding abilities that he reveals in more detail once he takes Cleaver to his house of horrors (more on that later) are foreshadowed by his rant about Stephanie the receptionist.  And the cliffhanger ending of Chapter 14 ("you tell me how you killed a god") was really good.

I also liked one of Forman's lines where he describes what the demons (in particular the one who masqueraded as Mr. Crowley in the first book) are like from their point of view:

"When your ancestors crawled out of the muck and howled at the darkness it was he who answered them, great and terrible."

That gave me that weird tingly feeling I get in my scalp sometimes.

And the house of horrors...yikes.  I read through that part as quickly as possible because I wanted to get through it.  It reminded me entirely too much of this nasty horror book I read part of on Smashwords involving some sicko who kept a woman in a cage barely bigger than she was for 17 years, feeding her only baby formula he made too hot on purpose, that reduced her to something resembling a concentration-camp victim. Only there were several such women and although there was less starvation, there was a lot more torture.  Particularly twisted was the person bricked up alive in a wall except for eye holes so she had to watch Forman torture others.

If Wells wanted to make the point that this was what the "demons" were typically like and Crowley was less horrifically bad because he'd discovered love and was living as a human (and killed only to maintain his human form when it was falling apart), he's done a darn good job.  I'm including this under the "good" because even though it wasn't pleasant to read, it inspired an emotional reaction and that means Wells is a good writer.

I liked the trap he laid for Forman that ultimately killed him and how he used his anticipation of killing him (that Forman could sense) to make Forman think he anticipated killing Brooke--until Forman grabbed an electrified knife.  Goodbye.  :)


The ending line when he has Forman's cell phone and calls one of the people he recognizes as another demon and flat-out challenges her was really well-done.

"Because you're next," I said.  "I'm the demon slayer.  Come and get me."

That needs to be on the TVTropes page for "Crowning Moment of Awesome."  Sociopath or not, he at least recognizes he's got a problem and tries to keep the problem contained.  That automatically makes him higher on the moral food chain than 10,000-odd year old sadistic supernatural predators who he's just declared war on.

And considering how the dying Forman claims to have won--prior to this he tried to force Cleaver to torture and kill Curt and then his sort-of girlfriend Brooke--that seems nice and ominous.  Cleaver has had less control over his darker side in this story than before and many of Forman's actions were intent on breaking even that.  It's like Star Wars, with Palpatine goading Luke into killing him in hopes of converting him to the Dark Side.  Cleaver might be more dangerous to the demons now, but he's also more dangerous to a lot of other people too.

The Bad

Some of the characterizations of Cleaver undermine his diagnosis as a sociopath.  For example, when he learns Curt is abusing Lauren, his volcanic reaction seems to indicate emotional attachment.  Sociopaths cannot feel emotional attachments.  Cleaver might realistically get that angry on territorial grounds--Lauren is HIS sister and nobody can mess with her because he is HIS.  He'd view her as a prized possession or a pet, not a person.  However, that does not seem to be the case.

Another example is when Brooke breaks up with him because her being with him reminds her of what happened in Forman's house of horrors.  One of the major traits of sociopathy is lack of empathy.  Wells' illustrated that well in the first book when he had Cleaver recount torturing animals as if he were playing with Legos--it was like he was unaware of their suffering.

When Brooke breaks up with him, he should have at least some initial difficulty understanding her reasoning.  Heck, he could be upset at her "ingratitude" for saving her life and that would make things even more unpleasant for both of them.

Also, it's not really clear why Curt went to all the extra effort of setting Forman's house on fire.  If he thought Cleaver was in league with Forman--he certainly has grounds for it--burning the house down rather than waiting for Cleaver to come out gains him nothing.

Furthermore, since Cleaver killing the cat represents the worst violation of his rules for restraining his dark side, I think it should have been more significant.  I've heard people (Wells himself?) describing that as particularly horrifying, but it was over too quickly.


The Verdict

Not as pleasant a read as I Am Not a Serial Killer, but deals with some of the first book's flaws.  Definitely not for all tastes.  8 out of 10.

Book Review: "I Am Not a Serial Killer"

My friend Daryl got me into the Writing Excuses podcast in the fall and I've been listening to the podcast a lot, typically when I'm on the elliptical at the gym.

In one podcast, the podcasters discuss the novel I Am Not A Serial Killer, a book written by one of them whose protagonist is a clinically-sociopathic teenager who works in a funeral home.  I found that character concept interesting and decided to see if my local library had it. They did, so now it's time for the review...

It's a good book.  Dan Wells does a good job developing the protagonist John Cleaver, in particular the way he fulfills the MacDonald Triad.

(Bed-wetting, cruelty to animals, and fascination with fire.  An extraordinarily high percentage of people who have these three characteristics at the same time become serial killers.)

Although the bed-wetting aspect of Cleaver isn't touched on to any great degree, the cruelty to animals and pyromania are.  As a child, Cleaver apparently tortured and killed groundhogs caught in traps and he tells his psychiatrist that to him, this was like playing with Legos.  This explicates Cleaver's lack of empathy--he doesn't even seem aware the animals are suffering at all.  The pyromania is described really well, in passages in which Cleaver waxes eloquently about how beautiful fire is and how it could be considered a living thing using the scientific definition for life, since among other things, it consumes fuel, leaves waste (ash), and reproduces (by burning).

One particularly memorable scene takes place at a school dance, where a bully named Rob Anders harasses him.  To get rid of him, Cleaver tells him that in order to control his darker impulses, he says nice things about people who make him angry.  He compliments the bully, then describes how thanks to his sociopathy, Anders is nothing more to him than a cardboard box.  However, cardboard boxes sometimes have interesting things inside them and he want to cut Anders open in several places to see what's inside.  However, because he doesn't want to be a killer, he has made a rule that every person he wants to cut open, he compliments them.

"That's why I say, Rob Anders of 232 Carnation Street, that you are a great guy."

Guess who runs away terrified and later has nightmares, to the point Cleaver's psychiatrist reprimands him?  I wonder if I should join TVTropes and add this to the entry, if there is one, under "Crowning Moment of Awesome."  Cleaver is this nerdy, physically-unimposing little guy, but he psychologically breaks a guy who I have the impression is bigger and stronger than he is and has been a bully since the third grade.

I just tried to request the sequel, Mr. Monster, which looks promising.  According to what I've read about it, it continues the character arc Cleaver began in the first novel when he had to overcome the code he developed to prevent himself from becoming a serial killer in order to protect his town from a demon.  Unfortunately, I can't request it right now (probably because it's new), so it'll be awhile before I can read it.

Something I've noticed is there is a similarity between Cleaver and Dexter Morgan, the clinically-psychopathic protagonist of the books and the Showtime TV series that bear his name.  Cleaver personifies his dark side, calling it "Mr. Monster" like how Dexter calls his "The Dark Passenger."  Furthermore, both of them have personal codes they live by to keep themselves out of trouble, although Cleaver seeks to repress his violent urges entirely (his sole outlet being working with bodies at the mortuary) and Dexter just channels them (by preying exclusively on killers who have escaped justice).

Although the book is pretty interesting and well-done, given the subject matter, I imagine it's not everybody's cup of tea and it is rather slow due to the fact it's primarily a mystery novel.  I'd give it 8 out of 10.