Jennifer Egan Quotes

Mention the gothic, and many readers will probably picture gloomy castles and an assortment of sinister Victoriana. However, the truth is that the gothic genre has continued to flourish and evolve since the days of Bram Stoker, producing some of its most interesting and accomplished examples in the 20th century - in literature, film and beyond.

I read 'Rebecca' when I was a teenager and was swept away by the powerful voice, the gut wrenching suspense and the dark, twisted love story at its center.

I find inspiration in the movies I've loved, especially all films ever made about Dracula.

Shirley Jackson's writings are a must for aficionados of the gothic and of good literature.

I definitely fell in love with 'Dracula' when I was 13. I found it so fascinating and so dark and romantic.

'Dark Shadows' was the spark that lit the fire of my childhood imagination. It wasn't polished; it wasn't perfect. But it gave us characters with real personalities and complicated motivations.

One of the reasons I think Dark Shadows still runs is that it's dependent on nothing else other than a story.

Gothic in its purest sense is actually a very powerful, twisted genre, but the way it was being used by by journalists - 'goff' with a double f - always seemed to me to be about tacky, harum-scarum horror, and I find that anything but scary. That wasn't what we were about at all.

There's such a fan base for 'Dark Shadows'. I remember watching the show as a kid, but I wasn't an ardent fan. I didn't run home from school to watch it.

Right away I think of two books - 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Rebecca' - and of just sinking into them as a young reader. I think they must have appealed not just to my romantic adolescent soul, but I suppose there's also an appealing darkness in both of them.

I had a wonderful time making 'Dark Shadows.'

I love all that kind of gothic Bram Stoker kind of thing. I love to get lost in that kind of escapism.

I think the Hammer films really made death quite sexy.

Dracula can sustain many interpretations and exists in many phantasmal forms... and Johnny Alucard is my attempt to explore the multiplicity of Draculas unloosed on the world in the long wake of Stoker's novel.

'The Thirteenth Tale' is reminiscent of 'Wuthering Heights' because you're never sure if it's a ghost or if people have gone a bit mad; that feeling that's been channelled all the way from Bronte is a really exciting one.

I am drawn to Americana, and I am drawn to gothic stories, and I love American gothic stories.

Actually I liked that 'Let the Right One In,' that Swedish vampire movie.

Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' was a story about the fear of immigration; the bad old bloodsucker swooping in from Eastern Europe and also preying upon 'our' vulnerable women.

I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.

You could argue that 'Sweeney Todd' was romantic, if you looked closely at it, but it didn't impart that to its audiences. But it's large, and it's melodramatic, and it's a style I like to work in periodically.

To be in something as iconic as a Dracula film, and to be playing Jessica van Helsing, who would have been Dracula's choice for a bride, through history and beyond the grave, was a thrill.

I write totally spontaneously. I actually write fiction by hand - that always seems to startle people. I think the reason I do that is to bypass the thinking part of me and get to the more unconscious part, which is where all the good ideas seem to be.

I certainly didn't want to make another movie that's 'just another Dracula film.'

There was a perverse side of me, with things like Van Helsing coming out. I didn't want to go down that route.

When I sit down to write, I know everything I need to know... I start writing, and within 30 seconds or 60 seconds, I'm watching a movie. I'm not making this stuff up; the characters are acting it out, and I'm just writing it down.