INT: Stefan Hutchinson

Last Updated on July 28, 2021

The Arrow
interviews Stefan Hutchinson

Tagged
with artist Peter Fielding, writer Stefan Hutchinson just put out
his own worthy contribution to the Halloween mythos via the solid
comic book entitled
“One Good Scare”.
Arrow had the chance to talk shop with the man behind the new Shape in
color adventure and here’s what he stabbed my way… 

ARROW: What’s
your favorite horror movie and why?

SH: As cliché as it sounds,
it’s ‘Halloween’, and it’s actually my favorite film of all – not just
as a horror. It’s a straight-up masterpiece of filmmaking. I like the
simplicity and purity of it, and I guess I saw it at the right time
for it to have an effect on me. The look, the music, The Shape…Other
than ‘Halloween’, I tend to like a lot of 80s horror – you know,
primal stuff like ‘Friday The 13th – The Final Chapter’. I think
others that stand out specifically are ‘Society’, even though it’s not
scary, and ‘Street Trash’, which hardly anyone seems to have seen.
‘Street Trash’ has this real hyper-depravity going on, and it views
like a checklist of sick and funny atrocities. These two have that
‘mondo’ feel, but also have some pretty interesting subtexts and deal
with the whole issue of class, and you really wouldn’t expect
that…Out of the more recent films, I’ve fallen in love with ‘The
Audition’ and ‘The Piano Teacher’ – a lot of people wouldn’t class the
latter as a horror movie, because it’s a very cold euro-drama, but I
felt completely bitch-slapped and genuinely horrified after watching
it.

ARROW: You
are the scribe behind the Halloween comic “One Good Scare”. What did
you inject in your Halloween story that you thought the Halloween
sequels were lacking?

SH: Darkness
– lots of it. I wanted to return to the idea of The Shape as a shadowy
presence, as this twisted force of nature that is lurking around every
corner. I also wanted to play up the fact that he’s a stalker who gets
a real sadistic kick out of terrifying people. There’s a real
malevolence under that mask, and I think the sequels turned him into a
lumbering Jason-clone
for the most part.  I’ve tried to go back to the themes and atmosphere
of the first film and then build from there – I mean, no-one wants a
straight-up rehash, because that defeats the point. Similarly, I
wanted characters that had depth and feeling, so we can get some sense
of what it’s really like to be in these hellish situations –
characters we can actually give a shit about.

ARROW:
“Halloween” is a copyrighted franchise. How arduous was the process to
get the rights to write and sell your own Halloween comic?

SH: What started the ball
rolling was that we got pissed-off of saying “Hey, we’d do this
better” so we decided to get off our asses and do something, rather
than just shoot off at the mouth. The process of making it happen
wasn’t too bad, but a little long winded. The thing with the
‘Halloween’ series, and I’m sure that this holds true for all
franchises, that with all the different sequels, there’s lots of
people who have some sort of ownership share, so you have to figure
out exactly WHO to go to. Then you’ve got to convince these people
that you’re not full of shit and can actually deliver. Luckily, I had
Anthony Masi (the webmaster for the official ‘Halloween’ site and H25
Convention Organizer) backing the project, as he really liked the
script. With his support people listened a bit more and he pointed me
in the right direction. After that, things basically slotted into
place.
Joe and Karen Wolf have been very supportive, trusting me with the
storyline and the project development.

ARROW:
Are there any familiar characters
from the films who we can expect to see in the comic? Please tell me Busta Rhymes doesn’t show up!

SH: Fuck that! Freddie
(Rhymes) won’t
be anywhere near anything I write – I only use characters that I like,
not camera muggers who shouldn’t be in the series. As for other
characters – there’ll be subtle cameos and references throughout. I’m
careful there, because too much of that can really distract. For the
most part, a lot of characters have tiny appearances, but the only
major character in there is Lindsey Wallace, the little girl from the
original film, now grown-up and messed-up. One of the things I’m
interested in is the secondary effect of The Shape’s evil – how it
affects the supporting characters and the town of Haddonfield itself,
the whole legacy thing. Also, Haddonfield itself is a character to me,
all that supposedly innocent suburbia is threatening in itself – I see
The Shape as part of the fabric and reality there. I just imagine it
being a place where the radio only plays fifties songs and it’s in a
time warp of complete social repression, a twisted Rockwell painting.
There’s a lot of evil in the falling leaves alone.

ARROW: What
was it about Peter Fielding that made him the right artist for the job?

SH: He kicks ass. He’s a great
guy to work with, and ultimately he understood what I wanted in terms
of mood and light. I didn’t ever feel that I had to tell him how to do
anything because he was already ten steps ahead. I learnt a lot from
him during the course of this. He’s also done something that the films
themselves haven’t been able to do – he’s got the mask right, and I
think that’s really important. The specifics and all of the little
details, you know? He also visualized that sense of creeping and
oppressive evil moving in – it’s on the edge of the panels, in the
backgrounds – there’s something horribly wrong there, which is
exactly what I wanted.

ARROW: How was your
experience at the H25 Convention? Did your comic get lots of
attention?

SH:  It was a blast. I got to
meet a lot of really cool people and get completely shit-faced, which
is something I hardly ever get a chance to do anymore. You had all the
guys from the Halloween films there and lots of other genre people. I
got to meet David Hess and babble drunkenly about ‘Blackpool’ (a
staple part of growing up in northern, working-class England), which
was really surreal – I take all the writing seriously, but in person I
no doubt come across as a complete retard…The comic itself seemed to
go down well. Everyone who picked it up seemed to be really impressed.
That’s very important to me, because I think the shittiest thing I
could do would be to let a reader down. We got our first review
yesterday, and it was really positive. So far, no complaints and a lot
of compliments – I think we’ve given people what they are looking for
from ‘Halloween’.

ARROW:
What was the highlight of the
convention for you?

SH: Tough one. We filmed a lot
of stuff for a documentary we’re working on, so we got to take Charles
Cyphers (‘Sheriff Brackett’) around the original filming locations of
‘Halloween’ – that was definitely something. One of my friends got
deported which definitely wasn’t a highlight!  I think for me
the best moment was when I had to host a panel discussion for Dean
Cundey. I was sat on the stage with him, talking into the mike,
shitting bricks. I was in complete awe – the man’s a straight-up
visual genius, and when you meet someone who’s got such great work
behind him, it’s an honor. And he was a great guy too. The fanboy in
me totally came out – “I love your work! I love The Thing! I love The
Fog!”

ARROW: What’s the
master plan in terms of your comic book? Can we expect a full-fledged
series or is this a one shot deal?

SH: Well, the title ‘One Good
Scare’ pertains to this individual issue, and this will hopefully be
the first volume of seven. This was written so that it stands as an
individual story also, so as to avoid that whole ‘first issue
syndrome’ that plagues a lot of new series, and just to let it be an
entity in itself. The other six are, however, plotted out and ready to
go – we’re not going to be making it up as we go along, as there’s a
very fixed ending to the whole story arc. Hopefully, we’ll find a
distributor who has faith in the project and we’ll have the full
series out on a monthly basis next summer. We’re hoping to attack a
few other horror titles as well, and then get to work on filming plans
we’ve been nurturing for far too long now.

ARROW:
Where can we
purchase the comic?

SH:
At the moment,
there’s only the limited edition story, and that’s an exclusive at


www.h25shop.com –

which is basically the convention shop. There’s a cool poster version
of the cover too, because Pete did a really good job of that. The page
is a little bit slow to load up because it’s graphics heavy, but it’s
there. Just scroll down a bit. There are no advertisements in there
either, which to me is much better. For the series – that’s still
something we’re working on. We want to get that into comic shops, so
we’re going to be talking to people now that we have something to
show. We’re building a website at

www.halloweencomics.com and that will give
the lowdown on the further storyline and our progress in terms of
getting it into the shops.

ARROW: If you
were to be assigned the task of writing Halloween 9, what kind of
direction would you take with the script?

SH:
Well, this whole comic series came out of a treatment I had
originally penned to be submitted for the ninth installment. However,
as the plot developed, it became unwieldy to do it as a film. The
comic medium allowed me to do stuff I wouldn’t be able to do with the
film – for example, to go back to 1978, to be able to use Sam Loomis
for a scene and so on. I’d stick with the same tone, that’s for sure,
and try to capture the feel that was present in the first two films.
Also, I’d avoid any revisionist history and stay well away from
anything that tries to explain why The Shape is still alive – I don’t
want to know that, I want to deal with the here and now and what he’s
doing. I’d use a different storyline to the one in the comic, however.
I’d be concerned with setting up something that wasn’t an evolutionary
dead-end. There are lots of possibilities for the ‘Halloween’ series
if they stay away from gimmick driven plots. If you go the ‘Samhain’
way of thinking, that it’s the end of the summer, then it’s the end of
innocence, and Haddonfield’s white fences and houses don’t look so
pure anymore – it’s childhood fears tearing into the real world.
Thematically, there’s a million interesting ways to go. I spoke to
Malek Akkad briefly, and he has good ideas about the direction he
wants for the film. He seems well attuned to what the series need, so
myself, I’m quite excited to see what the writers will come up with. I
don’t think we need to worry.

I’d like to thank Stefan for his time
and for the trick or treat that was the “One Good Scare” comic. 
Let’s see what else the man has up his sleeve! Bring it bro!