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Interview: Eric Miller talks career, directorial debut, and new anthology book Hell Comes to Hollywood II.

Eric Miller at Hell Signing color

*Sometimes I get a little nervous when I speak with a big dog like Eric Miller in any capacity. He’s held a number of jobs on big horror titles including Puppet Master III, Beach Babes From Beyond, Wishmaster II, Candyman III, 2001 Maniacs, Mask Maker, and Swamp Shark, as well as big blockbusters like Taken, Legion, and The Bling Ring. He also has a new anthology book out, Hell Comes to Hollywood II, which is currently sitting at #44 on the overall Kindle E-Books chart. Luckily for me, Mr. Miller is extremely down to Earth and was a pleasure to chat with!

In my interview with him below, we chat about his noteworthy, decades long career in Hollywood, his directorial debut The Waffle House Incident, and the new anthology book he put together, Hell Comes to Hollywood II. You can read it all below, and if you find that you love Eric Miller as much as I do, you can meet him at two book signings coming up in the next few days! Details are below, too!

HorrorSociety: You’ve had a long, very noteworthy career in Hollywood for over twenty years. Take me back to the beginning, how did you first get into the business?
Eric: I came to L.A. from Indiana for an internship at Orion Pictures, in “Pretty in Pink” director Howie Deutch’s office. At night I worked in a movie theatre nearby, and one of the ushers knew a producer who needed a production assistant on a low budget sci-fi movie. I got the job, and went to work on Full Moon Entertainment’s “Crash and Burn.” From there I just kept working in whatever job I could get, working on indie films like “Gods and Monsters” with Sir Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser, and “Puppet Master III” and so on. I was also on staff at Full Moon for a while, and ran Eli Roth’s Raw Nerve label when it started; and wrote screenplays between jobs and begged producers to read them. Cut to 25 years later and I’m still here somehow, still making movies.

HorrorSociety: What do you think it is about your work ethic, or how you do things, that has kept you working so steadily?
Eric: I work cheap. But seriously, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I’m hard working, intensely loyal, and very good at a number of different jobs. More important than that is that I am a nice guy that goes out of my way to help other people. Hollywood is full of back stabbers and selfish people, but I’m just as happy when I help a friend sell a script or get a job as when I do it. Enough people pay me back to keep the nice guy network going.

eric4HorrorSociety: Some of the horror/scifi titles you’ve worked on include Puppet Master III, Beach Babes From Beyond, 2001 Maniacs, The Thirst, Ice Spiders, Mask Maker, and Swamp Shark. These titles cross into multi-generations, multi-genres, and multi-budgets. How has production work changed behind-the-scenes from Puppet Master III to Swamp Shark? What has stayed the same?
Eric: The basic process is still the same – you still find a location, take a bunch of people and equipment to it, set up the lights and shoot the action, then cut it together and add FX and music in post – but the speed of production has gone crazy. Technology is the big driver behind this of course. Non-linear editing gear started it, then digital cameras and CGI put it into overdrive. In the old days, you more or less had to work with what you brought with you. You had to plan ahead or do without. Now we can wing it to a crazy degree. “Fix it in post” used to be the worst thing you could say, now it feels like half the film is made in post, let alone fixed. But in the end, you still have to put 100 people in a field or a sound stage with a camera and lights and give them a good script. That’s never going to change.

HorrorSociety: You’re also the go to guy for transportation, having worked on movies such as Wishmaster II, Candyman III, Taken, Legion, Taken II, The Bling Ring, and Taken III. What is it about this job that entices you to do it so often?
Eric: Most people outside the business barely know transportation exists, but it’s a huge part of making a film. We touch every department on set, from lights to stars, from camera to coffee. We also do the picture cars that appear on camera, which is important to the final look of the film. We figure out the logistics of moving and housing all the people and gear to multiple locations on a show, and sometimes two or three times a day. When people dream of being on set, they usually think of working with camera. But if there’s action going on, the drivers are in the middle of it. Or taking a nap if it’s a slow day. Just kidding, we actually get very few naps, despite what everyone thinks. The short answer is, it pays well, it’s challenging, and you get to drive big trucks and wreck cars on movie sets. What kid wouldn’t want to do that?

HorrorSociety: Recently you made your directorial debut with a horror-comedy, The Waffle House Incident. You also wrote, produced, and starred in it. What can you tell me about your first big romp with acting and directing?
Eric: I was watching a bunch of found footage films, and thought I could poke some fun at the genre, create a totally new genre, and make myself famous at the same time. It premiered at the Fantasia Fest this year, which shows they have a great sense of humor, or a terrible mistake was made by the screeners. I can’t say much more than that for now, as the whole film is a bad joke and a big twist that I don’t want to spoil. But I will say that after they see it, people will either get it and laugh with me, not get it and say WTF?, or want to chase me down and kill me. It will be released online soon, so I’ll let you know when everyone can start sharpening their pitchforks.

eric2HorrorSociety: A little over a week ago you released, “Hell Comes to Hollywood II,” the sequel to your Bram Stoker Award nominated anthology. Where did the idea first come from to start your own series of anthology books?
Eric: A few years ago I got tired of the screenwriting routine, so I wanted to take a break and do something back to basics with storytelling. I read a lot, and had been wanting to publish books for a long time, and new E-book and Print On Demand technology made it easier to do. And of course, they always tell you to “write what you know.” I figured I knew Hollywood, and horror, so it was a perfect fit.

HorrorSociety: Did you learn anything with the first book that made creating “Hell Comes to Hollywood II” a little easier?
Eric: I had to learn publishing from the ground up with “Hell 1”, as I had zero background in that. I didn’t have to repeat all that the second time around. I’m still learning, and as complicated as making a movie is, my hat is off to book publisher and editors. It is not easy to make a book. But it is cool as hell to hold it in your hands when it is done, like going to the premiere of your movie.

HorrorSociety: Everyone who contributed a story to book two has a lot of interesting credits, some in the horror genre as well. How did you find authors for the book, did you ask your friends or did you put out a submission ad?
Eric: Some writers that I wanted for the first book were too busy to contribute then, like Jeffrey Reddick, so I bugged the hell out of them for #2 and they came through. Others I just called up, like Lin Shaye. We had been friends since we met on “2001 Maniacs” and I suspected there was a sick little story or two hidden in her head, and I was right. A few writers found me from reading “Hell 1”. I got very active in the Horror Writers Association through the first book, and met some amazing horror writers there and got stories from some of them. Others came from friend’s recommendations. Del Howison was cool enough to set me up with RC Matheson, a real Hollywood legend and phenomenal writer I had been a fan of for years, and that really put the book over the top.

HorrorSociety: How did you go about choosing which stories made it into the book? Were you looking for specific tales or themes?
Eric: Every story has to take place in the Entertainment Industry or in Hollywood, preferably both. The writers are mostly all Hollywood pros of some sort, from screenwriters to director to actors and even an entertainment lawyer. Other than that, the stories were 100% up to the writers. I am still amazed at the sheer imagination they have. I’ve got 42 stories between the two books, and all are wild and different. I chose the ones I liked the best. There’s a wide variety, from horror comedy to savage killers and ghosts and monsters. There’s something for everyone.

eric3

HorrorSociety: Are you happy with the response to “Hell Comes to Hollywood II” so far?
Eric: It’s been out for just under two weeks now, and the first reviews are rolling in. We got a great review from The Horror Fiction Review.com today, and that as pretty sweet. I have been getting calls and emails from fans and friends saying they love it. So yeah, very happy.

HorrorSociety: Are there any book signings set up yet?
Eric: We will be at Dark Delicacies in Burbank on Saturday, October 18 2014 from 2-4 pm. There will be 20 of us there signing, so it will be a big party. There is no extra charge for the signatures, but you have to buy a book. I’ll have a table at the Comikaze expo at the end of the month too. More on the 10/18 book signing can be found here.

HorrorSociety: Is there anything about the book that you’d like to mention that I did not cover?
Eric: That I really, genuinely, appreciate every fan that buys the books, and the reviewers and web sites that spread the word. I’m not a big publisher, I’m just a guy with a dream to make horror movies and books. I’m thankful to have so many terrific writers pound the keyboards for me and the readers. I’m happy when people discover the stories and have a hell of a good time reading them.

*Thank you for taking the time to speak with me, Eric! I really appreciate your insight!

For more on Eric Miller and Hell Comes to Hollywood II, please visit:

Eric Miller on IMDB
Big Time Books *All other formats of release can be found at this link*
Hell Comes to Hollywood (hardcopy)
Hell Comes to Hollywood (kindle)
Hell Comes to Hollywood II (hardcopy)
Hell Comes to Hollywood II (kindle)

Michael DeFellipo

(Senior Editor)

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