Here is the first of the five interviews that Robert did on his Overblog site.......
Interview with William Pattison Aka Eric Morse
By Robert "Horror Bob Masters
For Horror Bob's Blog
For my first interview I had the pleasure of chatting with a very controversial figure in the world
of Friday the 13th. Fans of F13 either love him or hate
him. There are even hordes of horror fans that have banded together to
harass and malign him publically. He has gotten on the
wrong side of at least two horror actresses. He is nicknamed The
Harlan Ellison of Friday the 13th. His real name is William Pattison, but fans of his Camp Crystal Lake novels know him
by his pen name, Eric Morse.
Boy, was this an interesting and unexpected long interview. It was so interesting that I decided not
to edit it, so this is the interview in it entirety
(The following is from a phone interview I recorded with William. I have to say that this will be my
last phone interview because I had a hell of a time transcribing this. Nope, from now on it’s email interviews only for me.)
Horror Bob: Well, William, I have to say I’m thrilled you agreed to do this
interview.
William: It’s no problem, and please call me Bill.
Horror Bob: Cool. Well, let’s get started. So, you have the distinction of being the first author to
write original Friday the 13th novels.
William: Yes, indeed. Before my Camp Crystal Lake novels came out the only Friday the 13th
novels being published were novelizations of the movies.
Horror Bob: Why were your books released as young adult fiction?
William:
Ask Berkley Books, or Penguin Putnam as they are known now. I was just a
hired writer. I had
no control on how they published the books. I didn’t know they were
being published as young adult fiction until after I submitted the first
draft of Mother’s Day and the editor went off on me
for the amount of gore in the murder scenes.
Horror Bob: How did you get involved with the books?
William:
Well, I actually got to thank a lovely lady by the name of Charisma
Jones. She worked with
me at Kmart as an early morning stock person. A member of her
family, I think it was either her brother or cousin, worked for Berkley
Books and mentioned to her that Berkley was looking for a
writer to write the series. Charisma immediately thought of me.
Horror Bob: Why?
William:
I worked with Charisma in the housewares department filling shelves
really early in the
morning before the store opened. It was really boring work. To
entertain each other we chatted about sci fi and horror. Charisma knew I
knew Friday the 13th like the back of my hand.
I’d let her read some of the chapters of the sci fi novel I was
writing, The Traveler. She was so impressed with my work she thought I
would be the perfect choice to write these books. Obviously,
Berkley Books agreed with her.
Horror Bob: Jason Voorhees doesn’t appear in your books, why was that?
William:
That was Berkley books decision. Originally, the first book in the
series was going to be
The Mask of Jason. In that book Jason’s mask possesses a hunter and
by killing people the hunter is able to bring Jason back from Hell. The
executives at Berkley loved the concept of Jason’s mask
possessing people, but the rejected the treatment.
Horror Bob: Why was that?
William: Because in The Mask of Jason treatment I brought in characters from Friday the
13th: The Series. Supposedly, New Line didn’t get the
rights to the TV series. Also, the executives decided they didn’t want
to bring Jason back immediately. So, I ended up having to
alter my other treatments and write one additional treatment to make
up for the loss of The Mask of Jason, and thus the haunted hockey mask
storyline was born.
Horror Bob: Why did Berkley Books only publish four books?
William:
The books didn’t sell very well. I blame that on Berkley Books. By
putting them in the young
adult fiction category Berkley made the books inaccessible to the
people they should have been written for, the horror fans. Also, Berkley
didn’t make any effort to promote the books. I had been
promised book signings and appearances at horror conventions.
Berkley did none of this and I paid the price for it.
Horror Bob: What you mean?
William:
When I signed the contract to do the books I was given a $1,500
advance. I would get the
rest of my money if the books reached a minimum sale level.
Unfortunately, they didn’t make the sales and I ended up losing the rest
of my money.
Horor Bob: You’re kidding me. You wrote those books and only got $1,500 out of it. That’s
ridiculous.
William: You’re telling me. I nearly killed myself writing those books and I got shit and ended up
spending a month writing treatments for a second series of books only to find out that I was wasting my time.
Horror Bob: Besides the four books published by Berkley Books you’ve also written a fifth book which
you are publishing on the web for the fans for free.
William: Yep, The Mask of Jason Voorhees.
Horror Bob: But why didn’t Berkley Books publish it. From what I gather your books are extremely
popular with the fans on Amazon.com?
William:
Berkley lost the rights in the early 90’s. I tried to offer the book to
Black Flame when
they took over the rights to do the books, but they weren’t
interested in it. They wanted me to write a novel that would fit in with
the F13 books they were publishing. I respectfully
decline.
Horror Bob: Why? Things might’ve been better with Black Flame.
William: They weren’t interested in my style of writing.
Horror Bob: So, you went on to do an internet radio show.
William: Actually that was a bit later.
Horror Bob: Tell me how that got started?
William:
Amusingly enough, it was because I got my first internet radio
interview. It was a show
called The Chad and Hank Show. After I was on the show, the co-host
on it Hank Sullivan encouraged me to start my own internet radio show,
thus The Eric Morse Show was born.
Horror Bob: I thought your show is called The Eric Morse Project?
William: My current show is. The Eric Morse Show lasted less than six months.
Horror Bob: What happened?
William: Hank Sullivan verbally attacked a guest on the show and then acted like a total fucktard and
insulted me.
Horror Bob: Why the hell did he do that?
William:
You would need to have to ask him. I still don’t know what the fuck
happened. I had an actor
friend of mine on the show, Greg Russell Tiderington. Greg was
talking about how he disliked his costume in a film we did together, The
Horror Seasons, when Hank out of the blue called Greg a
fucking fag and hung up on the show. Later on in the show he came
back on and called me a bunch of four letter words left again. The next
day my email was blasted with complaints from fans of the
show. After Hank left I did three more shows and put The Eric Morse
Show to bed. After that I contacted a few friends with the idea of doing
four individual monthly shows under the banner of The
Eric Morse Project.
Horror Bob: That sounds like a very original idea.
William:
Actually there are other shows on Blog Talk Radio that do pretty much
the same thing, except
that they do it on a weekly basis. I figured if I had four
individual shows with four individual groups each group could focus on
their individual show and use the month between shows to create
the best show possible.
Horror Bob: And has it worked out?
William:
With our current crew I think we do a good job. When I planned the show
I thought that
having individual groups would cut the work load on me drastically
down. When I was working with Hank on The Eric Morse Show I did all the
planning on the show and did 95% of the guest gathering.
What I didn’t realize with The Eric Morse Project was that I
multiplied these duties by four, and though my crew helps quite a bit I
still firmly control all the shows.
Horror Bob: So, what happened to Hank Sullivan? Or do you know?
William:
Last time I heard about Hank he was co-hosting with I Alexander Nash on
the internet radio
show Death By DVD. I got curious and listened to one of the shows
and honestly I wasn’t impressed. Hank spent the show insulting his
audience and throwing out four letter words every few
moments.
Horror Bob: But isn’t that what you do on your show, The Eric Morse Extreme Show?
William: Hank does it mindlessly, just to be foul. I get harsh and vent at about internet trolls and
other fucktards that get off on bullying people.
Horror Bob: Didn’t you recently do a show on the state of Friday the 13th fan
fiction.
William:
Yes I did. I have an issue with people calling fan scripts fan fiction.
When I think of fan
fiction I think of novels, short stories, and poetry, not scripts. I
consider scripts as short hand that lacks the details that a story or
novel written in pros provides. It’s purely laziness on
the side of the writers. Fiction is a craft and a craft needs to be
crafted. A script is a rough outline that a filmmaker, actors, and film
crew uses as a guide in the creation a visual play.
It’s not intended to be read as literature.
Horror Bob: Well, Bill, I have to say, that I now understand why you’ve gotten such a strong reputation in the horror community and why there are a lot of people who don’t exactly
like you. There’s a lot of talk around the horror community and a lot of it isn’t exactly complimentary.
William:
Oh, you mean the propaganda started by people like Wil Keiper at Horror
Yearbook or The
Morse Bashers from Bloody-Disgusting? Or are you talking about the
ramblings of false friends and backstabbers like Elissa Dowling, Hank
Sullivan, or possibly even Michelle
Shields?
Horror Bob: That’s right. You recently ended an eight year friendship with actress Michelle Shields.
A very nasty affair I believe. Would you like to tell us about that?
William:
For one thing it was Michelle who ended the friendship. If people are
really interested they
can check my notes section on Facebook and look in my picture
section for a certain picture I posted as proof of an assertion. Look at
the comments under that picture. It tells a story all its
own. What I will say is that I had thought Michelle Shields was a
friend. When I got the chance to do my first horror convention, Days of
the Dead, I finally met in person Michelle and we hung
out at the convention. I thought we hit it off and our friendship
had solidified. Because of this I went out of my way to help her after
the convention.
Horror Bob: You’re talking about The Mad Men Casting Call contest.
William: Yes, exactly. You did your homework.
Horror Bob: That was easy. You’ve mentioned it several times in the last few weeks.
William:
Anyway, I went way out of my way to help Michelle. I took time during
my break at work, and
at home on the weekends, to vote for her on a daily basis. I set up
twelve threads on message boards asking people to vote for her. I got on
Facebook and pushed people to keep voting for her for
the entire six week period of the contest.
Horror Bob: Wow. That was a hell of a lot of support. Can I be your friend?
William: (with a chuckle) The thing is, Bob, I help my friends. It doesn’t matter if they are male of
female. I cherish my friendships and I hope it’s reciprocated. In the case of Michelle Shields I was royally disappointed.
Horror Bob: I’m not to clear on all of that. She didn’t support you on a contest you were in or
something?
William:
Yes, The Podcast Awards. I had put my internet radio show, The Eric
Morse Project up for
nomination for The Podcast Awards. In order to be nominated my show
needed a large number of votes. On Facebook I had setup a event page and
sent out invitations to all of my 1,200 friends on
Facebook. In a few cases, including Michelle, I sent more personal
invitations. Anyway, I found out soon after that not only did Michelle
not support me, but she went out of her way to support
three other podcasts, including Reel Movies, For Reel People, which
is done by my Eric Morse Project co-host Derek Young. By the way, it was
Derek who suggested I put The Eric Morse in the
contest in the first place. So, anyway, after everything I did for
her, Michelle gave me a royal fuck you as a thank you. Later on, when we
were supposedly trying to talk things out she made
excuses about how she got a hundred emails a day and didn’t have the
time to help everyone. She also mentioned that every time I showed her
support in The Mad Men Contest she had posted me a
“thank you for the support” message on Facebook. Wow I’m
overwhelmed. I think after eight years of friendship I deserved a bit
more than that. I think when she got that invitation to support me,
and my show, it should have been a no brainer. But obviously I was
stupid to think that.
Horror
Bob: I don’t think so. I think if you’ve known somebody that long, and
did that much for them,
you would think they’d be more than happy to return the favor. I’m
with you on that, my brother. That is totally fucked up on her side.
William:
Yeah, well, I’ve given her a hell of a lot of support. I’ve had her on
my radio show a
number of times to help her promote her films. Hell, all she had to
do is ask and I went out of my way to make room on my show schedule to
get her friends that were doing the documentary Chasing
Hollywood on my show Bloodbath Radio at a moments notice. Oh, and
when I brought that up to her she made it out like she had done me big a
favor. Excuse me.
Horror Bob: So, an eight year friendship ended over that? It sounds a bit petty to
me.
William:
No, obviously it wasn’t just that. I was pissed and a bit hurt by that,
but I would’ve
gotten over it and the friendship would’ve continued. The thing that
royally tanked things was when I found about her private Facebook
profile for her so called real friends.
Horror Bob: I remember you mentioned that in your statement on Facebook. How did you find out about
that?
William:
It was by accident. Michelle made the mistake of using her supposed
secret profile to
comment on a mutual friend’s wall post. I saw that comment was by
Michelle M Shields instead of Michelle Shields, like all her other
comments had been. It also had a picture I’d never seen of
Michelle as an avatar, so I was intrigued. Another friend of mine,
April Burril has multiple profiles due to the fact that she is extremely
popular. I thought, like April, Michelle had reached
her profile limits and had a supplemental profile. When I went on
there I found out I was wrong. I found out I was being lied to and used.
Horror Bob: This is another thing I don’t get, how is it you felt like that?
William:
She said it herself. That profile was for people she considered her
real friends. In one of
the comments she posted on this profile she stated that her other
profile was for industrial contacts and people she used for promotion.
Horror Bob: You are sure she said she was using people for promotion and not that she used the other
profile to promote her career?
William: As I said, she quite clearly stated in a comment to a person she had added to her real
friends profile that her other profile was for people she used for promotion.
Horror Bob: Wow, that really sucks. I’d be pissed as hell too.
William: Oh yeah. Then later when Michelle and I were trying to talk things out, she told me that she
actually thought of me as an internet friend, which is better than she thought of most people.
Horror Bob: Excuse me.
William: Yeah, she thought more of me than her industry contacts, but I was still beneath her
so called real friends. I felt so special.
Horror Bob: What a bitch. Sorry about the French.
William: No problem. But, it gets better. Also during my trip through Michelle’s hidden profile
I found out Michelle had a boyfriend she neglected to mention to me or other people as well..
Horror Bob: Since reading about this in your statement I wanted to ask you about it. A lot of
performers keep their personal lives to themselves. Why was that such an issue?
William:
Because Michelle presented herself as a single unattached woman. On her
My Space she has
herself down as single. At the convention I was given the impression
I was hanging around with an unattached woman, which was a lie. While
we were hanging out Michelle was flirting with me. She
was hugging me rubbing up against me and even kissed me on a number
of occasions. If I had known she had a boyfriend at the time I would
have questioned these actions a bit more. I had just
thought that she and I had hit it off and that she really liked me.
Hell, before I left I went to see her and she hugged me and gave me a
kiss. I even said that if she ever came to the Bay Area
that I’d take her out to Mel’s Diner in San Francisco. I would have
never disrespected her relationship with her boyfriend in that way if
I’d known. Also, I was pissed because I had known her for
eight years and she had never once gave me a clue. It was always
that she was so dedicated to her film career that she didn’t have time
for meaningful relationship. What a crock.
Horror Bob: Well, that’s the way actresses are. They use their sex to get men hot so they can
encourage them to buy their films.
William:
I’m sorry, Bob, but I won’t accept that as a blanket statement. I know
several actresses and
people in the film business that don’t have to sell themselves like a
cheap whore. Look at Debbie Rochon. Debbie is indeed a sexy lady, but
it’s not her sexiness that stands out, it’s her skill
and talent as a performer that shines. Hell, look at my dear friends
The Soska Sisters. These two ladies have overwhelming personalities and
talents. The fact that they are incredibly beautiful
women is just an added bonus. But here is the kicker both Debbie and
the Soskas are in committed relationships and that doesn’t deter from
people appreciating them as talents or as sexy women,
but it does remind people to show them and their partners some
respect and consideration. At Days of the Dead both Derek Young and I
noticed several gentlemen, including a couple featured guests
trying to put the moves on Michelle. If she had been honest about
her relationship some of these guys might have gotten the message and
kept their distance.
Horror Bob: I doubt it.
William: But still, if she had been honest I wouldn’t feel like I was played with and manipulated
now. You know what’s the saddest thing about this situation, Bob?
Horror Bob: What’s that, Bill?
William:
Besides meeting my crew. Hanging out with Michelle was the best part of
my time at Days of
the Dead, but now all that’s gone. The fact that she lied to me and
the fact that she is now publically denying that she even hung out with
me and my crew has destroyed all those good feelings
associated with that memory. She couldn’t even leave me with that
little bit of joy. That’s so fucking cruel and heartless.
Horror Bob: I’m sorry, Bill. Why do you think she’s denying that? It seems stupid to me since there
were pictures and videos taken at the convention and people saw you two together.
William:
Ask her. I don’t know what the fuck’s going through her head. Maybe she
figures lover boy
wouldn’t appreciate the fact that she gave another guy that much
attention. I don’t know. I know he’d royally love the fact that after
convention closed for the day on the Friday that she spent
her evening in some guy’s hotel room with a group of people getting
drunk on jello shots. I wonder what happened there.
Horror Bob: Jello shots? Like jello treats made with liquor?
William:
Yep. She came into the vendors room with a nasty hangover the next
morning and told me and
Derek all about it. Oh, which reminds me, she says that she wasn’t
in the vendors room at all on Saturday, which is another bullshit lie.
She still had her table in the vendors room for three
hours before she was moved into the independent performer’s room.
Horror Bob: Well, as much as I’d love to hear more of juicy details about Miss Shields. I think I’d
like to hear why Elissa Dowling has publically called you a stalker and says you have been trying to destroy her career.
William: Elissa Dowling is a lying, backstabbing bitch. Her career is shit because she is a shitty
actress. Simple as that.
Horror Bob: But why does she blame you?
William: Because six years ago, after a bunch of jackasses from Bloody-Disgusting hacked my My Space
profile and trashed it, Elissa decided to trash talk me behind my back to get in good with them. I put her in her place.
Horror Bob: Wow, how did this get started?
William:
Well, I was going on message boards promoting Cory Stevens film
adaptation of my book,
Mother’s Day. Cory had suggested I post a thread on
Bloody-Disgusting, since it was a popular site. I did just that. A
little after I started posting updates, the members of the board started
to
attack me. At first they attacked the film. Then they started
getting personal and attacking me. I finally left them a note to grow up
and abandoned the thread. Three days later I went on my My
Space only to find all my info erased and my profile full of nothing
but Bloody-Disgusting banners.
Horror Bob: Excuse me?
William:
Yep. Right after I reported the incident one of the guys that ran the
Bloody-Disgusting My
Space profile started attacking me on my profile. Because this
jackass used his own personal profile to attack me, My Space deleted his
profile and banned him.
Horror Bob: What’s this got to do with Elissa?
William:
Soon after the attack on my My Space by the members of
Bloody-Disgusting, Elissa started
heavily promoting Bloody-Disgusting on her profile. Then, I started
hearing from friends that someone calling themselves Razorected was
calling me a hack and talking smack about me and Cory’s
film in chat rooms all over the net. I realized this had to do with
Elissa because her email address at the time was razorected@spcglobal.net.
I sent her an email on My Space asking her what the hell was going on
and she immediately blocked me and unfriended me. I think that was very
telling. Don’t you?
Horror Bob: And that was it?
William:
Hell, no. For the next two months my friends kept informing me that
Razorected was still
going in the chats and attacking me. So, I decided that if Elissa
was going to be that much of a bitch it was time to put her in her
place.
Horror Bob: What did you do?
William: Oh, I went around the net and grabbed up any reviews of her films I could find and posted
them on message boards all over the nets under the title Avoid like the Plague.
Horror Bob: Bad reviews I guess.
William: The funny thing, Bob, is that that was all there was.(He chuckled) I even put in a challenge
for someone to find a good review of her work. Unfortunately, this is what started Wil Keiper pulling his shit.
Horror Bob: Yes, the guy that runs Horror Yearbook.
William:
The sociopathic jackass that runs Horror Yearbook. That fucktard has
been a thorn in my side
ever since. I had to report him to the FBI because he stole my
identity and used my personal information to open accounts on message
boards and use my real name to post threads making me out like
I was a child molester. The arrogant bastard made me aware of it and
I had a hell of a time getting that shit pulled down. It ended up
severing my relationship with the message board Horror Movie
Fans because the administrator of that board, Foo, actually
supported Keiper’s actions and refused to delete the threads. That fuck,
Foo, had the nerve to tell me to get a thicker skin. I don’t
think either he or Keiper liked it when I got the FBI involved.
Horror Bob: I wouldn’t think so.
William: Well, those fucktards deserved it. Keiper even started causing me shit when I was trying to
find my friend Mandy Beltran.
Horror Bob: Oh, you mean Dark Spider, right.
William:
Yes. Mandy disappeared from the net three years ago and some friends of
hers asked me to use
the resources of my business, Brass, to try and find out what
happened to her. I’ve spent the last three years checking public
records, contacting people, and asking people for help. One thing
that I was also doing that Keiper and his asshole minions kept
fucking up was that I was posting threads in message boards asking that
if people had any info about Mandy that they could either
email me or call me.
Horror Bob: What did they do?
William:
Keiper had his jackasses caused so much crap on those threads that they
forced the
administrators of the message boards pull the threads down.
Currently I have only four of those threads left out of the thirty of
them I created.
Horror Bob: Why does Wil Keiper do this? It sounds insane.
William: Keiper and his people think it’s funny to do this crap. Hell, after I got my head shaved for
charity and Keiper had some of his buddies trashed my friend Ruhina’s business, The Daily Boost.
Horror Bob: I saw the video. You had your head shaved for kids with cancer.
William:
Yeah, Saint Baldrick’s, and Keiper and his thugs toilet papered and
wrote nasty comments in
shaving cream all over my friend’s coffee bar after the event.
Keiper didn’t like the fact the my friend Ruhina had named a coffee
drink in my honor and was giving people 25% off on the drink if
they made a donation to Saint Baldrick’s.
Horror Bob: That’s awful.
William: Oh, and I recently got some info that leads me to think Keiper also had something to do with
Mandy disappearing from the net.
Horror Bob: And, what’s that?
William:
I can’t say right now, because I made a promise, but there will be a
time when I will make
this public. I promise you that, and if I find out there is any
truth in it I will make it my life’s work to bring Wil Keiper down.
Horror
Bob: Well, this has been a very interesting interview. Originally, when
I planned this I
thought we’d just talk about your radio show and your books, but
this has been a lot more interesting. I think this is a lot more
revealing of the person you are than who you are as the artist.
Thank you for being so incredible honest.
William: No problem, Bob. That’s the type of person I am. I don’t like bullshit and I don’t like
false, shallow, or egotistical people. They’re a waste of my time and energy.
Horror Bob: Well, this will bring to a close this interview. Hopefully this will be the beginning of
many more interesting interviews.
This is Horror Bob saying, Keep on Creepin’
