Robin R. Means Coleman, Author of the Month, September 2011

Author Q&A:

WHAT MEDIA DO YOU CONSUME DAILY?

I have a pretty long list of media that I check in on everyday. I look at the Huffington Post, The Atlanta Post, TheRoot, The New York Times, CNN, Fox News and even celebrity/gossip sites like MediaTakeOut. I get my horror/sci-fi fix from TV shows like Torchwood, Being Human (the BBC version), and Scare Tactics. I watched Syfy’s original TV movies while writing Horror Noire. I just love “Sharktopus” starring Eric Roberts. 

WHAT ARE YOUR TOP FIVE HORROR MOVIES? 

Oh, this is a really tough one. Just five? George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, John Carpenter’s The Thing, Alien, J.D.’s Revenge, Candyman...oh, I can’t stick to five…Audition/Odishon, Lucky Ghost, The Wicker Man, The Wizard of Oz, and Def by Temptation.

WHAT MOTIVATED ME TO WRITE HORROR NOIRE?

Yes, Horror Noire is about the history of Blacks in horror films. But, it is also very much a book about Blacks in America—their histories, politics, and cultures. To examine these areas through the lens of horror presents, in part, a really interesting and surprising narrative of Black empowerment and control, a kind of “talking back” to mainstream symbols of Blackness. I wanted to share this part of the Black story. Of course the book also reveals the significant imagistic annihilation that Blacks endure, but there is a story here of how Blacks reclaim their representations. And, I wanted to dispel the myth that Blacks always die first in horror movies. You can blame science fiction and crime thrillers for killing off Blacks first, and oftentimes doing so unceremoniously.