At some point in the sixth grade, I saw Halloween III (1982) and The Terminator (1984), which both gave me nightmares.
In one dream, I saw kids being atomized by a demonic computer; in another, hordes of killer robots were blasting their way out from a haunted house for some reason.
These nightmares became the basis for CROM 9000 and its interdimensional robot invasion of Earth.
In high school, I discovered the work of Nigel Kneale, whose films combine science fiction with folk horror in some very unsettling ways.
(Like when hauntings turn out to be caused by geological anomalies in "The Stone Tape," or when "the devil" turns out to have been a race of ancient astronauts in "Quatermass and the Pit.")
Pretty much everything to do with Dr. Adam Quantamaker and his nefarious Quantamaker Group—including the Banshee, CROM 9000, the Stonehenge Tape, and the Neverdead—is an homage to Kneale's work.
Interest in Kneale bloomed into a full-blown passion for British folk and sci-fi horror, which is where my ideas about the Fae started to surface.
The Hamadruid first appeared in a short story I wrote called "The Green Cathedral," which was unfortunately quite terrible and will never see the light of day.
At some point in the sixth grade, I saw Halloween III (1982) and The Terminator (1984), which both gave me nightmares.
#Halloween #Samhain #Pagan #Polytheist #Art #Music #ScienceFiction #FolkHorror #MadScientists #Banshee #Fae #Stonehenge #NigelKneale
