The Nightmare Engine Podcast
Welcome to The Nightmare Engine — a weekly show that churns with dread and drips with dark insight. Hosted by David Viergutz, the Master of Malice, this show tears back the curtain on all things horror. From the art of scaring readers to chilling interviews with guests of the macabre—authors, occultists, scholars of the strange—you'll explore the gears that keep the genre grinding.
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The Nightmare Engine Podcast
Exploring Folk Horror and Dark Rituals: An Interview with J.F. Penn
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Special Guest: J.F. Penn is a British author renowned for her thrillers, dark fantasy, crime, and horror novels. She has achieved New York Times and USA Today bestseller status, with her works translated into multiple languages and sold in over 84 countries.
Penn's notable series include the ARKANE action-adventure thrillers, the Brooke & Daniel crime thrillers, and the Mapwalker fantasy trilogy. Her stories often weave together ancient artifacts, international locations, and elements of the supernatural.
Books by J.F. Penn
This latest episode of the Nightmare Engine podcast introduces the talented J.F. Penn, as she takes us through her latest novel, "Blood Vintage." Set in the enigmatic vineyards of Somerset, England, Penn draws inspiration from the local folklore and mysterious rural settings that breathe life into her work. Through a backdrop of pagan rituals and secretive communities, we explore her creative process, which mirrors the knack Stephen King has for uncovering horror in the mundane.
We then venture deeper into the murky world of folk horror, spotlighting ancient rituals and their intriguing survival in modern times. Our conversation touches upon the enigmatic Green Man and the folklore of the Wendigo, examining how these stories symbolize deeper moral struggles. From the haunting imagery of Morris dancing near Glastonbury to the transformative nature of the Wendigo legend, our discussion challenges listeners to reconsider the timeless conflict between good and evil.
Finally, we explore the nuances of crafting slow-burn horror and the potential of AI to revolutionize the genre. Penn shares insights into how personal experiences and family themes shape her storytelling, drawing parallels with popular films that resonate with audiences. We also ponder the intersection of history and technology in horror, reflecting on how ancient sites and modern innovations inspire narratives.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Nightmare Engine podcast. We are on season three episode. I don't know, these things tend to go out of order sometimes, but that's okay. I'm calling in from a Wednesday, September, as this is probably the first time I've done a podcast where I have everything lined out in front of me and I've said you know what I'm ready to go, and I said I was prepared and I was clearly not when the camera started rolling. So we have the cameras off and you know that we do audio only. So, totally fine, I'm here with a very special guest and a friend of the horror community and just a lover of books, and we're going to be talking today about folk horror and about why it's so cool and so interesting and about lore. But real quick, just to mention, Scare, Mail has taken off.
Speaker 1:Right now my living room is basically filled with a printer just to print the envelopes for that beautiful artwork that you guys like seeing. We're printing anywhere between 30,000 and 50,000 envelopes a month and that increases by about 6,000 to 10,000 additionally every follow-on month. So this has taken off. It's taken over the. The. The scare mail pen pals has just been an amazing exercise in community and you all are a part of that. So thank you, Thank you for being a part of that community, Thank you for believing in the message and thank you for just giving something like scare mail a try, where we're just trying to bring a little bit of joy and a little bit of love through the vessel of horror.
Speaker 1:I know it's kind of weird to hear sometimes, and a lot of people who participate and enjoy things that are horror understand it. But people who don't, who may not understand what horror is, may not get that. But there is some joy to be had with horror. So thank you all for being there. Newest release is coming out in just a few days. We'll be looking at insanatorium, which is another one of my psychological horror novels that I think if you love not, okay, you're gonna definitely love this one. So that's enough rambling for me. Today I'm so happy to be here with one of my uh special guests. Uh, mr jf pen. Mr jf, how are you today?
Speaker 2:I'm good. Thanks so much for having me, david, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I know we just talked like what two weeks ago, um, and it's and it's kind of fun to go back and forth. I just felt like there was so much of a conversation that we didn't get to in that hour. Um, so this is, it's awesome to bring you back on and now we can flip the script a little bit and we can talk, um, about you and and and about your love of horror. And I think that's where you know you and I both write in multiple genres we primarily stick to. We have a lot of darker themes and I know you write some on the thriller edge as well. So let's talk about your most recent release, because we are reader facing. So we want to talk about books, we want to talk about stuff that you write. So let's talk about your most recent release and let's talk about the inspiration behind that, which is kind of the topic and the theme today, that's that folk horror. So let's go into that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, so I am British, as people can probably hear, and this is really my first novel where I've written about where I live, which is Somerset in the southwest of England, and the book is called Blood Vintage and it's set in sort of an ancient vineyard in modern times. But the vineyard in terms of folk horror is, you know, the secretive rural community with the pagan rituals in the vineyard and a young woman, rebecca, who goes looking for a new life. And, as we know, in these folk horror things, when you go looking for a new life, you often find something quite dark and disturbing. And it's interesting because I actually don't think that there is a folk horror novel written about a vineyard at the moment. So I'm pretty excited about that. But yeah, I'm going deep into West Country folklore and biodynamic vineyards, which is which is fascinating.
Speaker 1:Yes, you just kind of get latched onto an idea, right? I mean just one simple idea a vineyard, and you're like and correct me if I'm wrong but you looked at it and you're like this could be what's messed up about this vineyard? Something could be messed up about it. What is it and you think about? We talked about King the other time too, and he's famous for saying in one of his speeches he said I just looked at something, I said what is wrong with that thing? And I write a story about it and, like Cujo was a perfect example of like, there's something wrong with this dog, right? So is that what you got with blood vintage? I mean even the name itself, blood vintage, you know, vintage blood wine. I get it Like I'm starting to pick up a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there's a couple of things. So I went to in the summer, as you do. I went on some vineyard tours and I was at this one particular place again in this area and they said we did a tour of the vineyard as you do, and they said there's an older part of the vineyard but you can't go there. And as soon as they said that, my story, brain, brain just went why can't I go there? What are you hiding from us about this vineyard? And then also they told the story of frost candles. So if people don't know, when there's a frost and you have a vineyard, you can light these candles at night. And so I just had this vision in my head of a vineyard at night with these little candles underneath and I was like oh, oh, wow, that is an image I want to put in a book. So that's kind of how it started.
Speaker 2:And then I started learning and you have a lot of these in America, these biodynamic vineyards, and they do really weird things with animal innards, like you know, stomachs, and they bury horns and bones in the earth and then spray it on the crops and they have all these really interesting practices and they plant things by the moon and they put different plants in different preparations and they have these preparation sheds and you know, in my mind again this sort of folk horror element of the shack in the woods with all the bones hanging down and all of that kind of thing and I just like, oh, there's definitely something here. And then then also I went on this other wine tour and their wines were called the Celtic festivals of Beltane, lammas and Sarwin and I was like, okay, if I had a novel that went across the year, the vineyard year, but also these festivals. Um, as we know, bad things happen at, uh, ritual festivals.
Speaker 1:So this all kind of came together in my mind and, um, yeah, I just thought this, this has to happen yeah, I think so many people are just intrigued by things that we might have done historically that may seem odd today, like a. There's like this clash right of what's normal, what's not. When we go to other cultures and they do things that that our culture is not accustomed to, it seems odd to us and we kind of have to take a step back and appreciate what they're doing. You know, and we, you know you mostly see it in religious practices. You know, every religion practice is a little bit different. I'm a christian and I see different types of christianity all the time and I have take, you know, respect for that. And so do you think that there's this shift from like when things were to when things are now?
Speaker 1:And we look at that and we're like man. It was okay back then a long time ago vintage old you know but it's not okay now. We would find that odd. When does that shift happen? Is that a cultural thing? Is that a religious thing? What do?
Speaker 2:you think. Yeah, there's a few elements that I think. First of all, you mentioned this sort of historically and the other thing about this area of the UK is that the Romans brought vineyards here. They bought vines 2000 years ago to this area, so this is one of the oldest places outside of Italy. So that kind of echo into the past and also with folk horror, it's often about how old the land is and how short a human life. So is a human life even important against the backdrop of history? But then you mentioned there the sort of local weird customs and I actually wanted to ask you, because here in the UK we have maypole dancing and also Morris dancers have you heard of those things?
Speaker 1:So I it's probably a bastardization of what it really is, but I've seen, like Midsommar, the movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they dance around the maypole. They dance around the maypole, right? So I?
Speaker 1:can I have a vision of it in my head? It's probably the completely wrong one, but that's the only time I've heard of the maypole dance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, you can tell by the shape of the maypole what that is in terms of a fertility ritual. I'm sure we don't need to specify what that is, but young women dance around the large pole and then there's a lot of other fertility things. But here in the Southwest we have this thing called Morris dancing and there's a sort of very clean version where you get people dressed in white and they wave hankies and bash sticks and sometimes they've got Brussels sprouts on and sometimes they wear different makeup and flowers. But then there's also this dark Morris, this sort of border Morris, where they wear ragged cloaks like crows and they wear black hats and they wear the sort of black makeup across their eyes and it's like super, super dark and they perform in the evenings rather than in the daylight. And I read about these dark Morris and it's a similar fertility ritual, but again it's got this real edge and sometimes they have someone who wears a horse's head skull as part of that.
Speaker 2:And this ancient area of the UK so I'm quite near Glastonbury, which is where there's a lot of pagan stuff goes on. It's linked to King Arthur and a lot of that. It's like we're echoing back into history. But what's so interesting is it still happens now, and even though people are not necessarily going to church. But we are a Christian country as such, but these rituals go back thousands of years before the Romans, even to the sort of early Celtic fertility. So I think this is what I love about it is we don't lose these things, we don't lose the old myths, and I was actually going to ask you about your book, wendigo, because that looks a bit like it's folk horror -y.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean. So I think, like you do, I think I have a fascination with folk horror itself, with rituals and fall car itself, uh, uh, with, with rituals and old and old religious beliefs, stuff that that you would, that seems to be lost. But, like you said it now and I'm kind of changing my opinion on this based on what you said is that we never really lose it. It just kind of changes, you know, and it kind of goes underground a little bit and and maybe it's not practiced as why, as as widely and as openly, and now our world seems to be shifting where these types of things are practiced more often. And, yes, I just love everything folk art I love. The perfect example is like the Blair Witch Project. I absolutely loved it and I loved it for just the five scenes that were like in the house, house, you know, and and and seeing the, the, the woods and the, the, the crosses made out of sticks and and and leaves and and and string. So I, yeah, so I, I, I had this. I had this a movie a long time ago. It was called when to go, and it's probably one of the only movies that's ever scared me and I just recently re-watched it, like 25 years later, and I was like I need to write a book about the wendigo and a lot of the books that I'd read about the wendigo. Because I was, I was studying up. You know, as I do, right before I write a book, I'll I'll study other books that are similar to see what's working and if I like it or not. Um, before I go into it and then see if I can do it differently. Um, and I was reading all these books about the wendigo and they were always like the bad guy. It was always somebody fighting the Wendigo versus like the Wendigo is. Actually, if you look back at the history of the Native Americans, what they believed about the Wendigo is that it's basically someone who has fallen victim to cannibalism, and they look at cannibalism as like this disease, disease. And when you engage in that, this, this ultimate crime against a person, then this spirit overtakes you and you become the wendigo, and then you are cursed with insatiable hunger, and so that's how the transformation begins. And so I started writing about, like, the history of the wendigo, and I wanted to keep it true to the lore because in a lot of the books I'd read it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily true to, or you know, to, what I could, what I could research, so yeah, just.
Speaker 1:And then you look at the greater sin. Right, there's always a greater sin in horror. You know it's With Wendigo. The greater sin is not, you know, it's not the cannibalism so much, it's more like the self-sacrifice that you're supposed to do rather than engage in cannibalism. And the greater sin is the fact that we let go of that self-sacrifice. We choose not to do that. We choose the easier path, which is to eat our friend. That's not an easy path, but it's easier than to say, you know what, this is not the right thing to do.
Speaker 1:It basically comes down to that struggle versus versus good and evil, and I think that's what horror is just in the end, no matter what, what, what story you're reading, what what folk horror you're researching. It all comes down to good and evil. So what's what's your interpretation of good and evil and all this? How does it play a part in your stories? Like we see it kind of played with in fantasy and dark fantasy, where it's like you know, there's a good side and the evil side. But I think there's probably some gray lines there, you know yeah, and it's interesting.
Speaker 2:You just talking about the greater sin there, um, and sacrifice and the good, what is good and what is evil. I think these have also changed. So the folk horror ideas I think are older, often older than Christianity and the idea of what is good or evil. You and I have talked about this on my podcast about the evil in the Bible and what we would consider bad now is in the Bible. You know, things like curses and plagues and punishments sent by God, demonic possessions and the apocalypse and all this kind of stuff. But I think in you know you talk there about choice, and this choice to do good or evil I think is so important in the horror I like, and often it is a sacrifice idea in some form.
Speaker 2:Do you destroy something for the greater good, like you mentioned? Or is the greater sin to destroy something ancient, even if we consider it evil? And this is why I think folk horror really gets to me in this idea of wild nature. And I like a bit of eco horror as well, but not when we're destroying the world, but when the world fights back and this idea that the world and nature, like nature's going to survive. Right, we might destroy the world with climate change but nature is going to be fine.
Speaker 2:And I mean, you know I go away for a weekend and the plants take over my garden. You know they're feral. And I kind of love this idea of nature taking the world back from humans. And again, this sort of human life is so short, so is the choice to let it happen. What a lot of people want to do, obviously, is humanity is a plague upon the earth. Let nature rule. But then if we do that, are we willing to pay the price that happens there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it comes down to there's, there's self-sacrifice, is is such a big theme in horror novels, you? See it and you see it with and you see it in horror movies more prominently.
Speaker 1:And that's, I'm gonna throw myself on the fire so that you can walk across, right that self-sacrifice that doing the tough thing, that that is the essence, I think, of what horror is is like there's this, this, this tough thing in front of us, this human thing that we have to deal with ourselves, that we cannot use magic powers. We can't, we can't wait for, um, we can't wait for a divine intervention. We have to handle it individually. And I think that's where where our position as humans, where we're like, where we feel most vulnerable, when we're realizing to ourselves we're like I can't solve this any other way but the hard way or let myself go, and that self-sacrifice.
Speaker 1:And so I think, in all this, that good versus evil battle is it starts internally, right, I mean it has to be. I mean it has to be a decision with ourselves to be like you know what, this is the right thing, this is the wrong thing. You make the decision and then you've got to deal with the consequences of it. I mean, isn't that what true horror is? I mean, what is your thought?
Speaker 2:I still think I disagree with the true idea of what is good versus evil. So in Blood Vintage, for example, and in a number of my horror books, I do write about the choice. But should one person die to save a community? So is it right that a person gets sacrificed to a monster or gets sacrificed to some pagan god in order to save the community? And if, yes, it is right to sacrifice one person, then how many people is one per generation acceptable? And what's so interesting in this form is that this has happened throughout civilization.
Speaker 2:So I'm sure you've read the book the Golden Bough, you know of the Golden Bough.
Speaker 2:It's sort of this folklore book full of old things and human sacrifices in so many cultures, and obviously we're not saying that's what we want to do now. But in this good versus evil idea, when is the death of one, or the death of a few, or the death of one per generation acceptable? And that, to me, is where the difficulty is, and I mean it'd be boring if it was just you know is where the difficulty is, and I mean it'd be boring if it was just you know. Good versus evil in a simple way right, we have to have that dark choice, and what I love like my favorite book is the Stand by Stephen King. I know it's many people's favorite, but to me, what I love about the end of the Stand and it's what I try and echo at the end of every one of my horror books is just because one evil is ended, that doesn't mean all evil is ended, and so one cycle might be over, but the cycle continues, and so that, to me, is fascinating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean one of the common themes that I always one of the things I do with my readers. I have a reader group called the Nightmare Writers and One of the things I do with my readers.
Speaker 2:I have a reader group called the Nightmare Writers and they get to choose an ending type they get to choose.
Speaker 1:In these short stories that we write kind of collaboratively, they do all the voting and then I do all the creative stuff. They vote on the characters and the names and locations and the themes and the character relationships and the genders and everything like that.
Speaker 1:No-transcript, like bittersweet ending yeah for whatever reason they don't want, like, yes, the good guy wins or the bad guy wins, they get this weird bittersweet ending and I'm starting to find, like movies and books that I truly enjoy are ones that have that ending where the evil may not be defeated, but it's contained, you know, and you're like, okay, that leaves this opportunity for the evil to continue again at some point and it leaves this this kind of ominous feeling. You know, and it's very atmospheric, and I like that word, I like that term with horror is like you can build that creepy atmosphere. If you can build that feeling in me that there's something just not right in the air or that evil's over there contained, all we have to do is stumble upon it and pop that tomb and let the thing out. I don't know if you knew this, but when they opened King Tut's tomb, six people died within several years. The people who actually opened it.
Speaker 1:Yes, the curse, yes, the curse, yes, the king of the curse of king tut. I mean, you think about it. I'm like what, why'd you have to open it? So I, I, I like that atmosphere, I like that, that idea that it's just, it's just kind of in there in the corner waiting do you? Do you write a lot of atmosphere in your stuff, or is it just like right in front of you?
Speaker 2:here's the scary thing oh, I sense of place is so important to me. And what's so interesting I think about the folk horror as well is the land itself can never disappear, I mean, unless you're going to blow up a nuclear bomb which you know I guess has is in some of these books. But in terms of, like you know, this ancient vineyard, for example, you can't get rid of that land. It will persist. So, whatever the bittersweet ending for the humans of this generation, the land continues.
Speaker 2:And another thing I love about the vineyard stuff is the word terroir. I don't know if you've heard this. If you like wine you would know terroir and that's everything from the land and the ecosystem that goes into the wine. And so again, it's sort of you can keep the suspense up with how the land influences what's happening and the characters and the community and the wine, which I think is just so interesting. And yeah, so the sense of place for me is critical and I mean I travel a lot, I do a lot of research all over the world, which is why it's quite funny that this book is set just down the road from me. But I was. I was also going to ask you because one of the other things that's common here is the green man in the cathedrals and carvings and stuff, and I wondered if that's something you had in the US or something like that, this sort of fertility symbols of men covered in leaves so it the times that I've seen it.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it's as common as it, because there's not. There's really not as much architectural love here in the us as there is in other countries, um, but the times that I've seen it you're talking about, it's just a. He's a, he's a taller gentleman, it's a face.
Speaker 2:It's a face coming out of leaves, out of leaves. Okay.
Speaker 1:As far as in architecture, no no I don't recall. I'm going to look that up real quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Green man.
Speaker 1:Tell me a little bit about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean again, it's an ancient fertility figure that goes back way before Christ and it appears in all our cathedrals and churches and the stonemasons. Of course the stonemasons have their own sort of mythologies, but you see him in all of these Christian places and I actually made one myself quite recently. I went on a stone carving weekend and I made a green man and he's in the garden now. But it's again sometimes he looks good, sometimes he looks evil. That's so interesting I've got again. It's sometimes he looks good, sometimes he looks evil.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting, I've got pictures of it right here. If you get an opportunity folks listening just type in green man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, green man carvings.
Speaker 1:Carvings. Yeah, these are all a little bit different. That's so cool, and so what's the historical significance of this?
Speaker 2:You've got a master's in theology and history.
Speaker 2:You. What's the historical significance of this? You've got a master's in happens with humans, but it normally is a face in a tree. I mean, in Game of Thrones you almost see the face in the wood. It's a bit like that, but has sort of more leaves and things. So the history sort of predates when the Romans came and the Christians came here in the UK. But what I love about it is how it persists into things like folk horror. But you could just say it's a fertility god, it's a spirit of the forest, and so wherever you are in the world, if you have a forest and an ancient culture, then they're going to have spirits of the forest, right Right.
Speaker 1:Well, that's so interesting. So is this under your inspiration folder Like? You'll see this thing and you just looked at it and you were like this needs to be somewhere. Or not necessarily this, but this data bank of interesting knowledge and facts, that I'm the type that I I'll get hit by inspiration. Then I'll have to dive deeper into a topic that I find inspirational oh yeah, what I love about just? Kind of collect inspiration.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying oh yeah, and I I need to do the input before I do the writing and and often, my previous book to this was called spear of destiny and it was about the um, the christic, the Spear of Destiny, and I was in Austria and Germany and looking at the history of the war and everything and the rise of the rights in the USA and all of that kind of thing. But no, I love the input stage and the research process for my books, but I think what was interesting with this one is lots, all the different, lots of different things came together. So even that, I remember when I was about eight or nine years old, um, there was, uh, the tv show robin the hooded man. I don't know if you remember this um with jason connery back in the day and I remembered going to see. It got filmed near my house and I remember going to see it and, um, you know, the, the horned god steps out the hern, the hunter he he's called in Robin Hood steps out of this smoke.
Speaker 2:And that came to me as I was researching this and that's why I ended up with a horned god. And if people see the book cover of Blood Vintage, it's got this horned skull horned god on. And I was like, yeah, the fertility figure is a horned god on. And I was like, yeah, the fertility figure is a horned god. And that's why I was interested in your book, the wendigo. It's completely different, but you have a horned spirit in a wood on the front of the book, don't you?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, I mean I I wanted to make it very clear and obvious what the story was about. Um, and you know, and, and I guess I guess you could say, is, when I think about these, the my, my points of inspiration, this kind of where I'm looking at now and what we're talking about here is is like I want situation but like connect with it as a person. You know, and in in Wendigo it's actually, it's it's kind of a, it's kind of a love and a hope of kind of a restoration story. A man and he goes to rescue his wife and son from the forbidden zone of a forest that people just kind of don't seem to talk about, just kind of don't seem to talk about, and when you look at it, like the entire town itself is a character, because they've all got this, this belief, and they kind of hold true to the belief and outsiders don't really hold true to it and they kind of end up in trouble a lot of times, going into the forbidden zone.
Speaker 1:And now my character, who is an outsider, is given the opportunity to go and kind of rescue his wife and son and he, he encounters this thing and he's got to handle it like a human, you know, and so I'm like, okay, if I'm, if I'm him, how would I deal with this? What are the thoughts and the emotions, the things that I would feel in this particular scenario with this character, if I were him not just me as a person, but me as this character. And so do you? A lot of people call that like writing yourself into the book, and and I don't really, I don't really necessarily agree with that, like I don't know if that's what the terminology is supposed to be, but do you, do you write a lot of yourself into these types of things? Like do you, do you bring yourself into it and you're like I'm gonna put myself in that, in that character's place, or is it like I need to watch this character do this thing? And only they could do it this way?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting. I think we bring a little bit of all of us and one of my regular themes is sisters. I'm the eldest of five kids. I have two sisters who were significantly younger than me and so when I was sort of going through puberty 12, 13 they were only you know young and I just felt so protective of my little sisters. And I have two brothers too, but my sisters I always just wanted to protect. And so so many of my books feature protection of sisters.
Speaker 2:And it's interesting because once again in Blood Vintage, and it's interesting because once again in Blood Vintage, rebecca, the main character it's kind of sparked by her sister disappears and she goes to where she sort of join and have ancient power in some way. But it's so interesting, like you said, these things come up again and again. And in fact my previous horror book called Catacomb is similar to what you were talking about. It's a father who goes to look for his daughter and to save his daughter from a terrible fate. Obviously and again I'm pretty obsessed with fathers saving daughters and the bittersweet ending. Again I mean it's not horror but the movie Armageddon. You know Armageddon.
Speaker 1:And the ending.
Speaker 2:You know, bruce Willis gives his life to save his daughter and save humanity and all that kind of thing. But that's the bit that makes you cry. It's the sacrifice of the father for the daughter. Um, so yes, in so many of my books I have these relationship themes. Um, I guess, and that's how I bring myself into it, I guess yeah, no, that's, that's a perfect, um, perfectly reasonable.
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean and and I think people can appreciate that, you know they're like man, this, this feels, there's this, this idea in hard that we've got to. I can't remember what it's called We've got to dissuade or not dissuade, we've got to. You probably know I'm I'm drawing a blank.
Speaker 2:I don't know what you're talking about it's, it's, it's we.
Speaker 1:We are trying to um convince the reader.
Speaker 1:We try to convince the reader that what they're reading could happen, that yeah absolutely and I there's a terminology for it and I'm drawing a blank, like you would think I would write horror books or something. I would know this, um, but yeah, we, we try to convince people that this could happen, and so and and and, um, I think that's where where we get lost a little bit, where we're we get so lost in the horror like this is so horrific that it could not happen. You know, like we think about armageddon and, and I absolutely love that movie, um, and that last few minutes where you're just, you know, crying your eyes out because you know, bruce willis can hear the song in their head.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I can't remember the actor's name and he's spinning his girlfriend around and they're all singing.
Speaker 2:It's Ben Affleck. Yeah, ben Affleck, there we go, and then and Liv Tyler and it's her actual dad singing that.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, steven.
Speaker 2:Tyler Aerosmith. It's Aerosmith, but no, I think these emotional moments and just coming back to the, is it super, super horror? I actually think one of the tropes of folk horror is that it is quite slow burn. So you know, it starts. It's very much about the sense of place and a sort of female character set in the summer as well, which makes it kind of less horror. But the idea that it's slow burn and then suddenly things start happening and for a while you can say, oh, that must just be the local custom, and then eventually you just start going okay, this is definitely weird and definitely wrong, but I love that slow burn horror.
Speaker 2:I mean, again coming back to the Stand, I mean obviously there's a big global plague which kills lots of people, but then a lot of it is quite slow burn and then it gets faster and faster and faster and I think there's also this sense of an inescapable fate. Or again, these cycles. I love this idea of cycles because we think we're so modern and special, but we're not. We're just animals, you know, with a thin veneer of civilization over our lives and we've got some technology and stuff, but we're the same humans as those humans thousands of years ago who sacrificed to the gods. So that's kind of what I like about the folk thing is that it's not immediate death, it's lots of slow burn mystery.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've had plenty of complaints about my stories being slow burn, but I really just I enjoy that. I don't want to put the scary thing right there and like, oh, there it is, and then where's the rest of the story going, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, totally.
Speaker 1:And to me that's more fun. That gives you a chance to build out characters. It gives you a chance to build out settings and just really dive deep into lore and into you know character relationships and just really bring the story to life before you hit the scary thing.
Speaker 1:You know A lot of people talk about zombie movies and they're like, well, it's action, you know. It's. Like, well, the zombies are never the problem. Like the zombies could just be four walls. They're just keeping people together and just watch what people do to each other when there's zombies around, like it's never about the zombies, because they have one thing that they do Right Zombies. I'll try not to dive too much into it I love, I love everything.
Speaker 2:No, I like zombies too actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, and I want to talk to you about this also, because there is a mall in England that apparently shut down and allow you to go zombie hunting. They have this big event.
Speaker 2:I haven't heard about that, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I'll have to send you the link. Yeah, and they have role players and you get paintball guns and you play out this whole zombie in a mall. Anyways, I'll have to send you the link. But you know, with zombies, the zombies could just be four walls that just keep people in an area together and watch what people do to each other. That's where the real horror is. It's not the zombies, the zombies. If you watch the Walking Dead, you see they just slowly go to the background and they're there and they're always there and they're always doing the one thing that they do.
Speaker 1:But it's in the people that are horrible and it's like you said we are the same people as we were thousands of years ago. You know, with that humanity that we like to claim that we have now, that we're civilized people now, now that we're civilized people now, and not necessarily, if you look, go to any, go to go to any, uh any of those uh hot spots on the us map where crime is just rampant, and tell me about humanity. But, um, so let me ask you this this is I, um, this is on the on the other end of the spectrum from folk horror and from history. Um, let's, let's talk about how and I don't mean from a writer's perspective, but from a technological, from a storytelling perspective a little bit about AI and because I have been writing a lot of stories that involve AI to some degree not necessarily like using it to write my stories Everybody can have their opinion on that but I just mean about its presence in the world. Do you think there's some opportunities there coming up to write some really really cool horror?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I do read some techno horror. There's an author called Daniel Suarez and a book called Daemon, or you can pronounce it Daemon, d-a-e-m-o-n. I highly recommend that book. It was written like 15 years ago or something, but it could be true now, as in the technology he wrote about is just coming to pass. And there's another guy called Ramez Naam who wrote a book called Nexus. It's a trilogy and again, the technology he wrote about is just coming true. And it's so interesting. Because I love reading techno thriller but I don't write it myself.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty obsessed with the past. So, for example, I live here in Bath and we mentioned the Romans, but we have Roman baths that are over 2000 years old and I'm inspired by Gothic cathedrals that are a thousand years old and I like all freemasons and druids and all of this kind of thing. I, I love technology. I mean I have, I like all the gadgets. I, you know I would. I'll get in VR when we can. Maybe you and I can do this in VR in the zombie place or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I, I it's weird, I actually love technology and I don't find it scary. You know, I can watch the movies, like you know, ex Machina and all that and but I don't, I don't find the particularly scary. So yeah, it's really interesting that you mention it as a sort of a horror thing, because in my mind it's just not that at all. I find useful tools, although you did say humans are the problem. Now, humans empowered with tools are dangerous, but then humans are dangerous with fire, they're dangerous with nuclear weapons, they're dangerous with all these things. So yeah, it's interesting, I just don't find it scary at all. So it's not something I would be writing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, and it may not be scary the right kind of scary maybe not. Yet I've been looking, you know, just kind of you know browsing for books that use AI as an antagonist. I want to see it. I want to see you know how it transforms, and I don't mean like Will Smith iRobot action movie type of thing, you know. So I didn't know if you had any thoughts on it, I just figured I'd ask because you're well versed in horror and a lot of people don't realize that. But you are, and I figured you kind of look at the past, present and future. So that's really cool that you're like no, it doesn't really scare me. I just kind of appreciate it and I'm like, well, no, I definitely recommend those books.
Speaker 2:They're more technically thriller, I guess, but it is interesting, isn't it? I mean, when we write the books that are from our heart, the books that interest us, our curiosity is such a specific creature. You know, you and I are both interested in folk horror, but we're so different in terms of our backgrounds and what we're interested in. And I mean my upbringing here in the UK and traveling around Europe means that I walk around the corner and there's a whole load more historical stuff that inspires me. And there's so much blood in our land from people killing each other over and over again. I mean it's just ridiculous how many cultures have killed each other, even in just the area where I live and the battles and you know I'm just near the border with Wales and the English and the Welsh and I mean just there's so much blood in the land where I am. And so for me, that's where I always echo back to.
Speaker 2:And a friend of mine said I was like, oh, what's going to happen in the future and all this? And she said what was true a thousand years ago will be true in a thousand years. And I love this because this is whatever happens with technology, whether we all get uploaded to the cloud or whatever it is, we will still love our family, right? We will still want to protect our sisters, we will still want to love each other and we'll still want to I don't know win over the gods or whatever, and so, in that way, I feel like it doesn't matter what happens with technology. As you have said, the story is about the humans and whether they're rising up against the terminator or rising up against a pagan god. That is what we do, um. I did, though, just want to mention that um, because I live in bath and mary shelley wrote frankenstein here in bath, and of course, that is a horror book, but also it's a technology book, because of the electricity yeah, the electricity that brings the monster to life.
Speaker 2:and if you, if anyone, comes to bath, you can visit the Roman Baths and there's a plaque on the wall because that is where Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in this boarding house there. And what is also funny is it's actually above an electric substation. Wow.
Speaker 1:How cool is that? That is cool, see. I wouldn't have known this without talking to you. And so now I'm like I really need to visit, I really need to come, you know, travel across the pond. I've I've only left the country one time and I think my worldview is probably lacking because of it, but I've, I've, I've, I've traveled to France a long time ago as an exchange student, but I've been meaning to visit england, and it's just, I think you're starting to convince me when you're telling me that there is a plaque above, above an electrical substation dedicated to mary shelley, specifically because the electrical element in frankenstein. I'm like, how cool is that? I mean, who, anyways? That's? That's so interesting, and I, I so appreciate you sharing that, and I don't think a lot of people would realize they wouldn't have known that without listening to this. So that's so cool, thank you.
Speaker 2:Oh, no worries. Well, I'm pretty obsessed with traveling around, finding dark things. I mean, it's also right next to the thousand-year-old cathedral and there's a Jacob's Ladder, you know Jacob's Ladder, with the angels going up and down, and it's the only time I've ever seen it, but one of the angels is crawling down the ladder and it seriously looks like a demon.
Speaker 2:It's like on the front of a cathedral is this demon crawling down Jacob's ladder? And I think I look at, I look up at it and my mind goes straight to that angel or demon and other people you know taking photos being tourists and I can just see this little evil thing do you have photos of that?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, yeah, I have an Instagram at jfpenauthor and I have loads of pictures there. I also have, um, a blog and a podcast at booksandtravelpage and we can put the links in the notes or something. But, um, I have episodes on Bath and pictures there of all my travels and because I'm just obsessed with researching different places, so I put all that there. You can see my green man there and the vineyards and all of that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, that's, that's amazing, and I did, I did you a disservice by not mentioning how much travel and historical research goes into the things that you write, and so I apologize, but you're, I think you've, you've, you've shown it already that that your, uh, your, your historic historical travels, and and have have really been an influence on what you write.
Speaker 2:So, um, I should also just say also um, I've written quite a lot set in the U S? Um, so Valley of Dry Bones, uh, which is about the Ezekiel, you know the quote. The Valley of Dry Bones and the bones coming to life is set mostly in New Orleans and also in on the West Coast in San Francisco, so I really brought in some American stuff. I've got a book in New York which has a dark angel in, and so I've traveled around the US as well. There's plenty in the US, of course, but I do find that Europe is pretty dense when it comes to dark history.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. So. You told us a little bit about where to find you. We're getting to a good stopping point here, especially when you tell us where we can find more, especially about these pictures that you've taken of your travels. I think people would find that so curious. There's so much more that goes into writing a book than it just popped out of our head, right, oh goodness me. Yes, yeah, and, and, and, and. Some go further than others and, and. That's totally fine, and, and, and. Sometimes it shows, and sometimes it's. It's like, oh well, thanks, um, thanks for writing. You know, 16 chapters about a lamppost, um, but that's not you or me.
Speaker 2:No, that's neither of us yeah, thankfully.
Speaker 1:Um. So let's, let's do this. Um, joe, tell us, tell us where we can find more of you, tell us where we can find blood, vintage, tell us about what you got coming up and just let folks know, like where's the best place to find you sure.
Speaker 2:Well, everything is linked from jfpencom and blood vintage is jfpenncom, forward slash, blood vintage, or one word. And there is a kickstarter with special editions and things in october. And then the blog is at booksandtravelpage and there's a books and travel podcast as well and lots of things like that. Or my instagram at jfpennauthor, where I share lots of pictures and things like that. Or my instagram at jf pen author, where I share lots of pictures and things like that wonderful.
Speaker 1:So, folks, if you're looking for more about this, if you're looking for more folk horror, you've got to check out blunt vintage. Um, I don't endorse a lot of writers out there, um, but I'll endorse, I'll endorse miss pen any day um, so thank you, yeah, and I'll include links to to uh, where you can find her and where you can find blood, vintage, and just more about her travels.
Speaker 1:Everything will be in the show notes. So, um, thank you so much for being here today, thank you for jumping on the show and thank you for inviting me on your show. Um, did you want to talk about that at all or do you want to leave that for another day?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, sure. So, um, yes, thanks for having me on this one. And we had, I guess, more of a horror conversation but also a business conversation at the Creative Pen podcast, which is more of the business side of being a writer. But, yeah, maybe we can link to that in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this has been another episode of the Nightmare Engine podcast. It's been a pleasure to speak with Miss Penn and about Full Corps today, and we just appreciate you guys listening. We are a reader facing podcast, and so we hope that the things that you get from us are the part of us that make us human, and that's kind of what today's topic is about. So thank you everybody, and we will see you at the next one.
