Film reviewer, author, and
film festival host, Anthony Northrup, has been an online buddy of mine ever
since I joined the “All Things King” group on Facebook. Over the years, we’ve
gotten to know each other’s works. And he’s interviewed me a couple times and
reviewed my books. When he put together a book about both Stephen King’s
“Dollar Baby” films, (Short films that independent filmmakers are allowed to
make as long as they are not for sale or distributed anywhere. King sells the
rights to these for a dollar and calls them his “Dollar Babies”) and essays
from authors and filmmakers about how Stephen King has influenced their work. I
was honored to contribute an essay for Stephen King Dollar Baby: The Book.
Anyway, it’s about time I interviewed him, so here we go:
I noticed that you got your start writing film reviews for your local paper,
the Tri-County Sun. What inspired you to start writing those reviews and
submitting them to the Tri-County Sun?
Great
question Brooklyn Ann. It was pretty simple. I’ve had a passion my entire
life for films, and as you know, pre Covid 19, I was like a fixture at the
theater. Where I live there are a couple of local newspapers. I happened to
know the owner of one of these papers and asked him if he had a movie review
column. He said no. We worked out a great deal and that got the ball
rolling. This happened ten years ago now, and this coming May marks my tenth
anniversary writing for the Tri County Sun, which now also shares my film
reviews (and celebrity interviews) in another newspaper in our area as
well. So now I reach even a broader base of readers.
When did you become aware of Stephen King’s “Dollar Baby” films? How did you
get your first opportunity to see one?
The first
time I ever heard of a Dollar Baby film was when I was reading the
monstrosity-sized book, STEPHEN KING ENCYCLOPEDIA by Stephen Spignesi.
When I read this book, I asked myself What’s a “dollar baby”? Not too
long after that, in 2013, as I was on social media, I came across director
Billy Hanson, he was talking about his Dollar Baby film, SURVIVOR
TYPE,based on Stephen King’s short story from the book, SKELETON CREW. I
introduced myself to Billy, and asked if I could interview him and review his
film. He said yes. Afterwards, he was so impressed with the article, he
introduced me to other Dollar Baby filmmakers and the ball began rolling from
there.
I read that you had lots of opportunities to meet people, network, and
attend film festivals back when you lived in the Hollywood area, and when you
lived in South Carolina, where many King adaptations were being filmed. But
then you ended up in North Dakota. As a fellow resident of a rural state
(Idaho), I am curious how you adapted the situation to be able to keep in
contact with your friends and connections, attend film festivals, and keep up
with the convention circuit.
Well,
this is a lengthy question. You have all the correct places I’ve lived,
however, not in the correct order. I do live currently in North Dakota,
for the past 19 years. Previously I lived in Southern California, in the San
Fernando Valley (for 10 years). Before that I lived between North and South
Carolina, and California as a kid, and teenager. I was actually born in
Riverhead, New York, and resided there until I was five years old. Now that
we’ve got the timeline straight of where I’ve lived, I can answer your initial
question of how I was able to network. When I was an adult living in Southern
California, I lived in Studio City, and Sherman Oaks, which is considered the
Valley (San Fernando). These two cities border one another and Ventura
Boulevard runs along the perimeter of both. While I was in Southern California
I met several celebrities, which include, directors, actors, and writers. They
came into a well known and frequented retail store I worked in. This made it
easy for me to interact with many of the people that I’ve built contacts with
in the early 1990’s, and although I don’t reside in So-Cal now I have kept in
contact with many of these people who have become personal friends. This
has been a basis for me to be able to have the opportunity to review, and interview
quite a few of those people I met well over 20 years ago. As far as the film
fests that I have held in the past 7 years, they have all been in Minneapolis
MN, at Crypticon Horror Convention. One thing I can say regarding living in the
Carolinas, as a child the film SILVER BULLET was filmed in Burgaw, NC, that is
also where I lived. There were several other Stephen King films such as MAXIMUM
OVERDRIVE, CAT’S EYE, and FIRESTARTER, which I believe were a basis for my life
long love of movies, most particularly Stephen King.
I LOVED Silver Bullet! It had to have been exciting being around
where it was filmed. Now for my next question: When you decided to compile your
interviews with Dollar Baby filmmakers, and turn it into a book that also
included interviews and essays from other writers and figures in the Stephen
King fandom, what was your greatest challenge in undertaking this massive
project?
Ohhh,
there were a lot of challenges. However, the biggest would have to be
contacting and setting up interviews and reviews with the Dollar Baby directors
themselves. After reading Stephen Spignesi’s book, STEPHEN KING
ENCYCLOPEDIA, I initially found out about the Dollar Baby program. That was new
for me, and it piqued my interest. While I was on a social media network one
day, director Billy Hanson made a comment on one of my friend’s posts about his
newly released film, SURVIVOR TYPE. Of course, I couldn’t let this pass,
so I reached out to Billy and was really happy he responded to me. From there
things began to happen, and he was my first Dollar Baby short film viewing and
review, followed by an exclusive interview with him. He was pleased with what I
did and from there things started to snowball. Through his networking others in
the Dollar Baby program actually began reaching out to me asking where they
could send their film for review, and an interview with them. Mind you, this is
an exclusive program so none of these films are currently released to the
public to view except through film festivals.
I love that you’re a metalhead like me. Who are some of your favorite metal
bands?
Although
I am a lover of many genres of music, yes, I am a metalhead. However, my taste
runs along the line of AC-DC (who is my true passion), and have seen them in
concert in the 90’s. I’ve also seen Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, Motley Crue, Skid
Row, Van Halen, and several others. Of course, I love Ozzy (who was truly, back
in the day), considered one of the first metal gods while with Black
Sabbath.
Other than the King, who are some of your favorite authors?
My book
collection is diverse, so my list of favorite authors is a bit long. However,
my very top favorites are: Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son), Stephen Spignesi,
Richard Chizmar, Lee Gambin, Carrie Fisher, Mick Garris, Anne Rice, Gabrielle
Stone, Mark Dawidziak, Andrew J. Rausch, David Tocher, Poe and Lovecraft, Bram
Stoker, Bev Vincent, Robin Furth, Rutanya Alda, Kevin Quigley, and of course,
Brooklyn Ann. I am also a big fan of autobiographies as well.
You have a very busy life, managing the All Things King group on FB,
interviewing authors and filmmakers, doing reviews and articles for the
Tri-County Sun, as well as working on your burgeoning career as an author in
your own right. How do you manage your time to keep up with it all?
*laugh* There
isn’t enough time in the day! It really is a full-time job with all I
have to cover, but I squeeze in everything whenever I have free time or I have
to simply make time. However, downtime is few and far between. I also work a 9
to 5. You know, a starving artist, haha!
What has been the best thing about being part of the Stephen King fandom?
I think it boils down to three things: (1) fellow Stephen King fans.
Running a Stephen King fan page on social media for 9 years, I have met some
absolutely wonderful and amazing people all over the world. We all come
together to talk about Stephen King, something we all have in common. To visit
with fans and talk and feel the same excitement and passion that I share is a
wonderful experience. (2) Studying Stephen King’s works is something die
hard fans do. Not just reading his books or watching his films, but actually
breaking his stories down, analyzing them is fun, yet an educational way of
enjoying King's works. (3) Collecting. Some fans are happy with just
buying the books or dvd’s, but some fans have (or need) to own EVERYTHING King,
from T-shirts to buttons, to rare collectibles, to action figures. The
bigger the collection, the prouder fans.
Finally, a fun question about North Dakota food. I’m now hopelessly addicted to Dots Pretzels (anyone reading this interview should fill out a request form at their local grocery store to get this addictive snack!). Are there any other awesome foods from your region?
 |
| So Addictive!!!! |
Glad you like the Dots Pretzels. To answer your question, the food in the north eastern part of North Dakota where I live is mainly Norwegian, and bland. We are pretty particular eaters being that some of the best Mexican food you can get is in Southern California, so that isn’t something we can find here that tastes authentic. To tell you the truth North Dakota is a huge agricultural state, so it’s pretty much a meat & potatoes kind of place. My wife is an excellent cook and is very diverse (Greek food, Italian food, gourmet foods, etc.), but we do sometimes like to get the deep fried pickles and the chocolate covered potato chips as a fun North Dakota snack.
To wrap it up, it’s kind of fun on the receiving end of an interview. I really liked the questions you asked and I hope your readers will enjoy them and my answers as well. Thank you, Brooklyn Ann.
If any of your readers are interested, or diverse Stephen King fans, they can look for my book at Bear Manor Media.com or Amazon.com under the title: STEPHEN KING DOLLAR BABY: The Book by Anthony Northrup.
If you want to see some Dollar Baby Films, on April 23-25th, there is going to be a 3-day virtual film festival hosted by Barker Street Cinema with Q&As from Anthony Northrup and several of the film directors. Details are HERE.
