Interview: Silver Screams with Cinecrypt

Imagine a world where your favorite creepy classics could leap off the page and into your hands. What sinister secrets would you learn? What creepy crossovers could occur? Ash Redburn, the creative mind behind Cinecrypt, has your answers.

Hi, Ash! Please introduce our Mad Monster readers to Cinecrypt. What is it, and how did it start?

Hello from six feet below! Cinecrypt takes often overlooked horror movies from the past and gives them new life in comic book form. With a fresh coat of paint, the hope is that fans will rediscover some of these gems and give them some twisted love. We’re playing around with big hitters from the beginning like Nosferatu and Haxan, all the way up to seventies Italian and Spanish exploitation flicks like Count Dracula’s Great Love and Lady Frankenstein. All of these stories will connect in strange and subversive ways…

But really, I started by noodling about with movies in my spare time and trying to understand how to lay out a comic book. How to make the story flow on the page, isolate cliffhangers, and even get characters talking in a way that reads left to right. All interesting and fun challenges. I threw the first issue up on Kickstarter a year ago, not expecting anybody to find it. But out of nowhere, the comic connected with a loyal base of horror fans, and we’ve been bringing more people down to the crypt ever since!

When brainstorming films to feature in Cinecrypt, what defines your criteria for an adaptable story?

I don’t have a consistent formula, which means I agonise over movie choices from month to month. First of all, it needs to be in the public domain, which whittles the options down considerably. I can’t take a stab at a Hellraiser comic on a whim, as much as I’d like to.

Then, I’m looking for interesting visuals that jump out at a glance. I start breaking down the pace, the plot beats, and how well it can be serialised over a few issues. Can it be subtly merged with the other movies and fit into the larger meta story we’re building in the Cinecrypt? That’s the nuts and bolts of choosing. But also, how can I invite something new to the comic. If we’ve had a couple of issues hanging out with vampires and witches, it’s time to get some werewolves and mad science in the mix!

If the public domain license weren’t a factor in your decisions, what would be your dream Cinecrypt adaptation?

There are so many! But what really interests me is adapting movies in an unconventional way, merging franchises or reorganising sequels into a new form. Something like taking Halloween H20 and Halloween 2018 and presenting them together, bouncing back and forth in a sliding doors kind of situation. Which one is real and which is Laurie Strode’s fantasy, and why does Michael invade no matter what reality Laurie finds herself in. Something like that could be an interesting angle.

Your “Deadly Duo” crossover sketches (offered as a Kickstarter backer reward) are also quite impressive, evoking the quality of horror’s classic cover artists. Did horror comics and magazines influence your work as an artist?

I remember being a young reader in the nineties, happily enjoying a sugary diet of the usual superhero stuff. Then, midway through a run of Batman, a new artist jumped on called Kelley Jones and totally hijacked it. He drew this insane looking Batman, hunched over, with incredibly long ears. I was totally jarred by this sudden shift into horror, but I was also grimly fascinated. From there I started looking back to artists like Bernie Wrightson, then even further back into pre-code comics like This Magazine Is Haunted and Chamber Of Chills. This great mix of European gothic, Americana, fine manners and ultraviolence. Exploring all of that led me down here. Plus a love of beaten up 80’s VHS covers!

Like any good franchise, Cinecrypt also has a few spin-offs in the works. Which genres or eras can readers expect to see in those installments?

Cinecrypt will be building new screens in 2023! The first spin-off will be The Silent Scream. It’s a sprawling mash-up of silent movie monsters, all with colliding agendas that ends up dragging them into a Metropolis-like future. Count Orlock, Caligari, Faust, The Phantom of the Opera and many more surprises.

Then we jump to the eighties for a four issue mini-series called The Midnight Slice that will play around with a perma-banned slasher movie. Big hair, bigger knives. That one will be a lot of fun.

Further into the year I have plans to play around with some giallo and kaiju ideas but I’m mostly working six months ahead at the moment, so who knows what the future might hold…

In the mean time, where can likeminded gothic horror readers see more from Cinecrypt?

Cinecrypt: The Silver Scream is currently celebrating its tenth issue and one year anniversary! You can pick that up along with our Halloween Special on Kickstarter now, along with all the previous issues, and everything will be delivered to you early in November! Stop by for some scary stories, spooky doodles and more!

Everyone is welcome in the Cinecrypt.