Terry M. West is one of the few people I truly look up to for inspiration. His entire career as a director and writer has left me awe inspired and I proudly say he is a hero of mine and a true role model. His contributions to horror is something I will share will my offspring when the time is right. Sadly, he has switched gears in recent years and has started focusing on writing more than directing. I respect that life choice but I rarely get the time to read anymore but I promise I will have all his recent literature feats read and reviewed by Christmas.
Any who, today I received the following press release regarding West and his new book Heroin in the Magic Now. Check that out below:
Terry M. West has spent the last year producing some highly-acclaimed horror fiction. His work is being appreciated by many new readers, but not all of Terry’s work has been so highly regarded.
“My soft-core film work just about destroyed my reputation and my life,” Terry confided, openly.
Though his horror fiction work was on the rise in the late nineties, Terry took an opportunity in 2000 and wrote/directed a string of erotic parodies and horror erotica of the After Dark kind.
“I didn’t have an issue with what I was doing at the time,” West says. “It was work. I was paid to create and I figured it would help me land other gigs. The content didn’t detour me. I thought I could shine through it, you know. A lot of people who work on adult industry material figure they are bigger than it, and that they can somehow elevate the genre. I thought I was doing that, but it was crap; plain and simple.”
His association with soft-core did lead to his writing/directing chores on Media Blaster’s FLESH FOR THE BEAST, a horror flick with heavy erotic tones. The film has received extremely mixed reviews.
“After I directed Flesh for the Beast, I hit a wall; really hard,” West explained. “My personal life fell apart and I had a falling out with damn near everyone, friends and family alike. It didn’t help that I was going through a mid-life crisis at the time.”
West found himself experimenting with drugs to make the pain go away. “There was a lot going on. I was being crucified unmercifully for the type of work I was doing. I was going through a divorce that this lifestyle of mine had caused. I went into this dark playground as a fairly nice guy, but there is something about it that twists you, after a time. Bad habits are not only acceptable, but expected and encouraged. I grew an addiction quickly and quite honestly prepared myself to die.”
But West managed to persevere and pull himself out of the tailspin. He sobered up and remarried and he even has a child now. West took the better part of a decade to focus on his family life, and he didn’t miss the creative world at all. But horror was in his blood, and in early 2013, he rededicated himself to being the best horror author he could be. He produced two collections, WHAT PRICE GORY? and A PSYCHO’S MEDLEY, as well as the horror/comedy novella, CECIL & BUBBA MEET THE THANG. His short fiction has been accepted into numerous anthologies and he has been praised by readers and fellow horror authors alike.
His film work seldom gets mention these days, but the darkness of that period still lingers in him. “I decided to write HEROIN IN THE MAGIC NOW to get it out of my system, you know? I had written a short story, HARDCORE CRUST, for an anthology called AXES OF EVIL. The story centers around Gary Hack, a desperate junkie film director who lives in a New York City filled with monsters. The universe Gary lives in has witnessed every creature of the night come from the shadows and stand next to man. So, of course, a market for monster fetish pornography blossoms and Gary jumps on it. But it turns out to be a very dark and dangerous occupation.”
After writing the story, Terry felt that some of the demons were exercised from him. “I had toyed with the idea of writing about my experiences in filmmaking, and the story of Gary Hack gave me a safe environment to let it all hang out. Gary Hack is a dark caricature of me. He is what I was on my way to becoming. All of the doubt, self-loathing and pain Gary feels comes from me. He expresses what I went through and felt at the time. There is one line in the story, ‘Gary didn’t want to be a joke or a cautionary tale.’ And that is how I feel. The soft-core work I did is old, now, and I want it to be a very small footnote in my career.”
HEROIN IN THE MAGIC NOW will be available for both Kindle and Paperback versions on August 31, 2014!
Available August 31st!HEROIN IN THE MAGIC NOW takes place in an alternate version of NYC where every form of monster exists next to man. Gary Hack, a down on his luck porn director with an appetite for heroin, finds himself working in the dangerous world of monster fetish videos.
Gary is made an offer he can’t refuse by Johnny Stücke, an immortal crime boss. The video Johnny envisions could be the greatest zombie fetish film ever created. But it could also ignite an apocalypse that could destroy the city.
Critically-acclaimed horror author Terry M. West has written a startling and original novella that is loosely based on his own life experiences and struggle with addiction.
West is a man who has the talent and experience to craft something unimaginable and the works of his I have had time to read is nothing short of brilliant. You can grab this titles, and many others, by going to Terry M. West.com and Pleasant Storm Entertainment.com. Check it out and remember to always support indie horror!
