Don’t Go To Wheelchair Camp author David Irons is back with the anti-Heartstopper…Cockstopper, which is set for release on 29 May 2023.
We got to quiz David all about crafting the story, inspirations for Kelly and Kennedy and a return to Wheelchair Camp.
We’ve seen idealist queer drama with Heartstopper on Netflix, is your take a bit more nihilistic?
A bit is an understatement! This book exists because Roberto, my Spanish publisher at Dimensiones Ocultas press, sent me a text message saying, ‘You should write the horror Heartstopper.’
I had no idea what Heartstopper was. In my world, if it didn’t exist on VHS in the ’90s, it doesn’t exist at all. I Googled Heartstopper, found the cover, and read the synopsis. I’ve never had much interest in romance novels or movies – gay or straight, but I got what Heartstopper was about. The cover of Heartstopper with the two guys stuck in my head. I recently watched the 1980 movie New Year’s Evil, and that poster has the killer busting through the one sheet. I juxtaposed the Heartstopper cover and New Year’s Evil poster in my mind with a grinning girl slicing in between the two guys. Then the tagline just popped into my mind: “Not every romance is a Heartstopper.” Then the title Cockblocker was a crude, low-brow play on Heartstopper. – I loved it. I text Roberto with a description of the cover, the title, and the tagline, plus the basic idea: A homicidal high school cheerleader goes nutzoid when her quarterback boyfriend falls for one of the male cheerleaders. It’s the slasher Heartstopper. He sent over the contract the same day. I understood from the outside how the whole thing might seem derogatory coming from a straight guy in today’s climate, so I sent it to some of my gay friends, who loved it. Still, they have sick senses of humor anyway. The book and concept is a lot of fun. If anything is worth some of the sensitive souls in society trying to “cancel” me for, Cockblocker is it.
I previously read your book Don’t Go To Wheelchair Camp, which shed an intriguing light on people with physical disabilities; do you aim to give minorities more of a voice in your stories?
I can’t do anything but give people marching to a different beat a voice in my stories. I find it hard to understand ‘normal people,’ I have led a very unconventional life outside the norm. My parents died at fifteen, and I had to live on the street. Imagine being fifteen years old, and someone ties you up, throws you in the back of a black van, blindfolds you, then dumps you in the middle of nowhere and says. ‘Now you can get on with your life.’ That’s how it felt. I’ve had to walk a lot of roads, many haven’t, to build some semblance of a regular life. At one point, I lived in a shack in the woods with my collection of VHS tapes and books. Films and books kept me alive. I find it very easy to align with any outsiders of the ‘norm.’
Tell us about crafting the character of Kelly Kennedy, and was someone like Mary Lou from Prom Night an inspiration?
I love Mary Lou, both Angelas from Sleepaway Camp and Night of the Demons. There are a lot of fantastic female antagonists in horror. Lilith in Night Angel is a favorite too. But Kelly Kennedy is a sly wink to Kelly Kapowski of Saved By The Bell and someone I met in real life. Back in 2016, I was pitching a film version of my first novel Nightwaves. In the meeting, they had a real uptight, straight-laced twenty-something girl who was the company’s script reader. In Nightwaves, there is a gay couple – two girls who share an apartment. Everything was there in their actions and dialogue: they were a couple.
The script reader got to the point where the two girls kissed out, and it blew her mind. “But they were just friends, right? Friends don’t do that!’ Everyone in the room picked up on it but her. She suggested I make the two girls’ Just friends,’ I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘It seems very unnatural. Girls don’t do that!’ ‘I said, I’m not so sure about that … lots of people do lots and things, and asked, have you ever seen a John Waters film?’ She said no. I asked her to watch a few select titles from Waters’ filmography and then report back. She did, and her mind was blown. She thought they were disgusting and depraved. I laughed and said, ‘Yep, they’re great!’ After some digging, I found out she’d never really watched anything more challenging than Saved By The Bell and Sweet Valley High. I asked the male producers at the company how she got the job as a script reader. They said they voted on who was the best-looking applicant for the job. It was obvious they didn’t exactly go for the brightest one. #metoo happened for a reason, folks. That’s when I used the door and put a nail into making the film with them. I don’t think the script reader wasn’t a straight-up hateful homophobe, just a well-meaning – in her own mind – wide-eyed kook with no life experience. Everything in her mind should be like an episode of a T.V. sitcom. I thought she would make a great serial killer.
Can we expect plenty of gore and creative kills in Cockstopper?
And then some. Wait until you get to the talking cock scene, whose pulsating veins become reaching hands.
How hard is it to reign yourself in as a writer when writing horror to ensure amongst the gore and chaos, you are telling a coherent story?
I don’t like mindless violence for the sake of it. The kind of horror I like has to be something: scary, funny, and thoughtful in some way. I like the juxtaposition of light and dark. That’s why I like Wes Craven’s films. They are mostly about the ideals of the American suburban neighborhood and some dark thing lurking in it. Lynch deals with the same themes but executes them differently. It’s the light and dark of a society. With light and dark as a template, you don’t have to bend too many shadows into the light to pervert it. I see films with people getting ground beef one after the other, and it means nothing. If you had a child’s birthday party on a perfect sunny day and one of the kids got his hand caught in a garbage disposal, tore off three fingers, and doused the guests and cake with blood, it would impact you like the most horrifying thing you’ve ever seen – if done right. Think of all those screaming, blood-splattered kids and parents – perfection! And all you’ve dismembered is three fingers. I write with a crocodile grin and a false sense of security. Everything is okay. Everything is great. But is it? If the circumstances are right, I don’t think you have to push the gore to the extremes. Look at The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It’s relatively bloodless. The story always comes first; the blood and chaos should naturally fit around it – not vice versa.
What are you working on next?
Two stories back to back: ‘Don’t go to Wheelchair Camp Part 2: You can roll, but you can’t hide!’ and ‘Don’t go to Wheelchair Camp 3: Don’t go to Wheelchair Camp – The Movie.’
Pre-order your copy of Cockstopper by David Irons on Amazon.
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