TALES DISPATCH: Jeff Buhler on “Strangerâ€
Tales alumni Jeff Buhler (writer, Pet Semetary, Midnight Meat Train, The Grudge) talks about his LIVE Tale from Season 2, “Stranger†Now available on TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE The Podcast.
Camping has been a part of my life since I was a little kid. This story — Stranger — basically came out of the tradition of sitting around the fire and coming up with the most insane story you could muster. In addition to being out in the wilderness, one of my great fears is alien abduction. Since the Barney and Betty Hill movie or the Christopher Walken thing that Whitley Strieber wrote I have been addicted to these tales. And of course there is Fire in the Sky, which in my mind was one of the first real, effective abduction horror movies in the sense that the visualization of the ship in the third act really disturbed me. We obviously tried to channel some of that in STRANGER.
Working with live actors and live sound FX was new to me coming off This Oracle Moon. In my first “Taleâ€, I had the luxury of repeated takes and editing performances and adding all kinds of sound design. But when you’re live, there’s something different. Something compelling about the immediacy of the experience. Of course, I wish we had a week to block, rehearse and develop the story but — hey— this is horror and sometimes the thing that sits at the heart of the story is all you need.
Thanks to Larry and Glenn for releasing these Tales. I’ve been loving them myself. Hope everyone enjoys STRANGER.
