Interview With Brian McAuley, Author Of ‘Breathe In, Bleed Out’

Brian McAuley’s new book, Breathe In, Bleed Out, hits so many of my favorite marks – isolation horror, a familiar location, both likable and unlikable characters, plus gore, horror, violence… the list goes on and on. After reading Brian’s first two books, Curse of the Reaper, and Candy Cain Kills, I was so excited to get the chance to read this new one, and it totally lived up to the hype. And bonus for me, Brian is local, so I get to run into him at horror events and attend book signings!

Brian isn’t just an author though. He’s also a WGA screenwriter (Dismissed – 2017; Fuller House) and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Screenwriting in The Sidney Poitier New American Film School at ASU. How cool is that?

It’s a Midsommar night’s Scream in this blood-soaked thriller set at a remote healing retreat from horror author Brian McAuley.

To celebrate the release of Breathe In, Bleed Out, I chatted with Brian about writing a slasher, embracing the horror genre, horror movies, and more!

PopHorror: I read your book, and I loved it.

Brian McAuley: Thank you so much for reading it!

PopHorror: I’m excited to talk to you about it today. What sparked the idea for Breathe In, Bleed Out?

Brian McAuley: I lived in LA for 10 years before moving here, so I saw and had encounters with wellness culture in every kind of form from the yoga studios and the gurus and retreats, and all the capitalist versions of all of the above and just the way the ickiness behind a lot of it. I just felt so strongly like, I’d seen different stories and thrillers dabble in the world, but I’d never seen a full-on slasher in that world. For me, as a slasher writer, I don’t write slashers where it’s just people getting stabbed over and over again. I like to think of the big set pieces and props and murder weapons that shouldn’t be murder weapons, so for me, that was the other part of it. It was like, oh, okay, I can build this murder set pieces around yoga studios and sound baths and healing crystals and all of that. That was the jumping off point. Once I knew that, it was then who is the character? I need to figure out someone who obviously is in need of some kind of healing and engineered the story that way.

PopHorror: I love books and movies that take place in a single, isolated location.  I watch too many horror movies and read too many books to go on a retreat. That is how horror movies start.

Brian McAuley: A hundred percent! It was interesting because this was my fourth book, but it was my first time doing what I think would be considered like a locked room mystery.

PopHorror: Which are also my jam!

Brian McAuley: It was really fun to write one for the first time and have it in a place that’s not actually a locked room but very open space. It’s just that you can’t really escape. I’d been to Joshua Tree before and the desert out there is a harrowing place, especially after dark. I realized that it fit the themes as well, to set it at that location. Then I started doing more research into… The moment I discovered the gold mining mystery of Joshua Tree, that was a huge click for obvious reasons where I was like, okay, now I have my slasher figure inspiration from that history of the place as well.

PopHorror: Was there anything that you were adamant about keeping in the final draft, no matter what?

 

Brian McAuley: Ooh, good question. My process with my editor on this was really… There were a lot of huge changes. Not like big developmental edits. I think I was wondering, because Poisoned Pen has published a lot of thriller books and they’re doing more horror now, but I was wondering at the start of the process, am I going to be encouraged to lean more into the thriller and pull back on the gore? And never did I get any note in that direction. If anything, it got gorier than the draft I submitted to them. I was very grateful for that, for sure.

PopHorror: I think we’re very lucky to have Poisoned Pen Press and to have the bookstore here. I’m glad to hear that they’re branching out into more horror.

Brian McAuley: Yeah, they have Darcey Coates, who writes really great thrillers that also tread that line into horror. The horror genre is really doing well. You always see those news articles, “Is horror back?” and it’s like, it’s never gone anywhere. But in the book world, there was a time when it was a bad idea to brand anything horror. You had to call it something like supernatural suspense. Barnes and Noble didn’t have horror shelves until relatively recently and that’s so exciting to see.

PopHorror: I love Darcey Coates! If Breathe In, Bleed Out was to be made into a movie, who would you cast as Hannah and Guru Pax?

Brian McAuley: Ooh, god! An actress who I love right now and who’s especially just been killing it in the horror genre is Sophie Thatcher. I think she can do that… When I think of Hannah, I’m picturing someone who’s holding in all this emotion on the verge of crying or screaming at the same time and that’s an actress I feel can do that really well. Guru Pax is a hard one. I would never cast this person, but I would say that someone like Jared Leto was an influence on that character because he actually is a creepy cult leader.

PopHorror: And he’s got the hair!

Brian McAuley: Exactly! You just need to let it grey a little bit. But I would never give that man any jobs. What I think would be fun would be to see somebody who can balance the humor and the scariness, which would be really fun to see somebody have fun with that character. I think it’s a cool time to see actors right now in the relatively older age bracket… I’m just thinking specifically of Hugh Grant in Heretic. I love seeing somebody who is known for rom coms and now he’s playing this totally different scary role. I think somebody in that vein would be a perfect fit for it.

PopHorror: I love it when someone that you’re not expecting to be in horror and they’re known for comedy or whatever, and they go out and do horror.

Brian McAuley: Jordan Peele being another example of somebody who made their mark in comedy but always was a horror fan and then when they get the chance, they get to make these really special mash-up movies.

PopHorror: Speaking of horror, it’s become a box office powerhouse over the years. I love how many horror movies are in the theater, all the books coming out. It’s like people are just discovering the genre. Why do you feel that some people resonate with horror more than others?

Brian McAuley: What I’ve definitely seen is a lot of people don’t think they like horror until they find the right gateway into it. Everybody has certain things that are triggering or pushes them away, and horror obviously delves into all of the possible triggers and traumas. I think just finding what’s the place and subgenre that feels like the kind of safe space for me to play in the shadows and the darkness and all of that. I think the slasher genre is what most people, their first thought of horror and the first thing that people are like, “No, I don’t want that because I don’t want gore,” but it’s been fun to see even just with the early reviews of Breathe In, Bleed Out of thriller readers finding this book and discovering, “I think I like slashers and horror,” because it is a fine line. I think just finding what’s the subgenre that really resonates with you because it really is such a diverse genre.

PopHorror: It is, and that’s what I love about it. I feel like the same thing you said, that’s not all that horror is and there’s so much more to it. If you like comedy, you might enjoy a horror comedy and that might be your gateway. If people have an open mind, they might find something they like within the horror genre.

Brian McAuley: Absolutely! That, for me, I’m in the same boat – thriller, psychological horror, slasher realm is where I like writing and what I like the most to watch and read because frankly, people, I find, are the scariest. I have friends in the horror genre who just have no interest in slashers but for them, demonic possession is the scariest thing in the world. For me, I find those movies boring but I don’t look down on them or I don’t wish they didn’t exist. It makes me so happy that there’s so many different outlets for people to find their niche in it.

PopHorror: I have just one last question for you today. What is your favorite scary movie?

Brian McAuley: I think that I feel like I have to say Scream because it just was so influential for me. There’s an author’s note in the book talking about this.

PopHorror: Yes! I read it and I loved it. It’s so well written and it’s just really good.

Brian McAuley: Thank you! It just hit me at the perfect time in my life to be my gateway into horror and so it will always have that special spot in my heart. No matter how much I rewatch it, I never really get sick of it. As an alternate answer, Jaws is the movie that I can also never get sick of, to the point that my students will be like, “Please stop referencing Jaws.” I’m like, It’s the best, I can teach any possible lesson about storytelling with Jaws. Ghostface versus a shark would be a hell of a crossover!

Thank you so much to Brian for taking the time to chat with us. Breathe In, Bleed Out is out in stores TODAY!