An interview with Scarlett Dunmore
Scarlett Dunmore is on the shortlist for the 2024 Nero Book Awards with her teen horror novel How to Survive a Horror Movie. Set in a girls’ boarding school on an isolated island – classic horror territory – its narrator Charley, newly arrived at the school and hiding secrets, has a passion for horror movies that she shares with her new best friend Olive. When their schoolmates suddenly start to die in a series of gory accidents, they know exactly how it’s going to play out. The arrival of the ghosts of the murdered girls, sporting their injuries rather in the way of medieval saints and visible only to Charley, is an added bonus for fans of the genre. Smartly paced, perfectly mixing horror and humour, and with teenage girls and their friendships firmly at its heart, it’s an immensely enjoyable read, and surprisingly moving at times too.
Andrea Reece talked to Scarlett Dunmore about the book for Books for Keeps.
Scarlett Dunmore’s love of horror movies began at an early age when she started watching them with her older brother. They began with The Fog, moved onto The Evil Dead, and young Scarlett never looked back. She still enjoys watching horror films with her brother today: they’re eagerly anticipating the release of 28 Years Later next summer, and How to Survive a Horror Movie is dedicated to him.
Her passion for the genre was further stoked by the Point Horror series and, having studied English and Creative Writing at university, it’s no surprise that she would one day write her own horror story, though, as for many writers, it was lockdown that provided the time and space to flesh out the idea, as it were. ‘I’ve always wanted to write horror and draw on my love of horror films’, she says ‘It’s such a visual and cinematic form. I loved the Point Horror collection when I was younger too, particularly the voice, that freshness and youthfulness.’ That youthful voice turned the book into something much funnier than she had expected, though still completely in tune with the genre and the classic horror movie formula. ‘Initially I thought it was going to be a bit more atmospheric and scary, but then Charley’s voice emerged laced with so much comedy and sarcasm; because she knows these movies so well. She knows not to go outside if you hear a strange noise or see dark figure in the garden… And I love that tongue in cheek element you get with horror films when everyone is shouting at the TV together, “Don’t go outside!”. I found that voice became a lot stronger when I was writing it.’ She loves comedy horror too, naming Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland as favourites, and ‘that blurring of shock and comedy.’
Her knowledge of horror films fed into her writing in other ways. ‘I love writing suspense and tension, and I use my film knowledge to help with pacing, to tease out some of those shock moments.’ She describes how tuning into the senses, whether that’s listening to the creak of a door or noticing a flicker of a light can build the tension. A film studies course honed her skill for dialogue and writing. ‘It helps when you want to convey natural speech patterns without making the text feel too disjointed or fragmented, capturing the flow of conversation and how it occurs between people ‘- particularly fun when those people are being chased and hunted by a killer and ‘perhaps don’t have time to express everything they might want to express’.
Her film studies course made her conscious too of staging. ‘For screenplays you have to know where everyone is in the scene.’ It’s a technique she uses in How to Survive a Horror Movie, ‘You know, Charley’s over there, who’s going to get to the next door first? It’s a way of keeping track of everyone and where they are and what they’re doing.’ She recalls a scene in which Charley and her ghost friends are suddenly joined by Olive, who can’t see any of the dead girls – ‘The ghosts drift out through the walls in the end!’ She wrote the book as scenes, writing them out on sticky notes pinned to a cork board, and planning every scene ‘like it was played out in a movie’.
Outsider Charley’s new friendship with the ghost girls is a key part of the book, and we talk about female roles in horror films – something Charley and Olive understand very well, vying to be the smug Final Girl who survives when everyone else doesn’t. In some of her early drafts, she had the boys from Eden, the neighbouring boys’ school, playing bigger parts, but as the story developed it was the female voice that came through more and more strongly. ‘Charley’s voice was always the strongest and I did want to play around with the Final Girl trope as well. The girls do clash, and they butt heads, as all teenagers do, regardless of gender, but they all work together in the end.’ There’s a lot of her in Charley, she says: ‘ She’s new to this school, and she’s not the kind of person that finds making friends easy. So for her, the friendships that she strikes up with the ghosts are empowering, but I also wanted just to emphasise how strong friendship can be at that age.’
Female relationships will be at the heart of her next book too, ‘It is going to be long and strong and female’, she says. How to Survive a Horror Sequel will be out next autumn, ‘We’ll still have Charley as our central character, and the Halloween killer will make a return as well. There’ll be ghosts and lots of jump scares, and some playing around with Scottish folklore and witch history too.’ It sounds scarily good to me.
Andrea Reece is Managing Editor of Books for Keeps.
How to Survive a Horror Movie by Scarlett Dunsmore is published by Little Tiger, 978-1788957120, £8.99 pbk.
