Interview with Necro Sex Machine Author Andre Duza

By Wayne Simmons, author of Drop Dead Gorgeous

Fans of Andre Duza will be delighted to hear that his long-anticipated sequel to smack-in-the-face brutal horror classic, DEAD BITCH ARMY, is now puked up and ready to serve.

NECRO SEX MACHINE picks up in the post apocalyptic chaos where DEAD BITCH ARMY left off. The debut’s anti-heroine; enigmatic zombie queen, Bloody Mary, remains head of the now fully established Revenant Clan, having lost none of her murderous charm. Duza also introduces us to a harem of new characters; drug dealers, prostitutes and morally defunct soldiers, each trying to find a place in the new (un)natural order.

Other clans spring up amongst the poisoned decline of civilization, challenging Mary’s control. Like a bastardised Libertarian nightmare, each clan offers something unique to the gas-masked citizens, be it religion, power or political sway. The media, now at the head of Linda Ludlow – scorned reporter from DEAD BITCH ARMY - seek to bring Mary down through scandal and scaremongering, while keeping an ever-suspicious eye on other clans’ agendas.

The world struggles on, starving and diseased survivors forced into the underworld to escape the corruption and exploitation. But when another supernatural horror crawls out of the ashes, the hungry and destitute feel trapped between evil… and an even greater evil.

NECRO SEX MACHINE is a zombie novel in the most innovative sense of the word. Bloody Mary provides horror fans with a unique take on the sub-genre, a more intelligent and elitist creature, albeit equally as murderous, than our more conventional shambler. Duza’s story-telling remains as sharp as ever, mixing bizarro style with the ever-divine artwork of fan-favourite Silverfish, and Fred Moore.

With the DEAD BITCH ARMY graphic novel pending, and talks of a big-budget movie in the grimy pipeline, there really couldn’t be a better time to be a Duza fan.

I caught up with the man himself to get the skinny…

Revenant: Hey Andre… For an anti-hero who says very little, Bloody Mary certainly can draw a crowd. What inspired you to create this character? What is it about her that inspires such deviance and devotion?

Duza: As far as the look and feel of the character, Bloody Mary is basically a culmination of moments, personified. She’s Queenie exploding from the bushes at the end of Mother’s Day. She’s Michael Myers oozing out of the darkness over Jamie Lee’s shoulder, or rising into frame in the hospital corridor. She’s Leatherface slamming the steel door closed, or lumbering through the woods hot on Marilyn Burns’ heels, or a batshit crazy, Caroline Williams doing the chainsaw dance. She’s Ren Hoek’s infamous meltdowns, Thana in the nun’s habit unloading her gun in slo-mo at the end of Ms. 45, Charlie Forsythe exploding from the ground in his electric chair and taking out Lane Smith at the end of Prison. She’s the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall descending the staircase. She’s the queen alien going after Ripley for destroying her eggs. She’s a Ray Harryhausen creation lumbering awkwardly across the screen, or the T-800 endoskeleton rising from the fire and chasing Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn into the warehouse, bad stop motion and all. The inspiration for the character and story goes far beyond film, but I figured this was the best way to explain it, to give people a visual reference. You know?

To answer the second part of your question; we’re all a little fascinated by the unknown. Just look at all the material that’s been devoted to the classic staples (Bigfoot, Nessie, Ghosts, UFOs, Relgion, etc.). We tend to view them (some more than others) with a healthy dose of skepticism, while still holding out hope that the validation will someday come.

So, with Dead Bitch Army, I wanted to explore how that validation of the unknown might affect people if it came at a time when we were forced to face our own mortality as a society; how it would force people to dissect and reexamine their beliefs. With the millennium paranoia (remember Y2K) and World War III a very real threat, faith in all the traditional outlets isn’t enough to assuage the fear of global extinction or some silly idea of a takeover by computers. Bloody Mary, who represents definitive proof of life after death, suddenly becomes more than just a silly, but fascinating urban legend. Instead they view her mere existence as a symbol of hope.

With Necro Sex Machine, I wanted to explore how that same fascination could be used as propaganda by the various armies that roam the post apocalyptic landscape to instill fear in their enemies and control their subjects.

Revenant: We're introduced to a few other 'clans' that battle Mary's 'Revenant' clan for pole-position of the post-apocalyptic, human race. Tell us a little about each of them - are they inspired, in any way, by the political or religious climate of our own post-millenium West?

Duza: Back in 2005 I had a deal with now defunct Indie Godz Publishing to do a graphic novel adaptation of DBA. While the project was still underway, I pitched them a DBA series (should the OGN do well) that would feature the Revenant Clan’s conquests through Post-War America. I came up with a few worthy opponents for them to tangle with, namely the Raggedy Men, the Mortimer Tribe, Reverend Link and his Aftermath Cult. Each of them came with their own psuedo-supernatural mythos that people were more inclined to believe with all of stories about genetic aberrations birthed by the toxic atmosphere being whispered from ear to ear in the fortified settlements populated by survivors of the war. I wrote a five-story arc that would end with a cliffhanger where the Revenant Clan finally meets their match in a society of vampires who call themselves Sanguine Dawn.

During the time between the old deal dying and securing a new (and much better) deal with Devil’s Due Publishing, that series became the basis for Necro Sex Machine. Once I started writing NSM, the Sanguine Dawn sort of clawed and sucked their way to the forefront of the story. I wanted the other groups to come across to the reader the same way they would to the people living in that world.
So, instead of fleshing them out as I had done in the comic scripts, I described them just enough for them to help establish the wasteland’s “haunted” feel. I saw the wasteland as being like the sea at night, full of horrifying possibilities that lurk just beneath the surface, or in the case of the wasteland, just beyond the layer of darkness, which is somehow denser outside the fortified borders.

Revenant: NSM is the second novel I've read, this year, to blend the zombie sub-genre with the vampire sub-genre. What is it about these two sub-genres that makes them such heavy-hitters in the horror world, even today?

Duza: Well, they both sort of represent our subconscious thoughts and fears about death. And they both seem just a foot or two beyond reality’s reach. Well, maybe not all the shit with vampires flying, and disappearing, and turning into wolves and bats. It’s more the idea of cheating death. But there’s always a price. You know? With vampires it’s the addiction to blood and how far you’re willing to go to satiate that need, and with zombies it’s outright cannibalism and the loss of one’s identity or soul.

Pulled all that right outta my ass, by the way…

Revenant: Two things that your writing style reminds me of - the old GRINDHOUSE movies and the darker, edgier GRAPHIC NOVELS on the market. How inspired do you, as a writer, feel by such?

Duza: Grindhouse is definitely a big influence. Not so much one film in particular, but that feeling of dread?like anything could happen?that set in when the lights went down in the theater for a grindhouse flick. First of all, there were only two theaters here in Philly (The Goldman, and the Capital) that ran them. Both were a bit run down. They usually ran triple features and midnight shows. The triple bill would look something like, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Eaten Alive, and Chinatown Kid, or Motel Hell, Mother’s Day, and Bruce Lee (Li) in New Guinea. The audience was usually nice and smoked-up and ready to be knocked on their ass by some hardcore horror and cheesy kung fu action.

The trailers (which only ran late at night) and radio spots for the grindhouse flicks often came with warnings for the faint of heart and boasted “unrated,” and “banned in some place” labels. Someone on the block would always have a cousin, whose friend, or whose friend’s cousin knew a guy/girl who fainted or puked or suffered a heart attack as a result of the film’s tone. At 13, most of my friends were too scared by the trailers or the stories,or by some ridiculous religious doctrine that went against the themes of the film. So I would usually go downtown by myself and wait outside the theater for someone who looked like I could have been related to them in some way. Then I’d ask them if they could say that I was with them so that I could get into the R-rated/and unrated stuff. I’d pay my own way, of course.

It didn’t always work out?maybe 7 out of 10 times.

A lot of the movies never lived up to the hype, but when they did, it made for a great experience, audience participation and all…

As far as comics, I was into the darker stuff like Daredevil, Dr. Strange, What if… Phoenix Had Not Died, EC Horror, Savage Sword of Conan, and Heavy Metal Magazine. The first graphic novel I ever owned was the Death of Captain Marvel, for instance…

Revenant: You seem to have given into your BIZARRO sensibilities in a totally uninhibited way with NSM. How important is that sub-genre to the world of horror, today?

Duza: I think that’s more a result of my feeling more comfortable being me than with previous books. When you’re starting out you get so caught up with trying to fit in to a particular genre, or with the guidelines of an agent, or publisher. That might not have been your initial intention, but as the rejection letters pile up, you start to question all that shit you were taught about individuality and being true to your own voice. You start to take the critiques like “too weird,” to heart and contemplate watering down your work just to get your foot in the door. Even if you’re fortunate enough to find a home for your work without having to compromise?like I did with Eraserhead Press?those concerns tend to linger like a bad stench. I think with NSM I was finally able to shake those concerns completely.

Bizarro is nothing new. It has always been around. The only real difference is that it’s now being acknowledged as an official genre for those of us weirdos whose idiosyncratic voices and styles often defy the conventions and limitations of whatever genre we found ourselves lumped into, whether it’s horror, or hardcore horror, or scifi, or mystery/suspense, or fantasy, or action/adventure, or satire or comedy.

I consider my style a mixture of all of those things… with an emphasis on the horror/scifi, of course.

Revenant: Finally, are you done with Bloody Mary or is there more in store for us with regards to her character?

Duza: Dead Bitch Army the graphic novel is coming to stores everywhere in late November/Early December from Devil’s Due Publishing. So, you’ll definitely being seeing more of Bloody Mary. We’re also in the discussion stage with an indie producer from New Zealand for a DBA movie deal based on the screenplay that I wrote. Devil’s Due’s end goal is a movie deal as well, but that would be more of a studio film. So, we’ll see what happens.

Stay tuned to my website (which is currently under construction) for updates. In the meantime, if you haven’t seen the trailer that we put together to help pitch the graphic novel to publishers, you can check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBL64rHWsvs

I should mention that my editor cut about 40 pages from the end of NSM. It was mostly stuff that expanded on the two endings. I went into a little of Linda Ludlow and Dr. Goodvibe’s life after Rina, and explored the history of Count Onyx and the Sanguine Dawn. There was also an additional dream sequence that involved Mary and Griff.

My editor felt that “getting to know” the vamps stole some of their earlier impact and the ending itself worked better as sort of a cliffhanger instead of the way I had initially wrapped things up. After I thought about it, I agreed. Maybe I’ll release it as a companion piece if NSM does well enough.

Aside from that, I’m currently working on a lean, mean novel called Big Daddy No-Face, and another called Dirt Dogs. I have a list (Top 10 Horrific Moments in a Non-horror Film) that will be featured in the Book of Lists: Horror coming in September from HarperCollins. And there’s the intro that I wrote for Travis Adkins’ Twilight of the Dead sequel, After Twilight: Walking with the Dead. Not sure of the release date for that one, but I believe it’s sometime this year.

I guess I do have a third book planned for the DBA series. The title would be Girl with the Hollow-Eyed Glare, but it’s something I plan to revisit down the road a bit. Coincidentally, Girl with the Hollow-Eyed Glare might end up being the title for the DBA movie since the original title has been a constant sticking point with producers. I’ve been fighting hard to keep DBA, but I have a feeling that I’m ultimately going to have to give in if I ever want to see this thing on the big screen.

Reminds me of what I went through trying to get DBA, the novel, published.

For more info, please check out Andre Duza's Official Site - The House of Duza

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